Dawn of the Dead (15 page)

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.

Panting and gasping for air, Fran made it to the top and into the storage area and slammed the door. For a moment, she just backed away in terror, her mind a blank. Then, she snapped back to consciousness and started to drag the good cartons over to use as a barricade. But the cartons were extremely bulky and heavy, and she struggled with one that was so large that she couldn’t get a good grip. The smooth cardboard slipped out of her hands.

She could hear the zombie’s footsteps on the middle landing, and anxiety gripped her.

With one great heave, she managed to shove the carton over against the door and moved to haul another. She felt weak and dizzy, and the thought passed through her mind that she might give herself a miscarriage, but it only stunned her for a moment that she would think that and then she went on.

She could now hear the zombie at the top landing and sensed that it was trying to open the door.

Before she was able to bring another carton over, the door moved slightly. She threw herself against it, all 110 pounds, but she knew that it wouldn’t do any good. She had to lean over the carton against the door and couldn’t get a proper footing on the slippery floor. As if in slow motion, the door moved a fraction of an inch at a time. Then, the creature’s wounded and bloody hand appeared at the edge of the door. Its mutilated fingers clutched the edge, smearing blood all over it.

Fran backed away in terror and ran toward the escape pyramid. Then she turned suddenly and faced the door.

The creature was straining against the weight of the carton. Now, both its hands clutched the edge of the door. The carton moved another inch and then another. The creature’s head could now be seen as it strained to get through the widening space. Fran’s eyes were wide with fright, mesmerized by the approaching ghoul. She looked around for something to use as a weapon, but the room was almost bare except for the cartons and the water drums. In a split-second decision, she thought to run for the skylight; the creature would never be agile enough to follow her up there. Just as she was about to mount the pyramid, she caught sight of Roger’s knapsack in the shadows. She ran for it as the creature finally broke into the room, shoving aside the heavy carton.

Fran’s hands began to tremble as she rummaged through the cloth bag. To her dismay, nothing seemed appropriate. She dumped the contents out on the floor: ammunition, mace cans, batteries, flares . . . Her heart leaped when she saw the cylindrical containers and she nervously grabbed one up, her shaking hands trying to deal with the paper wrapping.

The zombie moaned as it drew nearer. It was approaching the pyramid of cartons.

Fran managed to free the wrapping, and she snapped the cylinder in two at the mark.

As she turned, she realized that the zombie was now between her and the pyramid, cutting off her immediate escape route. Its lumbering steps were bringing it nearer and nearer. Fran backed away a few steps as she tried to strike the head of the flare on the small striker at the tip of the cylinder cap. It wouldn’t fire . . . she tried again . . . and again. Now, the zombie had reached the knapsack. It staggered over the spilled contents, knocking the other flares rolling about the floor.

Finally, Fran was able to get her flare to light, and it caught with a great blast of air. The bright whooshing flame startled the woman as well as the creature. Its eyes went wide, and it brought its arms up so as to cover its eyes. The intense white flame cast an eerie light over the creature and threw the zombie’s enormous shadow against the cartons and the wall. The creature backed away from the flame a few steps, almost tripping over the articles on the floor.

All fear was gone from Fran now. She had an objective, and as long as she didn’t think about what was happening, about what she was battling, then she was fine. She managed to advance close enough to snatch up two extra cylinders. Then she skirted around the zombie in a wide arc. The creature swatted at the air with its arms, keeping its distance, but still threatening.

Fran considered making a run for the door to the fire stair, but then she thought that she might run into others, and she didn’t want to leave this hiding place open to more invaders. Finally, she decided to climb the pyramid, and try to escape onto the roof. She circled around to a point where she could climb up from behind the moaning zombie. She rushed for the cartons and started to climb, but she lost her footing, trying to hold the flares in both hands, and she crashed into the topmost carton. In a second’s time, the momentum caused the carton to slide off, and Fran was unable to prevent it. The heavy case tumbled to the floor, almost crashing into the zombie. The creature started to clutch and grab at the cardboard pyramid.

Since the stack of cartons was now one too short, Fran was only able to reach the mouth of the skylight with her hands, but didn’t have the strength in her arms to pull herself up. Accidentally, she dropped two of the flares, including the lit one. With a sinking feeling, Fran realized that the flare had not only tumbled to the floor but landed behind the pyramid, where it no longer offended the ghoul’s eyes. Now the thing tried to mount the cartons.