"It seems to be—"
"I must disagree with these gentlemen," the officer clarified, "presently, until we, uh, until this is irrefutably proved."
The shorter suit, looking very tired, spoke up again. "Everything is being done that can be done."
The officer pointed across the intersection. "We’ll have to hurry for our next meeting."
The report from the field continued for a while longer, but it all boiled down to more of the same: The reporters followed and hounded the three men with the same questions; the officer and his two companions agreed and disagreed and agreed to disagree; and as they reached their car, they signed off with more promises that they were doing "everything possible to solve the problem."
Cooper stood and turned away, visibly disgusted.
Ben didn’t blame him. "We’ve heard all these. No, we have to try to get out of here."
Helen spoke up. "He said the rescue stations had doctors and medical supplies." She looked to her husband. "If we could get Karen there, we could get help for her."
On the screen, as the anchorman rattled on, the latest text rolled over to: Willard — Willard Medical Center
"Willard," Ben said. The name nagged at him for a brief moment, then he got it. "I saw a sign that said ‘Willard’."
Tom nodded. "It’s only about seventeen miles from here."
Ben stood and turned to him. "You know this area? You from around here?"
"Judy and I are both from around here. We were on our way up to the lake to go swimming. Judy had a radio, and we heard the first reports about this ..." Tom started to tell them about what they had seen, about the man biting off his wife’s lips, but he decided not to go into it. What would it help to relive that again? "... so, we knew the old house was here, and we came in. Found the lady upstairs, dead. Then these other people came. We went down into the basement and put a bar across the door, and it is pretty strong."
"How could we possibly get away from here?" Cooper asked his wife and the room at large. "We’ve got a sick child, two women, one woman out of her head, three men, and the place is surrounded."
Helen, for her part, turned away from him, back toward the television. The anchorman was interviewing a Doctor Grimes in the news studio. At first, it just seemed like more of the same — a detailed explanation of how little anyone knew of what was going on. But then something the doctor said jumped out at her, and caused her stomach to drop down into her feet.
"... yes, we have some answers," the doctor was saying. "But first, let me stress the importance of seeking medical attention for anyone who’s been injured in any way. We don’t know yet what complications might result from such injuries ..."
Ben heard it, too. "How bad has your kid been hurt?" he asked her.
"Oh ... she ..." Helen was suddenly at a loss for words. She realized, of course, that something was wrong with Karen. She wanted so much to blame it on shock, but the fact was that the bite on her arm was terribly infected — the human mouth was filthy, filled with germs, but the speed of the infection already scared her ... and that was before the television explained what exactly those things really were.
When Ben realized that she didn’t have a ready answer for him, he said, "Look ... you go down there and tell ..." He glanced back at Tom. "Was her name ‘Judy’?" Tom nodded. "Yeah, you tell Judy to come up here, and you stay with the kid. All right?"
Helen didn’t argue — she wanted to be at her daughter’s side now.
As she stood and headed for the basement door, Ben turned back to the television.
"... in the cold room at the university," Doctor Grimes was saying, "we had a cadaver. A cadaver from which all four limbs had been amputated. Sometime early this morning, it opened its eyes and began to move its trunk. It was dead, but it opened its eyes and tried to move ..."
Back in the cellar, Helen found herself rushing to her daughter’s side. That note about seeking medical assistance had rattled her, badly.
"They want you upstairs." She touched Judy on the arm, then looked at Karen. "Did she ask for me?"
Judy moved so that Helen could sit down. "She hasn’t said anything."
Helen patted her daughter’s forearms, mindful of the bandage on her right arm that was partially soaked with blood.
Or was that blood and pus?
Shut up!
"I don’t understand," Helen said aloud. She leaned forward, forcing herself to smile. "Baby? It’s Mommy."
Karen opened her eyes long enough to say, "I hurt ..." She cringed in pain, and it stabbed straight into Helen’s heart, her soul.
Judy patted Helen on the back. "I’ll come back down as soon as I find out what they want."
Helen nodded as she walked away. "Thank you, Judy." But it wouldn’t matter, because she wouldn’t leave her daughter’s side again. Not if she could help it. Not until they were ready to carry her out of this God-forsaken place and take her to get some real help.
So Helen Cooper sat with her daughter and vehemently ignored the pungent smell wafting up from her infected wound ...
On the television, Doctor Grimes continued on as more rescue stations were identified in the text below him. "...the body should be disposed of at once, preferably by cremation."
The anchorman asked, "Well how long after death, then, does the body become reactivated?"
"It’s only a matter of minutes," the doctor said, dour.
" ‘Minutes’? Well, that doesn’t give people time to make any arrangeme—"
"No, you’re right, it doesn’t give them time to make funeral arrangements. The bodies must be carried to the street and ..." The doctor hesitated, briefly, showing the first real emotion since appearing in the news studio. "...and burned. They must be burned immediately. Soak them with gasoline and burn them."
The anchorman looked away, again appearing embarrassed. But he said nothing, made no accusations against the doctor’s harsh assertions.
The doctor continued, sounding colder now, perhaps in self-castigation for his moment of weakness. "The bereaved will have to forego the dubious comforts that a funeral service will give. They’re just dead flesh, and dangerous."
Judy arrived just in time to hear this last bit — not having been present for the earlier announcement, it confused her more than upset her.
Then Ben noticed her and began issuing instructions. "Look, I need you to find some bedspreads or sheets to tear up into small strips, okay?"
Judy nodded.
Ben turned to Tom. "Is there a fruit cellar here?"
"... Yes."
"We need some bottles or jars, to make Molotov Cocktails, hold them off while we try to escape."
Tom got the idea. "Hey! There’s a big can of kerosene down there."
Judy said, "I’ll see what I can find."
Tom agreed, "I’ll look for the bottles."
The growing sense of camaraderie prompted Cooper to finally participate. "There’s a big key ring down there," he said, still sounding reluctant. "There may be a key to the gas pump on it."
"I’ll check," Tom said before heading down, though he said it more to Ben than to Harry Cooper.
Ben looked at the man for a moment, then said, "You can toss the cocktails from a window upstairs. Meantime, a couple of us can go out and try to get the gas, then come back for the rest of the people."
"But that’ll leave a door open someplace!"
Ben chose to overlook his belligerent tone, this time. "Yeah, that’s right. It better be this door." He walked over to the front door of the house. "It’s closer to the truck." He looked back toward the cellar. "Before we go out, we put some supplies behind the cellar door — while we’re gone, the rest of you can hole up in there."
Before Cooper could reply, Tom emerged, carrying a box. "I found some fruit jars in the cellar." He put the box down on one of the chairs, then held up a largish, mostly naked key ring. "And there’s a key on here that’s labeled for the gas pump out back."
Ben thought for a
moment, plotting in all out in his mind. Then he was forced to admit, "I, I’m not really that used to the truck. I found it abandoned."
"Abandoned," yeah. That’s one way to describe it, Ben.
Shush, I don’t have time for that right now.
Tom stepped forward. "I can handle the truck, no sweat."
Ben considered that. After thrusting himself into the defacto leadership position, he found it uncomfortable to delegate such an important task to someone else. But then, just as he had been insisting all along, their chances were best if they all worked together — himself, Tom, even Cooper.
Ben fished the truck keys out of his pocket and handed them over. "You’re it, then. You and I’ll go."
Tom accepted the keys; his face paled somewhat as the reality of what he had just volunteered for soaked in — leaving the protection of the house, going outside with all of those dead people who wanted to eat him. His eyes widened and fresh sweat glistened on his forehead, but he said nothing.
Ben met Tom’s gaze, then addressed Cooper. "We’ll put whatever lumber we find behind the cellar door. You can go upstairs and toss the cocktails from a window." Cooper looked like he was on the verge of asking a question, but Ben turned back to the younger man before he had a chance. "Tom, you and I’ll have to unboard this door." Then he returned his attention to Cooper without pausing, "After you toss the cocktails, you hustle back down here and lock this door. It’s no good to board it up, because we’ll have to get back in quickly."
To his credit, Cooper nodded — he looked very nervous about the whole idea, but he didn’t argue; it was the closest to being a "team player" that Ben had yet seen from the man.
This prompted Ben to lower his voice, which he belatedly realized had gotten a little too loud — Cooper wasn’t the only nervous one here. "After we get the gas and back into the house ... then we’ll worry about getting everybody into the truck."
More nods all around.
"Now let’s move it."
Ben headed off to prepare. Cooper stood where he was, staring at the door they would soon be opening. He hated feeling so helpless, so out of control — God, did he hate it! But no one was listening to him, so he had no choice but to go along with Ben’s decisions, for now.
The television played on, hammering their situation home.
"... rescue stations being set up. Indication are that, before this emergency is over, we will need many, many more such rescue stations ..."
In the study, Judy sat with the scissors in her hand, held so tight that her palm was sweating. Unlike the others, who had tuned out the television by this point, she was still able to hear it, and she had been listening. She had heard their recapping of the nature of those sick people out there — except that "sick" no longer covered it, did it? — and she was putting up a valiant fight against full-fledged panic. Judy envied the blonde woman on the sofa in the next room, who appeared to have checked-out in order to escape having to deal with this. She was the lucky one; Judy didn’t have that luxury.
And then the reason she didn’t have that luxury walked into the room: Tommy.
He entered with a plate and a mason jar filled with water; he carried them to the desk before sitting and turning to face her. He must have known that, on top of listening to the television reports, she had also overheard the plan that would send him outside.
But the moment she realized she had his attention, she reached deep within herself and found just what she knew he needed.
"You always have a smile for me," he marveled, his voice soft in that way she loved so much. "How can you smile like that, all the time?"
Then, in spite of her best effort, her smile began to slip, and Tommy looked away before it collapsed altogether.
"How many do you have done?" he asked, pouring some of the water from the jar into the plate — only the fumes that arose told her that she’d been wrong; it wasn’t water, it was kerosene.
She handed him the small pile of strips she had cut so far.
Counting the few that were there, he shook his head and admonished her, "Come on, honey, we gotta move."
As she watched him wetting the strips, desperate butterflies fluttered in her stomach. "Tom, are you sure about the phone?"
"The phone is dead out."
Defeated, she sighed. "If I could only call the folks. They’re going to be so worried about us ..."
He gave her his full attention. "Everything will be all right. As soon as we get to Willard, we’ll call them — they might even be there."
She nodded, but it wasn’t very convincing. "I know..." He returned to his work, and so did she. Or she tried to. She had barely gotten a single clip out of the scissors before speaking up again. "Tom?"
This time he kept his eyes on his work, barely grunting in acknowledgment.
"Are you sure we’re doing the right thing, Tom?"
"What, about gettin’ outta here?"
"Yeah."
"Well ... the television said that’s the right thing to do." He considered it a moment longer, then said with more confidence, "We’ve got to get to a rescue station."
"I don’t know ..."
"Come on, honey, you’re starting to sound like Mister Cooper now."
She grew more agitated. "But why do you have to go out there?"
"Look, I know how to handle that truck. And I can handle the pump. Ben doesn’t know anything about that stuff." Tom actually had no idea if that were true or not, but he felt he had to say it for her sake.
Unfortunately, Judy looked anything but convinced. "But we’re safe in here."
"For how long, honey?" he asked. Distraught, she moved off the chair and onto the floor in front of him — for a terrifying moment, Tom thought she was going to beg him not to go outside. So he pushed on in a rush, "We’re safe now, but there’s gonna be more and more of those things."
"I know," she said, almost snapping for the first time, "I know all that."
He began to flounder — the truth was, he didn’t want to go outside any more than she wanted him to. But his gut instincts told him that Ben was right and Mister Cooper was wrong. It was like his old civics teacher used to say — they had to remain proactive, not reactive; they had to make their own chances, not take what was given to them. Because since he’d seen that guy bite his wife’s lips off at the lake—
No. No, he wouldn’t think about that. He had to focus on Judy now, make Judy feel better, more confident, even if he did not.
"Honey, listen," he said, and he wished he could keep the fear out of his voice. "Remember when we had the big flood? Remember how difficult it was for us to convince you that it was right to leave?"
She nodded, sort of. And she wasn’t looking at him now, just staring down at the floor.
He pressed on. "Remember— remember we had to go to Willard then?"
When she didn’t respond at all this time, he slipped off his chair and joined her on the floor, down on the same level.
"Well this isn’t a passing thing, honey. It— it’s not like, just, a wind passing through. We’ve got to do something, and fast."
Finally, she looked up at him through the curtain of her long, beautiful hair ... and then she threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, and held him. She gasped a couple of times, and he thought she was near tears, but then she said, "I ... I just don’t want you to go out there. That’s all."
"Hey ... Smiley ..." He was fighting against his own tears now. "Where’s that big smile for me?"
She said nothing, and certainly didn’t pull back to smile for him. She just held him so tight.
"Boy ..." he said, trying for humor, however feeble. "You’re sure no use at all, are ya?"
Still nothing from Judy, not even a twinge, and certainly no laugh or giggle.
"We’ve got work to do, honey. And you ..." His voice threatened to crack. He wouldn’t cry now, not in front of Judy — he wouldn’t! He pulled away, struggling to free himself from her death grip. "You ..."
She let go, pulled back, looked into his eyes, and all of his secrets were revealed. He had nothing left to say, no more assurances to offer.
So he kissed her ...
A time later (but not enough time, as far as Judy was concerned), the work was done and she found herself back in the living room, sitting on the arm of the sofa again next to the blonde, Barbra, who had still barely said two words to anyone.
Mister Cooper emerged from his cellar (that’s how Judy thought of it now; his cellar) just as Ben brought over a box full of the Molotov cocktails.
Night of the Living Dead Page 13