Rodgers pointed off to his right behind him, an expression of smug satisfaction on his face. As if on cue, a dozen or more zombies came into sight over the crest of the hill. The figures were, at first, nothing more than dark dots on the landscape, as they moved inexorably closer to the farmhouse.
“You had your chance,” Rodgers said, and then he backed away from the limo and disappeared out of sight around the side of the house.
Neither Winfield nor Hocker saw where he had gone. What they had to do now, they both realized, was to hold off this horde long enough for Dale to do what he had to do in the barn. The zombies fanned out and surrounded the house. Once they were in position, they stopped and just stood there, waiting for the command to attack.
“Jesus H.,” Hocker said, whistling under his breath as he watched the mass of men waiting silently in the front yard. “There’s his reinforcements! There’s at least twenty more of ’em that I can see.”
“Yeah, and where the hell’s the cavalry?” Winfield said softly, wondering how Dale was making out in the barn. “When do they come charging over the hill?”
V
Dale, if he was the cavalry Winfield was hoping for, was still behind the solidly nailed trap door at the tunnel’s mouth. After a while, pushing as hard but as quietly as he could at the door with his shoulder, he had decided Screw it! What the hell? If I attract any zombies, maybe they’ll break the door for me! It took an amazing feat of contortion, but finally he got onto his back so his feet were pushing up on the door. He could feel the veins pop out on his neck and his muscles strain as he forced his legs upward against the unyielding wood. Tight, tingling pain shot up his thighs to his hips, but even with this added leverage, the door wouldn’t give.
Dale drew his legs back and, grunting as he counted each blow, kicked upward.
“One… two… three…”
The door did not even shake with his kicks, but he gritted his teeth and hit it with as much strength as he could gather in such a confined space.
“… four… five… six…”
The bottoms of his feet tingled with each kick. His back slammed against the ground with each rebound, knocking the breath, from him.
“… seven… eight… Yes!”
On the ninth kick, he felt the door budge. The sound of the rusty nails yielding set his teeth on edge as badly as fingernails being raked down a chalkboard; but he didn’t care! It was loosening! He was going to make it!
He was only vaguely conscious of the long tube of the tunnel behind him. In his efforts to loosen the boards covering the exit, he had entirely forgotten about it. But now, he heard something shifting in the darkness behind him. He froze and listened. Lying on his back with his feet up in the air, he felt both ridiculous and extremely vulnerable.
They’re coming after me! he thought. Somehow, the creatures under Rodgers’ control had already taken the house by storm, and one now was coming through the tunnel.
He wished he had checked his watch when he had left Donna in the cellar and started along the tunnel. For all Dale knew, it had been an hour or more that he had been crawling along in the dark. Plenty could have happened since he had left her!
No matter how lightly he tried to breathe, the sound of air rushing in and out of his nose blocked out everything else; but as he strained to listen, he was sure there was a faint scratching sound coming from behind him. As it grew louder, his breathing got louder, too, keeping the sound barely audible.
The dust from his efforts swirled in the close quarters of the tunnel, choking him. As he waited tensely, he imagined that at any second a horribly dead-looking face would suddenly spring into the glow of his flashlight, and with one, short cry end his life.
If there was one of those things in the tunnel with him, Dale’s only hope was to get that damned door open! With a sudden yell, he kicked up with an adrenalin-charged kick. The wood suddenly exploded as easily as if it were balsa-wood. Dale imagined he was already dead and was now bursting out of his coffin, newly reanimated.
It took some effort to shift around so he could climb out of the tunnel. The guttural sounds he made masked the sound of something else, but then: yes! He definitely heard a scrambling sound in the tunnel, getting closer!
Fear tightened around his throat like cold hands as he shifted to get one arm up over the splintered doorway. He wanted to scream, but his throat was so caked with dust, all that came from it was a dry rasp. His head broke out into the fresh air and light. He felt like a swimmer, piercing the surface after going down for the third time! In an instant, he saw the police cruiser, smashed and dented, over by the barn door. He saw the spanning rafters of the barn, dusty gray with hay chaff and cobwebs, and bats hanging up there in the darkest corners. He saw the window, looking out toward the house, and he wondered if Donna was there in the kitchen, waiting frantically for some sign that he had succeeded. He instantly registered all of these things, and the sense of freedom that surged through him drove him to push himself upward with one muscle-tearing effort.
He struggled to get his other arm into the open and, bracing himself, kicked wildly to gain a purchase. His mind suddenly went cold, and his eyes felt like they were going to pop out of his head, literally, when, just as he felt himself rising clear out of the wrecked doorway, a hand grabbed his ankle in a steely grip and started to pull him down.
VI
As soon as Dale had disappeared down the tunnel and was out of earshot, Donna lit her next-to-last cigarette and went upstairs to rejoin Winfield and the other defenders. She had to keep blinking her eyes to keep from crying; she couldn’t shake the feeling that she would never see Dale alive again… at least not alive as she knew it!
Winfield was near the kitchen door, keeping an eye on the side of the barn. Hocker was in the living room with Tasha, watching and waiting for Rodgers’ creatures to make their move. Everyone in the farmhouse was armed and waiting, but Winfield still felt certain Rodgers wouldn’t try anything until after dark. Donna inhaled the smoke and let it out in a thin, whistling stream as she looked out the kitchen window. She saw that the sun was already slipping down toward the hill. Night was closing in on them like a trap.
“He’ll be all right, you know,” Winfield said, placing a strong, reassuring hand on her shoulder.
Her hand tightened into fists as her gaze drifted toward the barn, to the small rectangle of window, reflecting the sky. All she could do was wait and hope to see Dale’s face, looking back at her once he made it to the barn.
“I… I know,” she said, fighting the voice inside her that told her she was lying. In one regard, life wasn’t a dream. In her dreams, she sometimes felt a sense of control, like a movie director, who could make certain things happen. Well, if she was the director of this movie, she would cue Dale to come to the barn window and look at her, smiling broadly.
“I think we’ve got to start preparing for the next attack as soon as it’s dark,” Winfield said.
Donna looked at him, searching his face for strength she knew she was going to have to find within herself. She flicked the cigarette ash into the sink, then, wrinkling her nose, ground it out and dropped the butt down the drain. “Do you think this will work?” she asked, her voice shaking.
Winfield smiled and nodded. “ ’Course it will,” he said. “Come on, let’s get organized.”
The plan was relatively simple. The door leading into the cellar opened inward. It wasn’t one of those modern, hollow-core doors; it was a hefty paneled oak door, with a glass doorknob and strong hinges. Winfield and Hocker constructed two crossbeams that could quickly be lowered from inside the cellar to hold the door shut. Winfield had no illusions; he knew that, with a determined effort, the door could eventually be broken down, but not before everyone had plenty of time to crawl along the tunnel and get out.
The only flaw with the plan was that he wasn’t going to go down the tunnel; he wasn’t even going to be in the cellar. He figured, when the last attack came, both front and ki
tchen doors would be smashed in. If Tasha and Donna were already in the cellar, Hocker could wait until the zombies saw and pursued him before going down into the cellar, shutting the door behind him. Winfield’s part of the plan was to hide somewhere in the house. As soon as the zombies followed Hocker down into the cellar, Winfield would go out the kitchen door and join everyone in the barn. By then, if they timed everything right, Hocker could touch off the fire and they would destroy the creatures trapped inside the cellar.
It was a simple and rather elegant plan with a minimum of risk, Winfield thought. The worst risk was his, and he was willing to take it. Now all they had to do was make it work.
“I want to put up something on the outside of the cellar door, too. Something strong enough to keep them down there so they can’t get out once the fire starts,” Winfield said to Hocker once the inside barriers were prepared.
“I’ll see if there’s any more wood down in the junk pile,” Hocker said as he ran down the cellar stairs.
Donna stood there by the kitchen sink, looking out at the barn. It had been almost half an hour since Dale left, and she was thinking he had had plenty of time, he should have reached the barn by now.
But what if the tunnel is blocked or it caved in on him? she wondered, fighting back a ground-swell of panic. And what if, once we’re down there, we can’t get out?
As she stared out at the barn window, her vision suddenly blurred. Hot tears carved tracks down her cheeks, and her breath hitched in her throat.
Behind her, she heard Winfield say, “Tasha, why don’t you go down the cellar and help Hocker get some more wood?” Then she heard Tasha’s footsteps going down the stairs and Winfield’s coming over toward her.
“It’s taking too long,” she said, her voice catching. “We’ve got less than half an hour until dark.”
“He’s gonna be all right,” Winfield said. “We’re all going to be all right. You just wait and see.”
“I can’t believe all of this is happening,” she said. She had one hand clenched into a fist, covering her mouth and distorting her words. Her knuckles were bloodless knobs. Her body shook as though she had a fever.
A sudden splintering of wood drew their attention, and they both looked over their shoulder to get a fix on the direction.
“That you, Hocker?” Winfield called out. He gripped the axe firmly as he started toward the living room. He glanced back at Donna and, with a nod of his head, indicated that he wanted her over by the cellar door, just in case. Thinking that facing Rodgers’ creatures was preferable to entering the tunnel, she ignored what he said, picked up one of the nail-studded clubs, and followed close behind him into the living room.
Diffused gray light cast an eerie gloom into the living room. Through the wooden slats covering the windows, they saw dark silhouettes shift by, cutting the light. A weird silence laced with tension filled the room as Winfield tiptoed to one of the windows, resting his axe on his shoulder like the baseball bat of a Home Run King. “Jesus Christ, Jeff,” Donna whispered when she saw more figures move silently past the window.
Everything was nailed back the way they had originally had it, but much of the wood was splintered from the last attack. Winfield knew their defenses wouldn’t hold as well as they did last time and they hadn’t done too well last time!
“I think we’re gonna be in some deep shit if Dale doesn’t get back here soon with that gasoline,” Winfield hissed, never taking his eyes away from the windows.
“Should we try to hold them off here?” Donna asked. The backs of her knees felt like rubber.
“Christ if I know,” Winfield said. “Maybe we should just make a break for it to the barn. A couple of us will get away at least.”
More shapes shifted by the window, their passing made real only by the faint creaking of the porch floorboards.
Winfield shifted closer to her and bent close to her ear. “Why don’t you go see what the Christ is taking Hocker so damned long!”
Donna almost said something about preferring to stay here with him and fighting, if necessary, but she turned to leave. Just then, though, the sound of breaking wood, as loud as a string of firecrackers, filled the room. When Donna looked back toward Winfield, her mind went suddenly numb, trying to register what she was seeing.
Both windows and the front door almost instantly collapsed inward, and through all three openings, a tangle of arms and legs poured into the house. The sudden burst of light in the darkened room hurt her eyes, and she was momentarily disoriented until she heard Winfield shout to her.
“Get the hell out of here!”
Before she could react, a wave of dead human beings crashed into the living room and crested over Winfield. The last thing Donna saw and registered in her shock-numbed brain was Winfield, wildly swinging his axe back and forth, as he crumpled beneath the weight of those creatures.
Donna didn’t know exactly what to do, and more out of reflex than thought, she ran to the cellar door and slammed it shut behind her. Her breath was raw in her throat as she stood at the top of the stairs, trying to think clearly. She had seen several zombies lurch past the mass that had buried Winfield and, arms reaching out, come after her no more than six steps behind. With a frantic grunt, she rammed first one, then the other blocking bar into place just as the weight of several dead bodies slammed into the door.
“Jesus Christ!” she wailed, looking down the cellar steps at Tasha, who was looking up at her with a pale, blank expression. “Where the Christ is Hocker?”
Outside, the cellar door took a steady hammering as the creatures smashed against it, furiously pounding to get at her. She had seen the dead glow in their eyes as they registered her—a living thing—and came at her. In the instant she saw them, she had recognized one or two of them. They were people she had known around town, back when they were alive!
Donna pressed herself against the door, even though she knew her added weight would do little to stop the onslaught. The crossbars sagged inward from the pressure, and already the ends were digging divots into the plaster wall, slowly losing their brace.
“Where’s Hocker? Did Dale come back?” Donna screamed. Her throat was vibrating so hard, she thought for sure it was being shredded. “Tasha! Answer me! Don’t just stand there! Where the Christ is Hocker?”
She glanced over her shoulder, down the steps at Tasha, who was standing there motionlessly, shrugging and shaking her head.
“I don’t know where he is,” Tasha said. “He wasn’t here when I got here. Are you sure he even came down here?”
VII
Dale thought for sure he was going to shit his pants when he felt the hand grab his ankle. With a scream bubbling in the back of his throat, he tried to kick free but only succeeded in slamming his knee against the tunnel mouth. Pain shot up to his hips, and blind panic filled his mind like lightning.
“No… No!…” he wailed as he kicked to release the hold on his leg. His arms trembled as they strained to boost him upward, and miraculously he did get himself up enough so his hips were clear.
His left hand still gripped the flashlight tightly, and counting on a sudden blast of light to startle the creature that held him, he swung the beam downward.
In a flickering instant, he saw a dirt-smeared face glaring up at him with a wide smile, and then, in a sudden rush, he recognized who it was. “Jesus Christ, Hocker!”
“Jesus Christ, yourself, man,” Hocker said, laughing deeply. “Your sure are jumpy.”
Relief flooded Dale so fast it almost took away all ol his strength. With a sudden outrush of breath, he settled jack down into the tunnel opening, wishing to God the rapid hammering of his pulse in his ears would slow. His arms felt like frayed elastic.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Dale asked once he had regained a bit of his composure. Sweat dripped from his forehead and ran from his armpits down his side, making him shiver.
“Go on,” Hocker said, chuckling. “Get your ass out of here so I can
get out.”
Dale wiped his arm across his forehead, he hoisted himself up into the barn and rolled over onto his back. For several seconds, he lay there, staring up at the barn roof. Hocker quickly scrambled up after him and, standing up, stretched his arms over his head.
“Sure is cramped down there, ain’t it?” Hocker said looking down at Dale with a wide smile.
“I can’t believe you,” Dale said with a snarl as he slowly stood up and stretched his legs and arms. “Why the hell’d you follow me?”
“I didn’t want to miss any of the fun,” Hocker said as he moved over toward the cruiser. “ ’N I figured, this was my gig, so I ought to help you with the gasoline.”
“You came down that tunnel without a flashlight?” Dale asked, raising his eyebrows in astonishment.
Hocker shrugged as he leaned into the open cruiser trunk and grabbed the five gallon can of gasoline.
“No problem,” he said casually. “I figured it would be pretty straight and you’d be up ahead. Hey, you know, I don’t think they’ve been in here since I parked the cruiser here last night. It doesn’t look like anything’s been disturbed.”
Dale whistled through his teeth as he gave Winfield’s cruiser a quick once-over. The lights were smashed out, the fenders and sides were dented, and the radio and huge chunks of the interior had been blown away by the shotgun blast.
“You did a damned fine job of it,” Dale said, shaking his head with disgust. “Think it’ll still work?”
“I don’t think the trunk light, being on all night, would be enough to drain the battery.” He brightened and looked at Dale. “You got the key? Give it a crank.”
Dale glanced at the window toward the house, fearful that at any moment a dead man’s face would fill the window. He knew Donna was waiting for him to signal her, but he wasn’t so sure he wanted to do anything to draw attention to the barn.
“Let’s just get the flares and gas and get the hell back there,” Dale said gruffly. “If we trap enough of those creatures in the cellar when you torch it, we’ll probably be able to make it back to town through the woods if the car doesn’t start.”
The Siege Page 41