Barbra was more than making up for her hours of useless catatonia. She fought like a woman possessed, keeping pressure against the barricade in spite of the octopus of arms that grabbed at her, and slapping and pounding at those grasping hands wherever she could. "No! No!" she cried over and over, but it did not come out lost or defenseless. She was terrified to be sure, but there was also wrath in her tone — Ben would not have been surprised if she had started biting at them.
But then the strength of her verbal denials began to slip. Against her best efforts, the loose door that Ben and Cooper had nailed across the entrance cracked and snapped as it was wrenched from its bonds. With one final "No!" from Barbra, it twisted free and fell, taking half of the smaller lumber with it. Once this barrier was gone, the front door itself gave up the ghost.
Then Barbra locked her gaze on one particular dead man and froze.
The first thing Barbra registered were those familiar driving gloves as a hand snaked in to close on the doorframe. Then she saw his face, still blood-streaked and now a sickly pallor. Her eyes bulged and she screamed so loud it overwhelmed everything else. "NO! GET OUT!!!"
Johnny did not listen. But then, he had never listened to his sister.
Barbra stared at him, praying, pleading for some spark of recognition. At any moment Johnny would remember her face, her voice, and go away. He wouldn’t hurt her — he had died protecting her!
Johnny stretched out that gloved hand, reaching for her.
"No," she implored him. "No!" Then, when his fingers clamped down on her collar just below her throat, she screamed, "NO! JOHNNY, NO!"
Ben saw it happening and, abandoning his own lost battle, rushed to help her.
"No! No!" Barbra cried as Johnny wrapped his arms around her. "Help me!" She beat at his shoulders, his neck, his face, all to no avail.
Ben reached for her, but her brother was already turning away, dragging her outside — for a moment, it stemmed the flow of the dead trying to get into the house, but that didn’t protect Ben from all those grasping hands as he tried to get to Barbra, to save her. He couldn’t fire the rifle, not at these close quarters, not without risking hitting her, so he used it as a club, tried to bash his way to her.
"Help me!" Barbra’s voice was getting weaker, little more than sobs now. "Oh, help me. Help me ..."
And Johnny carried her into the arms of the waiting dead.
Ben tried and tried, and nearly died himself for his efforts. They were pawing at his face now — he had to retreat or risk having his eyes scratched out. Many of them were distracted by the feast Barbra’s brother had brought out onto the porch, but there were plenty more to take their place.
Then the window gave way, and they were coming into the house through there as well.
Ben backed away, toward the cellar door — much as it burned to admit it, Cooper had been right all along. The house was lost.
He didn’t see Karen stalking up behind him, and when she grabbed his arm, she missed sinking her teeth into his wrist by mere inches. He grappled with the little girl as she clawed at his face, her dead eyes glistening in the dim light, her teeth gnashing and her gory, fetid breath wafting up to repulse him.
He finally dropped the rifle against the piano long enough to pick her up and throw her away from him — she landed halfway onto the sofa and wasted no time getting back to her feet and coming at him again.
Ben seized the rifle and backed into the cellar entrance, slamming the door before the dead little girl could reach him. She collided with the door and shoved at it, trying to get through to him, to finish what she started. Ben leaned against it, shoving into place the crossbars Tom and Cooper had assembled as fast as he could.
The dead funneled into the house through the door and window — their prey was no longer in sight, yet they were driven by inertia, looking all around, searching every which way for the flesh they craved, the warm meat.
One particular dead man, whom Barbra would have identified as the man from the cemetery, spotted the little girl, saw her pushing against the cellar door. Somewhere in the chaos, he had ended up with the table leg, Ben’s old torch, and as he knocked aside chairs crossing the room, he dragged it behind him. When he reached the cellar entrance, he heaved it over his shoulder and started slamming it against the door.
This drew the attention of many of the others, and soon the dead were bottlenecked at the cellar door, writhing and shoving and beating to get through. They were the embodiment of mob mentality: New dead men and women entered the house, saw the commotion, and joined in — some pounded the walls, or even each other, with their fists; others experimented with whatever tools were close at hand; one of them even started rocking the piano, slamming it against the wall.
The cellar door was quaking on its hinges as Ben slid crossbar after crossbar into place — hell, the entire wall was shaking! The door was as secure as he could possibly make it, and still it threatened to collapse.
Maybe he had been right all along, but not about staying in the cellar versus protecting the house. It was something he had said to Cooper, something flippant, when the little bulldog had described how those things would eventually show up by the hundreds — Ben had remarked, "Well, if there’re that many, they’ll probably get us wherever we are."
That certainly looked to be the case now.
There was nothing more he could do — the door, the wall, would either stand or it wouldn’t. Holding a vigil at the top of the stairs would accomplish nothing, so he collected the rifle and climbed down the stairs.
Then he saw Harry Cooper, gazing with blank eyes up at the ceiling, his right arm a bloody stump. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that — he had, after all, shot the man himself — but he was troubled when he turned his head away only to find Helen Cooper lying near the far wall, a trowel sticking up from her butchered chest.
He had hated Cooper, but he had liked Helen. And now, just like all the others, here they both were in the much-vaunted cellar, dead.
Dead.
That notion, and what it entailed, had only the briefest of moments to sink in for Ben ... and then Cooper was sitting up.
Ben stepped forward, cocked the rifle, took aim. Strangely, he found it more difficult to shoot the man now than when he had been alive upstairs. But in the end, that didn’t change anything. It had to be done.
Ben shot Cooper in the face. And then, for good measure, he shot him twice more.
He turned away, leaning against a pillar and pressing his forehead against his wrist. His adrenaline flow was slowing, and he found he was more exhausted than he had ever been in his whole life — his muscles quivered, his bones ached, his eyes stung ...
But he couldn’t rest. Not yet.
Straightening, he stared at Helen Cooper, still lying where he had first seen her.
Maybe it would be different with her. She was lying with the back of her head against a box — maybe she had damaged something when she had fallen, maybe her brain was already too ...
Helen’s eyes opened.
Ben cocked the rifle.
It had to be done.
So Ben shot the lovely woman in the head, shot her because she was dead and about to get up and eat him.
The tears which wracked his body were sudden and intense. Choking with sobs, Ben threw the rifle across the cellar, then assaulted the makeshift cot where Karen had died, knocking the blankets and door and sawhorses asunder. He stood in the middle of the room, covering his face, wishing it were over, wishing he were dead if that’s what it took to escape this nightmare ...
And then, as always, his reason won out. Always and forever the pragmatist, Ben calmed down and considered his next step.
The dead had overrun the house. If they did break through the barricade, he would need another line of defense.
As much as he wanted to, Ben could not give up. That just wasn’t the way he was made, that wasn’t ... Ben.
He turned around in a slow circle, considering his opt
ions. He tried lifting the door he had knocked to the floor, then switched to one of the sawhorses. One was too cumbersome, the other too flimsy on its own; neither would prove useful without the hammer and nails, and both of those were somewhere upstairs.
In the end, Ben settled for recollecting the rifle and crouching down in the far corner of the cellar, the gun aimed at the bottom of the stairwell. He wiped sweat from his face and blinked away the urge to close his eyes, to sleep.
He would never give up, never. But there was nothing more he could do at the moment, not until the dead settled down, maybe forgot about him and wandered back out of the house. All he could do for now was wait.
Wait for the dawn.
In the house above, the dead pounded and ambled and explored. A few remained focused on the cellar door and adjoining wall, but most had forgotten about that. They spread through the house, some going from room to room, others drudging along in small circles. Different items caught different interests, from the furniture to the curtains to the fireplace — the bathroom mirror proved quite popular.
They had forgotten the flesh for the time being; the house itself was their fascination now. And it was theirs, here and across the country, as the faintest echoes of their former lives tugged at their failed minds. Here and everywhere. Homes, cars, shopping malls ... any of it, all of it.
Whatever struck them, flesh or fixtures, they wanted. And what they wanted, they took.
They were the living dead, and this was their night.
DAWN
Sunrise stretched over the land, chasing the night into retreat. Birds broke into song while crickets closed their shift. A very gentle breeze sighed through the fields, washing away the scent of death. Peace reigned, and anyone who had not personally lived through the night would have found it difficult to believe the things that had happened, that had risen.
Then the chirping of birds was joined by another sound, a manmade sound — a helicopter, running patrol over and ahead of the roving groups of armed men ... and just like that, the illusion of peace ended.
Rifles, pistols, guns aplenty. The squads pushed on, driven by duty for some, motivated by an unspoken glee for others. Order would soon be restored, of that they were confident, but for now, anarchy ruled.
Taking advantage of an open field, the helicopter circled around for a landing, and the patrol lines came together for a meeting-of-the-minds, so to speak. Police vehicles, including several K-9 units, joined the party, and those on foot took the opportunity to take a load off, to plop down on the grass for a welcome rest.
Chief McClelland strode through the ranks, wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and heading toward his right-hand man, Vince, his deputized "lieutenant" for the day’s festivities. McClelland called out to the man, who regarded him without rising to his feet; Vince just craned his head back to listen, chewing on a stalk of grass.
"We’re gonna get about four or five men," the Chief told him, "and a couple a dogs ta the house over here behind those trees, we wanna go check it out."
Vince nodded and climbed to his feet.
McClelland then realized that the reporter, Cardille, and his cameraman had resurfaced and joined him — they sipped coffee from small white cups and looked far more rested than the Chief himself felt. "You still here, Bill?"
"Yeah, Chief," the reporter said, "we’re gonna stay with it ‘til we meet up with the National Guard."
McClelland nodded, but his eyes were on their hands. "Where’d you get the coffee?"
"One of the volunteers," Cardille answered, then pushed the cup forward. "You’re doing all the work, you take it."
"Thank you," McClelland said, accepting the cup with sincere appreciation.
The reporter nodded, then replaced the caffeine with another vice — he took a drag from a cigarette.
"We should be wrapped up here ‘bout three or four more hours," McClelland said. "We’ll probly get inta Willard then. I guess you can go over there an’ meet the National Guard." He leaned over and raised his voice, "Nick, you an’ the rest of these men wanna come with me?"
Adjusting his rifle’s shoulder strap, McClelland headed off, leaving the news crew alone.
"Well, Bill," the cameraman said, "I’m gonna check with the office, see what’s happening."
"All right, Steve," Cardille replied, "tell ‘em we’re going to stay with it and, uh ..." He thought for a moment, then decided, "... everything appears to be under control."
As if to dispute his proclamation, some of the dogs from McClelland’s group started barking. But then, that had been happening all night. There were many dead wandering the area, and the dogs loathed their unnatural scent.
Cardille wasn’t worried. After all, the dogs were with McClelland, and however unrefined the Police Chief came across at times, he had proven he knew what he was doing.
They were in good hands.
In the basement, Ben’s head sunk lower, and lower ... until, for the one thousandth time, he stirred back to awareness. Partial awareness, anyway. His mind was so fuzzy, his thoughts so sluggish, there were times when he wasn’t entirely sure that he was awake, considered that maybe he was only dreaming that he was awake, that the dead had broken through the barricade and were creeping up on him even now.
Funny, that that was what he should consider the dream at this point. No more delusions that the entire event was the nightmare, that he would wake up on the bus to discover a world where the dead had never risen ...
No, this was his reality now. All he could hope for was ... was ...
Was that barking?
Ben stirred for real now. He hadn’t heard anything resembling life for hours now, and even before he had retreated into the cellar, there had been only crickets or other insects — no dogs, no cats, no livestock in spite of this being an old farmhouse. There had been just himself, Barbra, and the rest of the group.
So what did it mean that he could hear dogs barking?
The dogs’ lead proved true. They zeroed in on some dead wandering the field behind the house the Chief had spotted earlier. A man and a woman ... or rather, a male and female — as far as the Chief was concerned, they weren’t human enough to be called "man" or "woman," not anymore.
Two uniformed police officers drew their sidearms and started firing.
Gunshots! Those were gunshots!
Ben’s hopes soared, but with some reservations. The sound of gunfire definitely meant there were people up there, but it did not guarantee that the cavalry had arrived. It could be other refugees like himself, who had seen the house and were seeking shelter, only to be taken by surprise as the dead burst outward to greet them.
His heart pounded. He wanted to believe that he had been rescued. But he had been through so much, done so much this night that his usual optimism was depleted almost to nothing.
What should he do?
A station wagon from the Willard Department of Public Heath rolled up the drive toward the group near the old farmhouse. As soon as they heard the shots, the driver and his partner had known it was back to work. Of course, these days their work was a hell of a lot more interesting than before this shit hit the fan.
They slowed down by Chief McClelland, who was standing near a burned out pickup truck. But he waved them on. "They need you down there by the barn," he told them.
"Okay," the driver acknowledged, then rolled on.
McClelland turned back to his group. "A couple of you guys just follow the wagon down, I wanna get a few men ta check out the house."
As they dispersed, McClelland returned his attention to the destroyed truck, and the stray human remains therein. He said to his lieutenant, "Somebody had a cookout here, Vince."
Vince agreed, "Yeah, sure looks like it,Conan."
Shaking their collective heads, the group moved on toward the house.
Ben was fully awake, or the closest he could come to it. A siren! Police car, ambulance, fire truck? It didn’t really matter. A siren meant a vehi
cle, and that suggested a vast improvement on the situation out there in the real world.
And yet, still he held his spirits in check. He had to be smart about this, he had to be sure.
Slowly, one step at a time, Ben climbed the stairs toward the still-intact cellar door, straining his ears for every sound, every clue.
McClelland led his group onward, clearing out the dead as they went. Policemen, civilians — they all got their shots in. Though they would never admit it, some of them missed the head-shots on purpose, taking the opportunity to shoot the dead in the limbs or torso once or twice before finishing them off. Who could blame them? When would they again have the opportunity, the legal sanction, to shoot down actual people, dead or not?
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