Night of the Living Dead (14 page)

The increasing noise finally jolted Barbra from her reverie. She looked around, becoming aware of her surroundings once more, and her gaze fell upon the fireplace. Yes,
that
was why she was in here — not for the music box, but for the fireplace. Wood. She was supposed to gather wood.

Crouching before the fireplace, she gathered a small pile in her arms. She then stood, looked back at the music box and around the room, and — determined to prove herself of some use — returned to the kitchen where the man in the sweater was making so much racket.

He was hefting a door upright — where in the world had he found a loose door? — as she walked in. He glanced at her, then carried the door over to the outer wall, placing it longways across the back entrance. Why was he—?

Then Barbra figured out what he had in mind. Slowly, the wheels in her head were starting to turn again; she wished she were recovering faster, but didn’t know what to do about it. She placed her rather pathetic pile of wood atop the refrigerator and shuffled across the room to help him.

He had his hammer and nails ready, so Barbra reached out to steady the makeshift barricade for him. He again glanced at her, this time offering a slight, reassuring smile, then he began to pound nails.

The sharp noise was an instant bane to Barbra, driving through her ears and even, it felt, through her eyes into her brain. She wanted to help, she tried moving around him as he worked back and forth, tried to brace the door for him wherever she could while he hammered. But that noise! It unsettled her more than it should have, reminded her too much of the rock slamming into the car window as the creature from the cemetery tried to get to her.

Before long, she was just standing there again — feeble, useless.

Thankfully, the man finished his work in short order. He tugged at the barricade a few times, his demeanor satisfied. He muttered, "That’ll hold," then turned and said directly to her, "They’re not that strong." He picked up a little plastic box from the kitchen counter and pushed it into her hands. She looked down and saw that it was filled with nails and screws, thumbtacks and paperclips. "I want you to find some nails," he told her, "pick out the biggest ones you can find."

Then off he went, on the move. Barbra followed, determined to help.

Time blurred somewhat as Ben lost himself in the work. He focused on the simple tasks, boarding, nailing, hammering, not allowing himself to dwell on recent events. If he thought about those details, he might start to wallow in it, and he didn’t have that luxury. His hands started to feel the burn, the early warning of blisters to come, but he didn’t care — better to grow some calluses doing this than ... other things.

The girl remained quiet, but she followed along with him and pitched in when he needed it. He could tell that the noise bothered her, but she voiced no complaint. As they ran low on stopgap lumber, he decided to try and coax her further out of her shell.

"Yeah, this room looks pretty secure," he commented as he leaned through the next doorway and turned on the lights. "If we have to, we can run in here and board up the doors."

A trickle down the back of his neck revealed that he was perspiring from his efforts, something he’d failed to notice until now. As he spoke, he stripped his sweater from his white dress shirt and gathered their meager supply of wood. "Won’t be long before those things come back, pounding their way in here, but they’re
afraid
now."

As he moved into the living room, he looked around and realized just where to get more wood. Setting his armload to one side, he began rolling up his sleeves.

"They’re afraid of fire. I found
that
out."

Pushing chairs away from the modest dining table, he rolled the table cloth around the centerpiece and removed the whole bundle, setting it to one side.

"You know a place back down the road called Beekman’s ...?"

As Ben upended the dining table and used a hammer to remove the legs, he told the girl about his experiences at the diner, the events which, for him, started this God-awful night. He left out many of the details, didn’t bother to share the demise of the old man or the janitor, but he did tell her about the gasoline truck, about the things’ reaction to the fire, the way they stared at him, and how
he
reacted by running them over. And though it brought up some of the very thoughts he wanted to avoid, he had hoped to find the sharing at least somewhat
cathartic
... but instead, it just upset him more and more as he spoke. He finally had to turn away and regain control of himself.

But his tale did accomplish one thing — Barbra listened to him.

Barbra had folded the tablecloth and, as she found her way to a nearby chair, sat with it in her lap, listening. She liked his voice, which could be as gentle as it was forceful. And his tone, the emotions therein, like a sincere confession to clergy, prompted her to want to share as well.

So Barbra began telling her own story, of her and Johnny’s trip to the cemetery.

Ben was glad that the girl was talking again, but she didn’t seem to realize how disjointed her own narrative came across. She spoke of Johnny, which Ben soon deduced was her brother, and then began complaining of the heat and tugged at her coat without actually removing it. As Ben muscled the dining tabletop over to the nearby windows, the girl’s story continued to build — whereas his sharing had drained him, hers was working her up. By the time she got to the part where a man approached them in the cemetery, Ben finally caught her name —
Barbra
— but he did not care for the sharp edge in her voice.

Fearing hysterics, he suggested, "Why don’t you just ... keep calm?"

But the girl was on a roll now. She described the man’s attack, and the very hysterics Ben had dreaded threatened to overtake her.

"I think you should just
calm down
," he repeated, putting more steel into his voice.

As she reached the climax of her story, the part where her brother fought her attacker (and Ben could guess how that struggle probably ended), she did lose some steam, but only to turn in another direction.

"We’ve got ... we have to wait for Johnny," she said.

Ben avoided eye contact as he bustled around the room. What was there to say? He had hoped that getting her talking would help focus her, but now he doubted that it was a good idea after all. Because if she went where he next expected—

"We ... we’d better go out and get him."

Ben swallowed a sigh. Sure enough, there it was. Her talkative shift was misleading — she still didn’t
understand
what her own story meant.

"We have to go out and get Johnny," she insisted.

Not sure what else to do, Ben made a big show of how busy he was and ignored her. He moved the ironing board toward the front door of the house.

"He’s out there," Barbra continued, her voice getting shrill now. "
Please
, don’t you hear me? We’ve got to go out and get him. Please!
We have got to go get Johnny
!"

Then she was on her feet, following him. He glanced at her, at the pain and dread on her now-livid face. He saw that, somewhere deep inside, she knew the truth. Then he looked away.

But Barbra wasn’t having it. "
Please, help me!
" She grabbed him by the arm, yanking him back around with surprising force. "
PLEASE!
"

"Don’t you know what’s going on out there?" he demanded, his frustration getting the better of him. "This is no Sunday school picnic—"

She threw herself at him; he caught her arms before she grabbed at him again. "Don’t you understand? My brother is
alone
!"

As gently as he could, Ben told her, "Your brother is
dead
."

"
NO
!" Barbra ripped her arms free. "My brother is
not
dead!"

And with that, she bolted for the front door.

Ben caught her before she could open it, lifting her whole body in his arms and pulling her away.

She struggled free with an offended grunt, stared death at him for about two seconds, then slapped him across the face.

Ben took the slap, glared back for about the same amount of time, then hauled off and returned what she had given him, with interest.

Barbra moaned and looked up at him in surprise ... then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed. For the barest moment, Ben considered letting her hit the floor, but then his better nature got the best of him and he caught her in his arms. He carried her to the sofa, setting her down with care. He took a few steps back, then bent over again to open her coat for her.

Should he do more? He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t have the luxury of pampering her right now. Part of him felt guilty for it but the fact was, he was relieved that she would be out of his hair for the time being.

Leaving her there on the sofa, he returned to boarding up the house ...

Time blurred again for Ben, especially without his having to keep a furtive eye on the girl — on Barbra. He moved from window to window, bracing, hammering, testing, hammering some more. The mundane activity crept over his nerves, soothing them, but at the same time it almost whispered that
surely
what he had experienced this night had been nothing more than his imagination. Perhaps a hallucination, brought on by eating a spoiled hamburger at Beekman’s Diner — there was more of gravy than of grave about those things! They
couldn’t
 be real. Could they?

But for better or worse, he was too practical to give in to that sweet temptation.

As he was finishing up the living room windows, he noticed for the first time an old-style radio through the study doorway.
He hadn’t seen one like this in quite a while, and his enthusiasm was tempered with concern that it might no longer work. Still, he had to try — anything to gain more information,
any
information, about what was happening.

Kneeling before the oversized, wooden-shelled device, he turned it on, and sure enough, it remained silent for several long seconds. He was ready to give up when he finally heard a whine and some static, and adjusted the controls — after a few more false starts, he found a clear signal.

"
Because of the obvious threat to untold numbers of citizens
," came the announcer’s voice, which sounded uncharacteristically tense by professional standards, "
and because of the crisis which is even now developing, this radio station will remain on the air, day and night.
"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Ben listened.

"
This station, and hundreds of other radio and TV stations throughout this part of the country, are pooling their resources through an emergency network hookup, to keep you informed of all developments.
"