The Dead

“Just wait, honey,” Steve said reassuringly. “We’re all going to have to leave anyway.”

“What?” Max asked. “I thought you wanted to hole up here for the day.”

“Changed my mind,” Steve answered. “Believe me, we want to get out of here.”

“Not till you give me an explanation,” Max answered.

“Shhh!” Father Chuck hissed.

They turned to see a shadowy pair of legs stop by a glass-block window on the left side of the basement, distorted by the ripples in the glass.

Max went silently to the back door, turned the lock on the doorknob, then threw the deadbolt.

“Gary,” Max whispered, motioned toward the stairs to the first floor. Gary went up, locked the door.

As he came back down, he became aware of a hollow scraping noise, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from; then came a scuffle of feet on the outside stairs, and his attention flashed to the back door. The women and Father Chuck were slowly backing away from it. He went over by Max and Steve, eyes fixed on the doorknob.

It began to twist slowly, first right, then left. Everyone in the basement had gone dead silent, and Gary heard the mechanism clicking softly.

That, and the scraping, growing more insistent by the second.

The knob spun back to the right. Something snapped, and the knob dipped, hanging slack.

But that still left the deadbolt. The door stood firm under a tentative blow. Feet scuffled back up the steps outside.

Gary relaxed, just a bit-then noticed, out of the corner of his eye, the shadowy figure at the window crouching down and putting its hands up on either side of its face, as if to get a better look through the distorted panes.

Won’t see a damn thing, Gary thought.

The shape struck at the glass. There was a hollow bong!, and the figure paused before punching again, as though it had never expected mere glass to be so hard. The block took two more blows before its outer layer even cracked.

That proved enough for the would-be intruder. The shadow vanished from the window.

And all the while, the scraping on the far side of the basement grew louder. Gary turned, looking for the source of the noise. The sound drew him over to the utility room door-

Something shattered up on the first floor. There was a powerful slam, and footsteps thudded. They approached the cellar-door, then halted, just on the other side by the sound of it. Then they headed away.

But Gary’s attention was fixed on the other thumpings now.

The ones that had started inside the utility room.

What the fuck is in there? he thought.

“Steve,” he heard Sally whisper, “oh God, Steve.”

“Just shut up,” Steve said.

The thumping grew harder-then came a soft and horrible mewing sound, and a spate of scrabbling, like rats in a wall.

“Steve, she’s getting loose,” Sally said.

“Who?” Gary asked.

Neither of them answered. Steve had a strange smile on his face. He shrugged.

Gary knew now he had to look into the room. Turning the knob, he pushed the door open with his shotgun barrel, his gaze going immediately to the middle of the floor.

Coated with grey dust, a mummified hand protruded through a crack in the concrete, rising slowly like some hideous flower, leathery wrist rasping against the sides of the fissure.

“Max,” Gary said huskily. “Max!”

His brother was already at his side.

“Don’t shoot,” Max said. “You’ll bring ‘em all down on us.”

Floorboards creaked above.

What are they doing up there? Gary thought desperately, watching the mummified hand reach higher and higher, fingers clenching and unclenching now, the joints popping and squealing.

“Who is that in there, Steve?” Max asked.

No answer.

“You know, don’t you, motherfucker?”

With a ragged grate, a large slab of concrete tilted upward. Another ashen hand locked around its lip, pushed it aside, leaving a two-foot wide gap.

“Steve,” Max said, “Tell me who that is, or I’ll push your face down that hole.”

“Tell him, Steve,” Sally said.

“What good’ll it do?” Steve asked.

Max went for him.

“It’s Ginger!” Sally cried. “It’s his first wife!”

A raw shriek pealed out of the opening in the floor. The hands whipped back down into the darkness. Dust and chips of concrete shot into the air.

“Sally Sally SALLEEEE!” screamed the voice from the pit.

Above, footsteps hammered toward the cellar door. With a boom the door flew off its hinges, bouncing end over end down the stairs, landing flat against the floor. Two corpses clattered behind, both wearing sweatpants and muscle-T’s.

Gary twisted toward them, squeezed off his chambered round, pumped and fired. Ragged ratholes blew open in the t-shirts. The corpses smashed sideways into the paneling. Gary pummeled them till the wood was spackled with their flesh.

The back door banged open. He heard Linda shriek, and whirled.

Jaws distended by a plug of hardened concrete, a corpse was striding toward her. She and Father Chuck started in with their guns.

Sally lifted her pistol, but the hammer wasn’t cocked.

Bullets biting chunks from its face, the corpse waded forward, straps of scalp whipping straight up from exit- wounds in the back of its skull. Linda and Father Chuck jumped out of its way. Shaking her gun, swearing at it, Sally caught a taloned uppercut and staggered back across the room.

Gary reloaded. Max and Steve stepped forward, pouring fire into the corpse, battering it to the floor. Bones pulverized, the cadaver lay on the carpet flopping spastically, unable to rise.

Gary looked round at the steps. The fragments of his victims were wriggling blindly down the stairs.

Over by the utility room, practically on the threshold, Sally was sitting with her back to the door, shaking her head, blood welling from the gashes in her cheek and chin. If she heard the shrieks of Ginger Jennings reverberating from the room behind, she gave no sign. Gary and Steve started toward her, yelling.

Like something squeezed from a tube, Ginger came squirting up from the hole she’d clawed out.

Gary aimed for her head, but caught it only with the fringe of the shotgun blast, spattering her cheek and temple with pellets. Dust puffed from the impacts, and her head jerked to one side; then her hands were on Sally, hauling her up. Unable to get a clear shot, Gary and Steve stopped short.

Ginger spun Sally around. Looking into the fury’s wizened face, Sally began to struggle, shrieking, tossing her head, hair whipping.

“Ginger!” she screamed. “It was all Steve’s-”

Steve and Gary closed in to blast Ginger point-blank, but were too late to save Sally. With a movement almost too quick to follow, Ginger raised the struggling woman further, thrust her head forward, and bit Sally’s throat out. Blood spewed onto Ginger’s face and all over the doorjamb.

Gary shoved his gun barrel into Ginger’s dripping brow, pulled the trigger-

Click.

Ginger hurled Sally to the carpet, chewing the bloody flesh in her mouth, she stepped over her victim. Gary retreated. She went for Steve.

Gary tried to pump a new shell into the Mossberg, but the action was jammed. Steve backpedalled furiously, blasting away with his.45. Star-shaped pits cratering her blood-painted face, black against red but Ginger kept coming.

Max’s H and K rattled. Ginger sailed backward into the utility room as if an invisible fist had struck her in the