Undead

by John Russo

  “Let’s get Karen upstairs for now,” Ann said resignedly to Billy.

  Billy and Ann helped Karen from the couch and started for the stairs. Flack stepped in front of them and stopped them. Seized with another contraction, Karen bent over, moaning, clutching her abdomen.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Flack demanded.

  Ann tried to help Karen while Billy stared bewilderedly into the man’s face. Karen stopped moaning and also looked at him curiously. Ann looked over at John Carter, a pleading look in her eyes.

  “Just ask my permission,” Flack said.

  Angel nudged Wade in the ribs, amused by the whole thing. Wade Connely grinned. Flack made his lips into an oval and blew a chorus of smoke-rings.

  “Please,” Ann breathed, looking at Carter. She could not understand why he allowed one of his men to act like this, considering the situation.

  “Please what?” Flack insisted, prodding, enjoying the authority.

  Tears came to Ann’s eyes. “Please let us take her upstairs,” she whispered, looking at Flack helplessly.

  “That’s better,” Flack said. “All right. Go ahead.”

  Billy and Ann hurried up the stairs with Karen, who had broken into a sweat.

  “Come on you guys,” Angel said. “Let’s get this safe open.”

  Flack faced Carter and spoke angrily. “Let’s get off this merry-go-round. Let’s figure what we’re gonna do with these people and do it.”

  “Relax,” Carter said. “The games are just beginning.”

  Wade Connely chuckled and winked at Angel who was kneeling on the floor and spinning the combination of the safe, her ear to the mechanism.

  “Screw the games,” Flack said. “We’re wasting time here. If we don’t crack the Kingsley place somebody else will.”

  At the mention of the Kingsley place, the two men on the floor eyed each other.

  “Dammit, you guys!” Angel yelled. “Shut up and help me with this safe!”

  Wade Connely moved a few paces and stood looking down at Angel. “Sandpaper your fingers,” he said jokingly.

  “I’ll crack this son-of-a-bitch,” Angel said. “I can feel the clicks.”

  “I don’t trust them upstairs,” Flack said to John Carter.

  Carter glanced toward the stairs, then to Flack, considering that idea. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “How many of those things are outside?” Flack asked suddenly.

  Wade moved to a boarded-up window and looked out. “Christ! The front yard is full of them!” He hurried from one window to another, sizing up the situation and not liking it. “We’re surrounded on all sides! There must be thirty or more zombies out there!”

  “So what?” Carter asked calmly. “We can burn our way through them like we did before.”

  Wade Connely stared skeptically.

  Flack nudged one of the prisoners with the toe of his boot. “Zombie feed,” he said quietly.

  CHAPTER 14

  Upstairs, a single humanoid still lurked silently in the dark recesses of Bert Miller’s bedroom. The three young people had stumbled past the half-opened door, Ann and Billy helping Karen down the hall to her own room. The humanoid had moved slightly, stirred by the awareness of nearby human flesh.

  Billy left Ann tending to Karen while he peeked in on Sue Ellen. To his surprise, Sue Ellen was awake, though she lay very still and quiet in the soft glow of light from a lamp near the side of the bed. She looked up at Billy as he entered the room. She appeared dazed and weak.

  Coming over to the bed, Billy said, “Sue—are you all right?”

  Sue Ellen began crying softly, as though she did not have the strength to cry harder. Billy sat on the bed, not knowing what to say or do.

  “That man!” Sue Ellen blurted through her tears. “I heard his voice downstairs—he—he raped me!” The girl buried her face in her hands and sobs jerked through her body.

  Standing by the door, Ann had heard everything and came over and flung her arms around her younger sister, hugging her while she continued to cry.

  Billy’s eyes turned toward the door and widened suddenly.

  Flack stood in the doorway.

  “Okay, so now you know,” Flack said, brandishing his revolver. “Everybody downstairs.”

  “You bastard!” Billy yelled, and started across the room toward Flack but Ann grabbed his arm and stopped him.

  “Billy!” Ann screamed. “He’ll kill you!”

  “You learn fast,” Flack said. “Everybody downstairs to join the party.”

  “My sister is going to have a baby,” Ann said, hoping that somewhere in this man were some human feelings.

  “She doesn’t have to come down,” Flack said. “She can stay here and have it.” This struck him as very funny and he let out one of his giggles.

  “Please, you don’t mean it, Flack,” Ann pleaded, out of desperation. She couldn’t believe the man’s cruelty.

  “He means it,” Sue Ellen said bitterly. She shuddered when she looked at the man, and turned her tearful face to the wall.

  “Goddammit, get your asses downstairs!” Flack said, menacingly pointing his revolver. Karen’s moans echoed down the hall.

  Billy and Ann helped Sue Ellen out of bed and the three preceded Flack down the stairs, his gun pointing at their backs.

  Angel looked up, smiling evilly. “What are we going to do with them?”

  Wade Connely grinned. “They ought to satisfy more than a few of those things outside.”

  “Zombie feed,” Flack said, keeping his gun trained on Ann, Billy and Sue Ellen. He liked that expression.

  “Where’s the other one?” John Carter demanded suddenly.

  “She’s still having a baby,” Flack said with a snicker.

  “I don’t care if she’s taking a crap. Angel, go get her. I want us all together down here.”

  Angel obediently started for the stairs.

  Suddenly a clattering noise came from outside the house. John Carter gestured for Wade to take a look. Wade hurried to the window.

  “Two of them are near the porch,” Wade said. “The bastards must be getting hungry again.”

  “Tell them it ain’t suppertime,” Flack said. “Yet,” he added for emphasis.

  Wade poked his rifle between two pieces of wood, broke a pane of glass and fired two shots, each carefully aimed. Outside, near the truck, two ghouls went down, each hit between the eyes. “We’re gonna need fire to fight our way out of here,” Wade said, turning from the window and cocking his lever-action rifle.

  Upstairs, Angel headed toward the bedroom where Karen lay moaning, walking quickly past the doorway of Bert Miller’s darkened bedroom.

  A pair of hands brutally grabbed Angel, one over her mouth and face, the other around her neck. Choking the woman, the humanoid creature dragged her quickly into the recesses of the dark bedroom. He put an end to her thrashing by slamming her head against the wall, knocking her unconscious. The sounds of the brief struggle were completely drowned by the firing of Wade’s rifle downstairs.

  The ghoul knelt over the unconscious girl, its dead lips drooling spittle. With a glint of lust in its eyes, it bit into the soft flesh of her neck and lingered there. Then its rough hands moved down, and pulled her blouse off her body in one brutal motion. The ghoul bent its head and sunk its teeth into the girl’s firm breasts, chewing bits out of one and then the other. All the while, groans came from deep within its throat and the ghoul’s body moved rhythmically.

  When the Being raised its head it tore away one of her nipples. More determined than before, it ripped off the rest of her clothing and relished the soft pulpiness of her thighs and groin until it had chewed its full.

  In the living room, Wade Connely had poked his rifle through another opening and was still firing. He missed, and several ghouls backed off, disappearing behind the overhanging branches and hiding in the shadows of surrounding trees. The dead things had begun to associate the belch and roar of gunfire with the d
estruction or potential destruction of themselves. Or perhaps it was only that the fire spitting from the barrels frightened them, flames being the one thing that they seemed to really fear.

  Wade cocked his rifle to fire again but Carter yelled, “All right! That’s enough!”

  “They backed off,” Wade said. “I got two and missed the rest.”

  “Stop wasting ammo then, “Carter said. Then he called upstairs. “Angel! Let’s get a move on!”

  “There’s clothesline in the kitchen cabinet. Bring it in here, Wade,” Flack ordered.

  Wade did as he was told, and he and Flack used the rope to tie up Ann, Sue Ellen and Billy so they were unable to move and had to lie on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs. Carter drew his revolver and pointed it at them. “Now, which one of you knows the combination to the safe?”

  Flack viciously grabbed Ann by the ropes binding her ankles and dragged her over to the safe. He stood over her, jamming the barrel of his gun up under her chin. “You don’t want me to blow that pretty little chin up through the back of your head, now do you?”

  “There’s nothing in the safe,” Ann said in a hoarse whisper.

  “Don’t give me that!” Flack belched.

  “Sue Ellen knows the combination,” Ann said. “There’s nothing in it. Nothing but phonograph records and old junk.”

  Carter had gotten up and stood over Sue Ellen, his revolver pointed at her head. “Sixteen, twenty-three, fifty-three,” Sue Ellen managed. Then, clearing her throat, she continued, “Sixteen clockwise, once around to twenty-three, then the other way to fifty-three.”

  “Try it,” Carter said.

  Wade knelt by the safe and began spinning the dial. The door opened. Flack laughed, a derisive laugh that turned very mean. Wade pulled out a stack of record albums and began throwing them around the room.

  “Stupid hicks!” Flack said, and stepped over to where Billy lay tied up and helpless and fetched the boy a hard kick in the ribs. Billy screamed and writhed on the floor, tears of pain starting from his eyes.

  “Keep all of them covered,” Carter said. “I’m going upstairs to see what’s keeping Angel.”

  Carter trotted up the stairs and ran into the room where Karen lay on her bed sweating and moaning in pain. She stared at him wordlessly, pupils dilated in fear. Carter looked around quickly, then pivoted and ran down the hallway until he heard sounds coming from another bedroom and stopped in his tracks. Pistol pointed into the room, he advanced until he could peer into the shadows. His hand found a wall switch near the door and he flicked it on, then flicked it off instantly. The ghoul barely flinched at the sudden brightness, engrossed in its task of devouring Angel. In the brief flash of illumination, Carter had a horrifying image burned into his brain: the grotesque remains of the cannibalized girl and the dead white face of her devourer, smeared with blood. Carter backed out of the room, shaken. He thought of shooting the dead thing but changed his mind when he decided he had a use for it. He could leave it in the house to take care of those who would be left behind.

  Carter hurried down the stairs into the living room. To Flack he said, “Let’s get out of here. Like you said, we have an appointment with Mr. Kingsley.”

  “Where’s Angel?” Wade asked.

  Carter gave Flack and Wade a hard, haunted look. “Ask me later. Let’s get out of here! Fast. You three, on your feet!” He waved his gun at Ann, Billy and Sue Ellen, but they could not move because their ankles were tied tightly together.

  “Cut their feet loose,” Carter said impatiently. “Except for the boy’s.”

  Flack unsheathed his knife and cut through the ropes around Ann’s and Sue Ellen’s ankles. “What about them?” Flack said, pointing at the tied-up men.

  “I think we’ll leave them here to satisfy our dinner guests,” Carter said. “No—on second thought, I got a better idea. Untie one of them.”

  Flack used his knife to cut through the gag and ropes of one of the two men lying on the floor. Immediately Carter fired his revolver at the man, hitting him in the abdomen, the man writhing, screaming, his wound spurting blood through his fingers.

  Flack let out his insane laugh.

  The wounded man moaned and went limp, losing consciousness.

  “He’ll die and come back as one of the zombies,” Carter said. “When he wakes up he’ll want breakfast—and there it is, all trussed up and waiting for him.”

  Flack bent over the man still tied up and looked him in the eyes, the two pairs of eyes locking together in mutual hatred. “Zombie feed,” Flack repeated, tormenting the man by nudging him in the ribs with the toe of his boot.

  “Let’s get movin’,” Carter said, and waited while Flack lighted two torches made of old table legs and handed one to him. “Wade, you drive the cop car,” Carter said. “The two girls will ride in back. Me and Flack will ride in the truck.”

  Wade marched the girls to the door, holding his gun on them. Flack opened the door, his torch blazing, and as they moved off the porch he tossed the torch into the pile of dead bodies doused with kerosene and the heap burst into roaring flames.

  Surrounding ghouls backed away from the house, awed by the presence of fire.

  Flack aimed and fired, felling a humanoid which had been lurking in the vicinity of the patrol car.

  Wade moved Ann and Sue Ellen along quickly, prodding them with his rifle barrel, forcing them into the back seat of the patrol car.

  Carter plunged his torch into the chest of an attacking ghoul, setting the creature on fire. The dead thing reeled and fell down, hissing, moaning, flailing and clutching at the flames which continued to devour its dry, bloodless flesh.

  Carter and Flack dragged Billy along roughly by the ropes that bound his body, then lifted him by the ropes and heaved him into the back of the truck as though he were a side of beef, then Flack hopped in back while Carter climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  Crouched in the back of the truck, Flack fired at several ghouls lurking at the edge of the clearing, they having moved back from the blazing fire.

  Wade had his car window down and was firing also, a wild and panicked look on his face as he tried to make sure none of the creatures would mob the car before he could get started out of there, following behind the truck.

  The fire continued to blaze brightly, rising from the pile of bodies, and in the field stretching away from the farmhouse more ghouls were visible. Wade counted fifteen or twenty of them, moving through the cornfield, approaching the edges of the expansive lawn.

  More of the dead creatures were in the road as the truck lurched out suddenly, followed by the patrol car with Wade driving and the girls getting a bumpy, terrifying ride in back. In the bed of the truck, Billy bounced and slid on his side, his body jouncing into jagged contact with a couple of gasoline-powered generators and their cables.

  Bearing down on the accelerator, Carter gritted his teeth and his eyes flashed as the truck rammed the first ghoul in the road. Then another, and another. The thuds were loud, the dead things having been smacked hard, staggering in the beam of the headlights. But they stood up again, slowly as though stunned, rising one after another after the truck hit them.

  Wade kept the patrol car following closely behind the truck, his knuckles clenched white on the steering wheel, Ann and Sue Ellen, arms still tied, huddled in back restraining their screams though their faces were frozen in horror.

  From the bed of the truck, Flack continued to fire his rifle, bouncing and taking aim with difficulty in the glare of careening headlights of the patrol car. The truck squealed and slid around a tight curve, and Flack and Billy were both thrown against the generators, the butt of Flack’s rifle inadvertently slamming into Billy’s ribs. The boy screamed helplessly while Flack cursed and seized the side of the truck to pull himself up into a half-crouch.

  Then they hit a straightaway and there appeared still more ghouls in the road.

  Having slowed for the curve which the tru
ck had taken so dangerously, the patrol car had fallen about a hundred feet behind.

  The truck slammed into one of the humanoids, knocking it forward and into the air, and running it over with a heavy thump-thump as two sets of tires went over the fallen body. From the car, Wade saw the dead thing lying in the road, its head crushed flat, and he ran over it, too, because there was no way to get around it. But he had braked, putting even more distance between the car and the truck.

  In his rear-view mirror, Carter saw the car lagging behind and hit his brakes, put the truck in reverse, and ran the truck backward toward the approaching car. Several more ghouls were bowled over in the process, some of them still rising from having been hit before. His eyes wide with fear, Wade screeched the car to a halt, and now both vehicles were stopped in the road with nine or ten ghouls closing in.

  Carter wound down his window and fired at an approaching humanoid, hitting him between the eyes and blowing out the back of his skull, the force of the blast knocking the dead thing over an embankment at the edge of the road. Sticking his head out the truck window, Carter yelled, “Feed the bastards!”

  From the back of the car, Ann and Sue Ellen screamed as they saw Flack lower the tailgate, lean against the cab and shove Billy away with his feet. Billy slid from the truck, the ropes around his body making it impossible for him to grab on to the truck bed and save himself. His foot managed to hook itself around the corner of one of the generators and for a split second it seemed that he wouldn’t go over. Flack saw what happened and gave Billy another kick. The girls saw the generator go over the bed of the truck along with Billy’s trussed-up body.

  Hearing the thud in the road, Carter hit the accelerator and lurched out, almost throwing Flack into the road head first. Hanging onto the side of the truck, Flack yelled, “The generator! Hold it! The generator! We lost it!”

  Flack’s voice was lost in the roar of the truck and Carter kept going. And Wade wasn’t about to stop. He ran the car way off the road onto the shoulder to get around Billy and the generator, as the ghouls started to close in.

  Five or six humanoids converged upon Billy’s limp form as he lay unconscious in the dirt road. Several of these creatures, having been hit or run over by the truck, were grotesquely mangled and deformed, much bloodier than they had been earlier and even more hideous. One had a chest crushed and flattened on one side, splintered ribs jutting through pierced skin and torn clothing. Another had the flesh abraded from its face by rough, sliding contact with the dirt and gravel road; its nose was almost gone, and the white of its cheekbones showed where they were no longer covered by dead skin. Still another had suffered the loss of a leg, and had to drag itself along slowly, his body oozing toward the place where Billy lay helpless in the middle of the road.