Undead

by John Russo

  But Barbara moved closer, and the thing continued to twitch, its one eye still staring upward, glassy and pale, like the eye of a stuffed animal.

  Adrenaline coursed through Barbara’s body, as she felt an overpowering drive to run or scream, even though she remained rooted, fixatedly staring into the eye of the dead thing. And suddenly it moved, with a rustling sound. And Barbara jumped and screamed, jolted out of her trance, before the realization came to her that Ben had a hold on the thing’s legs and was dragging it across the floor.

  “Shut your eyes, girl, I’m getting this dead thing out of here,” Ben said, in a stern voice, and his face showed his anguish and revulsion as he dragged the dead body across the floor.

  The one eye continued to twitch. And Barbara just stood there, her hands still at her mouth, watching, listening to the sounds of Ben’s breathing and his struggling with the dead being. Finally, he got the body to the kitchen door, and he let the legs drop with a thud as he paused to rest and think.

  Even in the dim illumination provided by the stove light, Barbara could see the shiny perspiration on Ben’s face, and the rasp of his heavy breathing seemed to fill the room. His eyes were alert, and afraid. He turned quickly to see through the small window pane in the door. The dead thing still lay twitching slightly at his feet.

  And outside, lurking in the shadow from the huge trees, Ben’s probing eyes discerned three more beings watching and waiting, their arms dangling and eyes bulging, as they maintained a dumb, fixated stare in the direction of the house.

  With a swift move, the big man flung open the kitchen door and bent to pick up the dead thing at his feet. The three ghoulish creatures outside under the trees began to take slow, shuffling, threatening steps toward the house. And, with one great heave, Ben flopped the dead, twitching form outside the door, just beyond the threshold.

  The things on the lawn continued to advance, as the rasp of crickets mingled with the agonized, bellows-like rasping of their dead lungs, nearly obliterating all the other night sounds.

  With another great effort, Ben heaved the dead but twitching body over the edge of the porch.

  From inside the house, the big man’s efforts could not be clearly discerned by Barbara, and she backed away from the door and trembled uncontrollably while she waited for Ben to finish whatever he was going to do and come back inside.

  He shuddered and fumbled in his breast pocket, as the ghoulish beings on the lawn continued to move toward him with their arms extended, reaching out as though to seize him and tear him apart. Ben’s fumbling fingers closed on a book of matches, and he managed to strike one and touch the burning tip to the ragged, filthy clothing of the dead thing, and with almost a popping sound the clothing caught fire.

  The things in the yard stopped in their tracks. The fire blazed slowly at first. Shaking, Ben touched the match to other aspects of the thing’s clothing and, intent on the advancing ghouls, he burned his fingers and snapped them, tossing the match into the heaped form. Standing, and breathing hard, he kicked the burning thing off the edge of the porch and watched it roll down three small steps onto the grass, where it lay still, the flames licking around it.

  Ben watched the three beings in the yard as they stepped back slightly, trying to cover their faces with their stiff arms, as though they were afraid of fire—and his fists clenched the banister of the little porch as his face glowed in the heat of the flames.

  “I’m going to get you,” Ben said to himself, his voice quivering. And then he raised his voice and shouted into the deadness of the night, “I’m going to get you! All of you! You damned things!”

  Ben stood defiantly on the little porch, the flaming corpse burning with an overpowering stench. Yet, the things on the lawn had stopped backing away, and they were keeping their distance now—watching and waiting.

  Hearing a sudden noise, Ben spun to see Barbara standing inside the kitchen door. As his eyes met hers, he took in the blank, frozen expression on her face, and she backed away from him into the room. The big man, in great strides, re-entered the kitchen and slammed the door and reflexively went to bolt it, but the bolt had been broken loose by the things that had gotten in.

  Ben seized hold of a heavy kitchen table, and dragged it and slammed it against the door. His breathing still loud, was even more rapid than before. And his eyes continually darted about the room in search of something—but Barbara did not know what.

  He rushed to the cabinets and threw them open and began rummaging through them. They were full of standard kitchen utensils and supplies. For a long time, Ben did not speak—and Barbara’s staring eyes followed him about as he continued to ransack the room.

  “See if you can find the light switch,” he shouted suddenly—so suddenly that the sound of his voice startled Barbara and she fell back against a wall and her hand groped to a switch. The light from an overhead fixture came on, providing bright illumination. The big man continued to clatter about frantically, while the light coming on hurt Barbara’s eyes and caused her to blink and squint. She remained against the wall, her hand still touching the switch, as though she did not dare to move. She watched silently, while Ben continued flinging open drawers and spilling contents onto the shelving and onto the floor.

  He grabbed the silverware drawer, still open from when Barbara first discovered it, and pulled it open until it stopped itself with a crash. He rooted through it, pulled out a large bread knife and, sucking his breath in, stuffed it under his belt. Then he reached into the drawer again and produced another knife. Taking Barbara by surprise, he strode toward her and shoved the knife at her, handle first, but she backed away from him—and her action stayed his franticness and, breathing heavily through his words, he calmed himself and spoke softly but commandingly to her.

  “Now…you hang on…to this.”

  She hesitated, but finally took the knife, and he breathed a sigh of relief. She seemed weak, almost apathetic, as though she was losing control of herself—or had given up already. She stared at the weapon in her hand, then her eyes came up to meet the man’s intense face.

  “All right,” he said. “All right. You just listen to me, and we’re gonna be okay. We have to protect ourselves—keep those things away from us, until we can find a way to get out of this damned place.”

  He did not know if his words penetrated through to Barbara or not, but hopefully they did.

  He pulled away from her and continued to rummage, speaking only occasionally and to no one in particular between great breaths and between the brief times when his interest was totally wrapped in something found in his rummaging—something useful or potentially useful for survival.

  His search was not without control; it had a coordinated purpose; it was selective, although frantic and desperate. He was looking for nails and strips of wood or planks that he might nail around doors and windows. He had made up his mind that they were going to have to fortify the old farmhouse as strongly as possible, against the impending and gathering threat of an all-out attack by the ghouls, which were increasing in number. Ben’s actions were hurried, and intent after these defensive ends; at first, his search occupied his full attention and was driven by anxiety. But gradually, as he moved about and began to come up with several key items, his efforts paced down into a more deliberate flow.

  He started bracing heavy tables and other articles of furniture against the most vulnerable parts of the old house.

  His mood relaxed in intensity and became calmer, more analytical, as the barricading instilled a feeling of greater security. And the knowledge of the efforts toward some safety and some protection began to overtake Barbara, bringing her out of her shock and passivity.

  “We’ll be okay!” Ben called out, in an effort at bravery.

  And Barbara watched, as he clattered about the room, spilling his findings out of drawers and off of shelves. He still had not apparently found at least one important item that he was really impatient for. Spools of thread, buttons, manicure implement
s, shoe-shine materials…continued to spill out of drawers. And Ben got once more a little violent and urgent as he continued to rummage and bang around the room.

  Finally, in a wooden box under the sink, he found what he was looking for—and he leaped suddenly and let out an exclamation of triumph as he dumped the contents of the box onto the kitchen floor. A big claw hammer thudded out. And an axe. And an old pipe tobacco tin, which Ben seized and in one gesture spilled its contents onto a shelf. Nails and screws and washers and tacks tumbled out. A few rolled too far and clattered onto the floor, but Ben dived and his fingers scooped them up. He fumbled through the little pile of things and selected the longest nails in the batch, and stuffed them into the pocket of his sweater. And even as he stuffed the nails into his pocket, he was already moving, his eyes seeking for his next need.

  His eyes fell on Barbara.

  “See if there’s any big pieces of wood around the fireplace out there!” he yelled at her, and he turned to explore the contents of a cardboard box on top of the refrigerator. The box came up too easily, telling him it was empty, and he flung it down with a glance inside to make sure, as his impetus carried him toward a metal cabinet in the corner of the room which he was betting would contain nothing but foodstuffs—but in turning he noticed Barbara, still motionless, and his anger leaped to the surface suddenly and he shouted at her.

  “Look, you—”

  But he stopped himself, then spoke still frantically, but with less harshness.

  “Look…I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. I’m scared just like you. But we’re not gonna survive…if we don’t do something to help ourselves. I’m going to board up these doors and windows. But you’ve got to pitch in. We’ve got to help ourselves, because there ain’t nobody around to help us…and we’re gonna be all right. Okay? Now, I want you to get out there and see if there’s any wood in that fireplace…”

  He stopped, still breathing hard. Barbara merely stared at him. Then, after several seconds, she started to move, very slowly, away from the wall.

  “Okay?” Ben asked, looking into her eyes.

  She was still for a long moment, before nodding her head weakly.

  “Okay,” Ben repeated, reassuringly, in a half-whisper, and he stared after the girl momentarily as she left the kitchen—and he continued his search.

  She moved into the living-room area, where the darkness stopped her for an instant, slowing her pace. From the kitchen, she could still hear the clattering sounds of Ben’s search. She looked ahead, into the room, and clutched the handle of her knife as the white curtains on the windows seemed to glow, and every shadow seemed suspect. Anything could be lurking in that room, behind the furniture, or in the closets.

  Barbara shuddered.

  On the dining table in the far corner of the room, she could see the silhouette of a bowl of large rounded flowers—and they stirred suddenly, in the breeze from an opened window. In a panic, Barbara raced for the window and slammed it shut and bolted it, and stood, breathing heavily and noticing that she had pinned part of the white curtain under the window frame when it came crashing down. But she was not going to raise it back up again, for anything. A shiver shot through her, and she turned to see Ben, who had come as far as the doorway to find out the cause of the noise—and she hoped he would stay, but he turned and resumed his banging around in the kitchen.

  Alone in the room again, Barbara reached for a lamp on an end table, clicked it on and dull illumination filled the immediate area. The room felt empty. She started slowly toward the fireplace. Near it was a stack of logwood, and a few planks that might be large enough to nail across the windows. Still clutching her knife, she bent over the pile and gathered up the planking—but a spider ran across her hand, and she shrieked and dropped the wood with a clatter.

  She waited, hoping Ben would not come, and this time he did not come to see what was the matter. Loud continuous noises of his activity in the kitchen told her why he had not heard her own racket with the firewood. She knelt and picked the planks up again, and steeled her mind not to be frightened by spiders.

  Staggering with her awkward load, she hurried toward the kitchen and, bursting through the doorway, she found Ben pounding with the claw hammer at the hinges on a tall broom-closet door. One final swipe and a great yank freed the door, with the sound of screws ripping from torn wood, and the man stood it against the wall next to the broom closet. In the recesses of the closet, he spotted other useful items and pulled them out—an ironing board, three center boards from the dining table, and some old scrap lumber.

  He smiled at Barbara when he looked up and saw her own supply of wood, which she leaned against the wall in a corner, and motioning for her to follow he grabbed the closet door and carried it across the kitchen to the back door of the house, which was the door with the broken bolt. He slapped the closet door up against the panel portion of the kitchen door and with an appraising glance he realized that he could use this same piece to cover the kitchen window, which was of modest dimensions and not placed too far from the kitchen door. He leaned against the piece of wood and groped in his sweater pocket for nails. The door started to slip slightly. It was not going to completely cover the kitchen window, but it would leave slats of glass at top and bottom; however, it would cover the glass part of the entrance door and would help make the door secure. Again, the heavy closet door slipped and he nudged it back into position, as he continued to grope for nails. Suddenly springing forward, Barbara helped out, by taking hold of the piece of lumber and holding it in position. Ben accepted her help automatically, without recognition, and gave the barricade a cursory inspection as he determined where to sink the nails; then, pulling several long nails from his pocket, he placed them and drove them in with swift, powerful blows from the claw hammer. He drove two on his side through the door and molding, then moved swiftly to her side and drove two more. Then, with the weight of the piece supported, he pounded the nails until they were completely sunken and stood back and began to add more. He wanted to use the nails sparingly but wisely, where they would do the most good, because he did not have an unlimited supply.

  He tugged at the kitchen door, and it now seemed secure enough, and with the first defensive measures undertaken and accomplished, Ben began to take on confidence and assurance. He was still scared, and he continued to work quickly and, he hoped, wisely—and the fact that he had tools to work with and a plan to put into effect to maintain survival gave him the feeling that he was not entirely helpless and there were strong, positive things he could do to bring his and the girl’s destiny under control.

  “There! By God!” he said, finally, in a burst of self confidence. “That ought to hold those damn things and stop them from getting in here. They ain’t that strong—there!”

  And he drove two more nails into the molding around the kitchen window. And when he tugged at the barricade, it again seemed plenty secure.

  “They ain’t coming through that,” Ben said, and he gave the nails a few final blows, until the heads sunk into the wood.

  His eyes scrutinized the parts of the glass that remained uncovered, but they were not sufficiently wide for a human body to pass through. “I don’t have too many nails,” Ben said. “I’ll leave that for now. It’s more important to fix up some of the other places where they can get in.”

  Barbara did not respond to any of his talking, neither to add encouragement nor advice, and he turned from the barricade with an exasperated glance in her direction before standing back and once more surveying the room. There were no other doors or windows except the door leading to the living room.

  “Well…this place is fairly secure,” Ben said, tentatively, and he looked to Barbara for some sign of approval, but she remained silent, so Ben continued, raising the volume of his voice in an attempt to hammer home the meaning of what he was saying. “Now…if we have to…”

  The girl just stood and watched him.

  “If we have to…we just run in here—and
no dragging now, or I’m gonna leave you out there to fend for yourself. If they get into any other part of the house, we run in here and board up this door.”

  He meant the door between the kitchen and the living room, which had been open all along. Barbara watched while he closed it, tested it, then shut it tight.

  He opened it again, then quickly chose several of the lumber strips and stood them against the wall where he intended to leave them in case it became an emergency to board up the living-room door.

  He groped in his pocket and realized his supply of nails was dwindling and he moved to the shelf to check the pile of stuff he had spilled from the tobacco can; he emptied the can completely and dug into the contents for all of the longest nails and tossed just those ones back into the can. Then he handed the can to Barbara.

  “You take these,” he said, and his voice left no room for argument or hesitation.

  She reacted quickly, as though she had been jolted out of a reverie, and took the tobacco tin from Ben’s big hand. She watched as he gathered as much of the lumber as he could carry into his arms and started out of the room. She did not want to be left alone, and he had not told her to remain in the kitchen, so she followed silently after him, carrying the tobacco tin in front of her as though she was not sure why she was doing it.

  They entered the living room.

  “It ain’t gonna be too long,” Ben said, breathing heavily. “They’re gonna be trying to pound their way in here. They’re afraid now…I think…or maybe they just ain’t hungry…”

  He dropped his load of wood in the middle of the floor and walked over to the large front windows, talking as he moved. His tone of voice was suddenly intense, and his speech rapid.

  “They’re scared of fire, too—I found that out.”

  Still standing dumbly in the center of the room holding her knife in one hand and the tobacco tin in the other, Barbara watched as Ben stepped forward and his eye measured the size of the big windows. He looked all around the room—and finally his eyes fixed on the large dining table and he moved quickly toward it, talking as he moved, resuming his train of thought.