by Max Danzig
“No,” she snapped, scowling at him. “I heard something outside, I'm sure of it.”
The film soundtrack burst into life again, startling her. With her heart in her mouth, she reached down and switched off the television.
“I was watching that,” Steve protested.
“Shut the fuck up for a moment,” she said in a loud whisper.
There it was again, a definite new and indistinct noise coming from outside. It wasn't the wind, and it wasn't the rain. She hadn't imagined it. Peter heard it too.
Without saying another word Rachel ran from the living room into the dark kitchen. She threaded her way through the tables and chairs to the window and craned her neck to look outside.
“Anything out there?” Peter asked, close behind her.
“Nothing,” she said. She turned and headed out of the room towards the stairs. She stopped when she was halfway up and turned back to face Peter. “Listen,” she whispered, lifting a single finger to her lips.
“There, can you hear it?”
He held his breath and listened. For a few moments, he couldn't hear anything other than the wind and rain and the constant rhythmic mechanical thumping of the generator. Then, for a fraction of a second, he became aware of the new noise again. His ears locked onto the frequency of the sound and as it rose and became distinct from the rest of the racket.
As he concentrated the noise faded and changed. In turn, it was the sound of something clattering against the wooden gate in the front yard, then another noise, then more clattering and thumping. Without saying another word he ran towards Rachel and pushed his way past her. She followed as he disappeared into their bedroom. By the time she entered the room he was already standing on the far side, looking out of the front window in utter disbelief.
“Oh Fuck,” he said as he stared down. “Look...”
With apprehension, Rachel walked across the room and peered over his shoulder. Although it was dark outside and the driving rain blurred her view through the glass, she could see movement on the other side of the barrier. Along the entire length of the barricade were crowds of bodies writhing in the darkness. They had seen one or two of them there before, but never this many in such vast and unexpected numbers.
“There must be a hundred of them,” Peter whispered, his voice hoarse with fear, “and more of them are coming. Fuck.”
“Why?” Rachel asked.
“The generator,” he seethed. “Even over the storm, they must have heard the generator.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“And light,” he continued. “We've had lights on tonight. They must have seen them. And there was the smoke from the fire...”
Rachel shook her head and continued to stare down at the rotting ghouls gathered at the barricade. “But why so many?” she wondered.
“Think about it,” Peter replied. “The world is dead and quiet. One or two of them must have been attracted by the noise of generator and that was enough. Then they made that damnable moaning, and that was heard by other walkers in the area, and then they moan and so on, and so on...”
“That random evenly dispersed effect again.” Rachel said staring out the window.
Peter shot her an angry glance before turning his attention back to the barricade.
As the two of them looked down at the hordes of corpses, one of the creatures lifted its emaciated arms and banged on the wooden gate.
“What's going on?” Steve asked having dragged himself out of his seat and upstairs to their bedroom.
“Ghouls,” Peter whispered. “Hundreds of them.”
Steve crept forwards, shuffling his feet on the ground, and looked out over the yard. “What do they want?” he muttered under his breath.
“What the fuck do you think?” Peter cursed.
The other man stared down at the heaving crowd with a morbid curiosity. Rachel turned towards Peter and put a hand on his arm.
“They won't get through, will they?” she asked.
He felt he should try to reassure her but he couldn't lie. “I don't know,” he replied with brutal honesty.
"They don’t have a lot of strength and are uncoordinated. We were able to push them around and knock them over easy enough," she said, trying hard to convince herself they were still safe in the house.
“On their own they're nothing,” Peter muttered. “But there are a hundred of them out there now. I've got no idea what they're capable of in these kinds of numbers.”
Rachel shuddered with icy fear as the moon broke through a momentary gap in the cloud cover. It cast an eerie dead light on the grotesque figures writhing along the length of the barricade and staggering through the fields and converging on the farm. They were swallowed up in the darkness as the clouds closed over and the rain began again.
“Shit,” Peter snapped.
“What are we going to do?” Rachel asked. She looked down and watched as part of the crowd lining the front gate surged forward. Several of the creatures, their footing already unsteady in the slippery mud, fell under the stumbling feet of dozens of other walking corpses.
Peter looked up into the clouds and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to clear his mind and shut out all distractions so he could think straight. Without warning, he ran out of the bedroom and sprinted down the staircase and to the back door. Taking a deep breath he unlocked the door and ran over to the shed housing the generator. He was soaked by the pouring rain in seconds. Ignoring the cold and gusting wind, he flung open the shed door and turned off the generator, silencing the machine and plunging the farmhouse into complete darkness.
Rachel caught her breath at the moment the lights died. The sudden quiet and darkness explained Peter’s disappearance, and she ran out to the landing to make sure he had made it safely back inside the house. She was relieved when she heard the back door slam shut and lock.
“You okay?” she asked as he dragged himself back up the stairs breathing heavy from his exertions. He nodded and cleared his throat.
“I'm okay.” He said.
The two survivors stood at the top of the stairs, holding onto each other tightly. Other than the roar of the wind and rain and muffled moans from the monsters outside the house was silent. The lack of any other sound was unnerving. Peter took hold of Rachel's hand and led her back to the bedroom.
“What the hell are we going to do?” she whispered. She sat down on the edge of the bed as Peter looked out of the window.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “We should wait and see if they leave before we do anything. There's no light or noise to attract them now. They should go.”
“But what are we going to do?” she asked again. “We can't live without light. Jesus, winter's coming. We'll need fire and light...”
Peter didn't reply. Instead, he stared down at the crowd of animated, decomposing corpses. He watched the bodies in the distance, still staggering towards the farmhouse, and he prayed the ghouls would lose interest and go away.
Rachel was right. What quality of life would they have hiding in a dark house with no light, warmth or other comfort? But what was the alternative? On this cold and bleak night there didn't seem to be any.
Peter turned away from the window, took Rachel's hand and led her out of the room. The temperature was cold, and to hold her close was comforting and reassuring.
Steve remained alone in the bedroom, leaning against the window, watching the milling crowds beyond the barricade with fear, unease and mounting hate. He didn’t even notice the other two had left the room.
Chapter 43
Rachel fell asleep after two o'clock in the morning but was awake again by six. Her bedroom was dim and cold. She woke with a sudden start and sat bolt upright in bed. The air around her face was icy and her breath condensed in cool clouds around her mouth and nose.
Since arriving at the farm she and Peter shared this room. There was nothing troublesome with Peter’s presence there. He continued to sleep on the floor next to the bed and he discreetl
y looked away or left the room whenever she changed clothes. Neither of them spoke of their unusual sleeping arrangements. Both of them continued to welcome the warm comfort and security of having another living, breathing person nearby.
Rachel leaned over to her right as she always did upon waking. She stretched out her arm, hoping to touch the reassuring bulk of her sleeping friend. This morning, however, where she had expected to find Peter, she only found his rumpled sleeping bag.
This was the first morning that Peter hadn't been there when she'd looked. He often rose first, but, until this morning, she was always aware whenever he got up and left the room. He had definitely been there when she went to bed, because she could remember hearing him snore. She leaned across further and picked up the empty sleeping bag and pulled it to her face. It smelled of Peter, and it was still warm from the heat of his body. No need to panic, she thought.
If it had been any later she wouldn't have been worried, but it was only six o'clock. Maybe he hadn't been able to sleep and got up because he was restless and he didn’t want to wake her. Regardless of the reason, Rachel got up and pulled on a pair of jeans and a thick sweater draped over the back of a chair near the bed. She tiptoed across the dark bedroom with arms stretched out in front of her for guidance and balance. The smooth floorboards were cold beneath her sock covered feet and she shivered as she reached out to open the door.
In her room, thick curtains blocked most of the dull morning light. The window on the landing had no curtain and was better lit. She glanced up the short flight of stairs leading to Steve's attic room and saw that his door was open. 'Unusual,' she thought. With Steve becoming more reclusive, she had become used to not seeing or hearing him before midday. These days it seemed the last thing he’d want was any contact with Peter or herself, especially at this time of the morning.
She crept along the landing to the top of the staircase and peered down to the hallway.
“Peter,” she called softly. The quiet of the house made her voice sound unexpectedly loud.
No response.
“Peter,” she called again, this time a little louder. “Peter, Steve... where are you?”
She waited for a moment concentrating on the silence in the house, hoping she'd get a reply from one of her two companions. When no reply came, she took a couple of cautious steps forward and called out again.
“Peter,” she called for the fourth time, her voice now at full volume. “Will you answer me?”
Rachel took another step forward, and then stopped again to listen. She lifted her foot to take another step, but before she set it down, the dense quiet was broken by a dull thump from outside the house. She froze, rooted to the spot in fear. It was the same sound she heard last night.
Another thump.
And another.
And another.
Suddenly there was the sound of a thousand rotting fists beating against the barrier around the house. Desperate, Rachel ran downstairs. The relentless noise coming from outside was increasing in volume. It was different this morning, harsher and much louder than last night. Last night the corpses hammered against the gate with heavy, clumsy hands. This morning they sounded more definite and purposeful.
“Peter,” she yelled out over the sound of the thumping and was still no closer to finding either of her companions. She looked up and down the empty hallway for any signs of life.
The noise outside reached an almighty crescendo and then stopped. Confused and terrified, Rachel ran to the front door and looked out the window next to the door to see the gate in the front yard had come down.
A torrent of bodies surged towards the house. Seconds later there was another noise, this time from the kitchen. It was the cracking of glass. Rachel ran into the room and then stopped dead in her tracks. Pressed against the kitchen window were numerous diseased and decomposing faces.
Pairs of cold, clouded and expressionless eyes followed her every move and the remains of heavy hands beat against the fragile glass. In abject horror she watched as a series of jagged cracks worked their way across the window. Rachel turned and ran. She tripped on a rug in the hallway and half-sprinted, half-fell into the living room, landing in an uncoordinated heap on the carpet. She looked up and saw through the front windows that more rotting faces were staring back at her from outside the room. Forgetting about Peter and Steve, she knew her only chance was to barricade herself in Steve's attic bedroom - the highest and, she hoped, safest part of the house.
As she sprinted back down the hallway towards the stairs, the front door burst open under the force of dozens of corpses. Like a burst dam an unstoppable flood of abhorrent creatures spilled through the front doorway. She struggled to push past the first few ghouls and get to the staircase. She ran up the stairs and then paused for a fraction of a second to look back down. The whole of the lower floor of the house was carpeted with a seething mass of writhing, rotting corpses.
She ran into her room as it was closest and slammed the door shut behind her. Struggling in the darkness, she threw a chair out of the way and kicked her way through a pile of Peter’s discarded clothes.
Once she'd reached the window, she threw back the curtains and looked outside to see her worst nightmare made reality. The barrier around the house was down in at least three places. Countless figures staggered towards the house, and the yard was a heaving sea of bodies. The SUV, her only means of escape, was surrounded. Beyond the remains of the fence, for as far as she could see in all directions, thousands of shadowy figures tramped relentlessly towards the farm.
There was a sudden crashing noise behind her and Rachel spun round to find herself face to face with four corpses. She could see more of them on the landing, the sheer volume of bodies having forced them into the room. The nearest of the group of four - something that had once been a Policeman - stared at her for a moment before lurching forward. She screamed in desperation trying to open the window.
As the bodies approached, she turned and kicked the first creature square in its withered and rotting testicles. It didn't flinch or show the slightest flicker of emotion. Instead it reached out for her with vicious, talon-like fingers and caught hold of her hair, yanking her down onto the bed.
As the first sharp claws tore into her flesh she saw one of the monsters was Peter!
Rachel woke up screaming.
Chapter 44
Rachel woke from the dream with a scream caught in her throat and drenched in an icy sweat. For a few disorienting moments she was too afraid to move. Once she convinced herself it had only been a dream, and she was safe, she leaned over and peered over the right side of the bed.
A wave of relief washed over her as she reached out her hand and rested it on Peter’s shoulder. She held it there for a few seconds until she was sure everything was okay. The gentle, rhythmic movement of his breathing was reassuring.
In the days, months and years before her world was turned upside down, Rachel often tried to analyze the hidden meaning of dreams. She read many books that offered explanations for the metaphors and images which filled her mind while she slept. Her dreams had changed since they arrived at the farm.
There was nothing subtle or hidden in the visions she'd seen in her sleep this morning. They showed her, in no uncertain terms, a terrifying version of how fast the future can change.
Rachel got out of bed, taking care not to disturb Peter. She made her way over to the window, closed her eyes and drew back the curtains. Rachel kept her eyes closed; partly because of the light flooding in through the window but mostly because she was afraid of what she might see outside.
She breathed a heavy sigh of relief when she opened her eyes and saw that only twenty or so figures remained on the other side of the barrier. The majority of the crowd from the previous night had wandered away into the wilderness. Since they had switched off the generator, the farmhouse appeared to be as dead and as empty as any of the other thousands of buildings dotting the countryside.
Rachel heard
noises downstairs, but she was sure everything was okay since the barrier around the building was still intact. It gave her a comforting sense of security and protection.
It was now eight o'clock and a reasonable hour to get out of bed. Taking care not to disturb Peter, she pulled on her clothes and made her way downstairs. She found Steve in the kitchen.
“Morning,” she said walking into the room. She yawned and stretched. Other than mumbling something indistinct Steve didn't stop or look up from what he was doing.
Rachel stood and watched him for a moment. He was dressed and washed. He was searching through the kitchen cupboards and had collected a pile of food and supplies on the table.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he muttered, still not looking up at her.
“Doesn't look like nothing to me.”
Steve didn't reply. Rachel walked round him and made her way over to the stove. She lifted the kettle and shook it. Happy that there was enough water inside, she put it down and lit the burner. Whatever it was Steve was doing was important because he hadn't bothered to make himself a drink. The stove and kettle were cold and unused. One thing the three survivors found they had in common was a need to get some hot coffee inside them before they could function in the morning.
“Want a coffee?” she asked, determined not to let his aloofness deter her.
“No thanks,” he replied, still avoiding eye-contact.
Rachel shrugged her shoulders and spooned instant coffee granules into two mugs. There was an oppressive atmosphere in the room. The only noise came from the kettle boiling on the stove. Steve continued to look through the cupboards and drawers. Rachel felt uneasy. He was up to something and he didn't want to talk about it. She couldn't think of a subtle way of asking what it was he was doing. So she decided to just ask him outright again and keep asking until she got answers.