If anyone were still alive, they wouldn’t be for long.
Ben turned back to the burning truck, but there were no more screams.
He was alone.
The fire had spread to the gasoline station itself, and the flames licked high into the evening sky.
He was all alone.
He looked around. There were fifty or sixty of the things in plain view now. They just stood in place, staring at the flames ...
... until, slowly, one by one, they shifted their gaze to stare at him.
It was a petrifying, impious sensation. Ben might have frozen, rooted helpless to that spot, if he had not seen one thing.
The janitor was getting up. With his neck ravaged, with his ear and most of the fingers of one hand bitten off, with one leg mauled to the bone ... the janitor was getting up.
Ben was back in his borrowed pickup, was circling around and driving toward the parking lot before he realized what he intended to do.
The things did not move as Ben plowed the truck right through them. The janitor showed no sign of recognition or fear as Ben made a special point of crushing him.
They just stood there, staring at him. They scattered through the air like bugs, but there were no wails of fear, no cries of pain.
Ben sailed over the curb and raced into the coming night.
It was only a precious few minutes before he noticed the gas tank needle. He had not thought to check and see how much fuel the damned truck had, but he now saw that it was very near empty.
What could he do? There was no town center in sight as yet, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be left stranded on the side of the road on this night.
In what little light of dusk remained, Ben was barely able to make out the white farmhouse standing in the middle of the field down a long, dirt driveway. A small barn stood on the other end of the property and what appeared to be a modest, single gas pump, most likely for refueling tractors and other equipment.
He could also make out movement in the yard, but would it prove to be people ... or more of those things?
Do I have any choice?
No, he didn’t.
Turning off the main road, Ben drove toward the farmhouse ...
TOM AND JUDY
Tom leaned over her, his mouth opening to bite down on the flesh of her throat ...
Judy placed her fingers over his lips to stop him before he could tempt her further.
"Oh, Judy, I’m dyin’ ..."
"Come on, Tommy, you’re not dying."
"Judy, we’ve been together so long ... you’re killin’ me..." He craned his neck forward, reaching for her throat again.
"Tom, I swear, if you give me a hickey, I will kill you."
With a soul-weary sigh, Tom pulled away from her, straightening back into his place behind the steering wheel so that he could sulk in comfort. It was a familiar routine by now.
Tom and Judy had been dating for four years, since both of them were Juniors in high school. Though they had each left their teen years behind them, Tom often felt like a clumsy, awkward boy in the throes of puberty around her. Tonight was a recurring theme of their Sunday afternoon dates: Lunch; sometimes a movie; driving up to the top of Ridley Hill to park and "check out the view" before heading down to the lake for a swim ... followed, finally, by Tom’s temptation to forego their promise to wait until their wedding night for consummation, and Judy’s reminding him — always with just as much force as was needed — of her own unwavering devotion to that oath.
The real "problem," of course, was that Tom was an honest, nice guy — too nice for his own good, his pals were fond of telling him. He knew deep inside that if he were to press Judy, really press her on the subject, she probably would have given in by now.
But ... again, Tom was a nice guy. And he was already feeling guilty for having pushed her as far as he had this afternoon.
"Did you find out if you can get next Saturday off?" Judy asked, changing the subject with an ease that he found both endearing and annoying.
"Don’t know yet, but ... probably not. Saturdays are big days at the garage."
Judy smiled. "Can’t they spare you for the afternoon?"
"I’ll try again. But they let me take off last month for the fair in Willard, so ..." He made a vague gesture of defeat.
She sighed in disappointment, then smiled again. "I understand."
Warmed by her mellow reaction, he caressed her cheek. "You always smile for me."
She snuggled her face against his palm. "Always."
"Do you think your folks’ll be upset?"
"They’ll be disappointed, sure, but Dad’ll respect you for it."
Tom grinned. "Finally winnin’ the old man over, huh?"
Judy giggled, then scooted back over to her side of the car. Her car, really, but Tom always drove. That just seemed like the proper thing to do, since he did not have a car of his own — yet. Truth be told, that was another reason he was a little reluctant to ask for Saturday off. He wanted to please Judy’s father, but he really needed the work and the overtime that Saturdays at the garage often brought. If he could squirrel away just a few extra dollars this month, he might be able to finally make a down-payment on that used Mustang he’d had his eye on forever-and-a-day!
"Are we still going swimming?" Judy asked.
"Hmm?" he murmured, distracted by daydreams of picking Judy up in his bright red muscle car.
She gestured toward the south side of Ridley Hill, then glanced at the sun sinking lower in the west. "It’s later than I thought." She giggled again, but made no direct comment on why it was later. "Do you still want to head down to the lake?" And her big smile told him that she was hoping for a Yes.
Tom glanced at his watch. "Sure, Smiley, why not?" Thoughts of muscle cars had failed to relieve the pressure in his groin, but a cold dip in the lake just might do the trick. Unless Judy brought her bikini instead of her one-piece, in which case he was in even more trouble.
As Tom started the engine and turned around to drive back down the hill, he spotted some thunderheads creeping across the horizon. Between the late hour and the possibility of rain, he might have voted to cancel their swim after all, but he didn’t want to disappoint Judy.
Without even thinking about it, he reached over and turned on the radio. But instead of music, all that came out of the speakers was static.
"That’s funny," Judy commented. She reached out to try another station.
"Give it a second," Tom suggested, "maybe it’s just warmin’ up or something. Has it given you any problems before?"
"No, not really."
"Huh ..."
They drove in silence for a minute, Tom navigating around toward the lake. He was watching the road, so it was Judy who spotted the commotion. "Something’s going on over there."
"Where? By the lake?"
"Yeah ..." She squinted, then said, "It looks like they’re pulling somebody out of the water. I hope he’s all right."
"Me, too."
The radio static flared louder, then ceased altogether. "Is that it? You got it?" they heard the diskjockey say, his voice muffled as though he were facing away from the microphone.
Tom and Judy exchanged a confused glance. Something about that unprofessional snippet, the shaken tone of the man on the air, seemed somehow ... eerie.
"Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for these interruptions ... we are, uh, we’re experiencing technical difficulties with the power here ... again, we apologize and will continue to, well, we’ll try to remain on the air as long as possible ..."
"Tommy, what is this?" Judy asked.
He shook his head. "Don’t know."
"If you’re just tuning in," the diskjockey said, "it is vital that you pay close attention. According to reports from all over the county, and some are now coming in from the entire tri-state area, we are experiencing an epidemic of unexplained mass-murder."
The proclamation was so unexpected, so outrageous, that Tom actu
ally laughed out loud. "What?!" he guffawed.
"Shh!" Judy leaned forward in her seat.
"What we first dismissed as hysteria can no longer be denied. We have confirmed the accuracy of many of these reports with local police and sheriff departments; the murders are real, and they are taking place as we speak. We—" Another burst of static overwhelmed the man’s voice. A second later they caught one more word — Tom thought it might have been "safety" — and then the speakers settled down to the softer static they had first heard, with no transmission coming through.
"Tom, what was that?" Judy asked, her voice stringent.
"A joke, honey, it had to be."
"They don’t joke about stuff like that on the radio."
"Sure they do!" he laughed, but it sounded forced even to his own ears. "Remember last April Fools’ Day? They talked about—"
"It’s not April Fool— Oh, my God."
Having been distracted by the bizarre announcement on the radio, Tom hadn’t realized that they had reached the lake. Now that they were closer, they could see that a man had, in fact, been dragged from the water and was now lying unconscious (or worse) on his back while a woman tried to resuscitate him.
"Do you think they need help?" Judy asked.
"Not sure what we can do," Tom said, but she was already opening the passenger door before they’d rolled to a complete stop. Sighing at how this day was turning out, Tom put the car in Park and got out with her.
A handful of people, all in swimwear, were standing around the drowned man, fidgeting with the same indecision Tom felt. The guy was overweight, with a huge gut and barrel chest, and Tom couldn’t help wondering if the woman’s pumping on his chest was at all effective.
"Come on, Gerald!" she shouted. "Wake up! Breathe! Please breathe!" She moved to his head, pinching his nose and blowing into his mouth.
"What happened?" Judy whispered to a teenage boy when they got close enough.
The boy shrugged. "Mister Levin just started screaming out there in the water." He gestured, listless. "Guess he got a cramp or somethin’. Went under the water before anyone could reach him. Wasn’t moving by the time his wife brought him in." Then he added with pride, "I helped her drag ‘im out of the water."
"Has anyone gone for help?" Tom asked.
"Yeah, I think so." He gestured again, back the way from which Tom and Judy had just arrived.
Tom started to point out that he’d seen no car pass them by ... but then, he’d been so distracted by the "mass-murder" thing on the radio, he might’ve just missed it, somehow.
The drowned man’s wife stopped blowing into his mouth and went back to pumping on his chest. She was crying now, but didn’t let up. "Come on, Gerald. Don’t be so goddamn stubborn, now. Wake up!"
Judy reached out and took Tom’s hand. He clasped it back out of habit, but his attention was focused elsewhere.
None of the others were paying it any mind, but Tom’s eyes were drawn to a hideous wound on Mister Levin’s left calf. It was down toward the ankle, and since he was lying on his back, it wasn’t all that visible, but it looked like a chunk had been taken right out of him, like the world’s worst dog bite! It might explain why he started screaming and then drowned in the first place, but for the life of him, Tom couldn’t think of what might cause such a wound in this lake. What, did someone stock it with piranha or something?
A long, dark trail of blood slithered from the man’s calf back out into the water. Somehow, that turned Tom’s stomach more than his obstructed view of the wound itself.
Then Mister Levin’s hand twitched, followed a moment later by his jaw clenching.
"Oh, thank God!" his wife cried. A couple of people applauded, including Judy. "But you have to breathe, Gerry! Spit that dirty ol’ lake water out for me."
Switching back to his head, she leaned in to puff more air into his lungs. As she did, her husband kicked his legs once, then lifted one arm up and around his wife’s neck, as if to hug her ...
Then she started screaming.
Everyone jolted, but no one moved or even said anything — no one had any idea what the hell was going on!
The woman tried to pull back, her screams muffled and gurgling. Even though her husband’s arm fell away easily enough, she couldn’t seem to straighten up at first. And when she finally did, Tom wished she hadn’t.
She threw herself back, falling over onto her butt, still screaming. Her mouth was a horrid, bloody mess.
Her husband had bitten her lips off.
Tom’s heart shot into his throat, and Judy’s hand clamped down like a vice on his bicep.
Good God, he wasn’t really seeing this, was he? Was he?
"Holy shit!" the teenage boy cried, and similar sentiments erupted from everyone present. Another boy, this one around ten years old, turned white as a sheet and a dark stain of urine spread out across the front of his denim cutoffs.
The wife’s upper lip was almost entirely gone; her lower lip hung loose down her chin, dangling like a worm from a fishhook. She held her hands up to her face but fell short of actually touching the shocking injury.
She kept screaming, but not for long. Her husband sat up, his big gut jutting outward like a squeezed pillow, then flailed over onto his wife’s legs and started chewing into her thigh.
She cried out for help, but everyone scattered in all directions. Tom took one step forward even though he had no idea what he should do — his brain was still catching up with what his eyes were telling him — but Judy clamped down on his arm again.
"Tom!" she pleaded. "We have to get out of here!"
"But, the woman ... she ... lips!" He knew it was incoherent, but it was all he could get out.
"No, Tommy, look!"
He looked at her first, then followed her pointing finger.
A woman was staggering out of the lake, a blue, bloated woman who looked as though she had been under the water for far too long. Clad in a tattered swimsuit, her arms were outstretched, reaching for them — her skin was decrepit, her eyes were cloudy, and part of her nose had been chewed away.
Tom took Judy by the hand, and they ran for the car.
But they didn’t get very far.
A man in a filthy hospital gown stood next to Judy’s car. He was standing on the driver’s side, peering in through the window. His back was to Tom and Judy, and Tom could see through the flap of his gown, which was only held together by a single threadbare tie at this point, that the man had dried shit running down each leg — he had soiled himself, but hadn’t bothered to clean it up.
Tom stopped so abruptly that Judy collided with him. She squealed — she had been looking over her shoulder at the woman from the water — and cut herself off when she saw the problem.
The man wasn’t aware of them, yet. He was just staring into the car, as though admiring it, maybe considering it for purchase. If it weren’t for the gown and his state of uncleanliness, Tom would’ve had no idea anything was wrong.
"What do we do?" Judy whispered into his ear, her voice trembling.
Thunder echoed from the dark clouds Tom had seen earlier. The man glanced up for a brief moment, then returned his attention to the car. He hadn’t reacted to any of the other people as they ran screaming in all directions, fleeing in their own vehicles or on foot ... so maybe he would ignore them, too? Maybe they could circle around to the other side of the car, then slip in through the passenger door?
A moan wheezed out of the man. He raised his left hand — Tom could see the hospital bracelet — and pressed his palm against the car window. That was all he did, it wasn’t even threatening, really ... but something about it crushed any thought of trying to sneak past him and into the car.
Tugging Judy in another direction, Tom led her away and, thankfully, the man never realized they were there.
When they had put a respectable distance between themselves and the soiled man, Judy asked again, "Tom, what are we going to do?" He could tell she was near tears, but trying to
keep a brave face for him.
Tom didn’t know. As the minutes passed, he was finding the whole situation harder to process, to deal with. He hadn’t thought before, he’d reacted — to the drowned man, to the bloated woman, to the soiled man ... all a very simple, very easy Stay the hell away from them!
But now ... now he was running through the fields north of the lake with his girlfriend, running from the most bizarre threats he could ever have imagined, it looked like rain, it would be getting dark soon, and they had lost their car.
Night of the Living Dead Page 4