by John Russo
He waited. There was only silence. He waited for a long time. A voice came, muffled behind the barricades of the boarded-up house. “You, out there! Show yourself!”
Dave hesitated. The voice came again. “Show yourself, by God! We’ve got to be sure you’re not one of those things! “
Anger grew inside Dave. He wanted to inform whoever it was that they had already killed his partner because of their itchy trigger fingers, but he figured he had better keep quiet about that for the moment. If they knew they had killed a man, they might decide not to leave any witnesses. Dave cupped his hand and yelled as loud as he could, “I’m going to get to my feet! Don’t shoot, for God’s sake! I’m a man—and I have a baby!”
Unaccountably, the baby suddenly stopped crying. Dave looked at it, ascertaining that it was still alive and realizing that even if it were not he would still use it to gain admittance to the farmhouse. He got up, holding the baby in plain view above his head, then he scrambled awkwardly up out of the gully and stepped from the shelter of an overhanging tree so that anybody in the house could clearly see what he was. Walking slowly, holding the baby carefully, he approached the house. He saw the glint of gun barrels in the boarded-up windows and he tried to be ready to dive for cover in case a shot rang out.
A dead goat lay in the yard close to the house, some of its bones picked as clean as if buzzards had feasted on it. Dave saw that the goat had been shot almost exactly in the right eye; the socket of that eye was caked with blood, while the partially visible pupil stared out.
Twenty feet from the front porch of the farmhouse, Dave stopped, still holding the baby above his head. He spoke in the direction of a window with a cracked glass and protruding rifle barrel. “This baby was born last night. The mother died. Her name was Karen Miller. She was your neighbor, up the road. The baby hasn’t had anything to eat. Would you be kind enough to give it a little milk?”
Dave lowered the baby, hugged it to his chest, feeling its weak breathing against his ribs. He figured if the people inside didn’t know he was human by now and needed help, they would never figure it out.
A man’s voice came from behind the cracked pane. “We have no milk. Our goat is dead. Can’t you see?”
Before Dave could reply, the man’s voice boomed again. “How do we know you ain’t one of the looters or rapists that have been loose around here? We knew Karen—knew her whole family. They came to our daughter’s funeral. Maybe you robbed them and did them in.”
“My name is Dave Benton and I’m a State Trooper,” Dave said. He jiggled the baby and it began to cry as if on cue, and Dave hoped it would win him some sympathy.
It did. A woman’s voice came from behind the cracked pane of glass, “Henry! The baby. For goodness sakes, let the man in!”
The protruding rifle barrel withdrew through the broken place in the window and shortly after it was gone, Dave heard the sounds of the door being undone; he listened as three bolts were unlatched. The door opened and Dave stared apprehensively, the baby continuing to cry. Two middle-aged people stood in the doorway, a man and a woman. The man continued to point his rifle at Dave and to look him over very suspiciously. The woman seemed more kindly; she had gray hair done up in a bun and wore a faded print dress. The man wore overalls and a flannel shirt, his face creased and hard, his complexion sunburned and his head bald. The couple were Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey, parents of the dead child to whose funeral Bert Miller had come with his three daughters. Mrs. Dorsey brightened when she saw the baby, eyed her husband and pushed the barrel of his rifle aside so it was not pointing at Dave or the baby any longer. “Well, hurry up inside now,” she said, noticing Dave’s hesitancy and stepping back to allow him to enter.
Dave followed the retreating farm couple inside and watched while Henry Dorsey secured the door. Mrs. Dorsey took the baby and held it up, looking at it with love and concern. “We’ve got to get milk or the baby will starve to death,” Dave said. “He hasn’t eaten since he was born.”
Mr. Dorsey spun from the door. “Can’t help ya there, I told you. Our goat’s dead.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of a big hulking young man, whom Dave had not noticed, sitting in a rocking chair in a dark corner of the room. “My son shot the goat. Thought it was one of them dead things. When it comes to brains, my boy didn’t quite get his share. He don’t take after his old man noways. Trouble is—” He caught himself. “You say you’re a State Trooper?”
“That’s right. My partner and I were captured by a gang of looters. They took our uniforms. Now he’s dead.”
When Dave stopped talking, the only sound in the room was the pat-pat of Mrs. Dorsey’s hand as she patted the baby, hugging it to her. Nobody knew what to say. The baby had stopped crying. Mr. Dorsey gave a long stare in the direction of his feeble-minded son, who let his head hang and cringed in his chair as it stopped rocking. Dave got the idea that it was the son whose thoughtless bullet had killed Carl, with the old man joining in the shooting spree afterward.
“We’ll see to it he has a decent burial, if we can,” Mrs. Dorsey said. “It’s not much, but it’s the best we can do.” Her words hung in the air and did not comfort anybody.
The idiot son wrung his hands and sulked in a scared sort of way, and began rocking back and forth involuntarily, the chair squeaking.
“Don’t you have some powdered milk? Canned evaporated milk?” Dave asked.
Mrs. Dorsey shook her head. “We been livin’ off canned stuff I put up last fall,” she explained, her eyes downcast, “but if we stay holed up here much longer it’s gonna run out.”
“Is there anywhere else around here where we can find milk?” Dave looked from husband to wife and back again.
Mr. Dorsey spoke, his voice harsh and grating without his meaning it to be. “Ain’t no other homes around for miles except the Kingsley estate. And the Miller farm.”
“Kingsley?” Dave brightened at the recognition of the name.
“Kingsley Country Club’s five miles north on the highway, over the hill. Least that’s where the golf course begins. Three miles further’s the club and then the mansion’s a mile or so beyond that. Kingsley owns practically the whole area. But I’d say yer best bet’d be the gas station.”
“Gas station?”
“Log Cabin Gas Station, seven miles south down to the main road. They sell bread and milk—least they used to.”
Dave mulled the information over in his mind. If he could get some form of transportation and a rifle, he could try to make it to the gas station for milk and food. Then he could set out after John Carter and his gang, and the captive Miller girls.
Mr. Dorsey watched Dave thinking, and read his mind. “I got two trucks and a car. I kin let ya take the car if ya wanna chance it. I’ll even give ya a rifle to take with ya. We’ll keep the baby here—for collateral.”
“If you’ll do what you say, I’ll take the chance,” Dave said, looking Mr. Dorsey in the eyes. “We can’t let the baby die from hunger—not after all he’s been through. With your help, maybe he’ll make it.”
“I’ll do the best I can while you’re gone,” Mrs. Dorsey said. “I’ll make some weak tea and feed him that, for a stimulant. Doctor told me to do that for my first born, when he was allergic to milk and couldn’t eat much else. I won’t give him much tea, just enough to see if it helps.”
Dave did not say anything. He found it impossible to thank the couple, considering either the man or his son had killed Carl. But they were trying to be kind now, perhaps as an atonement. Dave was not unappreciative. But nothing could bring Carl back.
The feeble-minded son kept rocking back and forth, back and forth, in his squeaking chair.
CHAPTER 19
Overcome by mental and physical exhaustion, Ann and Sue Ellen fell asleep in the patrol car driven by Wade Connely. He was still following behind the truck. Both truck and car were traveling at about fifty miles an hour, with less than three car lengths separating the two vehicles. Wade wanted to stay close. H
e felt the truck could knock anything out of its way without going out of control, but he didn’t trust the car to do the same. If one of the dead creatures appeared in the road, Wade wanted the truck to hit it first.
John Carter glanced in his rear-view mirror, and didn’t like the way he was being tail-gated. He made a move for his blinker-lights to warn Wade off. Flack yelled, “Look out!” and ducked, covering his eyes, and Carter saw three humanoid creatures standing in the beam of his headlights in the middle of the road. Carter hit his brakes, which was a bad move. The truck squealed and swerved, hitting two of the dead things and knocking them aside. Wade had to hit his brakes hard to avoid crashing into the truck, and with a loud screech of burning rubber the car careened to one side of the truck to get more braking distance and hit the third humanoid, up-ending it, causing its flailing body to flip up over the hood of the patrol car and through the windshield. Wade screamed and the car went out of control. It crashed through a guard rail and smashed into a tree.
All this happened in split-seconds, and Carter and Flack had a partial view of the accident through rear-view mirrors. Carter brought the truck to a halt on the edge of the road. Drawing their revolvers and grabbing a couple of flashlights, Carter and Flack ran back to the scene of the wrecked car.
The ghoul that had been flipped against the windshield had, on impact, been hurled against the tree. It lay broken like a rag doll, its breath rasping weakly and painfully while it moved one arm feebly, like an insect half-crushed but refusing to die. Flack walked over, shining his light on the ghoul, and fired a carefully placed shot between its eyes. Its movements ceased, part of its skull having been blown away.
Wade Connely was dead, his cracked head and lacerated face protruding through the windshield, his neck practically severed clean through. Though the engine was not running, having been totaled on impact, the headlights were still on, running on battery power, and one of the rear doors had sprung open, lighting the interior. The girls in back were still alive and appeared to be in good condition. They were sitting close together, tied and gagged and unable to move, their eyes wide with fright and their faces frozen in shock. Carter and Flack helped Ann and Sue Ellen out of the car and herded them toward the truck. Before doing so, Carter yanked loose the battery cable of the car, so the lights would go off and not attract attention. Then, knowing what would happen if he didn’t do it, he shined his light in Wade’s face and fired a shot into his skull.
Flack lowered the tailgate and forced the girls to climb onto the bed of the truck. He made them lie on their sides so he could tie them that way, using lengths of rope to secure them to the heavy generator. He did not want them to be able to get up and signal to passersby. When this work was done and the tailgate raised again and locked in place, Flack climbed into the cab with Carter and they nosed out onto the highway, heading for the Kingsley estate. There was less than an hour remaining of darkness, and they wanted to be in position to attack the estate at dawn. The loss of the patrol car was going to be a handicap; it had been an immense aid to their disguise as State Troopers. Carter would have to pull it off somehow, using just the uniform. He and Flack discussed the matter as they rode, and figured out a way to take the Kingsleys by surprise.
In the bed of the truck, Ann and Sue Ellen lay on their sides, getting another bumpy and frightening ride. Their minds were a jumble of fearful, disjointed thoughts. Ann had a bruise on her head, which hurt—not badly enough to make her think it was serious, but just badly enough to add to the pain and discomfort and panic that were coursing through her system. Her gag was soaked with saliva and tasted sour and rotten. She felt nauseous, on the verge of vomiting—and had to fight to keep it down lest it cause her to suffocate. Sue Ellen simply lay as still as possible, her mind too tired for tears, her cheek vibrating against the roughened metal bed of the truck. She had no idea of where she was being taken, and for the moment she didn’t care. In the back of her mind she felt both she and Ann would soon be dead. If they had not been asleep in the back seat, their bodies completely relaxed, perhaps they would not have survived the car accident. And perhaps that would have been the best thing—to go out suddenly, unaware it was happening, oblivious to fear. Doubtless, Flack and Carter would have fired bullets into their dead brains, completing their deaths and making their rest peaceful and permanent.
CHAPTER 20
Dave drove as fast as he could in Mr. Dorsey’s car, keeping a sharp lookout for danger in the road. The car was a 1956 Chevy, rusty and filthy dirty, hard to start and still harder to navigate, with loose steering and almost nonexistent brakes. It rattled and vibrated on the dirt and gravel road, never making a speed over forty.
The road was surprisingly clear of ghouls. In one place Dave spotted some, way back in a field on the left side of the road. They appeared to be just standing very still, not engaging in any activity for the moment, as if they did not know what to do. Dave speculated that maybe the dead things experienced a certain inertia that they had to overcome with the beginning of each new day—as if each dawn was a surprise to them, rousing them from death. Or maybe they had simply done all the ravaging they could do in this particular rural area of few farms, and were going to move on toward other areas with a more plentiful supply of human flesh.
Dave shuddered.
He did not want to think the humanoids could reason and would have been more terrified of them if he thought they could.
He thought of his wife and son, who did not know if he was alive or dead. He maintained a hope of getting back to them. They were probably relatively safe, in the protection of the high-rise apartment building where they lived in the center of the city. The cities had been well-protected ten years earlier during the first emergency of this type, with their centralized police forces and their ability to maintain communications. It was the rural areas that had suffered heavily then, as they were suffering now. Dave and his wife had plans of moving out of the city as soon as they could afford to buy a place. Dave realized ruefully that it was probably a good thing they had not been able to afford it before now.
Carl Martinelli had not been married. When Dave got back to the city, he would have to tell Carl’s aged Italian parents about their son’s death. He would stress that Carl had died trying to save a baby’s life. At least he had not been killed by the humanoids, and it was still possible that his body might be brought home for a church burial, the kind of thing his parents would wish.
Dave reached down and switched on the car radio, at the same time glancing at the rifle beside him in the front seat. He had not tried the radio earlier, as if the decrepit condition of the car had satisfied his assumption that the radio could not possibly be still working while the rest of the vehicle had fallen to junk. But the radio was working, and an announcer’s voice came on.
“…return to life and become carnal monsters, creatures that crave the flesh of the living in order to survive? Scientists have been examining the bodies of the living dead that have been immobilized by brain destruction. One theory at the moment seems to be this, and I quote: The dead cells of recent corpses seem to have been revitalized by some unknown type of malignancy. In other words, an unknown cancer, perhaps a virus, brings dead cells back to life. This is not a normal ‘life,’ but a malignant life-form that turns the human into a creature that is dead in most usual respects. Most scientists do claim it is something in the air, a virus born of pollution, an odd mixture of carcinogenic chemicals which attack cells that have recently died, causing them to be activated, bringing the dead back to a living death where nothing remains but an activated corpse driven by a craving for living flesh. It is as if cancer itself were destroying the species in the process. It has been discovered that ‘death’ or let’s say ‘immobilization’ of the corpses can be achieved by destroying the brain. Once the brain has stopped functioning, all glandular and circulatory functions cease; at least the creature can be rendered immobile…”
Dave pulled the car into the gravel lot of the
Log Cabin Gas Station, braked the car to a halt and turned the ignition off. The place had been looted. Locks were broken off two of the pumps, windows were smashed, the front entrance door was hanging open. Nobody was in sight. No attendant made his appearance and Dave expected none, though he had driven the car over an air-hose, causing the signal bell to ring twice.
After surveying the place from the car, Mr. Dorsey’s rifle in hand, Dave got out and approached the building. He flattened himself against the wall and worked his way over to the front door. Not a thing stirred. The place had the feel of desolation. Dave nudged the door the rest of the way open with his foot and cautiously stepped inside. His eyes adjusted to the dim light; the only light inside the station building was the natural light from outside. The few shelves were overturned and half-empty, the cash register drawer open and containing only a few pennies. Most of whatever had been of value in the store was gone.
A click and a hum startled Dave. It was the hum of a refrigerator, just as he had been about to assume that there was no electric power in the place and if there was any milk it would be spoiled.
Dave looked around and found the refrigerator against a wall at the far end of a row of shelves. The shelves contained a few canned goods; other cans were strewn on the floor and Dave tripped over some of them. He opened the refrigerator, its light came on, and to his surprise he found it contained cartons of milk, orange juice, eggs and cheese, all labeled and priced for sale. Like many country stores catering to the emergency needs of out-of-the-way people, this place did not bother having a fancy display-type refrigeration case and made do with a used refrigerator instead. Dave thought himself very lucky. Whoever had raided the place had not emptied the refrigerator, probably not wanting to take items which would easily spoil.
Dave found shopping bags and loaded them with all the foodstuffs he could find, figuring to take the whole works to Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey. Then he began loading the bags into the car, working quickly and keeping a lookout for danger.