Night of the Living Dead (12 page)

Holding both weapons in her hands, she asked the man, "What’s happening?"

The man glanced at her again, then mumbled, "What the hell do you think is happening?" as he returned to digging through the refrigerator.

"What’s
happening
?" she repeated, this time with more force, and she did not like the shrill quality of her own voice.

This time the man paid more attention to her. He rested the bag he’d been using to gather supplies on top of the refrigerator and leaned forward, a heavy sigh escaping as he did so. His expression was very earnest as he opened his mouth to say something, hopefully to answer her, but the sound of breaking glass captured both of their attention.

For a moment, Barbra’s heart seized in panic. The windows! Were they breaking through the
windows
?!

But no, the sound was coming from outside somewhere. Thank God.

Ben, having the same initial reaction, had retrieved his tire iron from the girl, but then he drew the same conclusion. Unfortunately, unlike her, he had a bad idea what the sound might actually be. He rushed into the next room to look out the window toward the front of the house.

He was right and wrong. The sound of breaking glass had indeed come from the truck, but it was not the windshield or side windows being broken as he had feared. It seemed the things outside were smashing at the headlights, which he had left on in his rush to get the girl into the house.

Those things don’t like the bright light,
he thought.
Too much like fire?

Then he belatedly absorbed his own use of the plural.

"Two of them," he muttered aloud. He glanced back and forth between the assaulted truck and the blonde woman. She seemed more lucid than before — at least she was now speaking to him.

Taking her by the shoulders, he told her, emphatically, "There are
two
of them out there. Have you seen any more around here?"

"I ..."

"I can take care of those two."

"I ... don’t know ..."

"I know you’re afraid but we have—"

The girl erupted, "I -
don’t - KNOOOW!
" She thrashed about, struggling under his hands without actually trying to break away. What concerned Ben the most was the large knife she was still holding, and as she repeated, "I -
don’t
-
know
!" he lowered his grip to pin her arms, and the next thing he knew, he had shoved her back into an armchair with far more force than intended. But the knife fell away and she burst into tears, blubbering "What’s happening?!" and sobbing.

Fine. He would have to act now with what information he had.

Gritting his teeth in anticipation, Ben opened the front door and stepped out into the night.

He reached the edge of the porch just as the second headlight was shattered, plunging him into near-darkness. He lifted the tire iron, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Studying the two, he could make out enough detail to see that neither of these were the one he’d spotted upon first reaching the house and pushing the girl inside — these were two new ones, which meant he was alone out here with at least
three
, maybe more.

He also noticed that these two were a little different from the others he had seen up close since this all started. The nurse, the patient ... most of them had been visibly injured, while others had appeared normal if not for their violent behavior and impaired movement.

But these two, they fell into neither category. They were both disheveled, but did not appear injured. And they
stank
, terribly — they reeked of decay, like road kill left in the sun. And as they spotted and approached him, he could make out the distress of their skin, the look of decomposing, necrotizing tissue.

Good God, could any communicable disease cause such rapid degradation? Maybe it wasn’t a disease at all, but something else — a toxic gas perhaps, or even some sort of chemical exposure?
None
of these possibilities brought Ben any comfort, but as he approached the nearest one, the tire iron held at ready, he fought against the disgust of getting any closer to these things; he would do what had to be done, to protect himself and the girl.

The first one just stood there as Ben swung the tire iron around to smash him in the side of the neck. With the mildest of grunts, the man dropped to the ground, but was still moving — knowing how difficult these things were to put down, Ben moved in for the kill. Again and again, he struck the man as he —
it
— struggled to get up again. He hit it in the face, neck, shoulder, over and over.

Why wouldn’t they just stop? What kept them going?

The first one was
finally
lying still, but then grasping hands tugged at him, and Ben realized that the other one was upon him. He shoved it away, hard enough to knock its clumsy feet out from under it, and then he was doing it again — crouched over the fetid thing, hitting it over and over; each blow should have been enough to knock it out, or at least send it into a stupor.

But it kept moving, kept trying to get up, kept clawing at him. So Ben hit it.

Again and again ...

Back in the house, Barbra remained where the man in the sweater had pushed her — in a distant way, she understood that her new companion was just trying to help her, to help both of them, but she was lost, so lost. Her sense of time, her feeling of reality, were detaching again.

Wild thoughts tumbled through her mind ...

... of savage creatures and cemeteries ...

... of puddles of blood ...

... of Johnny fussing with his driving gloves ...

She wanted to get a grip on herself, she really did, but she couldn’t remember how.

And so she remained oblivious as the back door into the kitchen was forced open, as a mutilated man with a ripped-open throat shambled into the house, as he shuffled his way forward until his glassy eyes managed to focus on Barbra collapsed in the chair, and as his course found direction, toward her ...

Panting, Ben realized that the second one had finally stopped moving, too. Feeling drained and sore, his body already aching from exertion and prolonged tension, he pushed himself to his feet. He leaned against a tree to recuperate, splitting his focus between the two bodies and the surrounding area. The very first one still had not wandered back into view, but Ben had no doubts that it was out there, somewhere in the darkness. He had kept his struggle with these two as quiet as possible, but he couldn’t depend on that having worked.

Forcing himself to pick up the pace, he climbed the porch and stepped into the house, pulling the screen door closed behind—

Ben saw the thing with the torn up throat and bloody shirt in the kitchen, approaching the girl where she still sat, clueless and rubbing at her face, in the chair.

Rushing forward, he reached out to pull the girl from harm’s way. She looked startled and confused at first, but soon followed his gaze toward this newest danger, and did not resist. The thing entered the living room and was reaching out to them, but unlike most of the others, who had only clawed at Ben in hunger or anger or whatever the hell motivated them, this one looked almost beseeching as its hand waved through the air between them.

Ben pushed the girl behind him, and then she did one of the first useful things he had seen her do: She crossed the room and closed and locked the front door which he had left standing open.

Thank God
, he thought, grateful for some real help. But that was as far as he got before the thing was on him, moaning and gasping through its mangled throat.

Ben swung in with the tire iron, but this time he missed his mark. The thing’s entreating hand blocked his arm, and the tire iron fell to the floor. He immediately tried to retrieve it, but the thing was grabbing at his sweater, its teeth bared, moaning with more vehemence. Attempts to tug his arms free got him nowhere, so he pivoted around, taking the thing with him in a twisted mockery of a slow dance, then shoved it forward and followed it down to the floor.

His plan only partly worked. He succeeded in pinning it to the floor, himself on top and mostly in control, but their shared momentum had not carried them as far as he had hoped — the tire iron remained barely out of his reach.

The thing gasped and gurgled louder still, raking fingers at his eyes, teeth gnashing as it tried to bite him anywhere it could manage. Its pale face and curdled wound sickened him, and he found the burst of energy needed to knock its arms away long enough to seize his weapon.

Raising the tire iron high, Ben drove it down with both arms, the tapered end of the tool boring straight through the thing’s forehead. Unlike those he had put down before it, this one stopped struggling immediately, its limbs falling limp like a puppet with its strings cut.

Still, Ben almost panicked when the iron would not come free at first, and he pulled harder, tugging with his whole upper body as he sought proper leverage. He needed his weapon back, could not relax for an instant unless he was armed. For all he knew the thing was just stunned, would start moving again at any moment, like all those others who refused to go quietly—

The tire iron came free, the thing’s head plopping back to the floor with finality, a murky fluid oozing from the hole in its forehead, unsettling in both its runny consistency and its lack of volume.

Ben stumbled away from it, holding his dripping weapon before him, unsure of how to clean away the substance that was so little like blood. He slumped against the door into the kitchen, his knees trembling and his breathing quick and shallow. For a moment, he envied the girl’s recourse, to just shut down and push every aspect of this Godforsaken night away.

Then he glanced through the open door leading onto the back porch, and saw no reprieve — another one was coming, a man dressed in his pajamas and robe, looking like nothing more than an everyday working man ready for bed; were it not for his familiar, unsteady movement, Ben might have thought he was a neighbor seeking refuge.

Shoving away from the wall while he still had adrenaline left to move him, Ben rushed the robed man and slammed the tire iron right between his eyes. This one reacted more normally than most of them, clutching his hands to his ruined face as he stumbled away — Ben might have feared that he had made a mistake, except that the man made no sound. And then Ben saw that this was the least of his worries.

The robed man was not alone. There were half a dozen of them in the backyard, all in various states of dress (or undress) and dishevelment. But they all moved the same way, all had that empty, soulless expression on their faces, in their eyes.

Too many, too many of them for him to fight alone. Ben closed and locked the door ...