Night of the Living Dead (25 page)

Ben never wavered. He took Tom by the arm and pulled him away from the pump. "Watch out."

He didn’t have to tell Tom twice. The young man backed away as Ben aimed the rifle.

At near point-blank range, Ben blew the lock to smithereens. The blast echoed through the night, and would undoubtedly bring more of the dead shambling toward them, but Tom knew they would be long gone by then. They just had to
hurry
!

It was the second time Tom had told himself as much. And it was his undoing.

He raced to the pump, tossed aside the stray remains of the padlock, seized the handle in a firm grip and spun around toward the truck. Unfortunately, that firm grip squeezed the pump lever halfway down, and gasoline sprayed and splashed everywhere — through the air, all over the side of the truck, and onto the ground ...

... where Ben had laid the burning table leg.

"Watch the torch!" Ben cried, diving for it.

Too late. Ben dragged it away, but not before the gasoline caught. In the blink of an eye, the back-right half of the truck
was covered in fire!

In the kitchen, Cooper had been straining to see what was happening out there in the dark, but when flames raced up the side of the truck, he saw it just fine. His heart shot up into his throat and his bowels washed over cold as he watched his daughter’s best chance for rescue burning in the night. His pulse raced and his head pounded.

Those bastard ... those clumsy,
stupid
bastards!

This time, Ben had no idea what to do. The flames were as spread out as those created by the Molotov cocktails, but these were burning hotter and spreading faster. Too much to snuff out by kicking dirt on it, not in the little time they had before the dead caught up to the them.

What should he do? What should he
do
?!

Tom, so flustered that he wasn’t fully conscious of his own mistake, tried to sneak in around the side, tried to get the nozzle into the waiting gas tank, but it was pointless — the fire was too intense.

Tom was more panicked than ever, but what made it worse was that he didn’t
know
that he was panicking. He shouted, "We gotta get away from the pump!" and ran back around toward the driver’s side of the truck.

Unfortunately, Ben wasn’t listening. He had remembered a dirty old blanket in the bed of the truck, dragged it out and toward the fire. He was reluctant to put down the gun since he would need it again at any time, so he tossed the blanket down and moved it around with his foot. If they could just get it smothered fast enough ...

In a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing, Tom jumped in behind the steering wheel. He got the truck into gear and told Judy, "Hang on!"

She nodded, trusting Tom to do the right thing.

Ben looked up to see the truck pulling away, the back-right tire burning and throwing the flames further onto the underside of the vehicle.

"
Tom!
" he cried. "Tom, you’re crazy—
Get out of the truck!
"

Tom heard Ben shouting, but he couldn’t make out what he was saying, nor would it have made any difference if he could. All he could think was to get the burning truck away from the gas pumps, away from the pumps,
away
from the
pumps
!

Cooper couldn’t fathom what was happening out there. The truck was driving away, but it was clearly on fire and could not have had time to fill up on fuel. And it was so dark and it looked like more of those things were appearing in the field now and ...

There
were
more dead walking in the field — some of them were advancing on the truck, others were wandering toward the house, but a number of them were headed straight for Ben. He was still trying to put out the ground fire before it could reach the pump, but while he had it somewhat contained, he also had more than a few minor burns to show for it. He kept the gun close, knowing that he would need to provide cover for Tom and Judy when they finally got it through their heads to abandon the lost truck.

A fair distance away, Tom at last reached that very conclusion. He jammed the truck into
Park
and threw his door open.

"Let’s get outta here!" he yelled over his shoulder.

But when he turned around, Judy wasn’t following him. She sat on the passenger side of the seat, her hair in disarray and her eyes wild, gaping at him.

"Come on," he cried, "come on!"

She struggled, but still wasn’t moving. Before he could ask, she panted, "My jacket’s caught!"

Tom leaped back into the truck, threw himself across the seat. Her denim jacket had indeed gotten caught in the passenger door, but when he tried to open it he learned why she had not done that simple act — the fire had spread to the door, and the handle was searing hot.

No time! He grabbed the door handle again, clenching his teeth against the pain, he had to do it, there was no time, no time!

No time.

Boom!

At the house, Cooper cried out and shielded his eyes. The window rattled so hard, he thought it might burst inward and shower him with glass.

Even though Ben was outside and much closer to the explosion, he found himself unable to look away. So little gas had remained in the tank, he couldn’t believe it could erupt into such a fierce conflagration, but it had. Black smoke billowed into the sky and flames engulfed the truck cabin ...

... with Tom and Judy still inside.

With everything he had seen since Beekman’s, Ben didn’t think he could be shocked anymore tonight, if ever again. But as he gazed upon the fiery deaths of those two sweet kids, he felt numb all over.

Cooper panted, near hyperventilating as the truck burned. Their one chance, their
one fucking chance
! Seething in anger and frustration and close to tears, he closed the drapes and backed away from the kitchen window.

Ben took a step forward, thinking that maybe —
maybe
— Tom or Judy might still be alive and needed help ... but no, it was the gas station explosion all over again, and in more ways than one.

When he looked around, the dead were already losing interest in the truck and were fixating on
him
.

Where in the hell were they all coming from? It was as though they were spawning right out here in the field. At Beekman’s, from the gowns and uniforms, he had concluded that most of them had spread out from the county hospital. But now they appeared to come from all walks of life.

Walks of "life," huh? Good one, Ben.

He bit his tongue hard to kill the laughter that threatened to bubble up from the back of his throat. Too treacherous — if he gave in to that whim, he could easily end up as lost and helpless as Barbra, if not downright deranged.

Ben lifted the rifle, took aim, and fired at the closest one. It was again a heart-shot, and would have dropped any living man in his tracks. But the dead man just stopped, tipped over backward almost to the point of falling on his ass, then rocked forward and continued moving toward Ben.

Ben considered going for the head-shot, but the same inner debate zipped through his mind in about two seconds — he just wasn’t a sharpshooter, and didn’t want to waste ammo.

So once more, he scooped up his torch.

But though they still cringed and flinched, the dead weren’t as intimidated by his portable little flame — not after the brilliance of the burning truck. He waved the torch in a wide arc and the dead recoiled, but they wouldn’t give any ground.

Ben swallowed, his dry tongue making a clicking sound against the sandpaper that was the roof of his mouth, and stepped closer to them.

His gamble paid off. When he started actually
touching
them with the flames, when sparks sizzled from their clothing and singed their skin, they finally backed off just enough to let him squeeze through the front ranks.

But he was far from home-free. Everywhere he looked, from every direction, the living dead were closing in.

Holding his torch before him, Ben zigged and zagged back toward the house, relying on their timidity of the fire and his own superior dexterity to get him through. They couldn’t see in the dark any better than he could, so as he slipped deeper into the night, his torch paled in contrast and some of them lost their focus, started wandering aimlessly once more.

But there were still plenty more that were willing to make the extra effort to devour him.

Ben ran faster.

Finally, he gained enough lead and clearance to make a dash straight for the house. For the moment, none of them were near the front door, but he knew that wouldn’t last long. He needed to get his ass inside, right now!

Harry Cooper was about to step through the cellar door when he was startled —
stunned
, really — to hear Ben call from outside, "Let me in!" There had been so many of those things out there, how could the man have possibly made it back to the house?

Ben slammed into the front door, expecting Cooper to have opened it already. All it did was jar his shoulder as he bounced off the unyielding barrier.

"Let me in!" he yelled again. Looking behind him, he saw another wave of the dead advancing upon the house, and his torch seemed a pitiful shield. This time he hit the door with his fist. "Cooper!"

Cooper lingered in the cellar doorway, torn. He stepped further into the stairwell, then froze again. He knew the best thing to do, the
right
thing to do, would be to shut the door and join his family and Barbra below. Ben had been nothing but trouble, and now that Tom and Judy were gone, the food they had collected would last that much longer.

But ...

Outside, Ben shouted, "
Cooper
!" once more. Then the gasps and wheezing pulled his attention back to the front yard. The torch was now in danger of burning out altogether — Ben thrust forward, throwing it at the dead. They would be on him in seconds!

Cooper had found it much easier to dehumanize Barbra and Ben when they had been nothing but noisemakers from overhead, screams and shouts that meant very little to him with no face to associate with them. Now, regardless of how he felt about the arrogant prick, he
knew
 Ben, had argued with him and worked with him, to a point.