Dawn of the Dead (25 page)

He tried to shut off his mind from the scientist's insistent, rasping, high-pitched voice.

“The dissection . . . the dissection of the corpses can be carried out . . . carried out with respect for the dignity of the human body . . .”

Roger's arms seemed to move and were now twitching slightly. The blanket started to slide down his face.

“The heads . . . the heads and the . . . skeletons . . . whenever possible . . . could be identified and . . . buried in consecrated grounds . . .”

All hell broke loose in the studio. Chairs were thrown on the stage and the picture wavered.

Peter stared with fascination mixed with disbelief as the blanket continued to creep down Roger's face. Soon, his vacantly staring eyes were visible . . . the drooling mouth . . . the pasty, green-tinted face. A putrid stench filled the air. Peter couldn't believe the transformation. He almost expected Roger to jump up as if it were a joke.

Suddenly, the figure tried to sit up. Peter snapped back to reality and clicked a shell into his supergun.

Then, the corpse sat all the way up. It stared blankly at Peter, then with recognition. It struggled to its feet. Peter calmly sighted the center of its forehead through his rifle. He, too, rose.

“We've got to remain unemotional . . . unemotional . . . rational . . . logical . . . tactical . . . tactical!” the scientist pleaded above the raging commotion in the studio. Nervously, he once again wiped his brow with his sleeve.

“They're crazy,” Steve muttered, staring at the tube, disbelief written all over his face. “They're crazy.”

“It's really . . . all over, isn't it?” Fran asked, mournfully.

From the other side of the room, a sudden blast roared through the wall. Fran jumped and fell into Stephen's arms, shaking and hysterically crying.

Steve closed his eyes tightly and started to tremble uncontrollably. A few seconds later, the TV was clicked off. Steve opened his eyes and saw Peter standing by the set, the rifle still in his hand. The man's eyes were blindly staring at the blank screen.

Without speaking, Steve untangled Fran's arms from around his neck, rose, and walked over to Peter. Gently, he took the rifle from the immobile man.

A little while later the two of them dumped Roger's corpse on top of the stack of bodies in the bank vault. The whole time, neither man had uttered one word, nor exchanged one sentiment, but went about their work purposefully. The dead man's eyes stared at them with a puzzled expression as they placed him in the huddle of arms and legs. Blood oozed from the familiar gunshot wound in the center of Roger's forehead.

As the heavy door of the vault closed with a metallic slam, Peter thought the whole image was one of hell itself.

As the clanging sound resounded throughout the mall, Peter uttered a long-forgotten prayer of salvation for Roger's soul, just in case.

They had missed Roger's presence painfully at first. His hearty laugh, his lively personality. He had really been a uniting force for the little band of survivors. They had expected him to come charging around corners, dashing through the room, always full of life and vitality.

After three months, things returned to relative normalcy. Now Fran chased a little puppy across the room. It had just left a puddle under the dining room table.

“Adam, no, no!” she called out as it scuttled through the room, sliding across the scatter rug.

She grabbed the little spaniel by the fur on its neck and dropped it on some papers that were layered in a corner of the general room.

As she straightened up, she was aware of her protruding belly, her pregnant condition very noticeable now. She wiped her brow as if she were an exhausted housewife and shuffled back into the bedroom that she and Steve shared. She picked up the sheet and continued to make up the double mattress. One thing she enjoyed was that instead of doing the laundry she just discarded the dirty sheets and towels and unwrapped new ones.

On an end-table near the bed there was a reading lamp. Piled up around the table were all the best-sellers in hard and soft covers from four months ago, piles of out-of-date magazines, and half-empty cups of instant coffee.

She and Steve had done their best to make the living room liveable. There was a large sectional couch in brown velvet, small end-tables with lamps and ashtrays and knick-knacks. The huge TV set was near some large potted plants, which got sunlight from the skylight overhead. The hard cement floor was covered with the finest oriental rugs from the department store. A few leather easy chairs completed the room, each with a footstool. On the wall were posters and paintings. They had even managed to carry up a fake fireplace before they closed the fake wall, with an artificial log and an electric flame. The whole place had a very homey atmosphere.

In the dining area, there was a microwave oven, a refrigerator and more cabinets with dishes and silverware.

While Fran straightened up, Steve wandered about the department store. He fiddled with a new supersonic calculator and looked at adult games. In this isolated environment, he had become obsessed with the gadgets and other items in the department store. It was his habit to explore each day and try everything in sight. He had become very possessive, hiding things from Peter and Fran.

On the roof, in the bright sunlight of early morning, Peter played tennis against a wall of one of the utility sheds. He wore a new sweat suit and brightly colored sneakers. His sleek new silver racket slammed phosphorescent orange balls against the wall with lightning speed. He attacked each shot with determination and strength, his face set in anger. It was his only release. For in three months, the image of Roger's puzzled expression had never left his mind.

Peter hit one ball too high and it flew over the shed, bouncing on the other side and banking off the lip of the roof. Then it flew over the edge and landed in the parking lot below, hitting the pavement. It bounced several times before rolling off among the feet of the army of zombies that was still wandering this way and that through the area. The number had never really diminished, for as others were killed, fresh, new ones rose from the corpses of the recently dead to take their place.

The creatures mobbed around the trucks at the main entrances. They moaned and gurgled as they clawed at the building. There were hundreds of the living dead—all different ages, sexes and shapes. Some were clothed, as if they had just stepped out of their homes that morning, on their way to work; others were naked, their large wounds gaping and oozing.

Fran waddled around the kitchen area, preparing dinner for the two men. They played cards on a table in the living room. In the middle of the table were hundred-dollar bills.

“Dinner,” Fran called half-heartedly, and the men pushed their chairs back from the bridge table and crossed to the dining room table. It was set with the best linen, silver, china and crystal that Porter's had to offer, directly from the bridal department.

After a dinner of warmed-up canned beef stew, canned vegetables and stale cake from the bakery downstairs, Fran served coffee.

“There hasn't been a broadcast for three days,” she said to Steve, indicating the television set, which was on. Only grayish snow filled the screen, and the speaker hissed as it received no transmission signal. “Why don't you give it up?”

“They might come back on,” Steve said morosely, staring into his coffee cup. Peter sat silently at the table, his food practically untouched.

Suddenly, Fran felt a rage. She slammed down her apron angrily and stomped over to the TV. She clicked it off, and the blue glow disappeared, the drone stopped. She returned to the table. Steve stood up, and moved to the set. Without looking at either Fran or Peter, he clicked it back on. Peter watched the two sheepishly. It was a familiar domestic scene to him. They played it out every night from boredom and frustration. He glanced over the food-laden dishes, across to the suburban-looking living room, and then off into the distance.

“What have we done to ourselves?” Fran asked plaintively. Steve huddled over the set, trying to focus it. Fran moved to the table and started to clear it. When she reached for Peter's plate, he put out his hand and touched her gently. When she looked at him, his eyes were filled with tears.

•  •  •

The next morning, Fran awoke with a start. She had determined that this day would not be the same as the others of the past three months. She shook Steve awake roughly.

“Get up, now. You promised.”

He opened one eye and rolled over.

She shoved him again.

“After breakfast?”

“OK, but get moving.” She struggled up from the mattress on the floor. It was getting more and more difficult to maneuver herself with her growing belly.

After breakfast, the couple climbed the ladder and emerged on the roof in the bright sunlight. They entered the helicopter, this time with Fran at the controls. Steve leaned over her and indicated some levers and buttons. Soon the thunderous roar of the engine disturbed the quiet morning air. The helicopter rose and hovered over the roof of the mall.

“OK, easy now . . . easy . . . bring 'er down . . .” Steve instructed Fran after she had completed a successful take-off.

In the cockpit, Fran was flustered, but she managed to handle the controls. She was intent on learning to fly the damn machine. She had thought they were all becoming too morose, too limited, and that it was time for them to stop feeling sorry for themselves and make the best of it. Who knew, maybe they would get word over the tube or the radio that the disaster was over. Then they could return to civilization. She wanted to be ready. She had learned a lot about herself over the past few months. And one of the things she knew was that in order to survive, one had to be self-sufficient. In fact, she had been reading up on home birth methods, and if necessary, she was confident that she could deliver her own child. The American Indian women had done it, and so could she.

“Easy . . . stabilize it,” Steve told her. He had remained relatively calm and responsive, she thought. She guessed he was getting bored with all his gadgets. “That's it.”

She reacted efficiently, handling the controls better now as the chopper's runners just touched the roof's surface.

“That's it . . . that's it . . . You got it!” Steve said excitedly.

The runners hit the roof's surface, and the chopper settled.

With joy, Fran impulsively threw her arms around Steve's neck. It was the first time she had touched him in two weeks.

“You did it, you did it,” he said with sincerity. “Hon, you did it.”

She excitedly hugged and kissed him with the happiness of a ten-year-old learning to ride a two-wheeler. She practically bubbled over. It was the greatest release for the two of them since they had been holed up in the mall.

As seen from a great distance, the helicopter on top of the mall roof looked very small, the whine of its dying engine barely audible.

But two beady eyes, nonetheless, had seen the action. The figure to whom they belonged pulled the binoculars away and turned to his companion.

The first man was named Thor. He wore a Viking-like outfit, complete with a fur tunic, sandals laced up his calves, two swords with gilded hilts secured to a six-inch-wide leather belt and long, straggly hair, pulled back with a leather thong. His companion was known as Hatchet, for his fascination with sledgehammers, hatchets and machetes. He wore skin-tight faded jeans, and a short denim jacket open over his bare chest. His chest was tattooed with a snake sliding its way up the leg of a woman. The woman was nude; her decapitated head lay at her feet.

One of Hatchet's eyes was covered with a patch. His head was completely bald, and one of his ears was missing. In the other was a gold hoop earring.

The third person who stood with them stared off in the other direction. He was an older man with a pure white beard, dressed in red and white. He looked familiar enough, like Jolly Old Saint Nick. In fact, that's what he was called.

“They must get in through the roof,” Thor said, putting the binoculars up to his eyes again. He could see that the chopper blades were stationary now.

“Son of a bitch!” Hatchet declared, rubbing the tattoo on his chest absently.

“There's trucks blockin' all the entrances.”

“No sweat!”

“What do ya think?” Thor put down the binoculars and turned to the others. “Hit 'em now or wait for tonight?”

“Tonight!” Hatchet and Old Nick said in unison.

After dinner Fran, Steve and Peter were seated in the living room reading when the voice came over the speaker of the shortwave radio that had been installed near the television.

“We know you're in there,” it rattled over the unit. “Seen the whirlybird on the roof.”

Fran stepped closer, attracted by the signal. Peter moved over and sat by the radio, not knowing whether or not to send the signal back. Steve got up from one of the leather armchairs and walked over to listen.

“Hey, er . . .” the voice cackled. “Could ya use some company in there?”

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but Peter put out his arm to stop him.

“We're just ridin' by . . . We could sure use some supplies . . . What's the chance us gettin' in there to stock up?”

Peter strained to hear, listening intently, and trying to read into the voice's inflections.

To his trained ear, there was something mildly curious about the voice. It hadn't identified itself with any code and sounded too self-confident and cocky to be anyone in distress.

“How many of you in there, anyway?” the voice probed. “There's three of us. Couldn't ya use three more guns?”

“Raiders,” Peter surmised. No one would be dumb enough to disclose their number unless it was a tactic to get Peter to discuss theirs. The cockiness of the leader implied they were quite adept at scavenging. They must have spotted them when the helicopter took off. Peter knew that they had chanced it but hadn't wanted to spoil Fran's enthusiasm for learning to fly.