Читать книгу Undead - John Russo - Страница 8

She entered quickly, as quietly as possible, and closed the door softly behind her, bolting it and feeling in the darkness for a key. Her hand found a skeleton key and she turned it, making a barely audible rasp and click. She leaned against the door, listening, and could still hear the distant footfalls of the man approaching and trying to seek her out.

A tremble shot through her as she groped in the darkness and her hand touched the cold burner of an electric stove. The kitchen. She was in the kitchen of the old house. She pressed a button and the stove light came on, giving her enough illumination to scrutinize her surroundings without, she hoped, alerting her pursuer to where she was. For several seconds, she maintained a controlled silence and did not move a muscle. Then she got the nerve to move.

She crossed the kitchen into a large living room, unlighted and devoid of any signs of life. Her impulse was to call for help again, but she stopped herself for fear of being heard by the man outside. She darted back to the kitchen, rummaged through drawers in a kitchen cabinet, and found the silverware. She chose a large steak knife and, grasping it tightly, went to listen at the door again. All was quiet. She crept back into the living room. Beyond it she could dimly make out an alcove that contained the front entrance to the house. Seized with panic, she bolted to the front door and made sure it was locked. Then, cautiously, she peeled back a corner of the curtain to see outside. The view revealed the expansive lawn and grassy field she had run across earlier, with its large shadowy trees and shrubs and the shed and gasoline pumps lit up in the distance. Barbara could neither see nor hear any sign of her attacker.

Suddenly there was a noise from outside: the pounding and rattling of a door. Barbara dropped the curtain edge and stiffened. More sounds. She hurried to a side window. Across the lawn, she saw that the man was pounding at the door to the garage. She watched, her eyes wide with fear. The man continued to pound savagely at the door, then looked about and picked up something and smashed at it. In panic, Barbara pulled away from the window and flattened herself against the wall.

Her eyes fell on a telephone, across the room on a wooden shelf. She rushed to it and picked up the receiver. Dial tone. Thank God. She frantically dialed the operator. But the dial tone stopped and there was dead silence. Barbara depressed the buttons of the phone again and again, but she could not get the dial tone to resume. Just dead silence. For some reason, the phone was out of order. The radio. The phone. Out of order.

She slammed the receiver down and rushed to another window. A figure was crossing the lawn, coming toward the house. It seemed to be a different figure, a different man. Her heart leapt with both fear and hope—because she did not know who the new man could be, and she dared not cry out to him for help.

She ran to the door and peered out through the curtains again, anxious for a clue as to whether this new person in the yard might be friend or foe. Whoever he was, he was still walking toward the house. A shadow fell suddenly across a strip of window to the left of the door, and Barbara started and jumped back because of its abruptness.

She peeled back a corner of the window curtain and saw the back of the first attacker not ten feet away, facing the other man who was fast approaching. The attacker moved toward the new man, and Barbara did not know what to expect next. She froze against the door and glanced down at her knife—then looked back out at the two men.

They joined each other, seemingly without exchange of words, under the dark, hanging trees, and stood quietly, looking back toward the cemetery. From inside the house, Barbara squinted, trying to see. Finally, the attacker moved back across the road, in the direction of the cemetery. The other man approached the house and stopped in the shadow of a tree, stolidly watching.

Barbara peered into the darkness, but could see little. She lunged toward the phone again, picked up the receiver, and heard dead silence. She barely stopped herself from slamming down the receiver.

Then suddenly came a distant sound—an approaching car. She scampered to the window and looked out, holding her breath. The road seemed empty. But after a moment a faint light appeared, bouncing and rapidly approaching—a car coming up the road. Barbara reached for the doorknob and edged the door open ever so slightly, allowing a little light to spill out over the lawn. There, under a large old tree, was the unmistakable silhouette of the second man. Barbara shuddered, choked with fear at the thought of making a break for the approaching car. The man under the tree appeared to be sitting quite still, his head and shoulders slumped over, though his gaze seemed to be directed right at the house.

Barbara allowed the car to speed by, while she just stared at the hated figure in the lawn. Her chance to run was gone. She closed the door and backed into the shadows of the house. It dawned on her that perhaps the first attacker had gone for reinforcements, and they would return en masse to batter the door down and rape her and kill her.

She glanced frantically all around her. The large, dreary room was very quiet, cast in shadow. Between the living room and the kitchen, there was a hallway and a staircase; she moved toward it stealthily and her fingers found a light switch. The light at the top of the stairs came on, and she ascended the staircase, clinging to the banister for support and hoping desperately to be able to find a place to hide. She tiptoed…tiptoed…keeping a firm grip on the handle of her knife, and then, as she reached the top of the landing, she screamed—an ear-shattering scream that ripped through her lungs and echoed through the old house—because, there, on the floor at the top of the landing, under the glow of the naked light bulb in the hall, was a corpse with the flesh ripped from its bones and its eyes missing from their sockets and the white teeth and cheekbones bared and no longer covered by skin, as if the corpse had been eaten by rats, as it lay there in its pool of dried blood.

Screaming in absolute horror, Barbara dropped her knife and ran and tumbled down the stairs. In full flight now, gagging and almost vomiting, with her brain leaping at the edge of sheer madness, she wanted to get out of that house—and she broke for the door and unlocked it and flung herself out into the night, completely unmindful of the consequences.

Suddenly she was bathed in light that almost blinded her—and as she threw her arms up to protect herself, there was a loud screeching sound, and as she struggled to run, a man jumped in front of her.

“Are you one of them?” the man shouted.

She stared, frozen.

The man standing in front of her had leaped out of a pick-up truck that he had driven onto the lawn and stopped with a screech of brakes and a jounce of glaring headlights.

Barbara stared at him, but no words would come to her lips.

“Are you one of them?” he yelled again. “I seen ’em to look like you!”

Barbara shuddered. He had his arm raised, about to strike her, and she could not make out his features because he was silhouetted against the bright headlights of the truck.

Behind the truck driver, the man under the tree took a few steps forward. Barbara screamed and stepped back, and the truck driver turned to face the advancing man—who stopped and watched and did not resume his advance.

Finally the truck driver grabbed Barbara and shoved her back into the living room so forcefully that she fell down with his body on top of her, and she closed her eyes and prepared to accept her death.

But he got off of her and slammed the door shut and locked it. And he lifted the curtains and peered out. He did not seem to be very much concerned about her, so she finally opened her eyes and stared at him.

He was carrying a tire iron in his hand. He was a black man, perhaps thirty years old, dressed in slacks and a sweater. He did not at all resemble her attacker. In fact, though his face bore an intense look, it was friendly and handsome. He appeared to be a strong man, well over six feet tall.

Barbara got to her feet and continued to stare at him.

“It’s all right,” he said, soothingly. “It’s all right. I ain’t one of those creeps. My name is Ben. I ain’t going to hurt you.”

She sank into a chair and began to cry softly, while he concerned himself with his surroundings. He moved into the next room and checked the locks on the windows. He turned on a lamp; it worked; and he turned it back off.

He called to Barbara from the kitchen.

“Don’t you be afraid of that creep outside! I can handle him all right. There’s probably gonna be lots more of them, though, soon as they find out we’re here. I’m out of gas, and the gasoline pumps out back are locked. Do you have the key?”

Barbara did not reply.

“Do you have the key?” Ben repeated, trying to control his anger.

Again, Barbara said nothing. Her experiences of the past couple of hours had brought her to a state of near-catatonia.

Ben thought maybe she did not hear, so he came into the living room and addressed her directly.

“I said the gas pumps out back are locked. Is there food around here? I’ll get us some food, then we can beat off that creep out there and try to make it somewhere where there is gas.”

Barbara merely held her face in her hands and continued to cry.

“I guess you tried the phone,” Ben said, no longer expecting an answer. And he picked it up and fiddled with it but could not get anything but dead silence, so he slammed it down into its cradle. He looked at Barbara and saw she was shivering.

“Phone’s no good,” he said. “We might as well have two tin cans and a string. You live here?”

She remained silent, her gaze directed toward the top of the stairs. Ben followed her stare and started toward the stairs, but halfway up he saw the corpse—and stared for a moment and slowly backed down into the living room.

His eyes fell on Barbara, and he knew she was shivering with shock, but there was nothing for him to do but force himself back into action.

“We’ve got to bust out of here,” he said. “We’ve got to find some other people—somebody with guns or something.”

He went into the kitchen and started rummaging, flinging open the refrigerator and the cupboards. He began filling a shopping bag with things from the refrigerator, and because he was in a hurry he literally hurled the things into the bag.

Suddenly, to his surprise, he looked up and Barbara was standing beside him.

“What’s happening?” she said, in a weak whisper, so weak that Ben almost did not hear. And she stood there wide-eyed, like a child waiting for an answer.

Amazed, he stared at her.

“What’s happening?” she repeated, weakly, shaking her head in fright and bewilderment.

Suddenly they were both startled by a shattering crash. Ben dropped the groceries, seized his jack-handle, and ran to the front door and looked out through the curtained window. Another shattering sound. The first attacker had joined the second man at the old pick-up truck, and with rocks the two had smashed out the headlights.

“Two of them,” Ben muttered to himself, and as he watched, the two men outside started to beat with their rocks at the body of the truck—but their beating seemed to have no purpose; it seemed to be just mindless destruction. In fact, outside of smashing the headlights, they were not harming the old truck very much.

But Ben spun around with a worried look on his face.

“They’re liable to wreak the engine,” he said to Barbara. “How many of them are out there? Do you know?”

She backed away from him, and he lunged at her and grabbed her by the wrists and shook her, in an effort to make her understand.

“How many? Come on, now—I know you’re scared. But I can handle the two that are out there now. Now, how many are there? That truck is our only chance to get out of here. How many? How many?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” she screamed. “What’s happening? I don’t know what’s happening!”

As she struggled to break his hold on her wrists, she burst into hysterical sobbing.

Ben turned away from her and moved for the door. He lifted the curtain and looked out for a moment. The attackers were still beating at the truck, wildly trying to tear it apart.

Ben flung open the door, and leaped off of the porch, and began cautiously advancing toward the two men. As they turned to face him, he was revolted by what he saw in the glow of the light from the living room of the old house.

The faces of the attackers were the faces of humans who were dead. The flesh on their faces was rotting and oozing in places. Their eyes bulged from deep sockets. Their flesh was bloodless and pasty white. They moved with an effort, as though whatever force had brought them to life had not done a complete job. But they were horrible, ghoulish beings, and they frightened Ben to the depths of his ability to be frightened, as he moved toward them brandishing his jack-handle.

“Come and get it, now. Come and get it,” Ben muttered to himself, as he concentrated on his attack, moving forward stolidly at first, then breaking almost into a run.

But the two, instead of backing off, moved toward the man, as though drawn by some deep-seated urge. Ben pounded into them, swinging his jack-handle again and again with all his might. But his blows, powerful though they were, seemed to have little effect. He couldn’t stop the things, or hurt them. It was like beating a rug; every time he flung them back they advanced again, in a violent, brutal struggle. But Ben finally managed to beat them to the ground, and for a long while he continued to pound at their heads, at their limp forms lying there on the lawn, until he was almost sobbing with each of his blows, beating and beating at them, while Barbara stood on the porch and watched in a state of shock. Over and over, he drove the jack-handle smashing into the skulls of the prostrate creatures—humanoids, or whatever they were—until the sheer violence of it set Barbara off on a rampage of screaming—screaming and holding her head and trying to cover her eyes. Again and again her screams pierced the night, mingled with Ben’s sobs and the sounds of the jack-handle hammering into the skulls of the dead things.

Ben finally got hold of himself, and stopped. Breathing heavily, he stood, enveloped in the quiet of the night.

Silent now, the girl stood in the doorway and looked at him—or through him—he could not be sure which. He turned to face her and say something to comfort her, but he could not get his breath.

Suddenly, he heard a noise behind the girl, from inside the house. He leaped up onto the porch, and walking toward her from the kitchen was another of the horrible dead things. Somehow it must have broken the bolt on the kitchen door.

“Lock that door!” Ben yelled and Barbara summoned the presence of mind to shut the living-room door and lock it, as still another brutal struggle ensued in the living room.

The dead thing that Ben began struggling with this time was more horrible-looking than the other two, as if it had been dead longer, or had died a more terrible death. Patches of hair and flesh had been torn from its head and face, and the bones of its arms showed through the skin like a jacket with the elbows worn through. And one dead eye was hanging halfway out of its socket, and its mouth was twisted and caked with blood and dirt.

Ben tried to hit it, but the thing grabbed onto Ben’s arm, and the jack-handle dropped to the floor. Ben groped and struggled with the thing, and finally twisted it around and wrestled it down onto the carpet. The thing was emitting strange rasping sounds from its dead throat, like the sounds that had been made by whoever had killed Barbara’s brother…and it raked its hands in the direction of Ben’s throat—but it did not make contact, because Ben had seized the jack-handle and he drove it point first into the thing’s skull.

Ben stood up. He had to use his foot against the dead thing’s head to gain leverage to pull the jack-handle out—and the dead skull flopped back with a thud against the living-room floor. And just the tiniest bit of fluid, white and not the color of blood, oozed from the wound made by the jack-handle in the dead creature’s skull.

But Ben had no time to think of what it might mean, because a sound in the kitchen told him that still another of the things had gotten in. He met it in the hall and with powerful jack-handle blows drove it out beyond the kitchen door so that he could fall against it, shutting it and leaning against it to keep it shut while he tried to get his breath.

After a long silence, Ben said, “They know we’re in here now. It’s no secret any longer, if it ever was. And they’re going to kill us if we don’t protect ourselves.”

He spoke directly to Barbara, as though looking for a sign that she understood and would cooperate in their struggle to survive. But she did not hear him. Her face was twitching in fright, and her eyes remained wide open in a non-blinking stare.

She was staring toward the floor, at the spot where the dead humanoid lay. It was askew on its back, in the hallway between the living room and the kitchen, its right arm jutting at a crazy angle toward the girl with fingers twisted as though to grab.

Horrified, Barbara thought she saw a slight movement in the thing’s hand. It twitched. The whole body twitched slightly—the bent, broken neck keeping the being’s head twisted upward, in an open-mouthed, one-eyed glassy stare.

As if in a trance, Barbara took a few steps toward the thing, the fear in her face contorting into a sick frown. And the hand twitched again. The girl moved toward it, drawn toward it, staring down at it with overpowering curiosity.

The dead thing lay there twitching and staring, with the one eye hanging out and the beginnings of decay on its face and neck.

But Barbara moved closer, and the thing continued to twitch, its one eye still staring upward, glassy and pale, like the eye of a stuffed animal.

Adrenaline coursed through Barbara’s body, as she felt an overpowering drive to run or scream, even though she remained rooted, fixatedly staring into the eye of the dead thing. And suddenly it moved, with a rustling sound. And Barbara jumped and screamed, jolted out of her trance, before the realization came to her that Ben had a hold on the thing’s legs and was dragging it across the floor.

“Shut your eyes, girl, I’m getting this dead thing out of here,” Ben said, in a stern voice, and his face showed his anguish and revulsion as he dragged the dead body across the floor.

The one eye continued to twitch. And Barbara just stood there, her hands still at her mouth, watching, listening to the sounds of Ben’s breathing and his struggling with the dead being. Finally, he got the body to the kitchen door, and he let the legs drop with a thud as he paused to rest and think.

Even in the dim illumination provided by the stove light, Barbara could see the shiny perspiration on Ben’s face, and the rasp of his heavy breathing seemed to fill the room. His eyes were alert, and afraid. He turned quickly to see through the small window pane in the door. The dead thing still lay twitching slightly at his feet.

And outside, lurking in the shadow from the huge trees, Ben’s probing eyes discerned three more beings watching and waiting, their arms dangling and eyes bulging, as they maintained a dumb, fixated stare in the direction of the house.

With a swift move, the big man flung open the kitchen door and bent to pick up the dead thing at his feet. The three ghoulish creatures outside under the trees began to take slow, shuffling, threatening steps toward the house. And, with one great heave, Ben flopped the dead, twitching form outside the door, just beyond the threshold.

The things on the lawn continued to advance, as the rasp of crickets mingled with the agonized, bellows-like rasping of their dead lungs, nearly obliterating all the other night sounds.

With another great effort, Ben heaved the dead but twitching body over the edge of the porch.

From inside the house, the big man’s efforts could not be clearly discerned by Barbara, and she backed away from the door and trembled uncontrollably while she waited for Ben to finish whatever he was going to do and come back inside.

He shuddered and fumbled in his breast pocket, as the ghoulish beings on the lawn continued to move toward him with their arms extended, reaching out as though to seize him and tear him apart. Ben’s fumbling fingers closed on a book of matches, and he managed to strike one and touch the burning tip to the ragged, filthy clothing of the dead thing, and with almost a popping sound the clothing caught fire.

The things in the yard stopped in their tracks. The fire blazed slowly at first. Shaking, Ben touched the match to other aspects of the thing’s clothing and, intent on the advancing ghouls, he burned his fingers and snapped them, tossing the match into the heaped form. Standing, and breathing hard, he kicked the burning thing off the edge of the porch and watched it roll down three small steps onto the grass, where it lay still, the flames licking around it.

Ben watched the three beings in the yard as they stepped back slightly, trying to cover their faces with their stiff arms, as though they were afraid of fire—and his fists clenched the banister of the little porch as his face glowed in the heat of the flames.

“I’m going to get you,” Ben said to himself, his voice quivering. And then he raised his voice and shouted into the deadness of the night, “I’m going to get you! All of you! You damned things!”

Ben stood defiantly on the little porch, the flaming corpse burning with an overpowering stench. Yet, the things on the lawn had stopped backing away, and they were keeping their distance now—watching and waiting.

Hearing a sudden noise, Ben spun to see Barbara standing inside the kitchen door. As his eyes met hers, he took in the blank, frozen expression on her face, and she backed away from him into the room. The big man, in great strides, re-entered the kitchen and slammed the door and reflexively went to bolt it, but the bolt had been broken loose by the things that had gotten in.

Ben seized hold of a heavy kitchen table, and dragged it and slammed it against the door. His breathing still loud, was even more rapid than before. And his eyes continually darted about the room in search of something—but Barbara did not know what.

He rushed to the cabinets and threw them open and began rummaging through them. They were full of standard kitchen utensils and supplies. For a long time, Ben did not speak—and Barbara’s staring eyes followed him about as he continued to ransack the room.

“See if you can find the light switch,” he shouted suddenly—so suddenly that the sound of his voice startled Barbara and she fell back against a wall and her hand groped to a switch. The light from an overhead fixture came on, providing bright illumination. The big man continued to clatter about frantically, while the light coming on hurt Barbara’s eyes and caused her to blink and squint. She remained against the wall, her hand still touching the switch, as though she did not dare to move. She watched silently, while Ben continued flinging open drawers and spilling contents onto the shelving and onto the floor.

He grabbed the silverware drawer, still open from when Barbara first discovered it, and pulled it open until it stopped itself with a crash. He rooted through it, pulled out a large bread knife and, sucking his breath in, stuffed it under his belt. Then he reached into the drawer again and produced another knife. Taking Barbara by surprise, he strode toward her and shoved the knife at her, handle first, but she backed away from him—and her action stayed his franticness and, breathing heavily through his words, he calmed himself and spoke softly but commandingly to her.

“Now…you hang on…to this.”

She hesitated, but finally took the knife, and he breathed a sigh of relief. She seemed weak, almost apathetic, as though she was losing control of herself—or had given up already. She stared at the weapon in her hand, then her eyes came up to meet the man’s intense face.

“All right,” he said. “All right. You just listen to me, and we’re gonna be okay. We have to protect ourselves—keep those things away from us, until we can find a way to get out of this damned place.”

He did not know if his words penetrated through to Barbara or not, but hopefully they did.

He pulled away from her and continued to rummage, speaking only occasionally and to no one in particular between great breaths and between the brief times when his interest was totally wrapped in something found in his rummaging—something useful or potentially useful for survival.

His search was not without control; it had a coordinated purpose; it was selective, although frantic and desperate. He was looking for nails and strips of wood or planks that he might nail around doors and windows. He had made up his mind that they were going to have to fortify the old farmhouse as strongly as possible, against the impending and gathering threat of an all-out attack by the ghouls, which were increasing in number. Ben’s actions were hurried, and intent after these defensive ends; at first, his search occupied his full attention and was driven by anxiety. But gradually, as he moved about and began to come up with several key items, his efforts paced down into a more deliberate flow.

He started bracing heavy tables and other articles of furniture against the most vulnerable parts of the old house.

His mood relaxed in intensity and became calmer, more analytical, as the barricading instilled a feeling of greater security. And the knowledge of the efforts toward some safety and some protection began to overtake Barbara, bringing her out of her shock and passivity.

“We’ll be okay!” Ben called out, in an effort at bravery.

And Barbara watched, as he clattered about the room, spilling his findings out of drawers and off of shelves. He still had not apparently found at least one important item that he was really impatient for. Spools of thread, buttons, manicure implements, shoe-shine materials…continued to spill out of drawers. And Ben got once more a little violent and urgent as he continued to rummage and bang around the room.

Finally, in a wooden box under the sink, he found what he was looking for—and he leaped suddenly and let out an exclamation of triumph as he dumped the contents of the box onto the kitchen floor. A big claw hammer thudded out. And an axe. And an old pipe tobacco tin, which Ben seized and in one gesture spilled its contents onto a shelf. Nails and screws and washers and tacks tumbled out. A few rolled too far and clattered onto the floor, but Ben dived and his fingers scooped them up. He fumbled through the little pile of things and selected the longest nails in the batch, and stuffed them into the pocket of his sweater. And even as he stuffed the nails into his pocket, he was already moving, his eyes seeking for his next need.

His eyes fell on Barbara.

“See if there’s any big pieces of wood around the fireplace out there!” he yelled at her, and he turned to explore the contents of a cardboard box on top of the refrigerator. The box came up too easily, telling him it was empty, and he flung it down with a glance inside to make sure, as his impetus carried him toward a metal cabinet in the corner of the room which he was betting would contain nothing but foodstuffs—but in turning he noticed Barbara, still motionless, and his anger leaped to the surface suddenly and he shouted at her.

“Look, you—”

But he stopped himself, then spoke still frantically, but with less harshness.

“Look…I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. I’m scared just like you. But we’re not gonna survive…if we don’t do something to help ourselves. I’m going to board up these doors and windows. But you’ve got to pitch in. We’ve got to help ourselves, because there ain’t nobody around to help us…and we’re gonna be all right. Okay? Now, I want you to get out there and see if there’s any wood in that fireplace…”

He stopped, still breathing hard. Barbara merely stared at him. Then, after several seconds, she started to move, very slowly, away from the wall.

“Okay?” Ben asked, looking into her eyes.

She was still for a long moment, before nodding her head weakly.

“Okay,” Ben repeated, reassuringly, in a half-whisper, and he stared after the girl momentarily as she left the kitchen—and he continued his search.

She moved into the living-room area, where the darkness stopped her for an instant, slowing her pace. From the kitchen, she could still hear the clattering sounds of Ben’s search. She looked ahead, into the room, and clutched the handle of her knife as the white curtains on the windows seemed to glow, and every shadow seemed suspect. Anything could be lurking in that room, behind the furniture, or in the closets.

Barbara shuddered.

On the dining table in the far corner of the room, she could see the silhouette of a bowl of large rounded flowers—and they stirred suddenly, in the breeze from an opened window. In a panic, Barbara raced for the window and slammed it shut and bolted it, and stood, breathing heavily and noticing that she had pinned part of the white curtain under the window frame when it came crashing down. But she was not going to raise it back up again, for anything. A shiver shot through her, and she turned to see Ben, who had come as far as the doorway to find out the cause of the noise—and she hoped he would stay, but he turned and resumed his banging around in the kitchen.

Alone in the room again, Barbara reached for a lamp on an end table, clicked it on and dull illumination filled the immediate area. The room felt empty. She started slowly toward the fireplace. Near it was a stack of logwood, and a few planks that might be large enough to nail across the windows. Still clutching her knife, she bent over the pile and gathered up the planking—but a spider ran across her hand, and she shrieked and dropped the wood with a clatter.

She waited, hoping Ben would not come, and this time he did not come to see what was the matter. Loud continuous noises of his activity in the kitchen told her why he had not heard her own racket with the firewood. She knelt and picked the planks up again, and steeled her mind not to be frightened by spiders.

Staggering with her awkward load, she hurried toward the kitchen and, bursting through the doorway, she found Ben pounding with the claw hammer at the hinges on a tall broom-closet door. One final swipe and a great yank freed the door, with the sound of screws ripping from torn wood, and the man stood it against the wall next to the broom closet. In the recesses of the closet, he spotted other useful items and pulled them out—an ironing board, three center boards from the dining table, and some old scrap lumber.

He smiled at Barbara when he looked up and saw her own supply of wood, which she leaned against the wall in a corner, and motioning for her to follow he grabbed the closet door and carried it across the kitchen to the back door of the house, which was the door with the broken bolt. He slapped the closet door up against the panel portion of the kitchen door and with an appraising glance he realized that he could use this same piece to cover the kitchen window, which was of modest dimensions and not placed too far from the kitchen door. He leaned against the piece of wood and groped in his sweater pocket for nails. The door started to slip slightly. It was not going to completely cover the kitchen window, but it would leave slats of glass at top and bottom; however, it would cover the glass part of the entrance door and would help make the door secure. Again, the heavy closet door slipped and he nudged it back into position, as he continued to grope for nails. Suddenly springing forward, Barbara helped out, by taking hold of the piece of lumber and holding it in position. Ben accepted her help automatically, without recognition, and gave the barricade a cursory inspection as he determined where to sink the nails; then, pulling several long nails from his pocket, he placed them and drove them in with swift, powerful blows from the claw hammer. He drove two on his side through the door and molding, then moved swiftly to her side and drove two more. Then, with the weight of the piece supported, he pounded the nails until they were completely sunken and stood back and began to add more. He wanted to use the nails sparingly but wisely, where they would do the most good, because he did not have an unlimited supply.

He tugged at the kitchen door, and it now seemed secure enough, and with the first defensive measures undertaken and accomplished, Ben began to take on confidence and assurance. He was still scared, and he continued to work quickly and, he hoped, wisely—and the fact that he had tools to work with and a plan to put into effect to maintain survival gave him the feeling that he was not entirely helpless and there were strong, positive things he could do to bring his and the girl’s destiny under control.

“There! By God!” he said, finally, in a burst of self confidence. “That ought to hold those damn things and stop them from getting in here. They ain’t that strong—there!”

And he drove two more nails into the molding around the kitchen window. And when he tugged at the barricade, it again seemed plenty secure.

“They ain’t coming through that,” Ben said, and he gave the nails a few final blows, until the heads sunk into the wood.

His eyes scrutinized the parts of the glass that remained uncovered, but they were not sufficiently wide for a human body to pass through. “I don’t have too many nails,” Ben said. “I’ll leave that for now. It’s more important to fix up some of the other places where they can get in.”

Barbara did not respond to any of his talking, neither to add encouragement nor advice, and he turned from the barricade with an exasperated glance in her direction before standing back and once more surveying the room. There were no other doors or windows except the door leading to the living room.

“Well…this place is fairly secure,” Ben said, tentatively, and he looked to Barbara for some sign of approval, but she remained silent, so Ben continued, raising the volume of his voice in an attempt to hammer home the meaning of what he was saying. “Now…if we have to…”

The girl just stood and watched him.

“If we have to…we just run in here—and no dragging now, or I’m gonna leave you out there to fend for yourself. If they get into any other part of the house, we run in here and board up this door.”

He meant the door between the kitchen and the living room, which had been open all along. Barbara watched while he closed it, tested it, then shut it tight.

He opened it again, then quickly chose several of the lumber strips and stood them against the wall where he intended to leave them in case it became an emergency to board up the living-room door.

He groped in his pocket and realized his supply of nails was dwindling and he moved to the shelf to check the pile of stuff he had spilled from the tobacco can; he emptied the can completely and dug into the contents for all of the longest nails and tossed just those ones back into the can. Then he handed the can to Barbara.

“You take these,” he said, and his voice left no room for argument or hesitation.

She reacted quickly, as though she had been jolted out of a reverie, and took the tobacco tin from Ben’s big hand. She watched as he gathered as much of the lumber as he could carry into his arms and started out of the room. She did not want to be left alone, and he had not told her to remain in the kitchen, so she followed silently after him, carrying the tobacco tin in front of her as though she was not sure why she was doing it.

They entered the living room.

“It ain’t gonna be too long,” Ben said, breathing heavily. “They’re gonna be trying to pound their way in here. They’re afraid now…I think…or maybe they just ain’t hungry…”

He dropped his load of wood in the middle of the floor and walked over to the large front windows, talking as he moved. His tone of voice was suddenly intense, and his speech rapid.

“They’re scared of fire, too—I found that out.”

Still standing dumbly in the center of the room holding her knife in one hand and the tobacco tin in the other, Barbara watched as Ben stepped forward and his eye measured the size of the big windows. He looked all around the room—and finally his eyes fixed on the large dining table and he moved quickly toward it, talking as he moved, resuming his train of thought.

“There must’ve been fifty, maybe a hundred of those things down in Cambria when the news broke.”

Barbara watched, almost transfixed. At his mention of the number of the things, her eyes reflected amazement and frightened curiosity. Ben dragged the heavy table away from the wall, then walked around it studying its size, and hoisted one end and turned it onto its side. Bracing it against himself, he heaved on one of the legs and tried to break it free. With a great ripping sound, the table leg came loose, after a tremendous effort on Ben’s part, and he dropped it onto the rug—with a loud, heavy thud. He continued talking, breathing heavily and perspiring as he worked, punctuating his remarks with vengeance on the table as he ripped all the legs off, one by one.

“I saw a big gasoline truck, you know…down at Beekman’s? Beekman’s diner. And I heard the radio—there’s a radio in the truck…”

He wrenched at the second table leg. It cracked loudly but did not come free. He moved to where the claw hammer lay, in the middle of the floor.

“This gasoline truck came screaming out of the diner lot onto the road—must’ve been ten…fifteen…of those things chasing it—but I didn’t see them right away—they were on the other side of the truck. And it looked strange, the way the truck was moving so fast…instead of taking its time pulling out of the diner and onto the road.”

POW! POW!

With two powerful swats of the claw hammer, he freed the second table leg, and it clattered to the floor. Ben tossed it into the corner, and moved to the third leg.

“I just saw this big truck at first—and it looks funny how fast it’s coming out onto the road. And then I saw those things—and the truck was moving slower, and they were catching up…and grabbing…and jumping on. They had their arms around the driver’s neck…”

Another table leg fell loose and thudded to the rug. Ben was breathing very hard. And Barbara was listening, both horrified and fascinated by his story.

“And that truck just cut right across the road—through the guard rail, you know. And I had to hit my brakes, and I went screeching all over the place, and the truck smashed into a big sign and into the pumps of the Sunoco station down there. I heard the crash. And that big thing started burning—and yet it was still moving, right through the pumps and on into the station—and I’m stopped, dead in my tracks. And I saw those things…and they all started to back off…some of them running…or trying to run…but they run kind of like they’re crippled. But they keep backing off. And it’s like…it’s like they gotta get away from the fire—and the guy driving the truck couldn’t get out nohow—the cab of the truck was plowed halfway into the wall of the Sunoco station—and he’s being burned alive in there and he’s screaming—screaming like hell…”

Barbara’s eyes deepened, and her face wrinkled in anxiety. The continuing nightmare, for her, was growing more and more complex.

Ben swatted the last table leg from the table, and the table top started to drop. It was heavy. He regained control of it and struggled, trying to drag it across the room. Barbara moved toward him and took hold of an end of the table, but did not really help much, as it was really too heavy for her to pitch in.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Ben said. “I mean, I didn’t know if the gas station was going to explode…or fly to pieces…or what’s gonna happen. I just started driving down the road, trying to get far away in case there was an explosion…and the guy in the truck is screaming and screaming…and after a while he just stops.”

He set down the table, and wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead. His breathing was still heavy from the previous exertion. He wiped his hand on his shirt. His eyes were wide and angry with the remembrance of the events he was describing for Barbara, and it almost seemed as though he might weep.

“And there those things were…standing back…across the road…standing looking like…looking like…like they just came back from the grave or something. And they were over by the diner, and there was cars and buses in the diner lot, with lots of windows smashed. And I knew those things must’ve finished off all the people in the diner, and more were outside, all over the place just biding their time for a chance to move in. So I went barreling right across the road in my truck—and I drove it right at some of those things—and I got a good look at them, I saw them for the first time in my lights—and then…I just run right down on them—and I grind down as hard as I can—and I knock a couple of them about fifty feet, flailin’ into the air. And I just wanted to crush them—smash them filthy things. And they’re just standing there. They don’t bother to run. They don’t even bother to get out of the road. Some of them keep reaching out, as if they could grab me. But they’re just standing there…and the truck is running them down…as if…as if they were a bunch of bugs…”

Seeing the fear in Barbara’s eyes, Ben stopped himself. She was wide-eyed, staring in disgust, her hands still resting on the table top.

He refocused his attention on the table top, and started to lift it again. Barbara was practically motionless. As he tugged on the table, her hands fell away and she slowly pulled them against herself. He dragged the table, unassisted, toward the window he intended to board up with it.

He looked at Barbara. She stared back, practically expressionless.

“I’m just…I…I got kids,” Ben said rubbing his perspiring forehead with his sleeve. “And…I guess they’ll do all right. They can take care of themselves…but they’re still only kids…and I’m being away and all…and…”

His voice trailed off, as he had gotten no response from Barbara and didn’t know what to say next. He tugged at the table, and allowed it to lean against the wall.

“I’m just gonna do what I can,” he said, making an effort to sound positive. “I’m going to do what I can, and I’m gonna get back…and I’m gonna see my people. And things are gonna be all right…and…I’m gonna get back.”

His talk had begun to repeat itself, and he realized he had started to babble, and he saw the girl intently watching him, and he stopped. He composed himself with some effort, and started to speak a little more slowly. His voice became almost a monotone, with enforced calm, but beneath his anger and his fear he was a brave man, and he was bound and determined not to lose his confidence. He knew the girl was in need of bolstering, if she was going to be able to cope with the situation. Like it or not, his survival was to some measure dependent on hers, and on how well he could get her to cooperate and overcome her fear.

“Now, you and me are gonna be all right, too,” he told her. “We can hold those things off. I mean…you can just…smash them. All you have to do is just keep your head and don’t be too afraid. We can move faster than they can, and they’re awfully weak compared to a grown man…and if you don’t run and just keep swinging at them…you can smash them. We’re smarter than they are. And we’re stronger than they are. We’re gonna stop them. Okay?”

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.