“They’re comin’ up, Peter,” Steve said into the walkie-talkie. “They’re comin’ up the stairs.”
Peter moved to another spot on the balcony.
Suddenly, the raiders at Porter’s door turned a machine gun on the roll gate locks. One flew open, then another.
Steve ran deeper into the store. His eye was caught by a glittering display of watches. On the other side of the counter were diamond rings. Another display case held pocket-sized calculators. He turned and couldn’t see the raiders but could hear their approaching footsteps. Suddenly he was filled with rage that these scavengers would dare invade his store. Using the butt of his rifle, he cracked the glass display case that held the rings and gathered them up, shoving them into his pocket. The pounding of the bikers’ boots grew louder. He could see some of the men rounding the corner. He started to charge up the escalator, but realized that he would be in the line of fire, so he ran into the elevator at the side. He hit the button, and the door closed, and the car started up for the second floor.
Peter continued to fire at the charging men on the balcony. He dropped one of them, and the others took cover. Just as Peter started to move further out on the balcony to get a better shot, the lights in the mall blinked out, the escalators stopped. They were in utter blackness, all power gone.
Upstairs, a frightened Fran was totally alone in the darkness. From below, she could hear the scared barks of the puppy. She carefully picked her way down the stairs toward the frantically yelping puppy.
“Peter, Peter,” Steve said into his walkie-talkie. He groped around in the dark in the stuck elevator.
The big trooper charged through the darkness and found his way into the maintenance corridor. Leaning back against the wall, he listened. He ignored the insistent buzzing on his talk unit.
The raiders on the balcony approached quickly, flattening themselves against the walls for cover.
More and more of the bikers spilled into the department store. Like a plague of locusts, they descended on the goods, raiding the counters and ransacking the displays. They threw things indiscriminately into their backpacks. One burly guy took a pair of delicate ladies’ panties, soiling them with his hairy paw as he threw them into his pack.
Other bikers moved to the various stores, breaking the roll gates easily by shooting off the locks. They raided the remaining arsenal in the sporting goods store with relish.
The main pack of bandits managed to hold off the wave of zombies for a while. But the creatures came at them with renewed vigor, and the raiders tired. The creatures pounced on them, and some of the bikers fell. The ghouls devored them, ripping at their flesh with their teeth and hands. The men’s anguished cries were drowned out by the luckier bikers’ cycles as they roared into the now liberated shops.
Chickie pulled her van outside the door and two of the bikers rode out to it and started loading supplies in through the double doors. The zombies were everywhere, but many of the bikers had a cavalier attitude toward them, throwing pies from the bakery in their faces, showering them with shaving cream from the pharmacy and pelting them with BB guns from the toy department. The slow-moving and slow-thinking zombies were befuddled by the looters’ antics. They seemed to be bothered more by the fooling around than by the sporadic gunfire.
Several creatures followed the raiders onto the balcony. One zombie pounced on the corpse of the raider that Peter had shot. It began to tear at the body, savoring the still warm flesh. Another zombie tried to muscle in on the catch, and the two of them began to wrestle over an arm that was almost severed from the body.
Other zombies continued to steadily move along the balcony. Some of the remaining raiders appeared at the mouth of the corridor, and Peter opened fire again. He killed one of them with a clean shot through the heart. The man flew back against the railing, his chain-wrapped body jingling and jangling. Then he toppled over, a resounding crash of metal heralding his fall. Several zombies attacked his body when it landed.
Peter dashed into the maintenance room. He rushed immediately to the power station and threw the emergency power switch. The portable emergency light units blinked on all over the mall.
Steve, who had managed to work his way to the top of the car by crawling through the hatch in the elevator ceiling, suddenly felt the car move. He tried to grab onto the cables but his hand slipped on the grease. Unfortunately, his rifle fell down between the wall of the shaft and the moving car, where it wedged itself.
Suddenly, the car stopped again, and Steve could see down through the escape hatch. Light spilled in as the main elevator doors opened. Just as he was about to jump to safety, he heard the voices of the raiders below. Two of the big bikers charged into the car. Whooping and shouting, they pointed to the open escape hatch.
Steve tried to blend into the wall as much as possible. The watches and rings in his pocket jingled against each other.
One of the raiders, with long greasy black hair, looked up.
“Come on, man,” said the other, sporting a handlebar mustache and a swastika emblazoned on the back of his jacket. “It’s your nerves. Let’s go . . .”
But the other raider was persistent. He aimed his machine gun up through the hatch and whooped loudly as he fired off a barrage of bullets.
“That ought to finish off them bastards,” he said as the shells banged and clattered around in the shaft. They ricocheted off the walls and pinged off the metal gears. One shell nicked Stephen on the arm. He cringed but did not cry out.
Finally, the raider had emptied his gun to his satisfaction, and they charged back into the store.
The remaining bikers continued to loot the store, stocking up on weapons, ammunition, tools, articles of clothing and food. Every once in a while, they would try a prank on the unsuspecting zombies, like locking them in the meat freezer or chopping their heads off with the meat cleaver. They seemed to have more fun torturing the creatures than collecting their loot.
Chickie pulled the van to the side doors where the men shoveled in the booty. Another woman had joined her in the front seat, and they guarded the material with giant pistols. Zombies tried to pound their way into the vehicle, but the women remained steadfast, plugging a few here and there through cracks in the window.
In the mall, another biker was brought down by a pack of lunatic zombies to the amusement of his friends. They simply laughed and pointed as the creatures devoured the still screaming man.
Several creatures now wandered through the department store, having entered through the open second-story gate. They moved through the aisles, knocking against the displays and sending items scattering all over the floor. One zombie grabbed a mannequin dressed in swimming apparel and was shocked to find that when it took a bite, its teeth cracked on the hard surface. It threw the doll aside roughly, tagging after the others.
Nick, up on the balcony, was approached by several zombies. He ran down the maintenance corridor and into the office. Peter, miraculously, was nowhere to be seen. The raider scurried out and broke into the various offices. They were deserted. He charged up to the fake wall and assumed it was a dead end. Then he was distracted by the faint barking of a puppy. He checked the panel again, this time suspicious. He ran his hands along the edge, feeling it give way.
Just as he was about to kick the wall in, he heard a sound in the corridor. He turned, and to his shock saw three ghouls approaching him. He raised his gun to fire and knocked off the lumbering creatures one at a time. Then, he rushed out onto the balcony. The full spectacle of what he saw took his breath away. Creatures wandered everywhere, bikers roared this way and that. Even to a hardened Hell’s Angel like Nick, it looked like a ghastly war zone. He was just about to run downstairs when he was distracted by another noise, this time above him. He spun around and looked up. Just as he focused, a dark shadow passed over him. It was Peter, his big supergun aimed squarely at the raider’s head from the ceiling grid just above. The gun roared and Nick flew back over the railing.
&nbs
p; Below, the surviving handful of raiders started to regroup. Their bikes began to peel out of the mall entrance one at a time. Just as he was about to leave the mall, another raider was snatched off his bike by a clawing zombie.
Chickie readied the van to pull out as the last bit of booty was shoveled into the vehicle. As a parting gesture, the woman lowered her window and fired point blank at the heads of the clutching creatures that had been trying to get in through the glass.
The last wave of raiders tried to get out through the first-floor entrance to the department store. The zombies mobbed their bikes outside and the men had to struggle to get to their cycles, shooting and beating their way past. One man was brought down, but three others managed to mount their machines. With a final roar, the men pulled out, accelerating to catch the little van, which sped away in a cloud of dust.
Peter had crawled through the ductwork, and he could see the last bike roll across the concourse just as he opened one of the grids. He leveled off with his scope, shooting one raider out of the saddle. Two more rode out of range and drove through the main doors into the parking lot.
The band regrouped out in the lot around the van. Where there had been twenty, there were now only seven or eight, including the two women.
Thor, who had ducked out of sight when Peter opened fire, now revved up his engine and roared through the concourse. It was as if he were the general of the victorious army accepting the honors. He dodged several of the creatures on his powerful bike and headed for the entrance. Just as he was about to exit through the doors, he threw his head back and yelled triumphantly.
Peter leaned practically all the way out of the grid in the ceiling. The cross hairs on his scope settled on the back of Thor’s head. As the biker pulled through the door and started to roar across the parking lot to his waiting band, Peter applied pressure to the trigger of the supergun, and the roar muffled that of the cycle. A second and a half later, Thor’s body was blown ten feet into the air. When he came down, a pack of hungry zombies awaited him.
Unfortunately, for him, he was not dead. As he rolled over on the cement, he saw to his horror that a swarm of creatures was moving to tear him apart, limb from limb. He let out a bloodcurdling scream. Without so much as a backward look for their lost leader, the other bikers moved their convoy off into the night, and gradually the roar of the engines faded away.
The silence was overwhelming for Fran. Even Adam had stopped barking. She looked down into the darkness. Tensely, her fingers clutched at the rifle. She stood on the landing as the silence enveloped her.
In the parking lot and over the main concourse of the mall, the creatures wandered freely, as they had before the humans had arrived in what seemed like a lifetime ago. They fought over the remains of the bikers, eating ravenously, their slurping sounds the only noise in the cavernous mall now.
Peter continued to crawl through the ductwork. He peered down through the grids at the feasting below. Some of the bikers were now coming to as zombies themselves.
Suddenly, he heard the beeper on his talk unit. He hit the button.
“Peter!” came the frantic cry.
“Where the hell are you?” Peter grumbled.
“In the elevator!”
“Listen,” Peter told him carefully. “Those things are all over the place. Climb up top . . . I’ll get you out the grid in the shaft. I’m comin’.”
The big trooper squirmed his bulk through the ductwork once again.
In the elevator, Steve hit the button for the second floor and the car started to climb. He clambered up with his feet on the handrail of the car. His hands reached up and grabbed the mouth of the escape hatch, and he managed to get his head and shoulders out through the opening. Just as he kicked his legs to force himself up, the car stopped.
The doors opened to the second story of the department store as Steve gazed once more at the attractive displays. He yearned to gather up more things for his huge stockpile upstairs. That moment’s hesitation was all the zombies needed. With startling abruptness, several of them darted into the elevator. They clawed at Steve’s legs and pulled him down out of the hatch. Screaming, he thrashed violently, but the creatures held on with super strength.
In the ducts, Peter heard the bloodcurdling screams. He stopped short, listening intently. All was quiet. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Then he snapped to and backed away, heading for the maintenance corridor.
In the elevator car, Steve thrashed and kicked ferociously. The creatures had a hard time, but they finally managed to pull him out of the car. The elevator doors closed and opened, their safety bumpers slamming against the creatures that blocked it.
A zombie took a bite out of Steve’s arm. Another took a large chunk out of his neck. He scrambled, trying to free his handgun from its holster. Punching and kicking, even though he was bleeding profusely, he managed to pull his weapon. He fired the big pistol once . . . twice . . .
Peter was just dropping out of the duct in the washroom when he heard the pistol shots. The thought struck him that he may have made a terrible mistake in thinking that Steve was dead. Unless it was a raider’s gun, which he truly doubted, he had left his comrade to die!
He started to climb back into the grid, but he stopped himself. What good would he do now, those were the desperate shots of a dying man. Confused, angry with himself, utterly exhausted, he punched at the wall violently, shattering a bone in his hand.
Once more the big pistol sounded and its shell ripped through the head of one of the zombies. The zombie flew back out of the car, but the doors still slammed against one last creature. Others poured out from the store as Steve fired one last time. The zombie that had been wedged between the doors flew back, and the doors finally closed shut.
Outside, Steve could hear the remaining zombies pound against the door. They scratched and pawed, none of them with the intelligence to push the button, but narrowly missing it with their random banging.
Once the doors closed, Steve fell to the floor. The wound in his neck ran red, his eyes widened with terror, and he stared at the pistol in his hand. He was finding it increasingly harder to breathe.
Peter appeared alone at the bottom of the fire stair. First the yapping puppy, then Fran, ran to him.
Fran could tell by the way Peter hung his head.
“No . . . no!” she shrieked, feeling faint.
She threw herself down the remaining steps. Peter caught her before she managed to charge out into the hall.
He held her tightly in his arms.
“I heard his gun . . . maybe he’s all right. We’ll wait. We’ll just wait a while . . .”
A slight blue haze appeared in the eastern sky. The mall stood silently in the impending dawn, mute to the disaster that had taken place within its walls that night.
Armies of zombies, reinforcements for the wounded and killed, moved in and out of the building unimpeded. They walked through the halls and lumbered through the aisles.
Several creatures pounded and scratched at the closed panels of the elevator doors in Porter’s. As they pushed against one another, one of them inadvertently pressed on the elevator call button with its shoulder. The door glided open and in the open car, Stephen stood. The blood on his body was caked and dry, his eyes were vacant, drool filtered down from his mouth. He stepped forward. The other creatures drifted away, some bowing a welcome to a new member of the tribe. He was among them now, no longer prey—one of the living dead.
The doors slid closed and banged against Steve, but the bumpers reacted electronically and opened again. He lumbered into the store and started down the familiar aisle. Other creatures drifted by him in total acceptance.
Upstairs, a red-faced, tearful Fran packed supplies into a sack. She moved ponderously, as if each action was an effort.
Peter stood at the top of the stairs, his eyes focused on the landing.
With more and more determination, Fran planted the filled bags next to the base of the escape ladder tha
t led to the roof. Her movements were deliberate. She had filled her head with the hope that Steve was alive, and that this packing was for them—and the baby. But now she realized it was not to be so.
A lumbering zombie walked almost purposefully up to the maintenance corridor entrance as if it knew the way. It did—it was Steve. Other zombies passed him, wandering aimlessly. He looked past them, seeing the fake partition wall. Something deep inside his dead brain triggered a reaction, and he lumbered forward.
“It’s almost light,” Fran said softly to Peter. He had not left the stairway since he had returned from the battle. “Let’s go.”
He looked at her silently, his face drawn and tired. She had never seen him looking so vulnerable.
“He doesn’t answer the radio. It’s been hours.” She had prepared herself for the worst and some inner resource of strength that she didn’t even know she had welled up inside, filling the void.
“For God’s sake,” she began to cry. “You better come on because if I get to thinkin’ about this, I’ll just go down there and let them . . . let them . . .”
The puppy began to growl and charged down the steps through Peter’s feet.
In the hallway, Steve had reached the fake wall and was pounding on it. The other creatures moved up behind him and joined in.
Upstairs, Peter heard the pounding, but stood stoically, gazing down into the darkness. Adam continued to bark, as if in recognition, below.
“What is it?” Fran asked, fear rising in her throat.
“They’re comin’ up!” Peter cried out. “Maybe Stephen’s with them!”
With a great crunching noise, the fake partition gave way. The army of creatures, led by Steve, staggered over the splintered lumber and the crushed plywood and moved up the stairs.
Peter slammed the door just as the puppy scurried by and leaped into Fran’s arms.
Dawn of the Dead Page 21
