Nights of the Living Dead

by Jonathan Maberry

  Still, didn’t mean the driveway was a good idea. It was a reflex move. It was a long straight shot on concrete, and in the rearview mirror I could see those things lumbering after us. The drive ended at a nice farmhouse. Out beside it was a large barn. Behind a long white-board fence on the left was a lot of pasture.

  As we drove onto the looping driveway in front of the house, I saw the front door to the place was open, and wandering out of it were two of those things. The yard was full of them. Not all of them were wearing hospital gowns or were naked. Some were fully dressed. Young and old. No doubt they were like the others, way their bodies jerked, way their heads rolled from side to side and their eyes seemed to look off in one direction or another, not latching right on you. Some of them were bloody, fresher.

  “Damn,” said Tommy.

  “Double damn,” I said. It was something we almost always said when one said damn, or hell. Double damn. Double hell. This time it was not pure fun and hyperbole. It was accurate.

  I glanced toward the barn, saw a woman there. She had pushed one of the two wide doors open, probably hearing us roar up, and was waving for us to come that way. Then I saw Matt appear, grab her by the arm and jerk her back.

  I gunned it. There was a gravel drive from house to barn, and I went that way fast as a bullet. When we got in front of the barn, Matt was struggling with the woman, had her bent back and was flinging a fist into her face, time and again, until she fell down.

  The tire iron was in the seat beside me. I got out of the car with it. Matt tried to grab the open door and close it. I leapt forward, swung the tire iron, hit his arm through the crack in the doors, made him scream and stumble back. Tommy had slipped to the driver’s seat, and he tooled the car inside as I pushed both doors wide. Up at the house I could see dead people wandering around in the yard, starting to trudge toward the barn.

  When Tommy had our ride inside, I closed the doors. Tommy got out and helped me put a large and heavy wooden slat between two metal supports, barring the doors soundly.

  That was done, I took a moment to kick Matt in the head. Within seconds the barn doors began to rattle, and you could hear those things moaning on the other side of it. The noise they made caused me to feel like my panties were crawling up my ass like a spider.

  Tommy was helping the woman up, and he sat her on a bale of hay. A boy came out of the dark, ran over to her. She hugged him to her. Three more children, a couple of boys and a girl, eased out of the shadows too. The girl looked to be the oldest, but she wasn’t more than twelve, if she was that old. They didn’t go far. The boys were wandering about more than moving forward, and the girl seemed frozen, as if her feet had been stuck down in a tub filled with cold water and held there until the water turned to ice.

  “You damn near broke my arm,” Matt said. “And that kick cracked my jaw. I can feel it.”

  “Why thank you,” I said.

  “Bitch,” Matt said.

  “My middle name,” I said.

  “He was trying to force us out,” said the lady, who held a hand to her battered eye.

  “It’s survival of the fittest,” Matt said.

  “You’re not that fit,” Tommy said. “A girl whipped your ass.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said.

  “You sons of bitches,” Matt said. “A woman, some brats, and one of them a retard, what the hell?”

  “And you such a sterling member of society,” Tommy said.

  There were electric lights burning inside the barn. It was a class thing with front and back double doors, lots of hay. A tractor with a trailer fastened to it was parked near the back door. Two of the horse stalls had horses in them. A sorrel and a paint. I liked horses. Me and Tommy used to ride all the time at summer camp. That was before our parents split up.

  I went over and took a look at the lady’s eye. She was pretty bedraggled. She looked to be in her sixties, solid and sun-coated, time-worn. There was a toughness about her. The boy she had her arm around was obviously disabled. Must have been thirteen or fourteen, oldest of the children. I could tell he was disabled because of the way he looked. He had a sweet and innocent appearance that most of us lose about the time we realize the shit in our diapers stinks.

  “My grandchildren,” the lady said.

  “What’s happened?” I said.

  She shook her head, tears streamed down her face. All of the children had come over now and were sitting on the bale of hay with her, close to her like a cluster of grapes.

  “I don’t know exactly,” she said. “But those people, they’re dead. You can tell.”

  “I’ll say,” I said. “But again, why?”

  She shook her head. “Can’t say. No idea. I have my daughter’s kids with me. One of them left the front door open. I went to close it, and the yard was full of them. Kids were playing outside in the moonlight, and I saw those things coming up on them. I yelled at them and then, for whatever reason, we all broke toward the barn. We got here just as that asshole,” she pointed at Matt, “showed up. He was trying to barricade himself in the barn. I struggled with him so the kids could get inside. I saw you pull up, and I wanted to help you, but he started fighting with me. He wanted to leave you out there, with those things. He wanted us out there too, to keep them busy I guess. So they’d forget about him.”

  As if to emphasize that, the barn doors on both ends rattled like giant dice.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I keep trying to figure it. What brings people back from the dead? Old Man Turner was with them, and he died yesterday. He was in the morgue. I knew him well. He was ninety years old if he was a day.”

  “Did you recognize others?” Tommy said.

  “I did. Friends. Neighbors.”

  “How far is the town from here?” I said.

  “We’re practically in it. Town’s not far from the hospital and the morgue. Couple miles maybe.”

  Tommy looked at me, said, “They could be all over town as well.”

  I said to the woman, “People out there, recognize any from town?”

  “Don’t know everyone in town, of course,” the lady said. “But it’s not that big. Everyone I recognized was from out here, houses nearby, but there were plenty I didn’t know one way or another. They could have been from town, I suppose.”

  “Or the morgue and the hospital,” Tommy said.

  “Way some of them are dressed, sure,” said the woman.

  Matt started to get up.

  “Lie down,” I said, and lifted the tire iron.

  He stayed where he was, said, “What we do is we stick the woman and the kids out there, get those things busy on them, and then we make a break for it. Drive out of here.”

  “So now you and me and Tommy are a team,” I said.

  “Please don’t,” the lady said.

  “Of course not,” Tommy said. “Don’t you worry about that.”

  “You can’t think the old way,” Matt said. “You got to think about how it is now. This could be happening all over.”

  “Just stay there and shut up,” I said.

  “You need to think of yourself,” Matt said. “You don’t even know these people.”

  “Can’t say I actually know you,” I said. “And what little I do know of you, I don’t like.”

  “We’re racers. We go fast and live fast, and we survive. We know how to take a curve.”

  “You don’t,” Tommy said. “You smacked your car into a tree. Hell, it was a straightaway. Unfortunately, you survived. My guess is you’re part cockroach, and the rest of you is all asshole.”

  “They are our way out,” Matt said, nodding toward the woman and her grandchildren.

  “I said shut up.” I slapped the tire iron in my open palm and Matt went silent.

  I turned to the woman. “Does the tractor run?”

  “Yes. But it doesn’t have a lot of speed, more if you drop the trailer.”

  “We want to keep the trailer,” I said.

>   Tommy said, “What are we talking about here?”

  I turned and looked at Matt lying there on the ground. He had abandoned us back on the road, and then he had tried to lock us out, and now he wanted us to take him and leave these people to their fate.

  The barn doors rattled.

  “Ma’am,” I said, “would you and the children go to the back of the barn, over behind the horse stalls? Stay there for a bit. And you might want to cover your ears.”

  They didn’t stir.

  “Now,” I said.

  They moved then, quickly. When I saw they were behind the back stall, out of sight, I walked over to Matt. He saw it in my eyes. He tried to get up and make a break for it. But it was too late. I think the first swing of the tire iron killed him. I can’t be sure. It knocked him down and out, that’s for sure. And if it didn’t kill him, the other blows did.

  I hit him a lot.

  * * *

  Me and Tommy fastened Matt to the back bumper of the Charger with baling wire, several strands. I felt like Achilles tying Hector to the back of his chariot.

  The woman and her grandchildren came back into view. I was covered in blood and I was shaking. But there was nothing for it. They would see what they saw. Therapy was in their future. If they had a future.

  “What’s going to happen,” I said, “is Tommy is going to open the door, and I’m driving out. I could try and stuff you all in the car, but if they’re thick on the road, well, you can only get so far, even in a car. But Tommy here, once I’m out there, once they get after Matt’s body, which I think they will, you guys will go out the back with the tractor and trailer. Head toward town. Maybe it’s safe there. Just sit quietly and ready to go until I can give them a whiff of this guy, let them smell the blood.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” Tommy said.

  “Yes you can. You have to. I’m going to be the Pied Piper, but it’s going to be my car engine and the smell of this dead bastard that’re going to lead the rats away. You and the family go out the back.”

  The woman came up closer, stared down at what was left of Matt’s head. I had hit so many times you could have slipped his head through a mail slot.

  “You’re going to go the opposite way I go,” I said. “You might come across some of those things, so you’ll need to take something to fight with. I see farm tools on the wall, that pitchfork, the hoe, things like that. It’s not a perfect plan, but we can’t wait here in the barn until we eat the horses. Two horses might last a while, but not forever.”

  “Grandma,” said the granddaughter, who had started to cry. “We can’t eat the horses.”

  “Of course not,” the woman said, but the look in her eyes made it clear to me she knew they would have to if they stayed, and probably raw.

  “You let the horses out of their stalls, let them run. What you do is you drive that tractor to town, pulling Tommy here and the kids on the trailer. He can help you fight if you run into more of those things. It’s the only choice.”

  * * *

  Tommy helped me lift off the door barrier. When we dropped it, I ran and got in the car. Tommy pulled one of the barn doors open slightly, then darted back to the tractor. The lady had already started it. The kids were on the trailer. Everyone had a farm implement. That was a little like giving everyone switches to fight a bear, but it was all they had.

  I could hear the things outside not only the front door, but the back door as well. This was going to be tricky.

  When that unlatched front door was shoved wide open by those monsters, I turned on the headlights, startling them, put my foot on the gas and made the engine roar. I popped the clutch and jerked the car into gear. It leapt, knocking several of those things back. I let the car bunny hop a little, and die. They were smelling Matt back there, and they all went for him. It was like someone had rung the dinner bell. They had started crawling over the car too, pounding on the window glass, as if I was a pie on display and they wanted it.

  I started up the car again, eased forward, but not too fast. Enough I was able to break free of them, and yet keep them interested in Matt, the hot lunch.

  I drove around the barn. There was a well-worn path, and the car went smoothly. When I had driven around a couple of times, the car was covered in those things. I could hardly see out the windshield, they were gathered on it so thick. The back way was open.

  I didn’t want them to eat all my bait, so I drove faster, onto the drive. I reached the road, and they were still with me. I heard the back glass crack from the pounding the clingers were giving it with their fists. I glanced in the rearview mirror. The back window still held, but it was starred and lined with breaks.

  If Tommy was lucky, they would have the tractor going now, following slightly behind, turning the opposite direction toward town. Maybe all the things were following me. Maybe Tommy, that woman and her grandkids, would do all right.

  The moon had brightened up the road as the night had worn on. It was like having your own night-light. I decided it was time to pick it up a little, make it hard for the things to keep clinging to the car. As I increased speed, they peeled off the Charger like dead skin.

  I sped up enough to get ahead of them, but not so much they couldn’t see me. They kept following.

  I wondered how much was left of Matt. Way I had him fastened on back there, I couldn’t see him in the rearview. That was probably best. I had killed him in cold blood, and now I was feeding him to those things. Was I any better than him, choosing to do such a thing?

  I thought on that for a short time, came to a conclusion.

  Yeah. I was.

  * * *

  I kept teasing those things with the body, speeding and slowing. I checked the gas. Low. When I glanced up from the gauge I checked the rearview mirror. The road behind me was a wall of those things.

  And then I saw him. He was on horseback. He was carrying something shiny and swinging it as he rode through the mass, surprising them, smashing heads, sending them sprawling.

  It was Tommy playing cowboy. He had saddled up one of the horses and was riding it through the drooling crowd toward me. When he burst out in front of that bunch, I slowed to a stop.

  Tommy rode up to the passenger door, swung off the horse. I leaned across the seat and opened the door. Tommy dropped what he had been carrying into the seat—a lawn mower blade. He unsaddled the horse, dropped the saddle in the road, peeled off the bridle, and slapped the horse on the ass. It went off the road and up through the trees and out of sight, a flock of ghouls pursuing at a considerably slower pace.

  “Good luck, noble steed,” Tommy said.

  He jerked the door open and climbed onto the seat, placing the lawn mower blade in his lap.

  I turned and looked back. Those things were almost to us. I clutched and geared and we started rolling.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  “What the double hell, you mean. The lady is driving the tractor, taking the kids into town. I saddled a horse and rode along with them. When I figured they were doing good, because we didn’t see any of those things, I turned around and came after you. I always had that in my head.”

  “You’re a good brother, Tommy. I never thought you were before.”

  Tommy laughed.

  As we came around a patch of trees we saw the road had quite a few of those things in it. I put the pedal to the metal and knocked a couple aside, crunched one under the wheel. Now I was gaining speed. I glanced at the gas gauge. Before long we’d be walking, and that wouldn’t be good. I only had one headlight now, the left one. The other one had been broken in my collision with those things. Bless the moonlight.

  I was picking up speed.

  “Buckle up. We’re going to straighten out the curve.”

  “Damn, girl.”

  “Double damn,” I said.

  Tommy reached across me, got my seat belt and strapped it over my lap, and then he buckled his own.

  I was hot on the straightaway now, and Dead Man�
�s Curve was coming up, but I wasn’t slowing. I could see those things in the faint light from the left head-beam. They were coming down the wooded hill on our right. A better-dressed group than before. Probably from farmhouses that had been attacked, survivors who had not been consumed. It was clear that being bitten made you like the others. You died and came back. Hungry.

  “We’re going to overshoot the curve, out into the quarry,” I said.

  “Big drop, Sis. Full of water. You know that, right?”

  “You can swim.”

  “Only if the fall doesn’t kill us, and then, swim where?”

  “To the other side.”

  “Walls are slick.”

  “Maybe there’s a way up.”

  “Maybe?”

  “We’re short on options. Roll down your window. Water pressure may not let you later.”

  Tommy frantically rolled down his window, and I did the same.

  Now the curve was ahead, and when I made it those things were in the road. I clipped a few of them, and long past when I should have turned the wheel, I kept going, wearing a few of those monsters on the windshield. I put my foot through the floor, and we went sailing off the edge of Dead Man’s Curve.

  There were bits of tree limbs and brush growing out of the side of the quarry, and we shot out over it. Limbs and brush scratched the bottom of the Charger like a pissed-off cat. Out of instinct I looked in the rearview and saw what was left of Matt floating up in the air on that baling wire, coming apart in pieces that were sailing backwards in the draft like wet confetti.

  Way, way out that car sailed, and in the moonlight I saw the wall of the quarry on the other side. It looked slick and straight up. The Charger dipped and the car was an angular shadow shooting toward where the moon floated in the water like a target. The water looked as firm as a giant piece of sheet metal.

  The air whistled in the windows. The back glass of the car, already cracked and pressured by the wind, shattered into a mass of moon-colored stars and was gone.

  We smacked the water.

  I don’t know exactly what happened after that. I guess the impact knocked me out. My head may have bounced off the steering wheel. The water eventually brought me around. I didn’t know where I was right away, but the water went in my mouth and nose and I finally realized I was drowning. I felt out for Tommy, but he wasn’t there. I reached for my seat belt. There wasn’t any. I came to understand I had somehow gotten out of the car, that I was free and floating, twisting around underwater like a strand of weed. I couldn’t remember how I got out.