Night of the Living Dead (18 page)

Cooper shuffled and fidgeted, and did not reply right away.

Calming back down, Tom took Ben’s place at the window, bending to peek outside.

Ben stepped forward, taking his own crack at Cooper again while the man was actually being silent for more than two seconds. "You box yourself in the cellar and those things get in the house, you’ve had it. At least up here you have a fighting chance."

Tom heard this, and noted that Cooper didn’t have a ready comeback this time — in the hours he’d spent stuck with Cooper, he’d really started to dislike the man; he was just too polite to show it — but most of his attention was focused outside.

Those people were clustered around the truck outside. They weren’t even
doing
anything, just ... wandering around, like idiots or something. They were dressed in all different clothing — some dirty, some bloody, and some in perfect condition — but they all had that same, hollow expression on their faces. They were calm now, but he knew from what he’d seen at the lake how easily that could change. Those things gave him the creeps, and it chilled him to see so many so close.

Standing, he said, "There looks like about eight or ten of them now."

"That’s more than there were," Ben said, taking another quick peek himself. "There are a lot out back, too." He turned and headed toward the kitchen, toward the back door — maybe it was time to light another fire.

But he didn’t make it that far.

As Ben passed by the first kitchen window, filthy hands burst through the gaps in the boards he had nailed up, grabbing and clutching at his shirt, his pants, his exposed arms.

Through the gaps, Ben could see a pale face, the man’s empty stare replaced by a burning desire for flesh —
his
 flesh.

As Ben struggled to pull himself free and bring the rifle around to bear, Tom came running. Sliding to a halt, his feet almost went out from under him on the slick linoleum as he looked around for something he could use — it took him only a moment to spot the knife Barbra had left on top of the refrigerator, and he seized it with grateful hands.

Circling around Ben, who was mostly free now but still trying to get a clear shot, Tom saw that there were at least two of those things clambering at the window, their hands grasping, dirty fingernails clawing at his face even though he was too far back for them to possibly reach him.

Revulsion giving him strength, Tom hacked at one of them with the knife. He lashed out again and again, first cleaving into the back of the hand and then chopping whole fingers away — he didn’t know if it made it better or worse that there was hardly any blood. By the time the thing finally withdrew its hand, it was little more than a butchered stump ...

... and yet the thing made no sound. Not a cry, not a moan, not even a grunt.

Even in the heat of the moment, with the things still grabbing at Ben and his rifle, that brought Tom up short. It didn’t make sense! No matter what had happened to drive these people mad, no matter what had twisted and perverted them into actually
eating
their fellow human beings, how could any person — no matter how deranged — allow their own hand to be hacked, literally,
to pieces
?!

Even if they somehow felt
no pain
... by God, the man’s fingers were lying in a pile on the floor!

He glanced up at Ben, to see if he’d witnessed this impossible thing, but Ben had problems of his own to worry about.

Ben could not get a clear shot. Even when he pulled free, they were tugging at the barrel of the rifle — not as though they were trying to disarm him, but like they wanted him so much, they would grab any "part" of him and could not tell the difference. He would step back, dragging the weapon free, and then when he leaned in to take a shot, they would start grabbing at the barrel all over again.

He was still grateful to have the weapon, but at that moment he would have traded anything for a
hand
gun.

Finally, everything lined up right, and he fired. The rifle was incredibly loud in the small kitchen, but he was gratified to see that he hit the thing right in the heart! One down, one to go ...

Except it
didn’t
go down.

To Ben’s disbelief, the thing staggered back several steps but did not fall. It stood still for a moment, staring down at the hole in its chest ... then it lifted its head and stared at him. No pain on its face, nothing in its eyes but that craving, that
hunger
.

That’s not possible
, Ben thought.
I mean, I know they’re hard to stop when I’m slugging them with the tire iron, but ... Christ, I just shot it in the heart! In - the -
heart
!

Was he losing his mind?

But Tom and even Cooper were seeing it, too. Tom leaned closer to him, almost huddling against him as they stared out the window at the thing that should have been lying dead or dying on the ground, but wasn’t; Cooper stared from further away, grimacing so hard his teeth were grinding.

"Harry ...?!" called a distant, frightened woman’s voice from somewhere in the house. Not Barbra’s voice, so it had to be someone else from the cellar — Cooper’s wife?

Sure enough, Cooper whispered a reply, "It’s all right..." His voice was cracked and trembling, and for the first time, Ben sympathized with the man.

Of course, the woman couldn’t possibly hear his quiet response, so she called again, "Harry, what’s
happening
?!"

"It’s ... it’s all right!" Cooper called back louder this time, and his tone was anything but confident or reassuring.

The thing was back at the window again. Ben cocked the rifle and took aim for another shot. For several seconds, it was deja vu — the thing grabbing at the barrel of the gun; Ben split between pulling away and taking his shot.

Then he found another opening and took it.

This time he hit the thing on the right side of its chest. Not a heart shot, but the bullet had almost certainly ripped its lung to pieces, blasting particles of bone out through the shoulder blade. The trauma alone should have sent the thing into physical shock, even if it were too dumb to know when to lie down and die.

The thing looked at the second wound as it had the first, then, just as before, it lifted its gaze back to its prey.

Ben grumbled, "Damned thing ..." cocked the rifle, took careful aim while it was still away from the window, and fired again.

This time he hit it square in the forehead, pretty much the same spot where he’d driven the tire iron into the one with the torn throat.

It dropped like a rock, its brains and far too little blood collecting in a gooey pile in the grass around its head.

Third time’s the charm.

Ben didn’t know if that thought
made him
want to laugh or cry, but seeing the thing down and not moving
made him
almost giddy with relief ...

But unbeknownst to the refugees inside the house, this small victory had made their situation far worse.

Dozens had already wandered into the area, drawn by anything from instinct to forgotten routine to the echoes of Ben’s hammering as he boarded up the house. Now, the rifle shots pulled them like iron fillings to a magnet.

Some of them were the hospital patients Ben had first seen at Beekman’s Diner, having slowly but consistently shuffled their way in the direction he had driven the truck, long after their limited minds could remember why they had chosen this direction. Others were citizens from town; others were denizens of the local farms and neighboring properties.

Fully clothed or naked as the day they were born, nearly-pristine in appearance or the obvious victims of horrid assault, they drifted to the house. The gunshots had ceased, but their courses were set. They surrounded the place without conscious decision, some silent and tranquil, others agitated by the natural sounds of crickets and the still-present reverberations of thunder from the storm that had moved on.

One of them, a female, was drawn to movement on a nearby tree, barely visible in the light leaking from the house. It reached out and grasped the large insect, the lips of its burn-scarred face opening in a soft moan. It contemplated the bug for a few seconds, the wheels of its mind barely turning, then shoved the crawler into its mouth. It chewed, moaning — gasping, really — once again.

But no, it wasn’t satisfied by this critter. What it wanted, what drew it with inexplicable but undeniable luxuria, was warm meat.

Human flesh.

In the house, Ben stormed past Cooper. "We’ve gotta fix these boards!"

"You’re crazy!" Cooper returned, but he no longer sounded like a stubborn bulldog; he sounded like a frightened man. "Those things are gonna be at every window and door in this place! We’ve got to get down into the cellar!"

Be it because of the man’s broken-record platform or because of his own fear, Ben lost it. "Go on down into your damn cellar!" he bellowed, waving Cooper away like the mongrel he was. "GET OUTTA HERE!"

Cooper looked back and forth around the room, flustered by Ben’s outburst — like most bullies, he didn’t know how to handle it when confronted by bigger bravado than his own. Finally, his eyes fell on Barbra, still sitting on the sofa, staring off into space as though a rifle hadn’t just been fired three times not fifteen feet from her.

Cooper gestured at her. "I’m ... I’m taking the girl with me ..." He moved toward her, reaching out with one hand to take her by the arm.

Ben stepped forward. "You leave her here. You keep your hands off her, and
everything else that’s up here, too, because if I stay up here, I’m fighting for
everything
up here, and the radio and the food is part of what I’m fighting for! Now if you’re going down to the cellar,
get
!" He waved Cooper away like a misbehaving dog again, turning back to the window.

Still floundering on uneven ground, Cooper turned to Tom. "The man’s insane. He’s
insane
. We’ve ... we’ve got to have food down there! We’ve got a
right
!"

That brought Ben around again. "This your house?"

"We’ve got a
right
!" Cooper repeated.

Ben also turned to Tom. "You going down there with him?"

Caught in the middle, Tom stammered, "W-well, I ... I—"