Undead

by John Russo

  CHAPTER 24

  A convoy of trucks, ambulances and patrol cars brought Sheriff Conan McClellan and his men to the beginning of the private road that led from the edge of the highway through a stretch of woods to the Kingsley estate. The Sheriff climbed out of a patrol car and shouted a few orders while he waited for the men to form up. They intended to go the rest of the way on foot, checking out the caretaker’s cottage en route to the mansion itself. The ambulances and patrol cars would remain on call in case they were needed. The trucks would proceed into town and refuel and load up with coffee and food for the tired and hungry men.

  Overhead a helicopter circled, beating the air with metal wings, as it dipped and hovered, scanning the woods and meadows for signs of humanoids or people in need of help. One of the posse members had a walkie-talkie strapped on his back, by means of which McClellan and his men maintained contact with the helicopter and the patrol cars.

  McClellan used a dirty, balled-up handkerchief to wipe sweat from his brow as he watched his men forming up in the middle of the road. The posse had been organized in a hurry, and many of its members were inexperienced and did not have the proper gear for living in the woods. In addition to the normally difficult problems of feeding and supplying a posse of forty or fifty men, there had been myriad pesky complaints common to novices such as poison ivy and blistered feet. Through it all, McClellan had alternately bullied and pampered the men, trying to keep them on the move in a disciplined fashion, combing the rural areas in search of those who might require aid or rescue.

  The county had been divided into sectors, each sector to be patrolled by posse volunteers, policemen and National Guard troops. The objectives were to re-establish communications in areas where lines were down or power stations were out of commission; to bring safety and law and order to villages and larger communities, where order was threatened not only by marauding ghouls but by looters and rapists taking advantage of the chaos created by the emergency; and to send rescue parties out into rural or remote areas, where people could be trapped in their homes with no way of defending themselves adequately or calling for help.

  McClellan’s sector happened to be a particularly dangerous one, especially bothered by gangs of looters and hoodlums. He wondered if it were perhaps because of the unusual number of isolated and wealthy families, such as the Kingsleys. The county had once been a profitable coal mining area, and men had built fortunes from the mines as owners and overseers. These men had erected mansions and country clubs close to the source of their wealth, while around them, in contrast, clustered the poor of the mining towns—many of them now ghost towns—and the poor of the marginal farms, many still kept in operation by stubborn men like Henry Dorsey and Bert Miller. Gordon Kingsley had inherited wealth from the mines. McClellan’s men were not overly anxious to help Kingsley or his family, the men feeling rightly or wrongly that they had been oppressed all their lives by toil in the Kingsley mines or factories, or by harsh dealings with Kingsley’s banks and finance companies when the mines petered out and the county became poor. The men felt that Kingsley could afford his own protection and many resented being there and could not understand why they came to his land. Because Gordon Kingsley was so tight-fisted with a dollar, they muttered, other men—common men—had to risk their lives in his behalf. Because of these sentiments, McClellan, who knew his job was to protect everybody, wealthy or not, felt he had to drive the men a little harder and watch over them a little more carefully to make sure they continued to do a conscientious job.

  The things they had found out at the Dorsey farmhouse, on their way to the main highway which would take them to the Kingsley estate, had helped spur on the men and forestall some of their grumbling and complaining. Henry Dorsey had refused to leave his isolated farmhouse for the protection of the city; he said he had done all right so far, by God, and would continue to fend for himself come hell or high water. He asked only for additional ammunition for his two rifles, after McClellan volunteered the information that the power lines would be fixed more than likely by the end of the day, and families such as the Dorseys would be able to communicate with firemen and police. McClellan said the emergency might be brought under control sooner than anybody originally expected, but it would be rough going for a couple more weeks. Dorsey said he would do okay for himself, and added that if everybody had continued to spike the dead as he had done to his own daughter, the thing wouldn’t have happened in the first place. He then told about the State Trooper he had helped to go after the captured Miller girls. According to Dorsey, the Trooper was under the impression that the gang that had captured the girls was headed for the Kingsley estate. Dorsey did not mention the hand he and his son had taken in the other State Trooper’s death; after all, if Dave was dead by now, nobody might ever find out. Carl Martinelli’s body was no longer out on the lawn; apparently it had been carried off and devoured by a party of ghouls.

  All during the discussion with the Sheriff, which took place in the Dorsey’s boarded-up living room, Henry Dorsey refrained from mentioning anything about the baby his wife was watching upstairs in one of the bedrooms. The baby remained quiet, apparently sleeping, as it had done since having taken the little bit of milk. Mrs. Dorsey kept her eyes on the baby, made sure it stayed covered by its blanket, and thought she had never seen a baby look or behave so strangely. Still, the poor thing was lucky to be alive. Wasn’t it? She shuddered and bit her lip against the frightening thought which forced its way into her confused mind and made her face tighten with nervousness and panic.

  The information about the gang of looters and the captured girls pursued by the State Trooper, passed on by McClellan immediately to his tired and grumbling men, encouraged them to go on and to work harder. Now they realized it was not just the likes of Gordon Kingsley for whom they were working. They had a real mission ahead of them that they could believe in with more enthusiasm. Some of the men had been acquainted with Bert Miller and his daughters. Most of them did not care much for Bert while he was alive, but they respected him in death and sympathized with the girls as they would with anyone who was fatherless and homeless. It was easier for them to care about the Millers, being of their own class, than to care about Gordon Kingsley. If there had been a reward offered for saving Kingsley, it would have been a different matter.

  Despite the extreme physical tiredness he felt, plus his exhausted emotions, Sheriff McClellan thought he could feel the emergency winding down. The ranks of the living dead were in a sense finite, replenished only by the newly dead who rose to take the place of those who were vanquished. Each humanoid shot down diminished the ranks by itself and its potential victims. The situation could be brought under control by making sure that all dead bodies were destroyed. When all the humanoids were “killed” there would be no more danger from them. They could not reproduce like humans; they were creatures of death, to be kept dead by destroying their brains. The procedure followed by McClellan’s men was to avoid tangling with the flesh-eaters at close range and gunning them down at a distance. Then, by using meathooks, they would drag the dead things to a pile, soak them with gasoline, and set fire to them. Anyone who had touched a meathook, or anything suspected of being in contact with a ghoul, would wash his hands with plenty of soap and water and afterward in a strong solution of alcohol. So far these measures had seemed sufficient to prevent infection. They were the same measures followed once before, during the first outbreak of the disease which prevented total death and turned human beings against each other.

  CHAPTER 25

  Flack could not hear his limbs being torn from his dead body. He could not hear bones and cartilage being twisted and broken and separated at the joints. He could not cry out when the ravenous ghouls ripped out his heart and lungs and kidneys and intestines, their task made easier by the ax that had cleaved through his torso, shattering the sternum.

  The ghouls fought among themselves, clawed and struggled with each other for possession of the once living organs. Th
en, once Flack’s body was completely destroyed, they went off, each to crouch alone with its meal, each aware of the presence of other hungry ghouls looking on, waiting for a chance to seize whatever organ or piece of the human body the lucky ones had managed to claim. The flesh-eaters were like dogs, dragging their bones off to a corner to chew and gnaw, while other dogs looked on.

  Several of the ghouls, in search of a comfortable place to eat where they would not have to defend their meals from others, wandered back into the protection of the dark green woods surrounding the sculpted lawn of the Kingsley grounds. There they sat and ate, the sounds of teeth biting and ripping into dead human flesh and the rasping of the heavy breathing of dead lungs mingling with the chirping of birds and the rustling of wind through the leaves of trees in the hot, sunny afternoon.

  From a window in the living room of the mansion, Dave Benton saw Flack’s body being ripped apart. He watched the ghouls fighting over bits and chunks of Flack’s corpse, and felt relieved when their struggle and their desire to sneak away with their prizes caused them to back off from their proximity to the front porch. Though Flack’s fate was not undeserved, it sickened Dave to see it meted out. The result of the death of Flack and the death of the Kingsley family was that the ghouls had been temporarily satisfied in their craving for human flesh, and Dave felt that an escape from the house could be attempted. He had the keys to Carter’s truck, which he had taken from the gang leader’s pocket. He also had guns and ammunition.

  Ann and Sue Ellen were still in a state of shock over their experiences of the past forty-eight hours. They had told Dave of the death of Billy, fed to the ghouls while Carter and Flack and Wade Connely made good their escape from the Miller farmhouse. Dave had tried to be as kind as possible in letting the girls know of the death of Karen and the birth of her baby, now being cared for by the Dorsey family.

  The two sisters were sitting on a sofa in the Kingsley living room, not moving much or saying anything. The relief they felt at being rescued from Carter and Flack was muted by the emotion-shattering events of the past two days and their anxiety over what may be still to come. They had watched without speaking a Civil Defense broadcast which Dave had tuned in on the television. The commentator had made the point that teams of rescue workers were trying to get to those people trapped in remote areas. But the rescue efforts were proceeding slowly, hampered by the breakdown in law and order, and isolated people were warned not to count too heavily on being rescued; they were urged to make escape attempts if at all possible, and to try to get to emergency outposts or refugee centers. The commentator emphasized that those who did not get help or succeed in escaping stood a good chance of being eventually outnumbered and overrun by the marauding ghouls.

  Dave had made up his mind to make a break from the Kingsley house. The ghouls were preoccupied with the remains of Flack and the Kingsley family. Dave reasoned that if he had driven to the estate without much trouble he should be able to escape from there. He could take the girls with him in Carter’s truck, if they felt up to it, or he could go himself and bring help when he reached an emergency outpost. He had rifles and pistols and plenty of ammunition. He could leave weapons for the girls to defend themselves while he fought his way to safety. He felt the house was barricaded enough for the girls to remain safe inside.

  When the TV broadcast was over, Dave turned the set off and confronted Ann and Sue Ellen. Patiently, in a lowered voice which he hoped sounded reasonable and kind, he went over the facts of their situation as he understood it. He explained that the phones were dead, possibly put out of commission by Carter and Flack or simply because so many lines were out everywhere. The two choices they had were to wait for rescue, which might never come, or to make a break for it. Dave said that one possibility was for him to try and make the escape alone, with the girls waiting for him at the house. If they felt up to it, he offered to take them with him, but wondered if that would not be more dangerous for them. He suggested that if he did go alone, and did not return in a reasonable amount of time, the girls should try and escape themselves in one of the Kingsley automobiles.

  As Dave talked, he convinced himself that he should try to make it on his own, since if he did not succeed, Ann and Sue Ellen would still have a second chance. Someone might show up to rescue them, or, as they discussed, the girls could make their own run for safety. After some consideration, and perhaps a little unwitting prompting from Dave, the girls agreed to this strategy. Ann, more than Sue Ellen, seemed to have her wits about her. Dave found himself directing his comments mostly to her, in his efforts to impress upon the two sisters the measures they must take to keep the house secure in his absence and, in case his efforts met with doom, how they must go about trying to save themselves.

  With Ann standing by with a loaded pistol at the unboarded door, Dave made a foray out to Carter’s truck. He tested the keys in the ignition and checked the fuel gauge for a supply of gasoline. The tank was three-quarters full and the engine turned over easily and ran smoothly. The truck appeared to be in good condition, except for the battering it had taken in traversing rough terrain and thudding into and running over the humanoids that had chanced into its path. In the glove compartment Dave even found an owner’s card, made out to John W. Carter. So, mused Dave, the truck had not been stolen; it had been Carter’s legitimate property, and Carter had been his real name.

  Having made sure that the truck would perform and that he would not get stuck inside it with a dead battery or empty fuel tank and an army of approaching ghouls, Dave turned the vehicle around and brought it close to the front porch of the house, where it would be handy for him to make his escape attempt. Then he went back into the house to complete his preparations. Ann and Sue Ellen watched while he loaded a rifle and revolver and checked the firing mechanism of each. He gave the girls a final briefing. Then Ann opened the front door for him, stood guard with the pistol he had given her while he got down off the porch and into the truck, and then she locked the door and barred it after he had gone. From the window she watched the pickup truck move at a rapid pace down the gravel driveway and out toward the dirt road. Across the yard, several ghouls started to move lethargically toward the truck as it gathered speed.

  CHAPTER 26

  The helicopter hovered above the caretaker’s cottage while a party of McClellan’s men advanced. On his walkie-talkie, a posse member received word from a man on the helicopter crew that for the past five or ten minutes there had been no signs of movement in the immediate vicinity of the cottage. The foliage of the surrounding woods was thick, and it was impossible to see the ground from the air. If there were humanoids concealed among the trees, the men would have to go in with weapons and root them out.

  On orders from a police sergeant, the men fanned out and approached the caretaker’s cottage in the clear. There was no need to chance sending men into the trees and brush until an effort had been made to save whoever might still be in the cottage. Weapons ready and eyes peeled for possible danger, the men worked their way to about fifty yards from the cottage and took cover behind trees, hedges and stone fences.

  The police sergeant shouted for anybody in the cottage to come out, emphasizing that he was a police officer and had come to provide help. As he could have predicted, his shouts got no response. The door to the cottage was wide open, the windows smashed in. The place had the feel of terror and death. Covered by the men who remained behind, a squad advanced and moved into the cottage. They found the signs of a terrific battle which had been waged between the people of the cottage and a party of attacking humanoids, a battle which the people had lost. There were half-eaten human remains in various parts of the house, as though the ghouls had gorged themselves and stopped, or maybe had been driven off.

  McClellan arrived on the scene with the remainder of the posse, received a report which he accepted with resignation, with no outward show of emotion, and formed the men up to move on to the Kingsley mansion. The men continued to move on foot, spread
ing out to cover as much as possible of the terrain on both sides of the road, while ambulances and emergency vehicles followed at some distance to the rear on the dirt road. So far the men had not spotted any ghouls since disembarking from their trucks at the entrance to the Kingsley property, and this led them to expect trouble as they got closer to the mansion itself. They also knew, from McClellan’s briefing, that they had to keep a sharp lookout for the gang of looters who had captured the Miller girls and were out to rob the Kingsleys or hold them for ransom. The tension among the men, especially the civilians, increased to a degree that was noticeable in the strain of their voices and the wariness of their movements as they advanced down the dirt road.

  When Dave rounded a curve and saw the figure in the middle of the road, he stepped on the gas, hitting the man and knocking him into the air. Seeing the man frozen in his tracks with a drawn pistol just before the moment of impact, Dave had time to realize his mistake just as a shot rang out and a rifle bullet smashed into his brain. Then there was a barrage of shots as the truck was riddled, its glass shattered, Dave’s body jerking and being pumped full of slugs. A bullet penetrated the fuel tank, the hit resulting in a tremendous fiery explosion, sending bits of metal flying through the ranks of the posse members still firing their weapons from where they had taken cover in the trees along the side of the road.

  No one was hit by the shards from the truck.

  Having been shocked into a cease-fire, the men stayed rooted in their positions for a long moment, as they watched the truck being consumed by fire. They did not doubt that they had killed one of the looters in the act of trying to make good his escape.

  One of the men shouted for an ambulance as he knelt over the man who had been struck by the truck. The ambulance moved up slowly past the men who had to be told to clear out of the road. A couple of medics got out of the ambulance carrying a stretcher and some first aid equipment. The man who had been hit by the truck was not dead, but he was in shock, had suffered numerous bruises and lacerations, and his leg was broken. The attendants worked over the man, got him covered up and onto the stretcher and into the ambulance, which they proceeded to try to turn around in the road at a place where there was barely sufficient room to execute the maneuver.