Night of the Living Dead (23 page)

And then the reason she didn’t have that luxury walked into the room: Tommy.

He entered with a plate and a mason jar filled with water; he carried them to the desk before sitting and turning to face her. He must have known that, on top of listening to the television reports, she had
also
 overheard the plan that would send him outside.

But the moment she realized she had his attention, she reached deep within herself and found just what she knew he needed.

"You always have a smile for me," he marveled, his voice soft in that way she loved so much. "How can you smile like that, all the time?"

Then, in spite of her best effort, her smile began to slip, and Tommy looked away before it collapsed altogether.

"How many do you have done?" he asked, pouring some of the water from the jar into the plate — only the fumes that arose told her that she’d been wrong; it wasn’t water, it was kerosene.

She handed him the small pile of strips she had cut so far.

Counting the few that were there, he shook his head and admonished her, "Come on, honey, we gotta move."

As she watched him wetting the strips, desperate butterflies fluttered in her stomach. "Tom, are you
sure
about the phone?"

"The phone is dead
out
."

Defeated, she sighed. "If I could only call the folks. They’re going to be so worried about us ..."

He gave her his full attention. "Everything will be all right. As soon as we get to Willard, we’ll call them — they might even be there."

She nodded, but it wasn’t very convincing. "I know..." He returned to his work, and so did she. Or she
tried
to. She had barely gotten a single clip out of the scissors before speaking up again. "Tom?"

This time he kept his eyes on his work, barely grunting in acknowledgment.

"Are you
sure
 we’re doing the right thing, Tom?"

"What, about gettin’ outta here?"

"Yeah."

"Well ... the television said that’s the right thing to do." He considered it a moment longer, then said with more confidence, "We’ve
got
to get to a rescue station."

"I don’t know ..."

"Come on, honey, you’re starting to sound like Mister Cooper now."

She grew more agitated. "But why do
you
 have to go out there?"

"Look,
I
know how to handle that truck. And I can handle the pump. Ben doesn’t know anything about that stuff." Tom actually had no idea if that were true or not, but he felt he had to say it for her sake.

Unfortunately, Judy looked anything but convinced. "But we’re safe in here."

"For how
long
, honey?" he asked. Distraught, she moved off the chair and onto the floor in front of him — for a terrifying moment, Tom thought she was going to
beg
 him not to go outside. So he pushed on in a rush, "We’re safe
now
, but there’s gonna be more and more of those things."

"I know," she said, almost snapping for the first time, "I
know
 all that."

He began to flounder — the truth was,
he
didn’t want to go outside any more than she wanted him to. But his gut instincts told him that Ben was right and Mister Cooper was wrong. It was like his old civics teacher used to say — they had to remain
pro
active, not
re
active; they had to make their own chances, not take what was given to them. Because since he’d seen that guy bite his wife’s lips off at the lake—

No. No, he wouldn’t think about that. He had to focus on Judy now, make Judy feel better, more confident, even if he did not.

"Honey, listen," he said, and he wished he could keep the fear out of his voice. "Remember when we had the big flood? Remember how difficult it was for us to convince you that it was
right
 to leave?"

She nodded, sort of. And she wasn’t looking at him now, just staring down at the floor.

He pressed on. "Remember— remember we had to go to Willard
then
?"

When she didn’t respond at all this time, he slipped off his chair and joined her on the floor, down on the same level.

"Well
this
isn’t a passing thing, honey. It— it’s not like, just, a wind passing through. We’ve got to
do
something, and
fast
."

Finally, she looked up at him through the curtain of her long, beautiful hair ... and then she threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, and held him. She gasped a couple of times, and he thought she was near tears, but then she said, "I ... I just don’t want
you
 to go out there. That’s all."

"Hey ... Smiley ..." He was fighting against his own tears now. "Where’s that big smile for me?"

She said nothing, and certainly didn’t pull back to smile for him. She just held him so tight.

"Boy ..." he said, trying for humor, however feeble. "You’re sure no use at all, are ya?"

Still nothing from Judy, not even a twinge, and certainly no laugh or giggle.

"We’ve got work to do, honey. And you ..." His voice threatened to crack. He wouldn’t cry now, not in front of Judy — he wouldn’t! He pulled away, struggling to free himself from her death grip. "You ..."

She let go, pulled back, looked into his eyes, and all of his secrets were revealed. He had nothing left to say, no more assurances to offer.

So he kissed her ...

A time later (but not
enough
 time, as far as Judy was concerned), the work was done and she found herself back in the living room, sitting on the arm of the sofa again next to the blonde, Barbra, who had still barely said two words to anyone.

Mister Cooper emerged from his cellar (that’s how Judy thought of it now;
his
 cellar) just as Ben brought over a box full of the Molotov cocktails.

Mister Cooper accepted the box from him — he’d become a lot more agreeable, and Judy suspected Missus Cooper had something to do with that — then turned toward the sofa. For a moment, Judy thought he was going to say something to her
,
but then he pointed past her, toward Barbra. "We better get her downstairs," he said to Ben.

Judy took the cue. She said to the other woman, "We have to go downstairs now, Barbra."

But Barbra didn’t budge or reply; instead, she looked to Ben for confirmation.

"She’s right," Ben assured her as he knelt in front of the sofa as before. "You have to go downstairs now, just for a little while, until we get back."

Still nothing but a blank stare from Barbra.

So Ben added, "Then we can all
leave
."

That got the reaction he was hoping for — Barbra brightened. "Oh, I’d
like
to leave.
Yes
."

Ben reach out for her, and she accepted his hand. He pulled her to her feet, and once she was moving, she headed toward the cellar door on her own. Judy collected Barbra’s coat, then nodded to Ben and followed after her.

Once Ben saw that they were indeed on their way, he joined Tom over by the front door. Cooper lingered in the room a moment longer, cast a longing glance toward the cellar, then hefted the box of jars and headed for the stairway without a word — grudging or not, he knew what his job was, and Ben was relieved that he was going to do it.

Ben set the rifle down next to the door, and Tom offered him the hammer. Ben hesitated —
Were they really going to do this? Go back outside?
— then accepted the tool, took a deep breath, and said, "Good luck."

"Yeah ..." Tom agreed.

And then they were unboarding the door.

It didn’t take long, but it was a lot noisier than either of them would have preferred. However many of those things were on this side of the house, this would surely draw their attention, and maybe bring a few more from the back as well. It was disheartening to see how quickly such hard work could be dismantled, but they were committed now.

Across the room, Judy peeked from around the still-open cellar door. Tom noticed as he turned to toss aside some of the wood, and their gazes locked. To his everlasting amazement, she offered him another of her beautiful smiles, and that smile both emboldened him and almost stole his nerve.

Upstairs, Cooper set the mason jars on a table beside one of the front windows, then folded first one then the other curtain up and over the rod. This whole plan was insane enough as it was — the last thing he wanted to do was set the house on fire!

Opening the window, he knocked the storm screen outward, letting it fall wherever it may. It had gotten so dark outside, he couldn’t be sure how many of those things lingered in front of the house, but he could
smell
them all the way up here, which meant there were a lot.

A lot of
dead
people.

He fought back a shudder, shoving that thought from his mind. If he was going to think about anything, it would be Karen, and Helen.

Carefully, he opened the box and removed the first mason jar, and strove to ignore the gasps and soft groans that rose up from the yard below.

At the front door, Ben returned with another of his tried-and-true custom torches. The smoke was as bad as before, and he bellowed, "You ready upstairs?!" which startled the hell out of Tom and Judy.

"Yeah!" came Cooper’s voice.

"Okay,
toss ’em
!"

At the upstairs window, Cooper struck a match and lit the cloth-fuse of the first jar. He was unnerved by how fast the flame caught, and he wasted no time hurling the jar outside. It struck the ground to the front-left of the truck — dear God, if he had tossed the jar any harder, he might have hit it!

But it had the desired effect: The creatures — and there
were
a lot more of them now — immediately withdrew, the closest ones throwing their arms before their eyes as though the eight-foot wide circle of flames were a lot hotter and brighter than it really was. Their moans elevated in both volume and pitch as they retreated in fear.