The Siege (46 page)

Lisa’s grandmother had finally gone home sometime in the early morning. Angie had thought she was looking quite pasty and drawn.
Who wouldn’t be?
she thought as she flirted with sleep. Even just the scare of Lisa falling off her bike and banging her head could have been too much for the woman’s nerves—ending up in the hospital… and then finding her granddaughter in the hospital walk-in, chomping on raw hamburger, was probably too much for anyone’s nerves.

Angie’s other concern was her father. He hadn’t come back to Mrs. Appleby’s yet. She wanted to go back to the house with Mrs. Appleby, to see her dad. She wondered if he was back at the house yet. She knew he was with Donna, and she
knew
what men and women who liked each other might end up doing.
But surely
, she thought,
not my father!

Mostly, though, Angie’s concern was for Lisa. In the short time they had spent together, she had felt a bond of friendship growing between them that seemed much stronger than any of the friendships she had back home. She felt a genuine affection for Lisa, as if they had known each other for years before they met.

Several times in the pre-dawn stillness of the hospital, Lisa stirred in her bed. The crisp sheets crinkled like plastic under her as she tossed and turned. Often, she cried out in her sleep, and raising her hands to her mouth, she made loud munching sounds, smacking her lips and clacking her teeth as though she was eating. Angie, remembering the image of her friend, squatting on the floor as she chewed raw hamburger, her hospital johnny stained with meat juice, would awake with a start and lean over her friend, ready to either to calm her down or, if necessary, restrain her.

Each time Angie was torn out of her sleep by Lisa’s thrashing, it seemed to her that Lisa was less agitated. The little bit of rest she was getting seemed to be restoring her to herself. And that was what had been bothering Angie all night: she hadn’t known Lisa for very long, but ever since Stephen Wayne had been to the house to see Lisa, she had seemed very
different
.

Angie found herself wondering if maybe this guy Wayne had done something to Lisa that had hurt her instead of help her. Maybe he had given her the wrong medicine, or maybe Lisa’s injuries were more serious than he could determine. Thoughts like that mixed with other, scarier thoughts, giving Angie, in what little sleep she got, cold, stomach-dropping nightmares.

The worst nightmare was when Angie dreamed Lisa had her father pinned to the floor in Mrs. Appleby’s living room. Straddling her father, and keeping his shoulders pinned with her knees, Lisa was leaning over Angie’s dad. Her face was down, close to his, and if it hadn’t been for the loud munching sound, she might have thought Lisa was kissing her father. But they weren’t kissing. As a matter of fact, Angie’s dad wasn’t even
moving
, except for a slight tremor in his legs. Lisa had her face down on top of her father’s head, and Angie could vividly see thick rivers of blood spilling onto the floor, soaking into the carpet like spilled wine. Lisa had pried open the top of her father’s skull and was chewing on what looked like a twisted bed sheet, stained pink and gray. Then Lisa raised her head and looked at her with a wide grin. The entire lower half of her face, from her nose down, was sheeted with blood and large chunks of gray stuff that looked like thick, gray worms… only Angie knew it wasn’t
worms
.

About an hour or so after dawn, Lisa’s eyelids fluttered open, and she smiled warmly when she finally focused on the face of her friend, leaning over her bed, smiling down at her.

“You’re awake,” Angie said softly. The relief she felt, that Lisa had stopped thrashing and moaning in her sleep, was compounded by the warmth of her smile. It wasn’t anything close to the horrible smile she had seen on Lisa’s face in her dream! Her eyes looked normal, too not distant and glassy, like they had after Stephen Wayne’s visit, just sleep-heavy.

“How do you feel?” Angie said, keeping her voice low. The nurse who had been sitting with them had left the room while both of them had been asleep.

“I, uh,” Lisa said, and then stopped and smacked her lips to moisten them. Her voice sounded thin, weak. She propped herself up on one elbow. Angie got the pitcher of water from the bedside stand and filled a plastic cup for her.

Lisa took the cup of water and drank it down greedily, her throat making loud gulping sounds. Angie almost laughed aloud at her friend’s gusto, but when she remembered seeing her chomping the raw hamburger she just let one corner of her mouth twist up into a smile.

“Umm,” Lisa said, handing her the empty cup and signaling that she wanted more. “That tastes so good.”

“You had quite a night,” Angie said as she refilled the cup and gave it to Lisa. As if for the first time, Lisa noticed that she wasn’t at home in her own bed, and she sat bolt-upright in the bed, looking around with frantic eyes.

“Where am I? In the hospital?” she asked. She slapped one hand to her chest, clutching the lightweight cotton johnny, not her flannel nightie at all!

Angie nodded her head and grunted softly. “Yeah. Do you remember that you fell off your bike?”

Lisa nodded, and the hand clutching her johnny slowly released and went up to her forehead. She gingerly touched the thick sterile pad taped over her head wound.

“Yeah,” she said, squinting as she looked around for a moment. “I remember that. And I can kind of remember supper, but then it all gets sort of mixed up.”

She suddenly cut herself off and looked at Angie with fear-stricken eyes. Her nostrils flared, and her teeth came together with a loud
click
.

She shivered and pulled the hospital sheet up around her neck. “I had some really scary dreams. I can remember I was in the police station, I think, and I was fighting with Officer Brooks! I was having this fight with Officer Brooks! Why would I dream about
him
? And I remember feeling really hungry in the dream—so hungry I wanted to…” Again she cut herself off and shivered wildly.

“Look,” Angie said, placing her hand reassuringly on her friend’s shoulder. “You just lie on back and relax. I think that bump to your head kind of scrambled things up a bit. And I’ll bet the medicine they gave you had something to do with those dreams you had.”

A small part of her was crying out, wishing she could confide in Lisa about her own dreams, of Lisa bending over her father and eating his brains, but she knew she couldn’t. After what Lisa had been through, what was just one stupid old nightmare, anyway?

“Is my gram here?” Lisa asked, her voice tight as she struggled to put aside the thoughts that kept intruding. “Does she know I’m here?”

Angie nodded, and for the first time in her life, she did something adults sometimes do. She would tell what her dad always called “little white lies,” those lies you tell, not to deceive, but to protect someone from the painful truth.

“After supper,” Angie said, “you were feeling really lousy, so your gram and I brought you here. She’s home, safe and sound.” Angie glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s not even six o’clock yet, and she was up pretty late, so we can call her in an hour or so to let her know you’re up and feeling just fine.”

“I am,” Lisa said, easing herself out from under the sheets. She wrinkled her nose as she looked around her hospital room, then nodded her head in acceptance of what had happened. “I hope I’ll be able to go home today. But right now, I just want something to eat. I’m
wicked
hungry.”

“O, might I see hell, and return again safe, how Happy were I then!”

—Marlowe

“Wait Until Dark”

I

“I
don’t think Rodgers will do anything until dark,” Dale said. “He’ll have the advantage because we can’t see as well at night as they can.”

All five of them were sitting cross-legged in a wide circle in the center of the living room floor. Tasha, after much protesting from Hocker, broke out their meager supply of canned food. Everyone shared it, but they all agreed it would be a good idea to eat sparingly, in case they were in the house for long. And how long they might be there was the topic under discussion.

“Look,” Winfield said, casting a worried glance out the living room window. “We’ve got to keep in mind that we don’t really know what we’re dealing with here.” About fifty feet from the house, he could see a figure, standing stock-still, arms hanging loosely at its side as it stared blankly at the house. It hadn’t moved an inch in the nearly three hours since Rodgers had sent it there.

“We know what were up against,” Dale said. “I don’t think after what happened in the kitchen this morning, there’s any doubt.”

“Fuckin-A,” Hocker said as he gingerly reached a hand toward his wounded shoulder. Without water to clean the wound, they improvised with the ointment and gauze pads in the medical kit Hocker had stolen from Winfield’s cruiser.

“We don’t really know anything about them,” Winfield said, nodding his head toward the window. “We may think we do, from whatever half-assed horror movies we’ve seen, but this is the real thing! We have no idea what we’re up against!”

“We know we can kill them,” Donna said.

“As many times as we need to,” Dale joked.

Donna’s mind filled with the image of those two headless corpses, bloodless stumps where the necks were, sprawled on her family’s kitchen floor! Shivers danced up her spine. She was glad that, while she and Tasha tended Hocker’s wound, Dale and Winfield had pushed the bodies and severed heads out the back door.

Dale shifted on the floor, trying to get comfortable. After spending most of the night tied up and leaning against the cellar wall, what he wanted to do most was get up and jog a few miles. With a couple of Rodgers’ creatures close at his heels, that might not take so long. The thought that dug the deepest into his mind was concern for his daughter.
Is Angie safe?
he wondered.
Would Rodgers really do something as cold-blooded and cruel as to attack a defenseless girl?

He hated to admit it to himself, but the answer was easily
yes!
Rodgers could probably do that, and worse!

Dale wanted to voice his concern about Angie at least to Donna—but then, what could
she
do? Their immediate concern was to get out of this house—especially if Rodgers was on his way here with more of those
things
.

“I still think our best shot is for all of us to make a break for it all at once,” Hocker said. He stood up quickly, went to the window and, leaning down, stared out at the guard who had been posted by the driveway. “There’s only three of them and five of us. If we all go in separate directions, I figure at least two of us will get away.”

“That’s a great thought,” Tasha said, shivering. “Why don’t we have a little game of Russian roulette first?”

“No,” Winfield said, shaking his head. “I don’t like the odds. And who’s to say Rodgers doesn’t already have a whole swarm of those things hiding out there, just waiting for us to make a break for it?”

“Aww, shit,” Hocker said. He spit onto the living room floor and, standing up, began pacing back and forth. “That’s pussy! What do you want to do, have all of us huddle here in this fuckin’ house until they break in and get us all?”

“No,” Winfield said, shaking his head. “But I do want to make sure every one of us gets out of here. Even you.”

He remembered promising Hocker that he would try to get dropped any and all charges against him, but now he thought there’d be nothing better than slamming his ass in jail for a couple of nights. What irritated him most was the way he exerted his warped control over Tasha. He didn’t like Hocker’s abuse of power.

“I’m scared,” Tasha said, glancing around the circle of faces, her lower lip trembling. “And I certainly don’t want to be here tonight, after dark!”

Dale smiled at her and, reaching out, patted her on the knee. “Don’t worry. We’ll get out of here.” He looked directly at Hocker. “We’ll make sure we
all
get out together.”

“I think the first thing we should do, then, is try to barricade the house,” Winfield said. “Last night, when I left work, I told Ernie, at the desk, that I was heading out here to check the house.” He cast an angry stare at Hocker, as if to say “
this is all your fault, asshole!
”

Hocker caught the stare and stopped his pacing for a moment, squaring off with Winfield. “And I think you’re so full of shit, your eyes are brown,” he said, his voice low and controlled. “I think it’s bullshit to sit around here, waiting for him to come back with more help.”

“We went to the station yesterday afternoon, looking for you,” Dale said. “I don’t know who I spoke with, but he said if you weren’t home yet or down at Kellerman’s, you were checking out some
place
. He didn’t remember where.”

“And you didn’t tell him,” Winfield said, raising an eyebrow.

“Remember that tape?” Dale said. “What we were going to talk to you about wasn’t exactly something we wanted to broadcast.”

Winfield scratched behind his ear. “That must’ve been Ernie. That ’bout figures for him.”

“Wait a minute!” Dale said, snapping his fingers. “There’s the cruiser in the barn. We can just drive on out of here if we can get to it. Why the hell didn’t we think of that before?”

He got up quickly and ran into the kitchen with Winfield and Donna close behind, but they drew up suddenly when they saw one of Rodgers’ creatures, standing directly in the path from the kitchen door to the barn.

“Damn!” Dale shouted, clenching his fists and slamming the counter top.

“It was a good idea,” Winfield said, “and maybe it still is, but from the damage you said Mr. Asshole did to it, I’d be surprised if it even worked.”

“We can get it to work,” Donna said, her face suddenly lighting up.

Dale and Winfield looked from the zombie by the barn back to her. “If you’ve got an idea, let’s hear it,” Dale said.

“Well, I’m not really sure if it’s true or not, but down in the cellar near the coal bin is a doorway that leads into a tunnel. I never had the guts to go all the way down it because it’s so small, but supposedly the tunnel leads all the way underground to the barn.”

Dale and Winfield exchanged excited glances.

“This house is over two hundred years old,” Donna said as they all started toward the cellar steps. “When we were kids, we always thought it was an escape tunnel, in case the house was attacked by Indians in colonial times.”

“That tunnel’s there, though? You know it for a fact?” Winfield asked. He snapped on the flashlight he had clipped to his belt and led them down the stairway into dark cellar.

“It was there when I was a kid, sure,” Donna said, moving carefully down the steps. “I can’t really say it goes anywhere, though, because I never followed it.”

“It’s worth a try,” Dale said as they crossed the cellar floor. Donna took the flashlight from Winfield and directed it over to the corner of the cellar wall behind the coal bin. It was hard to spot, but set low to the ground was a small square of rough-cut boards flush inside the wall. Thick coal dust and cobwebs covered it, and the wood had turned sooty black with age. The bottom edge was punky with rot.

“It’s on the right side of the house,” Dale said, looking out the grimy cellar window at the small portion of the barn which was visible.

“Worth a try,” Winfield said.

While Donna held the flashlight for him, Winfield ran his fingers along the rough edge of the door. He destroyed several spider webs, squashing the small egg cases that hung like tan berries.

“It’s built right into the foundation,” he said as he probed for a fingerhold. “It’s nailed right into the frame.”

“We used to open it up and look inside,” Donna said. “My sister used to threaten to put me in there and shut the door, so my father sealed it off.”

“But if the tunnel’s still open—” Dale said.

“We can get to my cruiser,” Winfield finished for him.

“If it still runs,” Donna reminded him.

“We won’t know unless we try,” Winfield said. “Here, give me a hand.”

Dale knelt down beside Winfield and tried to find an edge where he could work his fingers under the boards, but the door was set perfectly flush, and he couldn’t find a hold.

Winfield, frustrated, sat back on his butt and raised his feet. With a loud grunt, he slammed both feet hard into the door. The wood, in spite of its age, was not rotten; it sprang back, sending a resounding shiver up Winfield’s legs.

“Again,” Dale said.

Winfield braced himself as best he could on the floor and kicked again, this time with just one foot. Using loud grunts with each kick, he hit the door five times in rapid succession, then leaned forward to check his progress.

“I think it gave a bit,” Dale said, testing the edges of the wood. “It feels a little looser. Try again.”

“You try it,” Winfield said, huffing from the effort as he shifted aside to make room for Dale. “That’s a killer on your feet.”

Shaking his head, Dale took a position on the floor and, imitating Winfield’s shouts, kicked the door as hard as he could. After three savage kicks, one of the boards in the door started to break inward, and it took just two more hits to knock it all the way in.

“All right,” Winfield said as he reached past the splintered board and tried to pull the board next to it loose. He grunted with the effort and, pausing to catch his breath, said to Donna, “Christ, what did your father use, railroad spikes?”

Donna shrugged as she concentrated on keeping the flashlight beam fixed directly on the doorway.

After another few minutes of effort, the rest of the floor finally came away. The three of them knelt down and stared into the black square they had uncovered. Donna shivered with her childhood memories of what she had imagined was waiting for her down in that tunnel.

“I don’t think I can even fit down there,” Winfield said, patting the bulge of his stomach. “And I don’t particularly relish the thought of getting stuck halfway down there if it narrows any more.”

“It does look pretty small,” Dale said, looking over at Donna.

She had shifted a few feet away from the doorway and the memories her imagination had started to rev up. “You’re not going to get me to go down there,” she said, her voice trembling. “No way!” She shook her head quickly from side to side.

Winfield took the light from Donna and crawled forward, until half of him was swallowed by the square doorway. “It looks like there’s a turn up in there,” he said, his voice muffled. He stayed with his head in the tunnel for a few seconds, then backed out, brushing away the dirt that had gotten on his face and hands.

“Do you think we could enlist our good buddy Hocker to go down there?” Winfield asked, looking at Dale.

Dale shrugged as he ran his hand over his forehead. “I don’t know,” he replied. “And even if he
did
go down there, I kind of wonder if he might not just take off by himself and leave us to fend for ourselves.”

“You honestly think he’d do something like that?” Winfield asked, his face wrinkling with irony as he stroked his chin. His dirty hand left a black streak beneath his eye.

“I can’t imagine he’d do something like that,” Donna said. “He couldn’t be that cruel.”

“After getting clobbered over the head and spending a night trussed up like a pig compliments of him, I don’t think we can underestimate his lack of loyalty,” Winfield said grimly. “For Hocker, it’s himself, first, last, and always.”

“I don’t like the way he treats Tasha, either,” Dale added. “The guy’s obviously a nut case.”

“So what are we going to do?” Donna asked.

“Donna, let me put it to you this way,” Dale said. “If there were twenty of Rodgers’ zombies after you, do you think you’d find the courage to go down there?”

Donna looked from him to the open doorway. Just the image of the small, black square sent waves of fear rippling through her. She knew her fear of that tunnel was irrational but the fear was also very real to her. The mere thought of entering that tunnel made her stomach tighten up until it felt about the size of a golf ball.

“I… don’t know if I could,” she stammered.

“Well I sure as shit won’t fit,” Winfield said, “and you say you won’t go, so here we are. I’d say our next best bet is to do like I said, reinforce the doors and windows, and hope to hell we can hold off whatever Rodgers throws against us, at least until someone at the station remembers to check out here.”

“I’m not holding my breath for that,” Dale said. His unspoken thought was—
I have to get to Angie!

While they were talking, Donna had gone over to what had been her father’s workbench years ago. Most of the tools were gone, and the few that were there—a hacksaw and a couple of screwdrivers—were rusted, but there was one thing she saw that she knew they could use. Years ago, her father had nailed two rows of jar lids to the ceiling rafters. After filling each jar with assorted nails, he screwed them back onto the cover. There were enough nails in the jars hanging down from the ceiling to build a whole house, by the looks of it.