EXTRA SCENE: The Nimble Man
By Christopher Golden & Thomas E. Sniegoski

Nothing moved in Oakwood Cemetery save for the cloud of scarlet fog that rolled across the grounds, enshrouding crypts and tombstones and the line of cars that were parked along the winding road through the graveyard. The cars belonged to the mourners who had been attending the funeral of Henry Jessup, late a professor at Northeastern University. When the sun went black, first with swarms of insects and then due to what seemed a genuine eclipse, and then the red mist began to settle over the cemetery, most of the mourners had retreated to their cars immediately.

Most of the mourners had simply climbed into their cars and locked the doors, accepting that their fear was not at all irrational. Some of them started up their vehicles and turned on their radios, but none of them could get anything but static.

Some had tried to leave, to slip out onto the streets of Charlestown, but the red fog that had swept out of the center of Boston now enveloped all of the surrounding neighborhoods. It thickened quickly, and though two cars made it out through the wrought iron gate of the cemetery, the third struck the stone archway of the exit and stone rained down upon the aging Buick.

No one else was going to get out. At least not until the black-red sky retreated and the sun returned.

If it returns, thought Abby Crenshaw.

Abby was twenty-one, a student at Northeastern, and Henry Jessup had been her favorite professor. Now she sat in the back of a Ford Explorer and didn't even know who the owner was. Other people had retreated to the vehicle as well. The funeral service had been completed and the gathered mourners had begun parading past the casket, throwing flowers on top of it. Abby had been in the front of that line, a carnation in her hand, trying not to think about the fact that the moment the line of cars was gone the casket would be lowered into the ground, the hole packed with dirt, and that would be that for Professor Jessup.

When the sky had begun to blacken it had made her nervous, but at first no one had panicked. Eclipses were a natural phenomenon, though she had not seen anything on the news about one having been predicted for the day. Then someone had shouted and pointed and everyone had turned to look down toward the street and seen the scarlet fog churning, rolling toward them in waves that swept over and through the bars of the wrought-iron fence around the cemetery.

"That's not right," someone said.

"What is it?" asked a plaintive voice that Abby thought might have belonged to Mrs. Jessup, the dead professor's wife.

No one had an answer, but everyone started to move toward the cars, slowly at first and then more hurriedly. Abby had come with several other students but she lost sight of them immediately. When she was glancing around in search of them the rear door of the Ford Explorer had opened and she had gratefully ducked inside and slammed it behind her, only to find herself inside the car with Professor Jessup's pale and stricken widow, the ancient and withered priest who had conducted the funeral, and a thin, somewhat handsome, fiftyish man who sat behind the wheel and fiddled with the radio.

Abby felt like she should be doing something, at least talking to them, even comforting Mrs. Jessup. But she could not. Another car started to move, now, the driver bumping up onto the lawn alongside the cemetery road as he squeezed his Toyota past the unmoving vehicles. She didn't know where the guy thought he was going.

She found herself frozen, peering into the sifting clouds of red mist for some sign that it might be starting to lift. Abby rocked slightly, back and forth, and tried not to think of what might have caused it.

"Could it be natural, do you think?" asked the ancient priest. "Like the red tide in the ocean? Or is it some manmade accident? A chemical spill or that sort of thing."

Even as he spoke Abby thought she saw something moving, out in the mist. Without even realizing she was doing it, she held her breath. You've seen too many movies, she thought. But, no, she was certain there were darker shadows in the red fog, solid things. Silhouettes. There were figures moving through the cemetery.

And her gaze caught the shade tent that had been erected for the next of kin over the grave of Henry Jessup. Beneath it she could vaguely see the outline of the casket and the floral arrangements that were all around it. A mound of single flowers lay atop the lacquered wood.

For just an instant, the fog thinned. Abby uttered a tiny, hopeful gasp, thinking that perhaps it was going to lift. But the darkness remained and the roiling mist continued to churn. And through that veil, in that moment when she had a better view of Professor Jessup's casket, she saw it shake once, and then the lid burst open, scattering mourners' flowers into the fog. The corpse of Professor Jessup sat up.

Then her view was obscured again and all she could see was shadows moving in the crimson mist.

Moving toward the cars lined along that winding, cemetery road.

"I don't think it's natural," she found herself saying, in the tiniest whisper of a voice. "But I don't think it's manmade, either."

But no one else in the vehicle was listening, for the dead had emerged from the red fog right alongside the Explorer. Mrs. Jessup screamed. The withered, old priest began to pray. The driver started the engine and threw the Ford into gear, even as his window shattered and hands thrust inside in a shower of broken glass, grabbed hold of him and began to drag him out.

Without the driver's foot on the brake the Explorer rolled forward and kissed bumpers with the car in front of it, engine humming, trying to pull them out of there, away from the cemetery.

There was a thump on her own window and Abby looked up to see Professor Jessup's face pressed against the glass. His eyes glowed red as the mist and gave her a terrible smile that grotesquely stretched the mortician's thread that had been used to stitch his lips closed.

Whimpering, she curled herself into a ball on the seat and closed her eyes. The Explorer shook. More glass shattered. Fingers tugged at her hair, and then Abby was screaming at last, her voice ripped from her throat.

Screaming made it all real to her.

She wanted to lose consciousness or even to die right then and there, even to go insane. Anything to escape. But she was aware of every foul touch as the dead dragged her through the shattered window. Abby opened her eyes, still screaming, barely able to breathe, and she saw that Professor Jessup was not among them.

He had crawled into the rear of the Ford to be with his wife.