Undead (6 page)

The girl stared.

“All we have to do is just keep our heads,” Ben added.

They looked at each other for a moment, until Ben turned and picked up the table top again. As he started hoisting it up to the window, the girl spoke, quietly and weakly.

“Who are they?”

Ben stopped in his tracks, still supporting the heavy table top, and looked with amazement at Barbara’s anxious face. Slowly, it dawned on him that the girl had never been really aware of the thing that had been happening. She had no idea of the extent of the danger, or the reason for it. She had not heard the radio announcements, the bulletins. She had been existing in a state of uninformed shock.

Incredulously, Ben shouted, “You haven’t heard anything?”

She stared blankly, silently, her eyes fastened on his. Her reply was in her silence.

“You mean you don’t have any idea what’s going on?”

Barbara started to nod her answer, but instead she was seized with a fit of trembling. “I…I…”

Her trembling increased, she began to shake violently, and suddenly she flung her arms up and flailed them about, sobbing wildly. She began to walk in panic, wildly and aimlessly, in circles about the room.

“No…no…no…I…can’t…what’s happening…what’s happening to us…why…what’s happening…tell me…tell…me…”

Unnerved by her hysteria, Ben grabbed her, and shook her hard to bring her out of it—and her sobbing jerked to a halt, but she remained staring right through him—her eyes seemingly focused beyond him, at some far distant point. Her speech, still detached and rambling, became a little more coherent.

“We were in the cemetery…me…and Johnny…my brother, Johnny…we brought flowers for…this…man…came after me…and Johnny…he…he fought…and now he…he’s…”

“All right! All right!” Ben shouted, directly into the girl’s face—he had a feeling that if he couldn’t bring her out of her present state of mind, she was going to go right off the deep end; she might kill herself or do something which would result in destruction for both of them. He tightened his grip on her wrists, and she wrenched against him.

“Get your hands off me!”

She flung herself away from him, beating him across the chest, taking him by surprise. But in her momentum, she stumbled over one of the table legs, barely regained her balance, and threw her body against the front door and stood there, poised as if to run out into the night.

She rambled, losing any semblance of rationality.

“We’ve got to help him…got to get Johnny…we’ve got to go out and find him…bring him…”

She advanced toward Ben, pleading with tears, the desperate tears of a frightened child.

“Bring him here…we’ll be safe…we can help him…we…”

The man stepped toward her. She backed away, suddenly frightened, holding one hand toward him defensively, and the other toward her mouth. “No…no…please…please…we’ve got to…we…”

He took one deliberate stride toward her. “Now…you calm down,” he said softly. “You’re safe here. We can’t take no chances…”

She pouted, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

“We’ve got to get Johnny,” she said, weakly. And she put her fingers in her mouth and stared wide-eyed at Ben, like a small child.

“Now…come on, now…you settle down,” he told her. “You don’t know what these things are. It ain’t no Sunday-school picnic out there…”

She began sobbing hysterically, violently—it was clear she had gone totally to pieces.

“Please…pleeeeese…No…no…no…Johnny…Johnny…pleeeese…”

Ben struggled to calm her, to hold her still, as she writhed and squirmed to get away from him. Despite his strength, she wrenched free—because he was trying hard not to hurt her. She stared at him, their eyes met in an instant of calm—and then she screamed and started beating at him and kicking him—kicking him again and again, while he struggled to pin her arms at her sides and hold her immobile against a wall. With brute force, he shoved her backwards finally, propelling her into a soft chair—but she sprung up again, screaming and slapping at his face. He was forced to grab her again, in a bear hug, practically slamming her into a corner. Then—he hated to do it—he brought up one powerful fist and punched her—but she jerked her head and the blow was misplaced, and did not put her out of commission. But it shocked her into dumb, wounded silence—long enough for him to hit her again, squarely. And her eyes fell sorrowfully on his and she began to crumple—she fell limp against him, as he supported her weight, easing her into his arms.

Holding her, he looked dumbly about the room. His eyes fell on the sofa. He did not carry, but almost walked her to the sofa, permitting her dead weight to fold onto it, and easing her head onto a cushion.

He stepped back and looked at her, and felt sorry for what he had to do. Still, she looked so peaceful lying there, as though she were not in any kind of danger at all. Her blonde hair was in disarray, though. And her face was wet with tears. And she was going to have a bruise where he had punched her on the chin.

Ben trembled. He hoped for both their sakes that he could find a way to pull them through. It was not going to be easy.

It was not going to be easy at all.

Next to the couch where Barbara lay unconscious, there was a cabinet radio of the type people used to buy in the 1930’s. Ben stabbed at a button, and a glow came to the yellowed dial indicator of the radio, behind its plate of old glass, and while he waited for it to warm up he looked around for the tin of nails he had given to Barbara some time ago. He found it on the floor where Barbara had dropped it, and he selected some nails and slid them into his pocket. The radio began hissing and crackling with static. He returned to it, and played with the tuning dial. At first, he could get nothing but static—then it spun past what sounded like a voice, and Ben adjusted it carefully, trying to find the spot. Finally, the tuner brought in a metallic monotone voice…

“…ERGENCY RADIO NETWORK. NORMAL BROADCAST FACILITIES HAVE BEEN TEMPORARILY DISCONTINUED. STAY TUNED TO THIS NETWORK FOR EMERGENCY INFORMATION. YOUR LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES URGE YOU TO REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES. KEEP ALL DOORS AND WINDOWS LOCKED OR BOARDED SHUT. USE ALL FOOD, WATER, AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES SPARINGLY. CIVIL DEFENSE FORCES ARE ATTEMPTING TO GAIN CONTROL OF THE SITUATION. STAY NEAR YOUR RADIO, AND REMAIN TUNED TO THIS FREQUENCY. DO NOT USE YOUR AUTOMOBILE. REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES. KEEP ALL DOORS AND WINDOWS LOCKED.”

A long pause. A crackle. Then the message began repeating. It was a recording.

“OUR LIVE BROADCASTERS WILL CONVEY INFORMATION AS RECEIVED FROM CIVIL DEFENSE HEADQUARTERS. THIS IS YOUR CIVIL DEFENSE EMERGENCY RADIO NETWORK. NORMAL BROADCAST FACILITIES HAVE BEEN TEMPORARILY DISCONTINUED. STAY TUNED TO THIS WAVELENGTH…”

Ben waved his hand in disgust—at the repetition of the radio—and moved away as it continued its announcement. He returned to the heavy wooden table top still leaning against the wall beneath the living room window. Keeping his own body back in the shadows of the room, Ben peeled back the window curtain just enough to peer outside into the darkness of the lawn.

He saw there were now four ominous figures standing in the yard.

The metallic voice of the radio recording continued to repeat itself.

And the figures stood very still, their arms dangling, aspects of their silhouettes revealing tattered clothing or shaggy hair. They were cold, dead things.

Something in the distance suddenly startled Ben. From across the road, a figure was moving toward the house. The ghoulish beings were increasing in number, hour by hour. It was nothing that Ben had not expected, had not taken into account; still the actuality of it caused his heart to leap with fear each time he saw new evidence of it.

If the things increased sufficiently in number, it was only a matter of time before they would start to attack the house, hammering and pounding, trying to force their way in.

Ben spun away from the door and rushed to the fireplace. He reached for his matches. In a little stand by the couch where Barbara lay unconscious, there was a bunch of old magazines. Grabbing them, Ben ripped pages loose and crumpled them into the fireplace. He piled kindling wood and a few larger logs, then touched the paper with a match and watched a small fire take hold.

On the mantle was a can of charcoal-lighter. Ben grabbed it gratefully and sprayed it into the fire and it whooshed into a larger blaze, almost singeing the big man’s face as he worked. The larger logs began to burn. He returned to the window.

The recorded message continued to repeat itself.

“…FORCEMENT AGENCIES URGE YOU TO REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES. KEEP ALL DOORS AND WINDOWS LOCKED OR BOARDED SHUT. USE ALL FOOD, WATER AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES SPARINGLY. CIVIL DEFENSE FORCES ARE ATTEMPTING TO…”

Ben hoisted the table top to the windowsill and struggled to brace it there while he placed a nail into position. He pounded hard with the claw hammer…driven by desperation…another nail…and another. With the table secure, he checked it hastily and rushed to another window and lifted the edge of its curtains and peered out.

Now there were five figures on the lawn.

Ben pivoted, letting the edge of the curtain drop, and rushed to the fire, where the biggest logs had now begun to blaze. He seized two of the discarded table legs, ripped curtains from the boarded-up window and used strips of the cloth to wrap around the ends of the table legs, then drenched the cloth with charcoal-lighter and plunged the table legs into the fire making two good flaming torches. A torch in each hand, he moved toward the door.

He nudged a big padded armchair ahead of him to the door and, taking both torches in one hand, pulled the curtain aside for another look at the yard.

The figures out there still stood silently, watching the house.

With charcoal-lighter, Ben drenched the padded armchair and touched it with a torch. It caught fire instantly, and the flames licked and climbed, casting flickering light throughout the house. The heat on Ben’s face was severe, but he had to fight it as he lunged for the door, unbolting it and flinging it wide open.

From the doorway, the flaming chair cast eerie, irregular illumination out onto the lawn, and the waiting figures stepped back slightly, as though they were afraid.

Ben shoved the chair through the doorway and slid it across the front porch. He toppled it over the edge, and the flaming bulk tumbled down the steps onto the front lawn. In the rolling motion, flames leapt and sparks flew, and small particles of the chair’s stuffing leapt and glowed in the night wind.

The bonfire raged in the tall grass.

Ben watched for a moment, as the waiting figures backed farther away.

Inside the house again, Ben banged the front door shut and fastened the bolt.

“…ORCES ARE ATTEMPTING TO GAIN CONTROL OF THE SITUATION. STAY NEAR YOUR RADIO, AND REMAIN TUNED TO THIS FREQUENCY. DO NOT USE YOUR AUTOMOBILE. REMAIN IN…”

Hurrying to the window, Ben put more nails into the table top, fastening it securely, then he stood back and surveyed the room, his glance lingering on areas of possible vulnerability. There was the second large window, still unboarded, to the left of the door; a smaller side window; a window in the dining area on the other side of the house; and the front door, which had been bolted but not boarded up.

Ben turned, still inspecting, and his eyes suddenly grew wide.

The girl was sitting up on the couch; and it was her demeanor that had startled Ben more than the fact that she had regained consciousness. Her face was bruised, and she sat in silence staring at the floor. The radio droned on, enveloping her in its metallic repetitious tone, and the fire played on her face and reflected in her eyes…staring…and blinking very seldom.

Ben took off his sweater and moved toward her. He fixed the sweater over her shoulders and looked sympathetically into her face. She just stared at the floor. Ben felt dumb and helpless, and he was both ashamed and embarrassed by what he had done to her to end their struggle earlier, even though at the time it had been a necessary thing. For a long time, he waited for a response from the girl—perhaps an outburst of anger or resentment—but no response came. Forlornly, he moved to the pile of lumber in the center of the floor, chose a table-board, and went to the front window, which was still unboarded.

“…BROADCASTERS WILL CONVEY INFORMATION AS RECEIVED FROM CIVIL DEFENSE HEADQUARTERS. THIS IS YOUR CIVIL DEFENSE EMERGENCY RADIO NETWORK. NORMAL BROADCAST FACILITIES HAVE BEEN…”

Ben succeeded in boarding up the other two windows in the living room, then moved to the front door. He got the ironing board and placed it across the door horizontally, drove nails through the board into the molding and tested it for strength; it seemed to be sufficiently strong to help keep the things out. Ben moved on in his urgency to make the house secure against attack.

In the dining area, there were two closed doors. Trying one, he found it locked, examined it, and found no latch; apparently, someone had locked it with a key. It seemed to be a closet door. Ben yanked and tugged at it several times, but it would not yield, so he concluded it was secure enough and left it alone…concluding that it had obviously been locked by the owner of the house, who lay dead in the hallway upstairs.

Ben found the other door unlocked, and it led into a den with several windows. Disappointed at the added vulnerability, Ben let out a long sigh, then thought for a moment, staring around the room. Finally, he exited briskly, slamming the door to the den and locking it behind him with the skeleton key protruding from its keyhole. His intention was to board the den up instead of attempting to secure the bay windows.

But the skeleton key gave him an idea, and he snatched it out of its keyhole and went to the dining room which would not open before. He jammed the key in the keyhole of the dining-room door, tried to turn it, jiggled and played with it for a while, but the door would not open. He put the key in his pocket and gave up on the door.

The supply of lumber in the center of the living room was dwindling. Ben’s eyes fell momentarily on the motionless, sad figure of Barbara as he moved to check it out. She did not look back at him at all, and he bent over the pile of wood and selected another of the table-boards, for the purpose of boarding the den door. About to start hammering, a thought struck him—and he unlocked the door again and entered the room. There were chairs, a desk, a bureau…he stepped to the desk and started to rummage through the drawers. He pulled out papers, a stack of pencils and pens, a compass—a hundred little odds and ends. Another drawer, a hundred more virtually useless items…he left it hanging open. The bureau contained mostly clothing; he ripped open the big drawers, tumbling the clothing out, and hurled them through the doorway and into the dining area, with a scrape and a crash. One drawer—two—their contents spilling out onto the floor. He looked back at the bureau, and suddenly realizing a use for it, he grabbed hold of it and shoved the huge heavy piece of furniture through the doorway, walking it through the tight opening until it cleared, scraping grooves of paint out of the door-jambs. The same for the large, old-fashioned desk—which warranted another struggle, as the man attempted to secure all things of possible value before finally nailing the den door shut.

In the closet, there was a lot of old clothing; Ben found a good warm coat and jacket and flung them over his shoulder. High on the closet shelves were piles of old boxes, suitcases, hatboxes, and an old umbrella. He paused for an instant, debating their worth, or the possible worth of what they might contain. At his feet his eyes fell on still more clutter: boxes, umbrellas, dust shoes and slippers. He picked up a pair of ladies’ flats and examined them, thinking of the barefoot girl out on the couch, and tucked them under his arm. As he pulled away, something caught his eye—within the dark recesses of the closet, something shiny: the sheen of a finished piece of wood, a familiar shape lying under a pile of dirty clothing. He reached out eagerly, and his hand found what he had hoped: a rifle. He set everything down and rummaged even more eagerly all over the floor of the closet—through shoe boxes, under things—items came flying out of the closet. A shoe box contained old letters and postcards. But in a cigar box, clattering around with pipe cleaners and cleaning fluid, there was a maintenance manual and a box of ammunition.

He flipped open the box, found it better than half full, and counted the cartridges—twenty-seven of them.

The rifle was a lever-action Winchester, .32 caliber. A good, powerful weapon, with plenty of impact. Ben worked the lever to clear the load—and, one after the other, seven more cartridges ejected and clattered onto the floor. He scooped them up, put them in the box with the others, and stuffed the manual into his back pocket; then, deciding to take the whole cigar box full of material, he tucked it under his arm, gathered jackets and shoes, and left the room.

In the dining room, he dropped the load of supplies on top of the drawerless bureau, and the sight of the girl in the living room stopped him short. She remained sitting as before, not moving.

Ben called out.

“We’re all right, now. This place is good and solid. And I found a gun—a gun and some bullets.”

He looked at Barbara from across the room. She seemed to take no note of his talking. He turned and picked up the table-board and the hammer, to begin boarding the den, and continued talking, as if he could luck onto some words that would cause her to respond.

“So, we have a radio…and sooner or later somebody will come to get us out of here. And we have plenty of food…for a few days, at least—oh!—and I got you some shoes—we’ll see in a minute if they fit—and I got some warm clothes for us…”

He got the table-board in place across the center of the den door, above the knob, and he began driving nails. His pounding and the repetition of the radio message were the only sounds. The last nail in, the check for sturdiness, and the big man turned to the girl again.

“…AGENCIES URGE YOU TO REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES. KEEP ALL DOORS AND WINDOWS…”

Other than her upright position, the girl showed no signs of life. Her wide eyes just stared at the floor, or through it, as though at some point beyond.

“…LOCKED OR BOARDED SHUT…”

“Hey, that’s us—” Ben said. “Our windows are boarded up. We’re doing all right—”

He managed a smile, but with the girl not looking at him his attempt was half hearted. He took up the rifle, the cigar box, a coat and the shoes he had gotten for her in one clumsy armful and knelt with his bundle in front of the girl and dropped it at her feet. Taking in his hands the shoes he had found for her, he reached out toward her and said, “These aren’t the prettiest things in the world, I guess—but they ought to keep your feet warm…”

Looking up at her, he again found it hard to go on talking in the face of her catatonia. He did not really know how to cope with it. Her stillness caused him to be as gentle toward her as he could be, but she did not react, and that both puzzled and frustrated Ben.

He held one of the shoes near her foot, waiting for her to lift her leg and slip into it. Finally, taking hold of one of her ankles, he lifted it and fumbled to put the shoe on her foot. It did not go on easily, partly because it was too small, but mostly because of her limpness. But he did succeed in getting it on and he set her foot down gently and took hold of the other one.