Night of the Living Dead (4 page)

She was gasping by the time she stumbled against an old gas pump near the barn. On closer inspection, she felt less hopeful that the farmhouse would be occupied — it had a feeling of
desertion
to it. Still, what choice did she have? Slow as the creature was, it never seemed to tire — she needed to get out of sight, and quickly.

Circling wide around to the front of the house (perhaps the creature would think she had run straight past it without stopping?), she climbed the stairs onto the porch before collapsing against a post in exhaustion. She wanted to call out for help, but she couldn’t risk the creature overhearing her.

After giving her burning legs an all-too-brief respite, she tried the front door —
Locked
!

Nearing tears once more, she leaped from the porch to swing around toward the back of the house. The lawn was at an incline here, and she slid and fell, but was again on her feet and running in a heartbeat.

An instant before she reached the edge of the house, she caught herself — depending upon where the creature was, she might be exposing herself if she continued on! Forcing herself to move with extreme caution, she inched her way forward and peered around the corner.

No, oh no, no!

The creature was still in pursuit. It moved with less zeal now, but it was halfway across the open field, still shambling straight for her.

In renewed terror, she abandoned stealth and continued to circle the house. If the back door was also locked, she would have no choice but to press on, and she did not know how much longer her legs could ...

There! Oh, thank you, God!

A small back porch with a narrow doorway — and the door was standing open! Within the shadows, she could see a counter top, a kitchen table, and on the table, a plateful of fruit ... all so safe and reassuring in their blessed
normalcy
!

Mewling as much with relief as with fear, Barbra rushed toward the open door ...

BEN

Ben stepped off the bus and stretched the kinks out of his back. According to the schedule, he would have to wait two hours for the transfer bus to come through — at
least
two hours, as he could not count on the buses running on time out here in the middle of nowhere. Taking his jacket off, he looked around, but all he found was an old gas station, which was closed, and an eatery called Beekman’s Diner. He realized that it had been a while since he had eaten, so he picked up his modest suitcase and headed into the diner.

Business was slow in Beekman’s. Aside from himself, only four other people had gotten off the bus, and two of them had started walking up the road. There were a pair of old men sitting at the counter, sipping at cups of coffee and bickering over the best way to prepare catfish, and an overweight janitor sat slumped in the farthest booth with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes.

"Wherever you want," said a tired-looking waitress, indicating the open booths. The two other travelers walked ahead of him and sat together at a booth near the middle of the small, narrow diner. Ben took the nearest booth, tossing his suitcase and jacket in beside him. It was a lot cooler in here, so he kept his sweater on as he sat down.

The waitress came to him first. "Passin’ through?" she asked the obvious with no real interest in her voice.

"Yes, ma’am."

"Just coffee, or should I bring you a menu?"

"I’d like some water, and please bring me a menu."

The waitress exhaled and nodded,
almost
concealing her annoyance at the extra effort required on her part.

It did not faze Ben in the least. As a high school teacher, he had been subjected to every variety of passive-aggression under the sun — from simple eye-rolls to soul-deep sighs, Ben had seen and heard it all.

The woman brought him his menu a minute later, then perked up a bit when he ordered a very simple burger and fries. When he asked for her opinion on the best pie for dessert, she returned his warm smile with one of her own. By the time she brought his food, she was exchanging small pleasantries, albeit one sentence at a time.

Just like with so many of his students, Ben had won her over.

It didn’t always work out this way, of course. Some people wore shells too tough to crack with entreaty. Ben had learned long ago that there were times for charm, and there were times to put his foot down, hard. He was glad that charm had worked here.

Ben had finished his entree and was waiting for his slice of peach cobbler when he saw the woman standing in the road.

Even after he set eyes upon her, it took him a moment to absorb the oddity of it. By now, the sun was low in the sky and the shadows were long, and the diner’s tinted windows didn’t help. Ben almost looked away before it struck him how ... well, how she was just standing smack in the middle of the road. She was dressed in what
appeared
to be a nurse’s uniform, but even in the poor light, he could see that it was very dirty — a particularly nasty stain ran from the left side of her neck down onto her breast. Her hair was a mess, too, hanging wild and hiding much of her face.

And there she was, just standing in the middle of the road.

"Here you go," the waitress said as she set his cobbler onto the table.

"Mmm ...? Oh, thank you, ma’am ..."

"You all right?" she asked, but then answered her own question when she followed his gaze. "Oh, my Lord!"

One of the old men turned on his stool. "What’s that, Clara?"

"Look there!" the waitress exclaimed. What Ben had considered merely strange had struck a stronger chord with his server, and her voice trembled as much as her pointing finger.

Now both old men were looking out the big front windows, as were Ben’s fellow bus travelers. Only the janitor remained oblivious, still snoozing away in the back booth.

"Is that Liza Connelly?" one of the men asked as he rose from his stool for a closer look.

"I, I think so, yeah," the waitress answered. To Ben, she explained, "She’s my neighbor." Her fingertips were touching her quivering lower lips now. "She works as a nurse over at the county hospital. That’s a ways from here."

The woman in the road, Liza, was moving now. A very slow pace, and with an awkward gait, but she was moving. Straight for the diner.

Ben did not know why this disturbed him — if anything, Ms. Connelly looked as though she might need help — but it did.

Perhaps this was why he was hesitant to stand, slow to move. He found himself reluctant to take action, which was very out of character for him. As such, it was one of the older patrons who announced, "I’ll go see if she’s okay." And it was the two old men together who hurried to the front door.

And so Ben watched it all happen:

The two old-timers hustled until they were about ten feet away from Liza, then they slowed down. Ben could see one of them talking to her, probably asking if she were all right.

Liza turned in their direction, but she did not look up right away; her hair was still hanging in her face.

The speaker reached out to Liza now, taking her by the arm, guiding her toward the diner.

Liza leaned toward his hand, stooped her neck ... and
bit
at him. Ben blinked in amazement, but the waitress’ gasp told him that he had not imagined it — Liza had tried to
bite
the old man.

The speaker jerked back, turning into profile as he addressed his partner from the counter. Ben saw his mouth form the words,
Did you see that?
His expression was both mystified and offended.

Whatever the men might have tried next was irrelevant. Liza threw herself at the speaker, her temperament suddenly that of a wild animal.

The speaker, now the
victim
, tried to push her away, but as he shuffled backward he lost his footing. He stumbled and fell.

Liza landed atop him and bit him, bit him right on the face. Her teeth sank into his cheek and ripped the flesh away in horrifying strings of gore, exposing his gums and molars to the air.

Ben could hear the victim’s screams through the glass. The man’s partner stared down at his friend, who was by now crying out for help as the crazed nurse continued her assault. The partner took a single step backward ... and then he turned and ran as fast as his old legs would carry him — up the road, away from the diner.

Ben slowly became aware that the waitress was screaming as well. Her hands were pawing at her face as though she wanted to cover her eyes, yet could not. She hopped up and down in place, but seemed unable to look away from the carnage.

One of Ben’s fellow travelers whimpered and hid her eyes; her male companion hunched deeper into the booth, vomiting onto the seat.

In all the chaos, only two people maintained even a semblance of calm: Ben and the janitor, who was just now waking up, looking confused and irritated.

"Help him!" the waitress demanded, addressing either Ben or the janitor, someone, anyone. "
Help him!
"

Yes. Help him.

Ben finally moved. He slid out of the booth and looked around before finally deciding that his jacket might be the most useful tool at hand (he later cursed himself for not thinking to grab his suitcase). He seized the jacket from the seat and rushed out the front door.

The nurse, Liza, was still tearing into her victim, but the old man was barely fighting her now — his arms wrapped around her in a mockery of intimacy as her teeth sank into the side of his neck. Blood sprayed outward in a sickening arc, but the old man was past expressing his pain.

Swallowing his gorge, Ben edged around her, avoiding her line of sight and treading with a gentle step as he circled around a parked Chevy pickup truck. He could see that it was far too late to save the old man who’d had the misfortune to try and speak with a raving lunatic, but if Ben pulled this off, he could prevent her from harming anyone else.

When he was behind her hunched back, he loosened his grip on his jacket to let the torso fall free, then coiled the ends of the sleeves around his hands. With sweat dampening his forehead, Ben crept forward ... slowly ... slowly ...

At the last moment, Liza reacted as though she heard him. She cocked her head, then straightened and twisted to the side, but her movements were stiff and clumsy, which bought Ben the critical extra second he needed.