The Corrupted Read online

  Staufman jumped, and almost dropped the lantern.

  “Will you stop doing that!” he hissed, anxiety lending his anger a razor’s edge.

  However, Schnell was defiant.

  “Be quiet and listen,” he said, shifting his grip on the spade so that he was holding it like an axe. He peered over the top of the twice dug grave, his eyes glittering like a rat’s in the darkness.

  Staufman looked down at his partner, and then out over the graveyard. He cursed the light of the moon. The illumination wasn’t strong enough to be much use, but it did reveal them as they went about their work.

  It was easy to imagine that they were being watched, stalked even. Then, suddenly, a noise like sliding gravel. The two men froze.

  Schnell hefted the reassuring weight of the sharpened spade. Staufman closed the lantern, placed it on the ground and unsheathed his cutlass. They waited.

  Staufman was just about to sidle over to where the sound had come from when he heard another movement, this time from behind him. There was no mistaking it. Somebody was in here with them, maybe more than one somebody.

  That was enough for him. Deciding that an irate client was better than an equal fight, let alone an unequal one, he bent down to whisper a retreat into Schnell’s ear.

  Even as he leant towards his ear, his partner broke their silence with a high-pitched scream.

  Staufman staggered back, his ears ringing, and at first he could make no sense of his partner’s rantings. “Get it off me. Get it off me!”

  There was no mistaking the hysteria in his voice. Nor was there any mistaking the sounds of quickening movement that were coming from all around them.

  “Shussh!” Staufman hissed, and reached out to put a hand on the other man’s shoulder.

  Schnell was not to be shushed. He screamed again, even louder this time, and grabbed at his partner’s arm. “Get me out of here,” he wailed. “Get it off meeeee!” The last word degenerated into a squeal, and Staufman felt his comrade’s fingers tighten around his wrist. He could feel his bones grinding beneath them.

  “Shut up,” he snarled, eyes wide with terror. He tried to pull his arm away, his head whipping back and forth as he tried to make out where the enemy was coming from.

  But Schnell was no more going to let go of his partner than a drowning man would a lifeline. He held Staufman’s wrist like a dog with a bone, screaming all the while.

  “It won’t let me go,” he shrieked. “It’s got a hold of me and it won’t let me go. Oh no, its teeth, I can feel its…”

  It was all too much for Staufman. Trapped in the vice of Schnell’s inhumanly strong grasp, revealed by his shrieking, surrounded by who knew what predators… well, what choice did he have?

  “Let me go,” he told his comrade one last time, his voice barely a whisper as he lifted the cutlass.

  Schnell was too far gone to hear him. Ever since they had started this business, the nightmares had always been the same: the bony fingers erupting up beneath his feet, the yellowed teeth that were even now tearing at his flesh, the sudden, crippling weakness that made him feel as if his blood had already been drained.

  When the razored edge of Staufman’s blade sliced through his wrist, he hardly noticed. Beneath the horror of this assault his sanity had snapped, and even as blood spurted from his severed wrist he was giggling, smiling down at the living nightmare below him.

  Staufman watched his comrade collapse into the grave, a sob on his lips. Even through the waves of panic, his conscience, hard and leathery as it was, was twisting his stomach into a knot.

  Still, no time for that now. Tearing his eyes away from the pale, twitching shape that had once been Schnell’s hand, he turned away from the freshly filled grave and sprinted towards the wall.

  He was already too late. All around him, so clumsy that they might have been made of the clay that clung to them, the dead sought their revenge. Hollow eyed and naked boned, they crawled or limped, or wriggled their way towards the fleeing grave robber, their rotten flesh animated with a terrible purpose.

  Whimpering with fear, Staufman snatched a glance towards the things that were following him. As he did so, he felt an impact on his shins, and pitched forwards into the mud.

  Before he could even pull his face out of the dirt, the thing that had tripped him had seized him. Staufman screamed as he felt its weight roll on top of him. Then he smelled the nauseating stench of putrefaction that greased the air, and closed his mouth with a snap.

  The corpse’s fingers, hard as knitting needles, scratched across the skin of his face. They dug towards the softness of his eyes with a gentle insistence: a terrible patience.

  Staufman fought back. He fought hard. His knee jabbed into his assailant’s groin. The blow would have crippled a living man, but not Staufman’s nemesis.

  Nor was it affected when Staufman locked his skilled fingers around the putrefying mess of its pulse-less throat. The windpipe, as soft and yielding as the rest of the ancient flesh, collapsed. The veins tore open as easily as wet paper, and the flesh smeared away to reveal the vertebrae. The bones felt as hard as marbles beneath Staufman’s strangler’s grip.

  The corpse’s only response to this violation was to grin and to redouble its efforts.

  Staufman looked into the hollows of its eyes, and saw the gleam of reflected moonlight on its teeth.

  It must be a nightmare, he decided.

  And with that he passed out.

  He awoke later that night. His eyes blinking open, he gazed up at the vastness of the night sky above him. After the insanity that had led to his collapse, the silent void was as welcome as the freshest of dawns.

  Mannslieb had sunk low towards the horizon. Its light sent the shadows of the wooden grave markers stretching hungrily towards him. One of the shadows, greater than the rest, was cast by Schnell. The big man was leaning patiently on his spade, his back turned as he kept watch.

  There was no sign of the corpses that had… that had…

  Staufman almost sobbed with relief. Of course he had fainted. The fever that he thought he had shaken off must have returned, and in this place, bent upon this business, there was no wonder that his delirium had taken the form it had.

  “Hey, Schnell,” he said. His voice was hoarse, so hoarse that Schnell didn’t hear him.

  Staufman cleared his throat and called again.

  “Schnell, sorry about that. Must still be sick. Let’s finish up here and go back.”

  Still Schnell didn’t move. He just leant on his spade, staring out across the field of the dead.

  Staufman had recovered enough to feel a flash of irritation. His partner was one of the laziest men he had ever met. He probably hadn’t even finished digging up the body yet.

  With a silent curse, Staufman got to his feet.

  “All right,” he said as he brushed the mud off himself. “To hell with this. Give me the spade and I’ll do it, but next time I’ll find somebody else to help.”

  Schnell’s continuing silence fuelled Staufman’s anger.

  “I said give me the…”

  Schnell turned around.

  For a moment, Staufman thought that the ruin of his friend’s flesh was no more than a trick of the night. What else could it be? Ribbons of skin seemed to hang down from his throat, flapping like streamers in a madman’s carnival, and shreds of flesh were all that remained to cloth the bones of his face.

  Schnell lifted the spade. He lifted it one handed.

  Staufman’s eyes widened into circles as bright as the moon. He had seen the ragged stump in which his partner’s other arm ended, and he had realised that tonight had been more than some delirium.

  Much more.

  Schnell, barely cold, moved with a terrible speed. The spade sliced through the air. There was a chunk of metal into flesh, and the thump of a body hitting the ground.

  Then, dropping the spade, the remains of Schnell turned back to watch the moon.

  As it sunk even further there was
the sound of movement from behind him. It was slow, but determined, inelegant, but relentless.

  When Staufman had lurched back to his feet, Schnell turned back to face him, and the two of them, all grievances forgot, lurched off into the night.

  Despite the fact that the Furled Sail lay at heart of the docks, it was hardly a dockland tavern. There were no women here, at least, none of the usual women, young things with bodies as supple as their morals. The only example of the fairer sex came in the robust form of the taverner’s wife, a red faced old woman who ruled husband and customers with the lash of her tongue.

  Nor were there any of the racks of wines or brandies that glittered so seductively in the other establishments of this quarter. There was a barrel of ale and a stone jar of gin. The only thing remotely exotic was the cauldron of watery stew that bubbled in one corner, and the only thing exotic about that was that it was free.

  At one time or another, most of the Furled Sail’s clientele had had reason to be thankful for that. Sometimes it wasn’t only women and brandy that they couldn’t afford.

  They were old, these men, although not as old as they looked. Aboard herring boats or merchantmen they had battled the sea, and in return it had leathered their skin and knocked out their teeth. Later, as their failing fortunes had washed them up the river Reik, they had often fallen to battling their fellow men.

  Many were scarred. Many were mutilated. Some had families, although not many. Once these men had been heroes, the unnoticed heroes that are the lifeblood of the Empire, but now, they were no more than the detritus of Altdorf. They eked out a living as best they could. Their scant savings were supplemented by the occasional scrap of work from foremen who knew that they would eventually be such men themselves.

  Although their tempers occasionally flared, they were comrades. The fire, the stew, and the ale that could be put on an endless tab—all these were comforts, but greater than them all was the sense of fellowship.

  After all, their mates were the only valuable things that these men had ever had.

  It was out of comradeship that they were drinking now. One of their number, a grizzled old Bretonnian whose adventures had led him to this cold northern city, had died. They had buried him the week before and now, as the fire burned low and the mist gathered outside, they talked of him.

  They talked for the pleasure of it, but also because they knew that fond voices ease a spirit’s passing better than any priestly dirge.

  “Remember the time that shipment of glass demijohns came up the river?”

  A dozen grey heads nodded at the memory.

  “For the colleges, they were, and all the way from Bretonnia, too. That’s why we all thought they were great big brandy jugs. They were the right shape, and they were so well padded with hessian you couldn’t see the markings.”

  The men, the story as familiar as their pipes, smiled at the memory.

  “Well, old Jacques loved his brandy. All Bretonnians do. It’s mother’s milk to them. So after we’d been passing these demijohns along for a while his fingers got slippery. He dropped one of ’em right smack on the cobbles.”

  “It was a good shot, too,” someone interjected. “Cracked it open as easily as an egg.”

  “Didn’t he just? And as soon as the hessian started dripping he was there with his mug.”

  “I tasted some of it,” somebody else said. “Even now I can’t believe he drank half a pint.”

  “Strong stuff, was it?”

  The man grimaced at the memory.

  “Let’s just say, I found out then why the Bretonnians speak so funny.”

  There was a rumble of laughter, soon lost in the crackling of the fire.

  “Yes, well he drank a lot,” the storyteller continued, reluctant to lose the punch line, “so much that he didn’t even mind when the merchant came along and started cursing. By Sigmar, did he curse, and to be fair to the tubby bastard…”

  There was some good-natured booing. The storyteller grinned and waited for it to die away.

  “To be fair, he had managed to get the thing over a thousand miles only to have it broken fifty yards from the client’s front door. Anyway, when he finished cursing, he unwrapped the padding to see if the jar was all right.”

  “It wasn’t, though,” somebody interrupted. “It was split open.”

  “Into pieces,” the storyteller interrupted back, “but it wasn’t a brandy bottle. It was a clear jar and inside, floating in the alcohol, there was a thing.”

  “A thing?” somebody asked, knowing, but asking anyway. “What kind of thing?”

  “I don’t like to say.”

  “Come on, you can’t not tell us now.”

  “Well, all right, but this is between us. I don’t want no trouble with the wizards.”

  A dozen men spat in unison, their phlegm hissing on the fire.

  “It was a baby: an unborn baby. All curled up and pink, it was, and so well pickled that you could even see the eyes.”

  The men scowled.

  “A curse upon all wizards.”

  There was another volley of spit, and then silence.

  It was the youngest man, a stripling of fifty years old, who broke it.

  “So what did Jacques do when he found out?”

  “Said he didn’t mind sharing the bottle.”

  The room erupted into roaring laughter. When it subsided, the men refilled their tankards, raised them, and toasted their old comrade.

  “To Jacques.”

  “To Jacques!”

  Which is when, as if in answer, there was a thud against the door.

  The men looked over, surprised. None of their number was missing, and the night was late. The sign outside the Furled Sail had long since rotted away, and passing custom was rare.

  There was another thud, this time louder than the last, and the latch started to lift.

  An unaccountable shiver ran through the assembled men. It was foolish to fear the knock at a tavern’s door, they knew that, but their instincts, honed over countless years, told them it was even more foolish not to.

  A dozen gnarled fists closed around the hilts of a dozen knives as the latch snapped up. A moment later, the door swung open with such force that it crashed against the wall, and in from the night, swathed in mist, stepped Jacques.

  Burial had not suited him. His permanent tan had mottled into a patchwork of greens and greys, and beneath the mould, the leather of his skin sagged horribly. In some places, it had torn open to reveal the blackening flesh beneath, and the busy things that burrowed within it. In others, the skin had disappeared completely, already devoured.

  Only his eyes, previously slate grey with cysts, looked better. They shone silver with the coins that had sunk into the sockets.

  Nobody moved as, step by stumbling step, Jacques lumbered across the familiar flagstones. Even the taverner’s wife, her eyes and mouth wide open, stood petrified behind the bar as the dead man closed in on her.

  She knew that she should move, should run screaming out into the night. The only thing that stayed her was that first slap of horror. It had so numbed her that she felt perversely safe, cocooned in shock.

  She watched the corpse stagger forwards with perfect disinterest, and when she spoke, her voice seemed to belong to somebody else.

  “What’ll it be?” she heard herself ask.

  The corpse seemed surprised by the question, and so did his mates.

  “Why, it’ll be the same as always, I reckon,” one of them said, speaking with the steely calm of a tightrope walker.

  “That’s right,” somebody else added. “Give him a brandy. I’ll pay.”

  “Not at all,” the taverner’s wife felt herself smile. “It’ll be on the house.”

  For once, there was no need for her generosity. With a lurch that made everyone jump, Jacques drew back his arm and slammed one clenched fist onto the bar. He loosened his fingers, using his other hand to prise them open, and pushed a purse across the stained woodwork.


  The taverner’s wife lifted it up. It was bloodstained, red and damp from its previous owner. It was also heavy.

  She untied it, looked inside, and then smiled again. This time the expression was for real.

  “Well, I always did say you was a gentleman, Jacques,” she told the rotting thing that stood in front of her. “Drinks all around, is it?”

  Perhaps the corpse understood, or perhaps it was a coincidence that his head jerked forwards in a nod. Either way, the taverner’s wife laid out the glasses and started pouring out the gin, hardly spilling any of it despite the trembling of her hands.

  As the men gathered around, Jacques tried to wrap his clumsy fingers around one of the glasses. He almost managed to lift it before it slipped through the greasy flesh. The man next to him caught it, pressed it back into the cold meat of his hand, and gently wrapped the bones of his fingers around it.

  “There you go, mate,” he said, ignoring the hanging meat stink and leaning forwards to clink his glass. “Salut.”

  “Salut!” The rest repeated the toast.

  And with that they drank, both the living and the dead. Then they settled their old comrade by the fire, close enough to steam, and carried on retelling the old stories.

  Although they lacked coin, they revelled in the wealth that they did have, and the sure knowledge that it would last forever.

  “Mama!”

  Frau Beetman shrugged apologetically. The man she was with frowned. Her husband’s funeral had only been a week ago, and they were both still enjoying the novelty of her widowhood.

  “Mama!” Her son’s voice was louder now. He must be standing outside the bedroom door.

  “Stop making that noise,” Frau Beetman shouted back, “or Uncle Rudolf will beat you again.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and the two lovers slipped back into each other’s arms.

  “But Mama!”

  “I’m warning you!” she shouted back. “Rudy will give you a thrashing.”

  “No he won’t. He has to leave.”

  “What do you mean, you cheeky young whelp?” Rudolph Beetman’s irritation finally got the better of him. Unlike his lover, he still felt the odd pang of conscience over his brother’s untimely death, and guilt made him savage.