by John Russo
Hurrying to the window, Ben put more nails into the table top, fastening it securely, then he stood back and surveyed the room, his glance lingering on areas of possible vulnerability. There was the second large window, still unboarded, to the left of the door; a smaller side window; a window in the dining area on the other side of the house; and the front door, which had been bolted but not boarded up.
Ben turned, still inspecting, and his eyes suddenly grew wide.
The girl was sitting up on the couch; and it was her demeanor that had startled Ben more than the fact that she had regained consciousness. Her face was bruised, and she sat in silence staring at the floor. The radio droned on, enveloping her in its metallic repetitious tone, and the fire played on her face and reflected in her eyes…staring…and blinking very seldom.
Ben took off his sweater and moved toward her. He fixed the sweater over her shoulders and looked sympathetically into her face. She just stared at the floor. Ben felt dumb and helpless, and he was both ashamed and embarrassed by what he had done to her to end their struggle earlier, even though at the time it had been a necessary thing. For a long time, he waited for a response from the girl—perhaps an outburst of anger or resentment—but no response came. Forlornly, he moved to the pile of lumber in the center of the floor, chose a table-board, and went to the front window, which was still unboarded.
“…BROADCASTERS WILL CONVEY INFORMATION AS RECEIVED FROM CIVIL DEFENSE HEADQUARTERS. THIS IS YOUR CIVIL DEFENSE EMERGENCY RADIO NETWORK. NORMAL BROADCAST FACILITIES HAVE BEEN…”
Ben succeeded in boarding up the other two windows in the living room, then moved to the front door. He got the ironing board and placed it across the door horizontally, drove nails through the board into the molding and tested it for strength; it seemed to be sufficiently strong to help keep the things out. Ben moved on in his urgency to make the house secure against attack.
In the dining area, there were two closed doors. Trying one, he found it locked, examined it, and found no latch; apparently, someone had locked it with a key. It seemed to be a closet door. Ben yanked and tugged at it several times, but it would not yield, so he concluded it was secure enough and left it alone…concluding that it had obviously been locked by the owner of the house, who lay dead in the hallway upstairs.
Ben found the other door unlocked, and it led into a den with several windows. Disappointed at the added vulnerability, Ben let out a long sigh, then thought for a moment, staring around the room. Finally, he exited briskly, slamming the door to the den and locking it behind him with the skeleton key protruding from its keyhole. His intention was to board the den up instead of attempting to secure the bay windows.
But the skeleton key gave him an idea, and he snatched it out of its keyhole and went to the dining room which would not open before. He jammed the key in the keyhole of the dining-room door, tried to turn it, jiggled and played with it for a while, but the door would not open. He put the key in his pocket and gave up on the door.
The supply of lumber in the center of the living room was dwindling. Ben’s eyes fell momentarily on the motionless, sad figure of Barbara as he moved to check it out. She did not look back at him at all, and he bent over the pile of wood and selected another of the table-boards, for the purpose of boarding the den door. About to start hammering, a thought struck him—and he unlocked the door again and entered the room. There were chairs, a desk, a bureau…he stepped to the desk and started to rummage through the drawers. He pulled out papers, a stack of pencils and pens, a compass—a hundred little odds and ends. Another drawer, a hundred more virtually useless items…he left it hanging open. The bureau contained mostly clothing; he ripped open the big drawers, tumbling the clothing out, and hurled them through the doorway and into the dining area, with a scrape and a crash. One drawer—two—their contents spilling out onto the floor. He looked back at the bureau, and suddenly realizing a use for it, he grabbed hold of it and shoved the huge heavy piece of furniture through the doorway, walking it through the tight opening until it cleared, scraping grooves of paint out of the door-jambs. The same for the large, old-fashioned desk—which warranted another struggle, as the man attempted to secure all things of possible value before finally nailing the den door shut.
In the closet, there was a lot of old clothing; Ben found a good warm coat and jacket and flung them over his shoulder. High on the closet shelves were piles of old boxes, suitcases, hatboxes, and an old umbrella. He paused for an instant, debating their worth, or the possible worth of what they might contain. At his feet his eyes fell on still more clutter: boxes, umbrellas, dust shoes and slippers. He picked up a pair of ladies’ flats and examined them, thinking of the barefoot girl out on the couch, and tucked them under his arm. As he pulled away, something caught his eye—within the dark recesses of the closet, something shiny: the sheen of a finished piece of wood, a familiar shape lying under a pile of dirty clothing. He reached out eagerly, and his hand found what he had hoped: a rifle. He set everything down and rummaged even more eagerly all over the floor of the closet—through shoe boxes, under things—items came flying out of the closet. A shoe box contained old letters and postcards. But in a cigar box, clattering around with pipe cleaners and cleaning fluid, there was a maintenance manual and a box of ammunition.
He flipped open the box, found it better than half full, and counted the cartridges—twenty-seven of them.
The rifle was a lever-action Winchester, .32 caliber. A good, powerful weapon, with plenty of impact. Ben worked the lever to clear the load—and, one after the other, seven more cartridges ejected and clattered onto the floor. He scooped them up, put them in the box with the others, and stuffed the manual into his back pocket; then, deciding to take the whole cigar box full of material, he tucked it under his arm, gathered jackets and shoes, and left the room.
In the dining room, he dropped the load of supplies on top of the drawerless bureau, and the sight of the girl in the living room stopped him short. She remained sitting as before, not moving.
Ben called out.
“We’re all right, now. This place is good and solid. And I found a gun—a gun and some bullets.”
He looked at Barbara from across the room. She seemed to take no note of his talking. He turned and picked up the table-board and the hammer, to begin boarding the den, and continued talking, as if he could luck onto some words that would cause her to respond.
“So, we have a radio…and sooner or later somebody will come to get us out of here. And we have plenty of food…for a few days, at least—oh!—and I got you some shoes—we’ll see in a minute if they fit—and I got some warm clothes for us…”
He got the table-board in place across the center of the den door, above the knob, and he began driving nails. His pounding and the repetition of the radio message were the only sounds. The last nail in, the check for sturdiness, and the big man turned to the girl again.
“…AGENCIES URGE YOU TO REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES. KEEP ALL DOORS AND WINDOWS…”
Other than her upright position, the girl showed no signs of life. Her wide eyes just stared at the floor, or through it, as though at some point beyond.
“…LOCKED OR BOARDED SHUT…”
“Hey, that’s us—” Ben said. “Our windows are boarded up. We’re doing all right—”
He managed a smile, but with the girl not looking at him his attempt was half hearted. He took up the rifle, the cigar box, a coat and the shoes he had gotten for her in one clumsy armful and knelt with his bundle in front of the girl and dropped it at her feet. Taking in his hands the shoes he had found for her, he reached out toward her and said, “These aren’t the prettiest things in the world, I guess—but they ought to keep your feet warm…”
Looking up at her, he again found it hard to go on talking in the face of her catatonia. He did not really know how to cope with it. Her stillness caused him to be as gentle toward her as he could be, but she did not react, and that both puzzled and frustrated Ben.
&
nbsp; He held one of the shoes near her foot, waiting for her to lift her leg and slip into it. Finally, taking hold of one of her ankles, he lifted it and fumbled to put the shoe on her foot. It did not go on easily, partly because it was too small, but mostly because of her limpness. But he did succeed in getting it on and he set her foot down gently and took hold of the other one.
After completing the task of putting on both her shoes for her, he leaned back on his haunches and looked into her face. She seemed to be staring at her feet.
“That’s a real Cinderella story,” he said, in an attempt at a joke.
No response. The man reached reflexively for his sweater pocket—but he had given Barbara his sweater.
“Hey—you know you got my cigarettes?”
He tried to smile again, but still got no reaction. He reached toward her and his hand entered the pocket of the sweater he had draped over her shoulders. His action made the girl appear to be looking directly at him, and her stare made him uncomfortable.
“You got my cigarettes,” he said again, in a gentler tone, as one would try to explain some concept to a child, and as he spoke he pulled the pack of cigarettes from the pocket and leaned back on his haunches, as if he should not have ventured to touch her. He fumbled for a cigarette, put it in his mouth and lit it, trying not to look at the girl.
Her gaze still seemed to be fixed on his face.
The radio continued to drone, making her silence somehow more eerie for Ben. He would have been glad to have the metallic tones of the radio overridden by the sounds of another human voice.
“…TUNED TO THIS WAVELENGTH FOR EMERGENCY INFORMATION. YOUR LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES URGE YOU TO REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES. KEEP ALL DOORS AND WINDOWS LOCKED OR BOARDED SHUT…”
Ben inhaled his first puff of smoke and blew it through his nose. “We’re doing okay,” he repeated. “All our doors and windows are secure. Now…maybe you ought to lie down, you…Do you smoke?” Hopefully, he held up the burning cigarette. Her stare dropped from him back to the floor. He took another drag and blew the smoke out quickly.
“Maybe you—”
He cut himself short. He was getting nowhere. His time had better be spent in securing the old house against attack.
He scooped up the rifle and ammunition and sat in a chair across from Barbara and began methodically loading the shells into the chamber.
“Now, I don’t know if you’re hearing me or not—or if you’re out cold or something. But I’m going upstairs now. Okay? Now we’re safe down here. Nothing can get in here—at least not easy. I mean, they might be able to bust in, but it’s gonna take some sweat, and I could hear them and I think I could keep them out. Later on, I’m gonna fix things good, so they can’t get in nohow, but it’s good for the time being. You’re okay here.”
He continued to load the rifle as he spoke, his cigarette dangling from his lip, causing him to squint from the smoke curling around his eyes.
“Now the upstairs is the only other way something can get in here, so I’m gonna go up and fix that.”
He finished loading the last shell and was about to stand up when his glance fell on the girl again, and he tried to get through one last time.
“Okay? You gonna be all right?”
She remained silent. The man stood, tucked the rifle under his arm, grabbed up as much lumber as he could carry, and started for the stairs.
The girl looked up at him as he turned his back and he was aware of it, but he kept moving and her stare followed him.
“I’m gonna be upstairs. You’re all right now. I’ll be close by—upstairs. I’ll come running if I hear anything.”
He started up the stairs.
At the top of the landing, with a quick sucking in of his breath, he was confronted once again with the body that lay there torn and defaced. It was the corpse of a woman, probably an elderly woman, judging from the style of the remaining clothing that lay ripped into tatters and crusted in dried blood. Most of the flesh had been gnawed from the bones. The head was nearly severed from the body, the spinal column chewed through.
Ben set down his supplies and almost gagged at the sight of the corpse and tried not to look at it. The body was lying half across a blood-soaked throw rug, and a few feet away was another throw rug, with oriental patterns and a fringe sewn around its edge. The man grabbed the second rug and ripped away part of the fringe. Once the initial tear was made, the rest of the fringe peeled off easily. He freed it and, taking the rifle, tied one end of the fringe around the barrel and the other around the narrow part of the stock. This done, he slung the rifle over his shoulder, feeling more confident now that he could carry the weapon with him at all times, while he continued to work.
Then he leaned over the corpse and took hold of one end of the rug on which it lay, and began dragging it across the floor, holding his breath and gagging once or twice because of the stench of rotting flesh and the grisly appearance of the mutilated thing he had to struggle to pull down the darkened hallway, which contained several closed doors.
He deposited his ugly load at one of the doorways and threw open the door and jumped back with the rifle cocked, as if something might leap out at him. The door banged against the wall and squeaked as it settled down and stopped moving.
Nothing came out of the room.
Ben entered cautiously, with the rifle on the ready.
The room was vacant. Apparently it had been vacant for a long time. There were old yellowed newspapers on the floor, and a spider web in one corner.
There was a closet. Ben opened it slowly, pointing the rifle, ready to fire if necessary.
The closet contained nothing but dust, which rolled across the shelves in little balls and made Ben cough.
He stepped over to the windows and looked outside and down to the front lawn. Through the leafy overhang of the surrounding maple trees, he could make out the threatening forms of the dead things that stood there, watching and waiting, moving ever so slightly under the thick foliage. There appeared to be about six of them now, standing on the front lawn.
They moved around the truck, but they did not beat on it any more. Apparently they no longer felt threatened by it, now that the headlights had been smashed out. They took no more notice of it than if it had been a tree, or a pile of bricks. It seemed to have no meaning for them.
With a shudder, Ben realized that nothing human had any meaning for the dead things. Only the human beings themselves. The dead things were interested in human beings only to kill. Only to rip the flesh from their bodies. Only to make the human beings dead…like the dead things themselves.
Ben had a sudden impulse to smash the barrel of his rifle through the window and begin firing down on the ugly things on the lawn. But he controlled himself…calmed himself down. There was no sense in expending ammunition foolishly; all too well he knew how important it would be in the event of an all-out attack.
He withdrew from the window and returned to the corpse that lay at the threshold of the vacant room. Taking hold of the carpet and holding his breath once again, he dragged the corpse inside. And he left the room and shut the door, intending to board it up later. He thought of the closet door, which he could have removed and used to accomplish his boarding; but he did not think he would return for it; he did not want to enter that room ever again.
There were three more doors in the bloodstained hallway; one down at the end and two more opposite the vacant room with the corpse. The one down at the end was probably a bathroom; Ben tried it and found that it was. That left two more doors. They were probably bedrooms.
With his rifle cocked and ready to fire, Ben eased open the nearest of the two remaining doors. He jumped back, startled by his own reflection in a full-length mirror screwed onto the back of the door. His fingers groped and found the light switch. It turned out to be a child’s bedroom. The bedsheets were rumpled and stained with blood, as if they had been clawed loose by someone struggling to hang on while he (or she) was being dragged from the bed.
But there was no body in the room. Anxiously, afraid of what he might find, Ben searched around the bed and under it—and in the closet, which contained the clothing of a boy perhaps eleven or twelve years old. There were a couple of baseball bats, and an old skinned up baseball with the cover half off, lying on the floor of the closet.
Ben guessed that the boy was dead. Probably he had been dragged out of the house by some of those things that now stood watching and waiting outside. Probably the dead lady in the hall had been the boy’s grandmother.
The thought of it renewed in Ben the terror of what was happening, which he had been able to suppress while his mind was occupied with working hard and taking defensive measures and concentrating on his own survival.
He thought of his own children—two boys, one nine and one thirteen. He did not have a wife any longer; she was dead; she had died several years ago and left him to raise the children alone. It was not easy. He loved the boys, but his job took him out of town often and much of the time he had to leave them in the care of their grandmother while he traveled and tried to earn enough money to support them all. He had been on his way home to them, but in the breakdown of communications during the present emergency his train had not arrived and he had started to hitchhike, desperate to get home. Nobody would pick him up and, walking at the outskirts of the town he had been in, he began encountering signs of destruction and murder. It puzzled him at first. He became scared. Then, in a restaurant he heard a newscast and he knew he had to get back to his family right away. He could not get a bus or cab. He even tried renting a car or just paying someone to take him where he wanted to go. Finally, hitchhiking again, a farmer picked him up and drove him a long way, but dropped him off out on the country, in the middle of nowhere it seemed. Ben got the truck on the front lawn from a dead man—a man who had been dragged from it and killed at the edge of a dirt road. He had continued listening to broadcasts on the truck radio, and he knew as much about what was happening as anyone else—which was very little. But he knew he wanted to survive and get back to his boys and their grandmother—although his reason told him that they were probably much better off in this emergency than he was himself. At least they were in a town, with other people and police protection and food and medical care if they required it. And their grandmother was a capable person. The boys would probably be all right. Ben tried to convince himself of that, but it was not easy, while he was confronted with the bloodstained sheets and mattress of the young boy who had probably been killed not so very long ago. And the old farmhouse was more a prison than it was a refuge for him and Barbara—although he did not even know her name and he could not help her, it seemed, and she was unwilling or unable to help herself.
