Dawn of the Dead (15 page)

With a sudden jerky move, Steve broke into a run. He passed the first zombie easily. The second made a grab as he passed but Steve kept his footing even though he slammed against the wall of the corridor, practically crushing his shoulder. A sharp pain shot through his right side. He kept moving forward. He knew to stop would mean certain death.

The third zombie loomed in his path. Like a charging bull, Steve lowered his head and slammed into the ghoul's chest. The creature fell back, flying against the wall. Steve fell as well, and tumbled toward the mouth of the passageway. He regained his footing as the creatures, now standing once again, turned to pursue him.

“Now . . . hit for the department store . . . go!” Peter told him as he ran to the end of the hall where the big trooper waited.

In unison, the two men ran across the balcony. They slammed into two other zombies, which clutched and grabbed at them without success.

Steve followed Peter to where Roger was firing at still another creature that was getting too close. It fell right under the balcony entrance arch of the big store. Other zombies approached, but Steve and Peter dove into the arch in time, and the three men managed to lower the gate without a problem.

The zombies converged on the area as they had before, still clawing, clutching and shoving the metal cage, but they were unable to enter. It held them out securely.

The three men moved away, each giving silent thanks for their close escape. As they backed away, the only sound was of their heavy exhausted breathing.

“Downstairs again,” Peter said after a moment's rest. “Same trick.”

They moved through the aisles of the store and crashed down the escalator.

“What do we do?” Steve sputtered when they reached the first floor and ran toward the lower gate, wheezing with exhaustion.

“Let 'em know we're here,” Roger said. He started to shout: “Whooooo hooooooo . . . over here . . . Yeeee ahhhhhhhhhh!”

Steve started to laugh, out of relief and also at the ludicrousness of the situation. Peter smiled at him for the first time.

“You did all right this time, Flyboy. How 'bout it?” he said with genuine feeling.

Steve laughed some more. It was nervous at first, but soon it built into a real wholehearted belly laugh.

“Whooooooooooooooopeeeeeeee . . .” he let out long and loudly.

The new kid on the block had been accepted, and he felt just like a child again. They all hugged each other with the joy of their victory. And a temporary victory was better than none at all.

After a few minutes of whooping it up with the other men, the reality of the situation hit Stephen squarely in the jaw. His body wavered for a second and he felt sick and weak in the knees. But it was also a good feeling, a feeling that he could do anything he wanted to, as long as he put his mind to it. His family had always been a cerebral one, and he had never been taught the pure joy that comes from physical accomplishment. Now, as he stood sweating and panting with the two troopers, a strange calmness overcame him.

But the pleasant feeling was short-lived. The three men continued to shout at the creatures through the cage, and the repulsive beasts were already gathering at the gate. The zombies had lost all of the individuality they had when they were human, but Steve noticed that they were of many shapes, sizes and ages, some with the horrible wounds that had caused their deaths.

There was a middle-aged gray-haired man in a business suit; a housewife, possibly in her forties, in an apron; a well-dressed young woman, once attractive with long blond hair, in a skirt and sweater, probably an office worker. There were some children, about ten to thirteen, who looked like they'd just come home from school; a construction worker with a beard; a young black man with an Afro and wire-rimmed glasses; and a grandmother-type with a gray bun at the back of her neck. A few more men in nondescript work clothes hung around the gate, but it didn't much matter what any of them had been in their former lives, they were all horrible and partially decomposed now, and their strength had nothing to do with their appearance. The youngest were most repulsive, as many had died of violent causes and not of old age.

Peter had warned Steve not to soften when a child or older woman approached him. They were all deadly.

Out on the concourse, a few zombies wandered aimlessly, but most of them turned toward the direction of the first-floor department store arch, where the men were doing their best to stir up a racket.

On the upstairs balcony, the creatures that had collected there were again moving toward the stationary steps and the escalators.

The three creatures that Steve had battled with in the administrative corridor moved toward the open mall. Two walked out on the balcony, but the third turned into an open office. They seemed as stiff-legged and awkward as wind-up dolls. The last one staggered back out, spun around and headed down the hall toward the fire stair.

Fran, who had been waiting nearly an hour for Steve's return, heard the faint whooping of the men as she moved toward the stairway door, which was still open. She couldn't imagine what the sound was for. It seemed like a celebration of some sort, and then the horrid thought crossed her mind, What if they had cracked under the pressure? Or what if Steve were dead and Peter and Roger were happy? She stopped herself from those silly thoughts. Sitting up here alone was making her crazy. She was starting to imagine the wildest things. She wished Steve would hurry back.

She stepped out into the landing and looked down into the vast murkiness of the fire stair. Suddenly the shouting stopped. The silence was worse, and she felt desperate with fear. The trembling began, and she moved back into the storage room, and then back onto the landing. She didn't know where to turn. Where the hell were Steve, Roger and Peter? Who did they think she was, leaving her here all alone? She wasn't a child, she could be of some use, but all they wanted to do was play soldier and leave her up in this godforsaken room with a bunch of cartons.

“Shit,” she screamed out to the empty landing, her fear turning to anger. She took a few steps down the stairway. She thought she saw something moving in the dark. Frozen with fear, she stopped on the third stair from the top, turned around and ran back up.

“God dammit!” The screaming seemed to help. At least she heard the sound of a human voice, even though it was only her own.

Once more she started down the steps. She wanted to see what was happening, but she really should have been armed. Steve had taken the only other rifle.

In the corridor below, the creature wandered into another office and then spun around and walked out again, as if it were playing some insane game with itself.

“We just gotta wait longer before we move,” Roger told Steve and Peter as they crouched in the shadows of the aisles. The zombies crashed against the first-floor gate like a huge wave. The gate held fast.

“No. There's always a chance of some of them stayin' up on the balcony,” Peter replied.

“Yeah, but we can handle that,” Roger said, shifting position but staying down low. “We can break through.”

“If any of them see us or hear us, they'll just follow us on up. It's no good.”

“We can sure as hell outrun 'em . . . load up what we can and get outa here.”

The big man thought for a second. Then he said, seriously, “I'm thinkin' maybe we got a good thing goin' here. Maybe we shouldn't be in such a hurry to leave . . .”

“Oh, man . . .” Roger looked disappointed. He pounded his right fist into his other hand and wouldn't face Peter.

“If we could get back up there without them catchin' on, we could hole up for a while. At least long enough to catch a breath. Check out the radio. See what's happenin' . . .”

“Man, I don't know . . .”

Steve sat up and then crawled over to the troopers.

“There's some kind of passageway over the top of the stores.”

The troopers looked at the young pilot, almost surprised to hear him speak. They had expected that he'd be too shell-shocked from his experience to utter a sound.

“I don't know if it's just heating ducts or it's some kind of access. I saw it on a map.”

“Upstairs,” Peter gave the command. “Let's go.”

The three moved off down the aisles, then ducked out of sight around the corner. As if they were imprisoned against their will, the zombies clutched and grabbed at the metal gate, moaning and rattling the grid loudly.

In the maintenance hallway, the lumbering zombie tripped over the thick manual lying on the floor. Then it wandered blindly into another office, ignoring the book as well as the corpses that littered the corridor.

Fran had made it to the middle landing of the fire stair. Suddenly, she was overcome by a wave of nausea. She held her stomach, retching. Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead, and she felt dizzy. She practically fell to the landing, and sat there, letting her head flop against the wall. She could taste the salt of her tears.

She had never been so miserable in her life. And, what a life it was too. She didn't know what would happen in the next few minutes, let alone the next few years. And what would happen to the life within her? What future was there for the child that she carried inside?

“Watch it . . . don't let 'em see you,” Peter told the men as the upstairs doors of the department store elevator opened and they trotted out. As they cleared the wall, they could see the entrance arch. There were no zombies at the gate, but two were seen drifting along the balcony outside.

The men moved stealthily along the aisles. Above them in the ceiling was a series of large grillwork panels. Peter shone his flashlight beam into one.

“Looks big enough to crawl through,” Roger said, as they observed the ceiling, which was about twelve feet high. The light beam penetrated the grille to reveal a fairly large space above.

“They're locked,” Peter told him.

“Damn, that's those other lock numbers we saw on the chart.”

“Why the hell would they be locked?” Steve asked.

“Jackpot, Flyboy,” Peter said, patting Steve on the back. “You're all right.”

“What?” Roger spun around, confused.

“They're locked because you can get through 'em easy from the other part of the building,” Peter explained to his two comrades.

“Over here,” Steve called to them. He had noticed that one of the ceiling grids was very close to the elevators. Peter looked at the grid and then down at the double doors.

“The elevator shaft!” It was as if a light bulb had gone on in his head.

He ran over and hit the button. The doors flew open.

“Hold 'em,” Peter instructed Roger.

Roger stood against the rubber safety bumper, holding the car doors open wide. Peter stepped up on the hand railing that ran around the car, and he reached up for the escape hatch, which was held in place by four nub-headed bolts. He removed the bolts quickly and was able to dislodge the hatch cover and pass it down to Steve. Then, he stuck his head up through the opening.

“It's here.” His voice sounded muffled. He shone his flashlight back and forth in the darkness. He could see another grid in the wall of the shaft. “Get a screwdriver and somethin' to stand on for in here.”

“I know where the tools are,” Roger volunteered. “Get one of those tables,” he told Steve.

As Roger ducked off down an aisle, Steve moved to the nearby furniture department, where he grabbed a lightweight lamp table. The elevator doors closed like the jaws of a shark. He had to hit the button again and wait for the doors to reopen. Peter had already hoisted himself up and was climbing out of the car and up into the shaft. Steve used the first table to hold the door open, and he went to get another. This time he came back with a large coffee table. He set it under the opening in the car and placed the smaller table on top of it. It looked like a two-tiered cake. Then he climbed up, sticking his head up into the shaft. The doors closed again, leaving him in the small compartment in relative darkness.

“It's all right,” Peter said as he examined the wall grid with his flashlight. It was filled with cables and elevator mechanisms and covered by a greasy black film. “You found it, Flyboy.” He spoke softly, but his voice had an eerie, echoing sound in the narrow shaft.

The car door opened again and Steve ducked down to see Roger, who bore a screwdriver and pliers along with some other tools in a shopping bag.

“One-stop shopping,” he said cheerfully. “Anything you need right at your fingertips.”

Steve relayed the tools up to Peter, who immediately began to work on the screws that mounted the grid into the wall frame. He passed the flashlight to Steve, who held the beam steady on the work area. The men worked in silence, each instinctively knowing his task and performing it with speed and precision.

Fran sat in the stairwell. The nausea had subsided, but she was afraid to move. She bit into the hand that she held across her mouth to keep from crying. She could feel all the pulse points in her body—at her throat, her heart, her wrist—beating furiously.

In the silence, she heard a faint click, and she felt a wave of relief flood her as she thought it might be Stephen. She stared at the bottom landing, hoping to see Steve's familiar shape in the shadows. Then there was a thump, as if something had fallen against the door, and Fran knew that her hopes would not be fulfilled yet. Those weren't the quick steps of Steve or the other two outside, those were the lumbering clumsy actions of one of the living dead!

Slowly, Fran stood, a scream of fright rising in her throat, her eyes transfixed on the door below.

“Stephen!” she emitted.

The door slowly opened. The crack of light grew larger and larger. The plodding, sluggish figure of the zombie moved into the fire stair. The light from the corridor illuminated the figure and made it seem tremendous. Its gigantic shadow appeared on the wall. Choking back a scream, Fran turned and ran up the stairs. She could hear the creature's steady, heavy footsteps following her up. Occasionally it would bump into the wall or trip, unsure in the dim light.