Night of the Living Dead (3 page)

Barbra screamed as he grabbed at her, only the collar of her coat preventing his fingernails from tearing into the flesh of her throat. Her shrieks grew strangled as he clutched at her, pulling her toward his snarling mouth — he snapped his teeth as though trying to bite her face! Despite the wildness of his expression, he made very little noise.
His body smelled horrible, and from what little sound he did make, his rancid breath made her sick.

Johnny stopped and looked back just in time to see the man assault his sister. For a moment, he could not respond — the sight was otherworldly to him. He had just been
teasing
 Barbra that the man was coming to get her; for the stranger to actually be
doing
so was ... well, it was ridiculous. Outrageous. Couldn’t be happening.

Barbra wailed, pulling away from the maniac with all her strength. She pounded at him, his chest and his face. When her fist came near his mouth, he again tried to bite her.

Johnny finally broke into action. He dashed back to Barbra, throwing himself against the madman and wedging his arm between them. He pulled and tugged, desperate to get the man away from his sister.

"Johnny!" Barbra cried. "Help me!"

Finally, Barbra managed to slip from the man’s grasp. The lunatic grew wild in agitation, twisting around in Johnny’s arms. Barbra then ceased to exist, and Johnny became the target of his fury.

Cowering against a gravestone, Barbra watched helplessly as Johnny wrestled with their assailant. The man bit and snapped at Johnny, trying to sink his teeth in wherever he could reach. Johnny cried out as the man’s fingers raked down his face, pulling his glasses off and digging into his eyes. The man still made little noise, and what few sounds escaped his throat were no more coherent than those of a rabid dog.

Having his glasses ruined, of all things, inspired Johnny to his own greater violence. He grab the maniac and shoved him down with enough force to finally break his grip. When the man got right back up onto his feet, Johnny was ready for him, meeting this latest attack with one of his own. They grappled with one another, Johnny clutching and punching at the man’s mid-section, while the man sank his teeth into the padding of Johnny’s coat shoulder without doing any real harm. They twisted, spun, and toppled over — Johnny squirmed around, aiming to land on top so that he could press his advantage.

It didn’t work.

With a sickening crack, Johnny’s head and neck collided with the raised grave marker of one
Clyde Lewis Myers.
He twitched for two or three seconds ... and then lay very, very still.

It all happened so fast. Why, just one minute ago, certainly no more than two, she and Johnny had been bickering over their father’s grave. And now—? How was this—? How could this
be
?!

Barbra gasped as the man crawled forward onto Johnny, his mouth open ...

... and it was that very sound escaping her lips which drew the creature’s attention back to his original prey.

And that’s what he is, a
creature
, not a man, not a maniac, it’s a creature, a
ghoul
, oh, God, she could see it in its eyes, they were so cold, so lifeless.

But not entirely empty. As lightning streaked across the sky, Barbra could see
craving
in those eyes — a hunger, a wicked desire ... for
her
.

Forgetting Johnny, the man, the
creature
, clambered to his unsteady feet. His mouth moved, but not to speak. He was chewing the air, just as he wanted to chew her flesh.

They’re coming to get you, Barbra
.

Barbra ran. She did not think of Johnny, lying there helpless. She did not even think to call for help — who was around to hear her cries?

She just ran.

And the creature followed.

Even as she stumbled over the uneven ground, desperate to get back to the car and away from this place, she could hear it, shambling and battering its way through the low-hanging branches of the trees. It was coming, and it wasn’t going to stop until it—

One of her heels sank into the soft earth, and she fell. For a moment she could only lie there, certain that the creature would fall upon her at any moment!

But no, it was still in pursuit, just not as close as she had feared. It was awkward and clumsy, and could not hope to catch her
so long as she kept moving
.

Kicking her other heal off with a flick of her foot, Barbra pushed onward, and at last reached the car.

Jerking the door open, she threw herself into the driver’s seat. She might not own a car, but she knew enough about driving to get the hell out of ...

The keys were missing.

Of course they were. The keys were in Johnny’s pocket.

Johnny ...

Coming back to her senses enough to lock the doors, she moaned as the creature caught up with her. It grab the handle and yanked on it helplessly, appearing confused and frustrated that it would not open. In fact, it was
pushing
on the glass with its other hand, as though it did not quite remember
how
to open the door. Enraged, it slapped at the window with both hands, then tried to open the door again, then slapped the window, then tried the door ... it could
see
her through the glass, but could not understand why it couldn’t
reach
her.

Flailing and bumbling, it ran behind the car around to the passenger door and repeated its pulling and slapping, pulling and slapping, its mouth open and chewing the air, chewing, oh, why wouldn’t it stop, why wouldn’t it go away?!

Suddenly, the creature’s wild motion prompted it to catch sight of something behind it, something on the ground, too small or low for Barbra to see. It pushed away from the car, and for the briefest moment, Barbra thought that maybe, just maybe, it was leaving.

But then her blood ran cold as it stooped, twisted around (nearly stumbling from its lack of coordination), and returned to the car with a rock bigger than its own fist. Showing more cleverness than when it had tugged in futility at the door handle, it smashed the rock against the window once, twice ...

Barbra screamed as the rock crashed through the glass on the third impact. The creature lost its grip, and the stone missed Barbra’s thigh by only the narrowest of margins.

The creature paused for a moment, requiring a second to absorb that it had, in fact, achieved its goal. Then it reawakened, dribble running from its lips as it threw itself into the open window, reaching for Barbra, reaching, dirty fingernails clawing toward her face ...

Lightheaded and desperate, Barbra looked around. If she fled the car, the creature would just clamber back out of the window and come after her on foot. It was slow and clumsy, but all it would take was another fall on her part to bring the thing down upon her like death itself.

What could she do? If only she had the keys!

Her hands were acting almost before her mind understood what she intended to do. Johnny had parked near the top of the hill, far enough over the summit that the car was angled forward. Barbra released the parking brake and pulled the gear into
Neutral
, then seized the steering wheel as the car began to roll.

The creature, whose long legs were still outside the vehicle, was caught off-guard. As the car rolled and picked up speed, it was dragged back out of the window. Barbra glanced over to see that it was
trying
to hold on, but it again seemed confused by the entire situation. It could not understand how or why its prey was getting away, and a last-ditch leap through the open window or climbing on top of the car were apparently beyond its comprehension.

Soon enough, the car was rolling faster than the creature could stumble to keep up, and it lost its grip. It did not give up, but continued to shamble along after her.

Barbra guided the car along the gentle curves of the cemetery road, and the creature fell further and further behind. Perhaps she would be all right after all, get away from the thing, so that she could get help and come back for Johnny.

For Johnny ...

With her immediate danger past, thoughts of her brother brought Barbra to tears.

No! She had to keep control of herself! She had to! Only she could save Johnny!

She turned to look back through the rear window, but this time she was hoping that the creature
was
still in sight, because if it gave up too soon it might remember that Johnny was still back there, unconscious and helpless. She had to make sure she lured it as far away from Johnny as possible—!

With her eyes off the road, Barbra did not see the next curve ahead. In those few seconds, the car lurched off the dirt road and ground its driver’s side up against a large tree, coming to a rough halt.

If the motor had been running, it would not have mattered — the damage to the car was superficial. But since she had been coasting, the car had lost all momentum.

She was stranded, and the creature was getting closer every second.

The driver’s side was pinned, so Barbra crawled across the front seat to exit out the passenger door — some of the loose, broken glass cut into her knees, but she didn’t even notice. Stockinged feet crunching on gravel and dead leaves, she bolted away from the creature.

Cutting across the cemetery in the general direction of the main road, Barbra crashed through branches and twigs and underbrush, and soon her feet were just as torn up as her knees. She hoped to lose the creature this way, but she wasn’t sure how much longer her exposed hands, feet, and legs could take the punishment.

Finally, after a short time that stretched an eternity for Barbra, she broke through onto the smooth dirt she had sought. Risking one glance over her shoulder, she really put on the speed now, intending to race down the road until she was safe.

Thunder rolled across the land once again, and as if on cue, the creature appeared. As feebleminded as it seemed, it had managed to cut straight across a less-wooded area, reducing the ground it had to cover by almost half. Barbra whimpered and again angled away from the road to avoid it.

In the fading light of dusk, she spotted a rundown, white farmhouse standing across an empty and overgrown field. Should she seek shelter and help there, or continue on to the main town? How far away had it been? Johnny had been driving (and bickering about the broken radio), so she hadn’t been paying close attention. They’d been through here many times before, but she was so rattled!

With a glance back at the approaching creature, Barbra hurried toward the farmhouse.