by John Russo
The bedroom door was beginning to give. Strangely, horrifyingly, the heavy steel bolt was holding, but the door itself was beginning to come apart, its wood splintering under the hail of blows from the creatures outside. The increasing force of the hammering and battering of many fists was destroying the door itself.
The dresser began to slide again, moving a few more inches, then slammed into a wall. Ann could not angle it around the bed.
Karen screamed, throwing herself to the floor, trying to force her swollen body under the bed. The thought leaped into her head that the ghouls might drag Ann away and leave her alone so that she and her baby might survive—a terrible nightmarish idea that she was instantly ashamed of having thought. But all she wanted to do was survive. She could not keep her body from shaking as she crawled further and further under the bed.
Ann backed herself against the jammed dresser, trying to force herself between it and the back wall, as the incessant pounding continued against the splintered door. Through the din Ann thought she heard the loud crack of a gunshot. Then a flurry of gunshots. And the distant wailing of a police siren and the churning of tires on dirt and gravel, getting louder as the siren died. Tears streamed down her face. Perhaps they would live through this hell on earth.
CHAPTER 11
Another gunshot rang out, followed by a heavy, dull thud from the living room and, in the distance, the triumphant shout of a human voice.
The siren cried into the night once again, wailing loudly. Brakes squealed to a halt outside on the lawn.
Ann heard more gunshots and more sounds of bodies falling downstairs. A wild laugh echoed from the front yard. She heard grinding gears and churning tires of still another vehicle, wheeling and maneuvering somewhere outside.
Neither Ann nor Karen could see what was happening from their hiding places in the bedroom. But they both had the sense that they were being rescued. The almost deafening pounding on the door had diminished and finally ceased, but they were still too terrified to leave the room and go outside to see who had arrived.
Suddenly, they heard a scramble of feet outside on the porch, then noises and shouts in the living room, and a burst of gunfire at close range.
Then silence.
“Goddamn it to hell!” said a man’s voice. “That finishes the bastards, doesn’t it?”
“Go through the house!”
The command had come from a second voice, more authoritative. Through the battered door the girls heard the sounds of footsteps running into the kitchen, and up the stairs.
More shots rang out, echoing in the narrow hallway outside the bedroom door, accompanied by the bloodchilling sounds of bodies hitting the floor.
“Got three more up here!” a voice yelled. “The door’s locked—somebody’s hiding inside!”
Immediately there was the sound of someone else coming up the stairs.
“Who’s in there?” the authoritative voice said. The girls thought they heard a high pitched giggle after the question.
“Come out or we’ll shoot the door down.”
Ann spoke up. “It’s us. P-people in here. Ann and Karen Miller. Don’t shoot. We’ll open the door.” She was still extremely frightened and was tuned into every sound from beyond the door. Outside, an engine was turned off and she heard scuffling as the doors of a vehicle opened and slammed shut.
“What a goddamn mess,” said a girl’s voice from down in the yard.
“So, what the hell,” somebody else said. “Let’s go in and see what we can find.”
Ann slid back the bolt on the battered bedroom door and stepped back as the door opened inward on her. The first thing she saw was the gun, its muzzle pointed at her chest. She jumped back, and saw that the gun was being held by a policeman, a State Trooper.
The Trooper looked at Ann wordlessly for a moment, then said, “Who else is inside?”
“Just my s-sister,” Ann stammered. “She’s p-pregnant.”
The second man, whom Ann could not see, giggled again.
“Tell her she can come out,” the State Trooper said. He was a tall, well-built young man in his early thirties and not bad looking.
Karen crawled out from under the bed and came forward, timidly, and the State Trooper took Ann by the arm and led both her and her sister out of the room. The second man looked at them, smiling. He did not have a uniform but was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. He had a revolver tucked under his belt and a rifle in his hands.
“You don’t have to be afraid of us. We rescued you, for Chrissake,” the man in the plaid shirt said. Without waiting for an answer he pivoted, stepped over the body of one of the beings that had been gunned down in the hall, and disappeared down the stairs.
Karen and Ann did not look at the dead bodies. Keeping their eyes straight ahead of them, they followed the policeman down the stairs and into the living room.
They reached the landing in time to see their father’s remains being dragged out of the living room and across the front porch. Karen gasped, threw herself against Ann and began to cry. Ann cried softly also. Moments later they heard the loud report of a single bullet fired from somewhere at the edge of the lawn.
The State Trooper looked at Ann apologetically. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “No way around it. If we didn’t do that he’d try to get up again. They all do, ’less the brain’s destroyed. You might think you’d want him to be alive again, but you wouldn’t, believe me. You wouldn’t want him that way.”
“I know,” Ann managed to say in a strangled voice. “It’s all right. We understand. It’s hard to accept, is all…but we’d like to bury him.”
“Of course,” the Trooper said.
The man in the plaid shirt stared at Ann from the doorway. He had been the one who fired the shot out in the yard. He holstered his revolver, more slowly than necessary, and picked up his rifle which he had left leaning against the wall. He had a gleam in his eye, and a grin which seemed perpetual but not necessarily friendly. That permanent smile gave a strange look to his face, which was not remarkable otherwise; his features were regular and his hair sandy and unkempt. He seemed to be in his early twenties. His physique was hard and wiry.
“Flack is my deputy,” the Trooper explained. “Mr. Flack, please see if you can see what happened to Wade and Angel.”
“Right, boss,” Flack said with a smirk. “I have a hunch they’re making things comfortable for our friends in the back of the truck. Want me to bring the friends in, too? And how about the girl in the car?”
“Bring them all in,” the Trooper said. At the mention of the girl in the car, Ann’s heart jumped.
“We found a girl in trouble down the road,” he explained. “Rescued her. She seemed right out of her head. My name’s Trooper Carter, by the way. John Carter. You can call me Mr. Carter.”
Ann led Karen over to a couch and they both sat down, not knowing what to say. John Carter sat in a chair, keeping his eyes on the girls, carefully scrutinizing them, then unholstered his service revolver, flicked open the cylinder and began reloading, placing the empty cartridges in an ashtray and inserting new bullets from his belt.
The girls turned to look as Flack re-entered the living room, backing through the doorway carrying the legs and feet of a man who had been tied and gagged while another State Trooper had the man by the arms and shoulders. The man was dead weight and Flack and the Trooper struggled with their burden, bringing the tied-and-gagged man to the center of the living room, where they let him drop heavily to the floor. Ann thought they handled him roughly, like a sack of corn.
“Heavy son-of-a-bitch,” the Trooper remarked to no one in particular. “Let’s go get the other one.”
“That’s Wade,” Mr. Carter explained, gesturing with the hand that had been inserting bullets into the cylinder of his revolver. “My partner, Trooper Wade Connely.”
Wade stood up, drew himself tall when he saw the two girls on the couch, and made a movement to tip his hat before he and Flack went ou
t the door again.
“Wade’s a good man,” Carter said. “All these people working with me are good people.”
Just then there were footsteps on the porch and a girl came in the house, pushing Sue Ellen ahead of her. She was helping Sue Ellen, supporting her with an arm around her waist. Ann jumped up. Sue Ellen looked stunned and disheveled. Her cheek was bruised and her lip was cut and bloody.
“I guess you know her. That’s Angel, by the way,” Carter said, seeing Ann rush to the girl, followed by Karen. They hugged her, half-laughing, half-crying.
“She’s our sister!” Karen gasped. “Sue! What’s happened to you?”
“She was unconscious—” Angel began, but was interrupted by Flack and Wade dragging in another trussed and gagged prisoner whom they proceeded to dump in the center of the living room next to the first one. Both tied-and-gagged men were in civilian clothes, in their late twenties or early thirties, and looked as though they had been roughed up. They darted their eyes about the room, taking in their surroundings, their glances fastening momentarily on each face for appraisal, although they were clearly powerless to do anything about their situation.
“Tough customers,” Carter remarked. And Flack nudged one of the bound men with his foot and let out that strange giggle.
Karen and Ann had stretched Sue Ellen on the couch, with Angel helping them. As soon as she hit the couch, Sue Ellen lost consciousness, and began to mumble deliriously. Neither Ann nor Karen could understand or make any sense out of what she might be muttering. Ann glanced up at Angel, trying to read the other girl’s face for unspoken knowledge of whatever had befallen Sue Ellen.
Angel bit her lip. “She was unconscious in the car,” she said. “We found her being attacked, trying to fight off some of those things. Flack saved her. She’s been out of her head ever since.”
“Did those things give her her wounds?” Ann demanded. “If they did, she’s in terrible danger. If she dies she’ll turn into one of them!”
“Yeah…I mean—I guess they did. Sure. There’s bruises and blood on her. But she ain’t gonna die. She’s just out of her head is all.”
“Nobody knows how to cure the disease those things got,” Flack blurted out. “If she dies we’ll have to make sure she don’t get up again.”
“There was no need for you to say that, no cause to frighten the girls,” Carter admonished his deputy and fastened his eyes on Flack, staring him down.
“I’ll say anything I damn well please,” Flack spat. “Just cause you got a uniform don’t make you boss over me. I’ll turn in my deputy badge.” This struck him as being very funny somehow and he laughed uproariously.
Ann and Karen were not paying any attention to the men. Karen was pressing her palm to Sue Ellen’s forehead, while Ann had gone to the kitchen to make some cold compresses.
Angel came over and put her hand on Flack’s shoulder, but he knocked it away. The girl’s eyes spat fire for a second, but she said nothing. Flack did not give her the courtesy of looking at her, instead stepping nearer to the prisoners on the floor. He nudged one of them with the toe of his boot. This got no response on the part of the prisoners, except a turning of their eyes toward Flack.
Wade Connely laughed. “Tough customers,” he remarked, as Carter had done earlier. He looked to Carter for approval but Carter refrained from responding.
A sulky look on her face, Angel had begun roaming idly and inquisitively about the room, stopping to examine various objects, pausing to look at and pick up ornaments on the mantle-piece, then setting the objects back down as though they disappointed her or weren’t worth bothering with. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, took out a comb and began combing her long red hair. Her face was hard. She was not a pretty girl and there was something wild and insolent about her, as if she had suffered a deep hurt at some point in her life and was looking for an opportunity to hurt someone else. Like Flack, she was dressed in bluejeans and a plaid shirt.
“When I nudge him a little he doesn’t say anything,” Flack was saying, still prodding one of the prisoners with the toe of his boot. “You think there’s anything else I can do to get his attention?”
“Beats me,” Wade Connely said, smiling, moving toward the front of the room for a look out the window.
Flack lifted his foot and moved it to a position above the crotch of one of the prisoners.
“Leave those prisoners alone!” Carter yelled, and glowered at Flack. The look on his face caused Flack to put down his foot.
The sound of an approaching vehicle could be heard in the room.
“What’s that?” Carter asked, his hand tightening on his gun.
Wade Connely bobbed his head, trying to find a place to peek through the narrow spaces of the boarded-up window. “Motorcycle,” he announced. “Stopping.”
They all listened while the sound of the bike’s engine cut off. Wade continued to watch through the window.
“Who is it?” Carter asked insistently, looking toward the three sisters.
“Probably Billy,” Ann said. “Sue Ellen’s boyfriend.”
“Come and look,” Carter told Ann. The gruffness of the request startled her.
She came over to the window. “It’s Billy,” she confirmed. “We’d better let him in.” She didn’t move to do it, however, because she had looked behind her to see Flack and Wade Connely with drawn pistols.
“Put your guns away, gentlemen,” Trooper Carter said. “The young lady will let the young man in. I presume he’s young,” he added, ushering Ann to the door.
Ann opened the door and Billy barged into the room and stopped short when he saw all the strangers.
“Ann—what’s going on?
“Billy…Sue Ellen’s hurt.”
Billy’s eyes darted quickly from one face to another before he spotted Sue Ellen stretched out on the couch and went directly over to her. He crouched, felt Sue Ellen’s forehead, and got no response. “What’s the matter with her, Karen? What happened to her?” The panic in Billy’s voice was obvious. He removed his motorcycle helmet and his youthfulness became more apparent. He looked not more than seventeen years old. His denim jacket was too big for his slender shoulders, and his jeans covered very long, very thin legs. He had sandy hair and freckles and a prominent Adam’s apple that would have been less noticeable if he weighed more.
Karen answered Billy’s questions about Sue Ellen. “We don’t know what happened to her, Billy. She tried to leave home this evening, walking by herself. She got attacked by the…the things, and these men saved her.”
Billy looked over at the three strange men. Flack wore his usual smirk. Wade Connely had his eyes fastened on Billy, openly, almost brazenly sizing the youth up. Carter, as if intentionally trying to convey an impression of disinterest in the boy, whistled a short burst of a tune and stopped, his eyes staring all the while into the cold fireplace. When Billy’s eyes came back to Flack, the smirk was still there, hard and insolent. On impulse Billy blurted, “Are you sure they saved her—or did they help do this to her?”
Flack came over and glared at Billy. “Now that wasn’t a nice thing to say.”
“Shut up!” It was Carter’s voice. He had jumped to his feet, staring everybody down. Having gotten everybody’s attention, he altered his voice, making it calm and serene. “The girl—Sue Ellen, is that her name—was being attacked by those things and we saved her. We saved the other girls, too. Their father we couldn’t do anything for. He was dead when we got here. Ask the girls if you don’t believe us. But I think you’ll find you owe us a debt of gratitude.”
“I’m sorry,” Billy said.
“That’s better,” Carter said, ending the discussion.
Ann came over to Billy timidly and touched him on the elbow. “Billy…maybe you can help me move Sue Ellen, carry her upstairs. I think we should put her to bed and get some covers over her.” Billy followed Ann to the couch and the two of them looked down at Sue Ellen, trying to figure out the best way to
try to move her.
“I’ll make some hot tea for her,” Karen said. “I think we all can use some.” She got up and went into the kitchen.
Angel went over to one of the boarded-up windows and found a place where she could see out. “There’s more of those things out there,” she said, jumping back involuntarily. “At least half a dozen more, moving around the lawn.”
“Where the hell do they all come from?” Wade Connely exclaimed.
Flack laughed morbidly. He was standing over the two prisoners, glowering at them menacingly while their silent eyes stared back. “Damn criminals,” Flack said. “Why do we bother saving their lousy skins? Hey, Wade…what do you think? Maybe we should leave them to the zembies.”
Wade grinned and nodded. He reached a foot out from where he was sitting and prodded one of the prisoners with his boot, in the same manner as one man might prod another with an elbow if they were both enjoying a good joke.
Flack walked over to Billy and Ann before they could begin moving Sue Ellen. In a sincere voice Flack said, “You’d do well to keep away from those two.” He gestured at the two prisoners. “They’re dangerous. Don’t even know why we bother with them. Maybe we’ll use them for zombie feed. Times like this it’s martial law, so to speak. Besides, the bastards don’t deserve any human consideration. If I told you what they did, you’d want to help lynch ’em.”
Billy turned away, not knowing what to say. Ann bent over Sue Ellen, waiting for Billy to help her. They sat Sue Ellen up and they each put one of her arms over their shoulders, holding on to her forearms, their other arms around her waist. Her feet dragged on the floor as they carried her to the stairway. Angel continued to stare after Ann and Billy and Sue Ellen long after the three had disappeared from view, though they could still be heard struggling up the stairs.
In the kitchen, Karen was rattling cups and saucers, making tea.
CHAPTER 12
Flack looked at Wade Connely. “Wade, before we get too comfortable, you and I have got work to do.”
