Dawn of the Dead (22 page)

Other creatures had stayed with Steve, and they approached him as he tried to pass the keys back through the small opening in the gate. The big ring was too big.

“You mother!” Steve cried out to no one in particular.

“Keep 'em . . . just keep 'em,” Fran shouted frantically. “Look out!”

The zombies approached Steve from the back now and they were very close. He lunged at them with his torch. They backed off slightly.

“Come on, man! Get outa there!” Peter cried out as the creatures on the concourse continued to draw closer to him and Roger.

Still in agony, Roger managed to level off several shots, but he was very shaky from his extreme discomfort. With much skill and a little luck, he was able to down one of the zombies.

“Stephen,” Fran shrieked. “For God's sake . . .” she held up her torch so that the bright flame faced the converging ghouls.

Stephen crouched and put the key in the right-hand lock, which was also approachable from the outside. The zombies continued their slow relentless crawl toward him.

Peter was also in a terrible predicament as another group of the creatures drew nearer. He started to push the cart again, and managed to dodge around two little clusters of the walking dead.

Just as the lock clicked, one of the bolder creatures grabbed Stephen from behind. A quick-thinking Fran managed to aim her torch closer, and it disarmed the zombie for a moment. Stephen was able to thrash his body back and knock the ghouls off balance. Then he deftly lifted the gate just high enough to slide the keys underneath it with just one lock undone.

The creatures swarmed around him now, closing in. One of them grabbed Steve from behind, knocking his torch flying. It rolled away with agonizing slowness, but Steve was blocked from retrieving it. Desperately, Fran tried to aim her pistol, but she couldn't shoot through the grille. Instead, she held the torch higher. She was horrified as Steve kicked and scrambled, rolling on the floor. The zombies smothered him as if they were flies attracted to a discarded sandwich. He managed to roll onto his back and kick his legs high, knocking one or two of them to the floor. Then he pulled himself up to one elbow and fired with his pistol, killing another. He crawled to the torch and grabbed it, the clutching creatures tugging at his pants and shirt, all the while.

They didn't have any particular system, but merely seemed to reach out and grasp whatever was close by. Their movements were wild and random, but there were so many of them that they managed to throw Steve off guard, and he had to struggle to regain his balance.

He was able to bring the flame up and flashed it at the zombies. They backed away enough for him to crawl to an open space. Once there, he was able to scramble to his feet, and he charged down the concourse toward the car.

Once at the exhibit, Peter stopped the cart, even though two lumbering creatures were practically breathing down his neck. He raised his rifle and fired at the oncoming ghouls. Roger, mustering all the strength he could and grimacing with the agonizing pain of his wounds, managed to pull himself up out of the cart. He limped to the exhibit as Peter's supergun scored two perfect hits.

The platform was spinning slowly, but the wounded trooper lost his balance as he mounted it and fell, rolling against the car. The turntable carried him around toward another creature. Helpless, struggling in pain toward the driver's door of the vehicle, he didn't even have enough strength to call out.

“Watch it, Roger,” Steve, who was approaching, cried. “
Roger!
”

Roger turned his head and saw the ghoul just before the creature grabbed him. The thing's hands randomly clutched at Roger's dripping bandage, and its hands were covered with the trooper's blood. Roger shrieked in pain.

Peter jumped onto the spinning turntable and leaned across the hood of the car. Without pausing, he fired point-blank into the creature's skull, and his supergun drilled a hole the size of a half-dollar through the creature's head. The momentum of the spinning turntable caused the thing to fall off the exhibit stand.

Peter rushed to Roger's side. Excruciating pain shot through him as he tried desperately to open the driver's-side door.

Peter tried to help Roger, and as they managed to open the door, which was unlocked, he eased his friend onto the seat. Immediately, almost numb, Roger went to work under the dash.

“Get in!” Peter shouted to Steve as he saw the zombies advancing now. As if a battle cry had gone out, they arrived from all points of the concourse. Steve rushed up to the platform, and he and the big trooper scrambled into opposite sides of the back seat. Simultaneously, they slammed the doors, making sure both the front and back locks were secured. Roger still worked as quickly as he could. The sweat drenched his face and neck, and his face twitched uncontrollably.

The leaders of the separate bands of creatures converged on the turntable. Some fell as they tried to step onto the moving disc, but others were successful and struggled over to the car. They smashed at the windows of the car with their hands, trying to find a way inside. From Fran's point of view, it was a nightmarish scene: the men huddled in the shiny new, slowly rotating car, surrounded by the living dead, pounding and scratching the car.

She now relocked the gate mechanism that Steve had previously opened. She stood again, and tried to see over the zombie crowd, but it blocked her line of vision to the car. She could only hear the moaning of the creatures and their insistent pounding. With a sigh of despair and frustration, she turned the valve on her propane nozzle, extinguishing the flame.

“I'll drive it . . .” Steve called out as the car's engine roared to life. Roger gave a weak smile at his victory.

“I got it,” the wounded trooper insisted.

His face contorted in agony as he moved into position behind the wheel. Although he was shaking, he bit his lip and slammed the car into gear. As if they were cockroaches, at least eight creatures crawled over the car, and more threatened to approach. Roger waited patiently as the platform spun to a more desirable position. As soon as the nose of the car aimed directly down the concourse, he stepped on the gas and the car pulled out quickly. The men in the back watched in horror as zombies still pounded at the windows, their distorted faces pressed very close against the safety glass. As the car roared away, the creatures fell off into a heap, one on top of the other.

The front wheels moved off the platform easily and bounced onto the floor of the concourse, but the frame scraped the top of the disc and it was stuck for a moment. The disc continued to spin, carrying the rear of the car with it. But Roger only gave it more gas, and the rear wheels spun, finally catching.

The car shot out onto the mall floor. Some of the zombies clung for a moment, but they all fell away quickly, scrambling to regain their footing; then they followed, the exhaust fumes billowing up in their faces.

The car skidded and swerved on the shiny mall floor. For a second it seemed that the pain was too much for Roger and that the car was out of control, heading directly for a marble column in the concourse. But Roger managed to pull the car out of the skid and maneuvered it toward the exit with tremendous energy.

One of the laggers of the zombies' group tried to intercept the speeding auto by stretching out its arms, but the car crushed it unmercifully, splattering blood all over the floor.

Now Fran was able to see the car as it rounded the corner and headed directly for the main entrance, which she could see from her position.

The zombies at the entrance had already started back into the mall, attracted by the commotion. As the car zoomed down the concourse, it easily broke their ranks, scattering and splattering bodies everywhere.

Roger, his body drenched with sweat, his jaw set and teeth clenched, threw the car into a screeching tailspin, stopping with almost perfect precision at the doors.

The big trailer blocked the entrance effectively, but some creatures had managed to get inside the door. Under the big van, several zombies were struggling with the doors. One just pushed in, and it seemed that it would be able to enter.

Peter and Steve slammed against the door. Steve aimed his torch directly at the clawing creatures. The one in front withdrew its arm. But the grotesque things continued to writhe and kick under the truck. An image flashed in Steve's mind—it was just like one of those medieval paintings of the gates of hell. And for one slight second, he began to question what he was doing. But then he put the thought out of his mind.

Peter returned to the car and searched around for the set of master keys. Slamming the door, he fell upon the lock mechanisms with the coded keys. Finding the proper one, he locked the swinging doors.

“That's not one hundred per cent,” he told Roger, “but I don't think they'll get through.”

“Can't they smash the glass?”

“Safety stuff . . . pretty indestructible . . . They got no leverage under the truck.” He turned to survey the situation. “Gimme the alarms.”

Steve rummaged in his backpack and produced two portable battery-operated burglar alarms. Peter activated the units and stood them against the base of the now locked doors. As he crouched near the glass, the creatures outside went into a frenzy, clawing at the glass doors. They were unable to get in.

“I'm hoping they'll go away after they find they can't get in,” he said to Steve as they watched the other creatures slowly moving down the concourse, approaching the action at the locked door.

The men jumped back into the car with not a moment to spare, and Roger put the vehicle into motion with a deafening blast.

Once again the sleek auto ripped through the ranks of advancing zombies. Like cardboard figures, they fell and were crushed under the powerful wheels.

Although Fran was practically paralyzed with fear, she felt helpless as she watched the car speed down the concourse. It was almost as if she were watching a terrifying, large-as-life movie. She stood by the department store gate as a muffled voice came over the walkie-talkie.

“We're OK,” Steve's voice crackled. “We got it made . . . it's gonna work.”

She stared out through the roll gate. The surviving zombies in the concourse staggered weakly after the car. Almost a hundred bodies littered the concourse; some were beginning to move again, their blood mingling with the grease and debris kicked up by the speeding vehicle.

Once again, the shiny auto, with snazzy racing stripes, pulled up to the second door, sliding into a tailspin. The men scrambled out and again the zombies outside tried to crawl under the second trailer. But the men were able to shut them out easily, locking the door and planting the alarms. They worked as a team, silent this time, absorbed in their work.

When they had finished, they stood to look down the concourse. The creatures seemed to be more spread out now, but their numbers seemed to have multiplied.

“How many do you figure are already in?” Steve asked.

“Dunno,” Peter said, shaking his head, and stretching his arms outward. “Not too many. We'll get 'em easy. We get it all locked off and we're goin' on a hunt!” he said with a malicious gleam in his eye.

It gave Steve a chill as he watched the big trooper raise his supergun and sight through the telescope.

Peering through the cross hair on the scope, Peter settled on the forehead of one of the creatures that was lumbering down the hall. The face appeared magnified and distorted, by the telescope. Peter applied pressure to the trigger, and the gun roared. After the impact, he still kept his eye on the scope and watched with pleasure as the sight filled with red. Without taking his eye away he knew that his bullet had hit the mark. He had the utmost confidence in the supremacy of his weapon.

The day had been overcast and chilly. Now nightfall descended on the lonely countryside. The zombies in the parking lot gathered around the semis that blocked the entrance to their sanctuary. In the moonlight, the creatures' eerie moaning was like dogs baying at the moon.

Some creatures crawled under the trucks but could not enter the mall building. They pounded and scratched at the doors, but to no avail. In their nonthinking brains some instinct had triggered the impulse to smash against the glass doors, and they tried frantically to get inside.

The banging of the mob was muffled from the inside. Even though the revolving doors were locked, they seemed most vulnerable, but the crawling creatures could not quite get the leverage they needed to smash at the glass panels.

On the other side of the revolving door, the automobile offered added protection. And, as an early warning device, several of the alarm units sat atop the car, guarding against any penetration.

Like in a battlefield after a hand-to-hand-combat war, the zombies' corpses were strewn all over the concourse. The only difference was that the bodies were from one side only. There was no mingling here of East against West, North against South, rich against poor, one culture or religion against another. Either the four humans were the victors or they were the victims. And once one of them was destroyed, it wouldn't be long before they all fell prey to the living dead.

It was an eerie juxtaposition—the bleeding, putrid corpses superimposed against the now darkened and ransacked mall. The slumped and crushed shadows lay where happy, hard-working families had come to purchase the new and intriguing products that the great wheels of industry churned out for the unsuspecting, naive consumer. Now their haven had become a bizarre graveyard.

The band of humans appeared on the second-story balcony. Moving to the railing, they looked down into the expanse of the building. They looked like guerilla fighters, struggling in a foreign land, their weapons strapped to their backs, their faces creased with sweat and dirt, their eyes blank with fatigue and the abominable horror that they had witnessed.