The Siege (54 page)

When the second stringer was almost cut through, both of them jumped when the stairs suddenly snapped and sagged. Wood popped, sounding like a gunshot.

“I think you’re through with that one,” Donna said, smiling and still fighting the urge to burst out laughing.

Dale scowled at her, lowered his arm, and, after giving it a quick shake, started on the last stringer. He had finally gotten his second wind with it and went to work slowly and steadily.

“Christ, man, are you about ready?” Hocker said as he came around under the stairs. “I’ve got everything else all set to go.” He glanced up the edge of the stairwell and saw plaster powdering where the crossbars were digging into the walls. “I don’t think they’re getting any more patient.”

“I—just—have—a—bit—more,” Dale grunted, each word timed with the stroke of the saw.

Hocker bounced up and down on his toes, a book of matches clenched in his hand. “Well,” he said, snorting and spitting onto the floor, “it doesn’t have to be a fuckin’ masterpiece, you know.”

“You do what you do, and leave me the Christ alone, all right?” Dale shouted. He turned and faced Hocker, the saw held up like a sword.

“Hey, hey… just checking, man,” Hocker said, holding his hands out and backing away.

Dale was exhausted from the effort, so after a few more passes, he dropped the saw to the floor. “Screw it… if it works, it works,” he muttered. He used his left hand to massage his right shoulder, but he knew that tonight his back and shoulder would feel like he had been wrestling a bear.

“Come on, man,” Hocker said. He was standing at the foot of the stairs, anxiously looking up. Bending forward and trying to take deep breaths, Dale came over and looked up, too.

The door was sagging inward as the combined weight of Rodgers’ creatures pressed against it. The steps were stained dark where Hocker had doused them with gasoline.

“Okay,” Dale said, turning to Donna and Tasha, “why don’t the two of you start down the tunnel?”

Donna looked at him, her eyes widening to perfect circles. Her mouth opened to say something, to protest, but the firmness in Dale’s voice told her, clearly, that it was now or never!

“Tasha? Will you go first?” Dale asked. She looked at him, and he saw for the first time how bad she looked. Her eyes were dark and rimmed with red, and the paleness of her face only made her eyes look worse. She looked like she had become a victim of anorexia in the span of a few hours, and Dale suddenly regretted his callous treatment of Donna’s concerns for her.

Tasha silently nodded, looking back toward the coal bin where her sleeping bag and backpack were stacked. She made a move to pick them up, then obviously thought better of it.

“Come on!” Hocker shouted, waving his arms in frustration. Dale thought he was just getting overanxious to touch off the fire, but then the cellar door suddenly gave inward with a loud crack, and one of the blocking wood bars came tumbling down the stairs.

“Look, Donna,” Dale said, approaching her and gripping her firmly by both arms. “We don’t have time to dick around here. You’ve got to do it!
Now!
”

“I—know,” she stammered. Then she turned and, directing her flashlight beam into the opening, walked over to the tunnel, got down on her hands and knees, and crawled inside. Tasha was no more than a pace or two behind her. Dale darted over as the two women were swallowed by the thick blackness.

Oh, he remembered that darkness all right!

“See you on the other side,” he called after them, then he turned and faced Hocker.

Hocker was standing at the workbench. With a quick glance over his shoulder at Dale, he lit one of the road flares and dropped it into the collected junk. Dale shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness as the red flames hissed and caught. In an instant, tongues of flame were licking upward toward the ceiling.

“Damn… he’s good!” Dale said to himself, watching, fascinated, as Hocker dashed over to where he had propped another flare. He lit it and, casting a worried glance up at the sagging door, stuck it up into the crossbeams. There was a tiny
whoosh
and flames started flickering to life.

The cellar door was groaning inward, and Dale could dimly see faces, peering down at him through the crack in the door. Thin but strong-looking hands scrambled to gain a grip inside the door and pull it off its hinges.

Hocker touched off a third flare and planted it up under one of the floor joists. Glancing at Dale, he spat and said, “Hell, man, you might’s well get your ass moving down the tunnel. I’m ’bout done here.”

Dale hesitated, but a final glance at the door convinced him to move. The second wooden bar gave way, and the door exploded inward. There was a dark, seething tangle of arms and legs as the zombies all tried to get through the doorway at once. “Move your ass, man!” Hocker shouted. He touched off another flare and stood there, about six feet from the foot of the stairs, smiling as he watched the creatures pour through the doorway. The last thing Dale saw before ducking his head into the tunnel was the harsh lines of Hocker’s sweat-streaked face, glowing madly in the red glow of the flare. His teeth were bared in a wide, crazy smile, and just before he tossed the flare into the gasoline, he dropped his head back and laughed like a madman.

Dale didn’t directly see the flames once the flare touched the spilled gasoline, but being only a few feet into the tunnel, he saw the sudden orange glow and felt a
blast
of intense heat slam him from behind.

At least the second time down the tunnel wasn’t as bad as the first: he knew there was safety at the other end. What scared Dale was what he’d find there. The heat from Hocker’s blaze railroaded down the tube with him, sucking air in as if the tunnel were a huge straw. Swirling dust made it difficult to breathe, but by keeping his head lowered, he made good progress.

All the time, though, he couldn’t help but wonder how Hocker was going to get out of the house. It was out of the question that Hocker would have done something so noble as to sacrifice himself so the rest of them could escape. He certainly seemed to know what he was doing; he probably wouldn’t have miscalculated.

Much sooner than he expected, he saw the dull gray light of the opening appear up ahead. As he got closer, he heard Donna frantically calling his name. Although his lungs felt as though they had been charbroiled, and his arms and legs were knotting with cramps, he re-doubled his efforts. In another few seconds, he was out of the tunnel mouth and standing in the middle of the barn floor, hugging Donna so desperately he thought he would never be able to unclamp his arms from around her back.

“Where’s Hocker?” Tasha said, her voice frayed with panic.

“He ought to be along right behind me,” Dale said, sputtering.

Tasha was looking down into the tunnel mouth. She couldn’t see the glow of the flames. The air sucking into the tunnel made a low, warbling whistle, and then suddenly thick black billows of smoke erupted outward.

“How’s he gonna make it through that?” Tasha wailed. She didn’t want even to think about losing the one person she felt had looked out for her through all of this,

Dale ran to the barn window and, crouching, slowly stood until he could see the kitchen door over the window sill. The sun had dropped below the horizon, and the sky was stained deep indigo, blending into black. The cold pinpoint light of two stars winked over the house, but there was no sign that Hocker’s fire had caught.

The sudden slamming of a car door made Dale and Donna jump. Turning, they saw Tasha, sitting in the cruiser on the passenger’s side. She rolled down the window and waved frantically to them.

“Come on… He ain’t gonna make it,” she said, glancing over at the tunnel opening. The smoke boiling out of it was thicker, now, and it started to fill the barn.

The kitchen window suddenly sprang to life with a dull orange flicker. Dale imagined he could hear the roaring of the flames as they licked up the stairway and into the house.

Donna, who was standing beside him, burst into tears as she watched the fire gain strength, feeding into the kitchen and spreading from the flares propped under the floor joists. Her mind was filled with hundreds of colliding memories, swirling and mixing like paint until there was nothing but a muddy blur.

The glow in the kitchen window intensified. Dale was about to go to the cruiser when a sound came to him, vibrating the window with a low but gradually rising tremor. At first it sounded like the huge timbers of the house, groaning as they burned and sagged beneath the weight of the house. But after a moment, Dale realized that the sound was sustaining and building, until with a sinking sensation of horror and the thought,
I’ve become a murderer!
, he realized it was the sound of ten or twenty throats, crying out in pain and anger as the flamed consumed them.

Dead flesh!
he reminded himself, seeing his own horror reflected in Donna’s terror-stricken expression. “They were already dead! Remember that!” he commanded himself, but nothing could erase those horrible, groaning wails.

“Hocker ain’t comin’!” Tasha yelled from the cruiser, banging her fist on the dash board. “
Come on!
”

Dale turned away from the window first and, digging into his pocket, started for the cruiser. For a freezing instant, his fingers couldn’t find the key, and he thought they wouldn’t make it! But then he found Winfield’s key ring and slipped the key into the ignition as Donna opened the back door and hopped inside.

“Come on, now, baby,” he said, coaxing the car as he turned the key and the starter made a low grinding sound. He stared up at the ceiling, focusing all of his mental energy onto the cruiser’s battery. The trunk had been left open all night—would that be enough of a drain on the battery to kill it? he wondered.

“Come on now! Sears
DieHard
, show your stuff!”

The ignition cranked but didn’t catch. Dale stepped down hard on the gas pedal and kept the key turned.

“Come on you royal mother-
fucker
!” he snarled. His fingers were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel, he was positive he’d need surgery to get them off. After more than a full minute, the engine caught and roared into life.

“All right!” Tasha shouted, clapping her hands.

Dale adjusted the mirror and, putting his right arm over the back of the seat, turned around to back out of the barn. His foot was on the brake, and the brake lights cast a weird glow onto the inside of the barn door. He was just going to pop the shift into reverse when a blackened face popped up over the back of the car.

“Ahh! Jesus!” he screamed. His foot slipped off the brake and onto the gas, sending the engine roaring. There was a loud
thump
on the side of the car, and both Donna and Tasha screamed when a face loomed up by the side door.

“Unlock the fucking door!” Hocker shouted.

Even though it was his voice, his face was unrecognizable beneath its mask of soot and dirt. For an instant, Dale thought that maybe Rodgers had already gotten him and turned him into a zombie, but he saw the wide-eyed smile beneath the soot.

“Get your ass in here,” Dale shouted, reaching over the seat and unlocking the door. “We’re going to have to take down the door with us.”

Hocker dove into the back seat and slammed the door shut behind him as Dale hit reverse and stepped on the gas. The cruiser shot backwards, spitting a shower of dirt up against the chassis as the tires spun out.

“Buckle up,” Dale said just before the cruiser smashed through the barn door. Slats of wood and metal flew everywhere, but he could see the dark shapes of several people moving toward them across the lawn.

The car heaved heavily to the right as Dale turned, raced the engine for a split second while he snapped on the headlights, and then popped the shift into drive and stepped down hard on the gas. Twice there was a heavy thump sound, and everyone in the car knew exactly what it was; Dale had driven over two of Rodgers’ creatures. But the impact didn’t slow the cruiser, and in an instant, it had shot past Rodgers’ parked limo and swung out onto Mayall Road.

Dale glanced at the rear view mirror, and the other three looked back over their shoulders at the flames gathering strength and raging like angry tongues out of the house windows. Thick, spiraling smoke was lost into the night sky.

Donna had both of her hands covering her mouth and was sobbing as she saw her family home destroyed.

Tasha, white-faced and trembling, watched silently. Dale was too numb to say or think anything. But Hocker was suddenly brayed with laughter and slapped his open palms on his legs.

“Oh, God, Jesus! You should have
seen
it!” he said, cackling with laughter. He was shaking with excitement, doubled up with pleasure. His only real regret was that they had to leave the scene so soon; he enjoyed sticking around as long as possible to watch the effects of his handiwork.

“I threw that flare into the gas just as they started coming down the stairs. And boy, oh boy, were you right about wanting to collapse the stairs. Under their weight, they came tumbling down like nobody’s business. When they hit the flames,
Christ
! You should have heard ’em wail!”

“I’m… I’m glad you enjoyed it so much,” Dale said, even though his throat felt like it was no more than pencil thick.