Dawn of the Dead (25 page)

“They might come back on,” Steve said morosely, staring into his coffee cup. Peter sat silently at the table, his food practically untouched.

Suddenly, Fran felt a rage. She slammed down her apron angrily and stomped over to the TV. She clicked it off, and the blue glow disappeared, the drone stopped. She returned to the table. Steve stood up, and moved to the set. Without looking at either Fran or Peter, he clicked it back on. Peter watched the two sheepishly. It was a familiar domestic scene to him. They played it out every night from boredom and frustration. He glanced over the food-laden dishes, across to the suburban-looking living room, and then off into the distance.

“What have we done to ourselves?” Fran asked plaintively. Steve huddled over the set, trying to focus it. Fran moved to the table and started to clear it. When she reached for Peter’s plate, he put out his hand and touched her gently. When she looked at him, his eyes were filled with tears.

•  •  •

The next morning, Fran awoke with a start. She had determined that this day would not be the same as the others of the past three months. She shook Steve awake roughly.

“Get up, now. You promised.”

He opened one eye and rolled over.

She shoved him again.

“After breakfast?”

“OK, but get moving.” She struggled up from the mattress on the floor. It was getting more and more difficult to maneuver herself with her growing belly.

After breakfast, the couple climbed the ladder and emerged on the roof in the bright sunlight. They entered the helicopter, this time with Fran at the controls. Steve leaned over her and indicated some levers and buttons. Soon the thunderous roar of the engine disturbed the quiet morning air. The helicopter rose and hovered over the roof of the mall.

“OK, easy now . . . easy . . . bring ’er down . . .” Steve instructed Fran after she had completed a successful take-off.

In the cockpit, Fran was flustered, but she managed to handle the controls. She was intent on learning to fly the damn machine. She had thought they were all becoming too morose, too limited, and that it was time for them to stop feeling sorry for themselves and make the best of it. Who knew, maybe they would get word over the tube or the radio that the disaster was over. Then they could return to civilization. She wanted to be ready. She had learned a lot about herself over the past few months. And one of the things she knew was that in order to survive, one had to be self-sufficient. In fact, she had been reading up on home birth methods, and if necessary, she was confident that she could deliver her own child. The American Indian women had done it, and so could she.

“Easy . . . stabilize it,” Steve told her. He had remained relatively calm and responsive, she thought. She guessed he was getting bored with all his gadgets. “That’s it.”

She reacted efficiently, handling the controls better now as the chopper’s runners just touched the roof’s surface.

“That’s it . . . that’s it . . . You got it!” Steve said excitedly.

The runners hit the roof’s surface, and the chopper settled.

With joy, Fran impulsively threw her arms around Steve’s neck. It was the first time she had touched him in two weeks.

“You did it, you did it,” he said with sincerity. “Hon, you did it.”

She excitedly hugged and kissed him with the happiness of a ten-year-old learning to ride a two-wheeler. She practically bubbled over. It was the greatest release for the two of them since they had been holed up in the mall.

As seen from a great distance, the helicopter on top of the mall roof looked very small, the whine of its dying engine barely audible.

But two beady eyes, nonetheless, had seen the action. The figure to whom they belonged pulled the binoculars away and turned to his companion.

The first man was named Thor. He wore a Viking-like outfit, complete with a fur tunic, sandals laced up his calves, two swords with gilded hilts secured to a six-inch-wide leather belt and long, straggly hair, pulled back with a leather thong. His companion was known as Hatchet, for his fascination with sledgehammers, hatchets and machetes. He wore skin-tight faded jeans, and a short denim jacket open over his bare chest. His chest was tattooed with a snake sliding its way up the leg of a woman. The woman was nude; her decapitated head lay at her feet.

One of Hatchet’s eyes was covered with a patch. His head was completely bald, and one of his ears was missing. In the other was a gold hoop earring.

The third person who stood with them stared off in the other direction. He was an older man with a pure white beard, dressed in red and white. He looked familiar enough, like Jolly Old Saint Nick. In fact, that’s what he was called.

“They must get in through the roof,” Thor said, putting the binoculars up to his eyes again. He could see that the chopper blades were stationary now.

“Son of a bitch!” Hatchet declared, rubbing the tattoo on his chest absently.

“There’s trucks blockin’ all the entrances.”

“No sweat!”

“What do ya think?” Thor put down the binoculars and turned to the others. “Hit ’em now or wait for tonight?”

“Tonight!” Hatchet and Old Nick said in unison.

After dinner Fran, Steve and Peter were seated in the living room reading when the voice came over the speaker of the shortwave radio that had been installed near the television.

“We know you’re in there,” it rattled over the unit. “Seen the whirlybird on the roof.”

Fran stepped closer, attracted by the signal. Peter moved over and sat by the radio, not knowing whether or not to send the signal back. Steve got up from one of the leather armchairs and walked over to listen.

“Hey, er . . .” the voice cackled. “Could ya use some company in there?”

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but Peter put out his arm to stop him.

“We’re just ridin’ by . . . We could sure use some supplies . . . What’s the chance us gettin’ in there to stock up?”

Peter strained to hear, listening intently, and trying to read into the voice’s inflections.

To his trained ear, there was something mildly curious about the voice. It hadn’t identified itself with any code and sounded too self-confident and cocky to be anyone in distress.

“How many of you in there, anyway?” the voice probed. “There’s three of us. Couldn’t ya use three more guns?”

“Raiders,” Peter surmised. No one would be dumb enough to disclose their number unless it was a tactic to get Peter to discuss theirs. The cockiness of the leader implied they were quite adept at scavenging. They must have spotted them when the helicopter took off. Peter knew that they had chanced it but hadn’t wanted to spoil Fran’s enthusiasm for learning to fly.

“Well, they know we’re here, maybe we should,” Fran started, but Peter cut her off abruptly.

“No chance.”

The little puppy scrambled up to Fran’s feet, his tiny tail wagging furiously. Fran picked it up in her arms and cradled it to quiet its excited whimpering.

“Well, if there’s only three of them—”

“Who says?” Peter quizzed her grimly. He seemed to revert to his old self—serious and cold as it was. But at least he was taking charge again. For the past few weeks he had become melancholy and morose. It was ironic that a situation that put them in direct danger would bring him back to life.

There was a long silence. Then the radio sputtered with static. Voices were muffled, as if someone had put a hand over the microphone to hide their conversation. Steve started to speak.

“Shhhh! Quiet!” Peter reacted, cutting him off.

He strained to hear the disguised conversation.

“I think we should,” Fran insisted.

Peter turned on her with fire in his eyes.

“Jesus Christ, shut up and listen!”

His outburst was greeted by more static and then slight laughter could be heard. Steve looked into Peter’s face, but the big trooper just stared at the speaker impassively.

“Hey, you in the mall,” came the voice over the speaker again. It sounded malicious and arrogant. “You just fucked up real bad! We don’t like people who don’t share.”

Instantly, as if he recognized the voice, Peter reacted. Slipping out of his jogging suit, he put on his army fatigues. He removed his Adidas sneakers and put on his combat boots. Then he grabbed his weapons and strapped on his holsters. He looked down at his hands and made a ritual of removing the thousand-dollar electronic watch, the gold bracelets at his wrist and the jeweled rings on his fingers.

“Come on, man,” he said to Stephen, coldly. “Get it up.”

Steve jumped at the command and ran to strap on his weaponry.

Fran stood by frantically, holding her stomach as if it hurt, her eyes wildly scanning the room as the men darted back and forth energetically.

The little puppy clamored for her attention, but she was too absorbed by the action around her to notice.

The band of raiders traveled together like a rat pack. In fact, most of them were survivors of the big cities, street rats who had managed to survive in the sewers and tunnels and subways that crisscrossed the metropolises. They were a straggly bunch, with loyalties to no one, not even each other. They roamed the countryside like scavengers, looting, burning, stealing and raping. The women who didn’t protest much were taken along. All children were left behind to fend for themselves. There were others besides Thor, Hatchet and Old Nick. There was one who looked like a Mexican bandito, replete with a large sombrero and leather holsters filled with bullets crisscrossing his chest.

Several men and a few women were huddled inside a van. Thor stored a microphone on a portable radio unit and chuckled to himself. The van was cluttered with junk: empty food tins, an arsenal of weapons, including every kind of gun imaginable, hatchets, knives and explosives.

The majority of the men and one or two of the women had roamed with motorcycle gangs. They were all outfitted with sleek, powerful motorcycles that had custom gas tanks and lots of chrome. They mounted the big bikes now, turning the controls with their hands and stomping down on the accelerators with their heavy, steel-tipped boots. Even Thor had changed out of his beloved sandals for this escapade.

The bikes roared into action, creating a thunderous din that could be heard by Peter and Stephen, who ran across the roof, fully armed. Clouds of dust and fumes rose into the air as the few remaining men and women stood by the vans and waved the marauders on.

The two men reached the edge of the roof and Peter peered off at the horizon. Nothing could be seen, but the ground seemed to vibrate from the approaching bikes. Peter brought the binoculars up to his eyes. Through the lenses he could make out the vague shapes in the darkness. As the sound swelled, he could see the raiders charging toward them. He counted them as they came up the rise. First two powerful bikes . . . then three more . . . three more . . . at least fifteen bikes in all. They were accompanied by two vans, which skidded and almost collided in their attempt to keep up with the thundering bikes.

“Just three, huh?” Peter commented over the deafening sound.

Steve could hardly believe his eyes. “Holy shit!”

“They’ll get in. They’ll move the trucks,” Peter said matter-of-factly. He seemed to display no emotion, but his heart was pounding. He knew he could have handled the raiders with Roger’s help, but now all he had was a pregnant woman and a weak-kneed boy.

“There’s hundreds of those creatures down there,” Steve said, but he couldn’t even reassure himself of that fact.

“Come on, man,” said Peter, losing patience. “This is a professional army. Looks like they’ve been survivin’ on the road all through this thing . . . Damn! How many of those stores are open?”

Steve looked frightened. “I dunno . . . several of ’em . . .”

“Well,” said Peter with uncharacteristic animation, “let’s not make it easy for ’em . . . Come on!”

The two men charged across the roof and back down the ladder that led from the skylight. The rumble of the convoy now filled the living space.

Fran was desperate with fear and worry as she watched Steve and Peter rush by her. They didn’t even stop to look at her, but she accosted Steve as Peter continued to crash on ahead through the door and onto the fire stairs.

She grabbed onto Steve’s arm.

“What’s happening?”

“There’s fifteen or twenty of ’em,” Steve said, panting from exertion and also terror of the raiders. For some reason he could deal with the mindless zombies better than with these thinking, yet lawless, barbarians. “We’re gonna shut off the gates.”

“Stephen!” She felt panic overtaking her, and in her more delicate condition, she wasn’t as confident of defending herself as she had been the last time.

“We’re just gonna shut the gates,” he assured her. “They’ll never find us up here.”

He disappeared through the door to the stairway. Fran dropped the puppy, which she had been cradling the whole time, and it skittered across the floor and went running after Steve, its ears flopping and tail wagging in its innocence.

Fran started to chase after the dog, but instead she moved to the storage area and snatched up her own weapons. Determination on her face, she started to load her rifle.

Outside, the motorcycle convoy made a pass at one of the trucks. In the darkness, the zombies clutched at the swiftly moving bikes. Whooping their war cries, the raiders fired their guns, dropping several of the creatures along their path.

A mob of creatures gathered at the commotion. They formed an impenetrable wall. Thor raised one of his swords as a signal and the raiders regrouped, dropping back across the parking lot. Some of the riders lost their balance as the zombies clawed at them, but they generally managed to stay on their bikes. A couple weren’t so lucky.

Thor pulled up to the other side of the lot and told his lieutenants, Nick and Hatchet, “They’ll spread out comin’ after us . . . then we go in with the van . . .”

The other bikers gathered around their leaders. A psychedelic painted van pulled up, and two bikers scrambled aboard the side doors.

Thor’s woman, Chickie, whom he had picked up in a raid outside of Pittsburgh, jumped into the driver’s seat of the van, revving up the engine.