He found that by driving along country roads he could avoid a lot of that, so he turned the truck out into the farmlands. He refueled twice, and each time he wasted bullets defending his truck. Sam was an excellent shot, but hoping to get a head shot each time was absurd, and his back was still too sore to do it all with machetes or an axe. The first fuel stop cost him nineteen rounds. The second took thirteen. More than half a box of shells. No good. Those boxes would not last very long at that rate.
As he drove past an old cemetery on the edge of Evans City he spotted smoke rising from up ahead. He passed a car that was smashed into a tree, and then a pickup truck that had been burned to a shell beside an exploded gas pump. That wasn’t the source of the smoke, though, because the truck fire had burned itself out.
No, there was a farmhouse nearby and out in front of it was a mound of burning corpses.
Sam pulled the truck to a stop and sat for a while, studying the landscape. The moon was bright enough and he had his headlights on. Nothing moved except a tall, gently twisting column of gray smoke that rose from the pyre.
“Shit,” said Sam. He got out of the truck but left the motor running. He stood for a moment to make sure his back wouldn’t flare up and that his knees were steady. The SIG was tucked into his shoulder holster and he had the Glock in a two-hand grip as he approached the mound.
It was every bit as high as the one under which he’d been buried. Dozens upon dozens of corpses, burned now to stick figures, their limbs contracted by heat into fetal curls. The withered bones shifted like logs in a dying hearth, sending sparks up to the night, where they vanished against the stars.
Sam turned away and walked over to the house.
He could read a combat scene as well as any experienced soldier, and what he was seeing was a place where a real battle had taken place. There were blood splashes on the ground and on the porch where the dead had been dropped. The blood was blacker even than it should have been in this light, and he could see threadlike worms writhing it in. Sam unclipped a Maglite he’d looted from the warehouse and held it backward in his left hand while resting the pistol across the wrist, the barrel in sync with the beam as he entered the house.
Someone had tried to hold this place, that was clear enough. They’d nailed boards over the windows and moved furniture to act as braces. Many of those boards lay cracked and splintered on the floor amid more shell casings and more blood spatter. He went all the way through to the kitchen and saw more of the same. An attempt to fortify that had failed.
The upstairs was splashed with gore but empty, and the smears on the stairs showed where bodies had been dragged down.
He stepped to the cellar door, which opened off of the living room. He listened for any kind of sound, however small, but there was nothing. Sam went down, saw sawhorses and a door that had been made into a bed. Saw blood. A bloody trowel. Pieces of meat and bone.
Nothing else.
No one else.
He trudged heavily up the stairs and went out onto the porch and stood in the moonlight while he thought this through. Whoever had been in the house had made a stand, but it was evident they’d lost their battle.
So who built the mound? Who dragged the bodies out? Whose shell casings littered the yard?
He peered at the spent brass. Not military rounds. .30-30s, .22, some 9mm, some shotgun shells. Hunters?
Maybe.
Probably, with a few local police mixed in.
Why come here? Was there a rescue mission here that arrived too late? Or was it a sweep? The armed citizens of this rural town fighting back?
Sam didn’t know.
There were dog footprints in the dirt, too. And a lot of boot and shoe prints. A big party. Well-armed, working together. Getting the job done.
Fighting back.
For the first time since coming to Pennsylvania with the Boy Scouts, Sam felt his heart lift. The buses of kids and the lady cop had gotten out. And now someone had organized a resistance. Probably a redneck army, but fuck it. That would do.
He walked around the house to try to read the footprints. The group who had come here had walked off east, across the fields. Going where? Another farm? A town? Anywhere the fight took them or need called them.
“Hooah,” he said, using the old Army Ranger word for everything from “fuck you” to “fuck yeah.” For now it meant “fuck yeah.”
East, he thought, was as good a direction as any. Maybe those hunters were protecting their own. Sam glanced at his truck. Maybe they could use some food and a little professional guidance.
Maybe.
He smiled into the darkness. Probably not a very nice smile. A hunter’s smile. A soldier’s smile. A killer’s smile. Maybe all of those. But it was something only the living could do.
He was still smiling when he climbed back into the cab of his truck, turned around in front of the old house, found the road again, and headed east.
LIVE AND ON THE SCENE
by Keith R. A. DeCandido
“This is a fine, all-American home in Butler, Pennsylvania. A family of four has been murdered, and their bodies appear to have been chewed on. According to a statement by the coroner, it is likely the result of an animal attack. However, this reporter did speak to a witness, Miss Ella Rimer, who tells a different story.”
“Yeah, I saw a fella shuffling away from the house. It was pretty strange, I’ll tell you, just stumbling along. I tried to get his attention, but he just kept going, you know? Wouldn’t even pick his feet up off the floor. Strangest thing. And he seemed to have blood on his face.”
“Miss Rimer says that she did mention this person to the police. It’s possible that this stranger is the owner of the animal that attacked the victims. More on this story as it develops. This is Harvey Lincoln for WIC-TV news. Back to you in the studio.”
* * *
Harvey stood impatiently at the phone booth, waiting for the reporter from KDKA to finish using the pay phone. Unlike the phone booths in Pittsburgh, the glass was actually clean, which was typical of the suburbs, and Harvey could see his reflection. Since he was stuck waiting anyhow, he leaned in close to make sure his hair was looking good. He didn’t really trust Frank, his not-so-reliable cameraman, to tell him if the Brylcreem had failed in its duty to keep his hair in place.
His reflection was irritatingly blurry, though, and then he recalled that he hadn’t put his glasses on.
Just as he placed the plastic frames atop his ears and nose, the Pittsburgh reporter hung up and left. “All yours, fella.”
“Thanks.”
Harvey dropped a dime into the slot and then dialed the station.
“WIC-TV.”
“Hi, Maria, it’s Harvey, is Jack available?”
“Oh, hold the phone, Harvey, I’ll check.”
While he waited for Maria to track down their boss, Jack Olden, Harvey looked at his reflection in the metal change holder of the pay phone, checking his teeth.
“Damnit,” he grumbled, noticing that there was a sesame seed embedded between a couple of molars. Back when he started in the news biz, the black-and-white film probably wouldn’t have even picked the light-colored seed up, but in color? Frank was going to be on the receiving end of a knuckle sandwich for not telling him about that seed, which he picked out with his carefully manicured fingernails.
“What are you complaining about now, Harvey?” came the voice of the station manager.
“Hi, Jack. Uh, nothing, I just—Did the live feed go okay?”
“It was fine, though I wish you’d said you were live.”
“I thought you might be using it for other broadcasts.”
“You think really highly of yourself, don’t you?”
“I think highly of the story, Jack. I mean, heck, we’re talking the first multiple homicide in Butler County since the Pillow Killer back in the twenties! In fact, if you want, I can dig into the archives, do a little piece for the weekend about the Pillow Killer—”
“
You’re not gonna have time.”
“Hey, that’s not fair. I can—”
“Since when is life fair? Actually, I’m glad you called because believe it or not, there’s a second multiple homicide in Butler County since the Pillow Killer.”
Harvey swallowed down his complaint. “What?”
“Get over to West Penn and North Chestnut. There’s a house on the corner with a bunch of dead bodies.”
“You bet.”
Hanging up the phone, Harvey yanked the phone booth door open and yelled, “Frank!”
As usual, Frank looked up at Harvey with the look of a deer captivated by oncoming headlights. “What’d I do, man?” he asked defensively.
Harvey decided to table the discussion of his seed-infested teeth. “Nothing we need to worry about right now. We got another crime scene to get to.”
“Jesus Christ, another one?”
As he climbed into the passenger side of the white WIC-TV van, Harvey said, “You shouldn’t take the name of the Lord in vain.”
* * *
“I’m standing at my fourth straight multiple homicide scene in the last three days, and that’s just in Butler and Armstrong Counties. Scenes like this are occurring in Clarion County, Allegheny County, and Westmoreland County as well. The county coroner’s offices and the city, county, and state police are all standing by their story that these attacks are being made by a wild animal. However, witnesses tell a different story.”
“I heard a terrible noise next door, so I ran over to see, and I swear to God almighty above that there was a man in there chawin’ on Edna!”
“What do you mean by ‘chawin’,’ Mr. Posey?”
“Just what I said! He was eatin’ Edna’s arm!”
“Other witnesses at the other crime scenes have made similar reports. Butler City Police Chief Brandon Painter had this to say…”
“I don’t appreciate these wild stories going around about people eating other people. That kind of talk is irresponsible and doesn’t help the good men of my police force when they try to work to solve these horrible crimes. We’ve never seen anything like this in my thirty years on this job, and solving these crimes is hard enough without people spreading foolishness.”
“Despite Chief Painter’s confidence, these reports would appear to be far from ‘foolishness.’ This reporter spoke to an employee of the county coroner’s office, who would only speak on condition of anonymity, and he assured me that the attacks on these poor people don’t match any known animal—certainly not any animal ever sighted in this state. None of the local zoos have reported any animals to be missing. For WIC-TV, I’m Harvey Lincoln.”
* * *
As Harvey headed for the conference room for the WIC-TV news crew’s morning meeting, he was intercepted by Linda Kamin, whose high heels clacked on the linoleum floor as she strode to block his path.
“You’re a louse, you know that?”
Harvey smiled. “I’m a reporter, Linda, we’re all louses. You’d wilt under a can of Raid, same as me.”
“That was my source in the coroner’s office! And I told you about it in confidence—I was going to use it!”
“Oh, really? When was that going to be, before or after you interviewed the head of the school board? Or covered a sewing circle? Or gave us the inside poop about the PTA?”
Linda pursed her lips. “I’m a reporter just like you. And I might have gotten a story on this—God knows everyone else is. And it’s not fair of you to steal my source like that!”
“Since when is life fair? Don’t we have to get to a meeting?”
“I can tell you one thing for free, mister—I’m assuming any conversation we have is on the record. And you pull something like that again, I’ll tell everyone what your real last name is.”
Harvey swallowed. “You wouldn’t.”
“Watch me.” With that, she entered the conference room.
His face had gotten sweaty all of a sudden, his glasses sliding down his nose. Pushing them back up, he took a deep breath and entered the room.
Staring daggers at Linda, he found a seat between the news director and technical director. He hated sitting next to other reporters—especially right now.
Linda’s real last name was Kaminski, but she had no problem with people knowing she was a Polack, she just preferred “Kamin” for being on camera because people sometimes stumbled over her real name.
Harvey’s real last name was “Lipshitz,” and that was a carefully guarded secret.
Jack came in and said, “All right, boys and girls, we’ve got a whole new ballgame.”
Harvey sat up and the susurrus of noise in the room died.
“We just got verified reports from the North Side Cemetery, Greenlawn, Mt. Royal Cemetery, Kittanning Cemetery, and West View Cemetery here in town of corpses climbing out of their graves.”
The silence mutated into laughs.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Pull my other leg, why don’tcha?”
“C’mon, Jack, April Fools is in April, not—”
“I’m serious!”
Harvey actually flinched. He’d been working for WIC for the better part of a decade, and he had never in any of that time heard Jack Olden raise his voice.
“Listen to me, boys and girls, because we’re gonna be telling this story a lot over the next few days. This isn’t a bunch of animals on the loose, and this isn’t a serial killer. This is the dead coming to life.”
“Seriously, Jack?” one of the reporters asked.
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“No, you look like you’re gonna toss your cookies. So I’m worried.”
“You should be.” Jack turned to Harvey. “That source you had in the coroner’s office—any chance of getting a real statement now that things are going public?”
Glancing nervously at Linda, Harvey said, “Well, maybe. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good. We’ve got instructions coming down from the governor that anyone who dies has to be cremated right away.”
That took Harvey aback. “Really?”
“Yeah, really, it’s common sense,” Jack said.
“Well, yeah, but—I mean, what about the Jews?”
Jack gave him a blank look. “What about them?”
“Um, well, cremation is against the Jewish religion.”
Shrugging, Jack said, “If you say so. Who the hell knows what those people do.”
Harvey winced. That was why he admonished people for “blasphemy.” Keeping Christian camouflage kept him employed.
“All right,” Jack started, “assignments…”
* * *
After the meeting, Harvey practically ran out to his desk, hoping to avoid Linda altogether.
Maria waved at him as he walked toward his desk. “Harvey, you got a call on line four.”
“Thanks, doll.” He sat at his desk, leaning back in the wooden chair so it creaked, picked up the hook, stabbed the blinking button labeled “4,” and said, “Harvey Lincoln.”
“I’m sorry, I thought I was calling for Harvey Lipshitz. This is his father.”
Immediately, he straightened his back, the very sound of Dad’s voice forcing him into good posture. “It’s me, Dad. How are you?”
“Still dying inside every time I hear you call yourself by that name.”
Whispering so he wouldn’t be heard in the bullpen, he replied, “I told you, Dad, they don’t hire Jews to be reporters. They certainly don’t hire Jews whose names sound like swearing.”
“Don’t give me that nonsense. I know it’s because you’re ashamed. Why admit that your parents managed to escape before the Nazis came to Poland? Why let anyone know that I fought for our country against them and helped liberate Buchenwald? Why—”
“Dad, I’m really busy, I—”
“I called because of your mother.”
Harvey cut off his long-practiced diatribe about how busy he was in a desperate attempt to get him off the phone—
which, on this occasion, had the benefit of actually being true—once Dad mentioned his mother. “What’s wrong with Mom?”
“She’s dying.”
“Is this her really dying or you thinking she’s dying because she coughed once?”
“Don’t you mouth off at me, she’s having trouble breathing! The oxygen tank isn’t helping anymore! I keep calling Dr. Schiff’s office and leaving messages with his secretary, but she won’t call me back!”
Sighing, Harvey said, “The doctor’s probably very busy, Dad, he—”
“I know, that’s why I’m worried!”
“Keep trying to call, okay, Dad? Look, I really do have a lot of work to do, they’re working us pretty hard on a story.”
“Is it about all the dead people?”
“Um—”
“It is, isn’t it? That’s why Dr. Schiff can’t give me the time of day anymore. Look, you be careful, Harvey Lipshitz, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you around all those dead people.”
“They’re dead, Dad, what can they do to me?”
* * *
“I’m here with Alvin Jefferson, the caretaker of Mt. Royal Cemetery. Mr. Jefferson, can you tell me what you saw today?”
“I’m swearin’ to you, Mr. Lincoln, it was like the devil himself came up from down below and brought his fury upon the Earth. It was straight out of the Book of Revelation, right there in the Bible.”
“Um, well, thank you, Mr. Jefferson, but can you be a bit more specific?”
“What’s it matter? Death ain’t death no more! People crawlin’ up from their graves and feedin’ on the livin’!”
Nights of the Living Dead Page 29