The Siege (45 page)

Dale’s second swing was wide of the mark and merely glanced off Larry’s shoulder. The swing carried Dale around, and for a flashing moment, he was afraid he would fall. His mind filled with the terrifying thought that, as soon as he hit the floor, Larry’s mashing, grinding teeth would tear into him.

Larry made a low grunting sound as he darted forward, his hands like dirty claws, trying to snag Dale and bring him down. But Dale kept his balance and, turning to one side, brought the shovel down squarely on the back of Larry’s neck. With a loud snap of breaking bone, Larry’s head dropped forward and then fell off. It hit the kitchen floor with a dull
thump
and rolled with a crazy, lopsided spin toward the living room door. For several sickening seconds, the headless body remained sitting; then it sagged to the floor. Dale wanted to scream as he watched Larry’s arms and legs twitch wildly, then lie still.

I’m going to pass out
, Dale thought as darkness swirled around his mind like a black tide. In the distance, someone still screamed shrilly and long. Dale wanted to know who it was, to help if he could, but he couldn’t because suddenly he found himself on the floor, kneeling on his hands and knees. His stomach felt like it was in the icy grip of some oversized hand that was squeezing out the remains of last night’s supper. Not much was there, though, so Dale had to suffer several waves of painful dry heaves before it passed. He looked up just in time to see another dark bulk coming through the doorway.

Winfield finally snapped out of his shock. The second man lurched forward and, because Hocker was still on the floor, attacked the first person he saw. His hand flashed out and caught Hocker by the seat of the pants and started to pull him toward him. His mouth opened wide, exposing a mess of broken and cracked teeth. Before Hocker could twist out of the man’s grasp, the attacker darted his head forward and chomped down hard on Hocker’s shoulder.

Hocker let out a piercing wail as the broken teeth worked their way into his shoulder muscles. Then he distantly heard someone yell, “You have to cut its head off to stop it!”

Hocker was suddenly jolted downward several times as someone beat the man who was attacking him. After what seemed like hours, the grinding teeth released their hold, and Hocker felt the weight of his attacker lift off him. As he scrambled to safety, he felt the warm flow of his own blood running down his back inside his shirt.

When he turned around and saw what actually had happened, his mind wanted to block it out. The sight of two headless corpses, sprawled on the floor, instantly brought back the memory of the night in the woods when he and Tasha had killed those other three men. He was sure the man was one of the men he had killed in the woods that night, impossible as it seemed!

With both attackers dead on the kitchen floor, the small group of people hastily reorganized. Tasha and Donna were standing by the doorway to the living room; neither one of them could believe what they had just witnessed. Dale and Hocker were both standing, now, close to Winfield as all five of them looked numbly at the bodies on the floor. Winfield was holding the shovel tightly in his hand as his eyes darted from the bodies to the open kitchen door.

“Tenacious sons-a-bitches, aren’t they?” Hocker said. He coughed up a wad of mucous and spat onto the floor. “I suppose you let ’em go,” he said, turning to Tasha.

She looked down at the floor, then squarely at him. “If I hadn’t, you’d be dead right now.”

“And I wouldn’t give a fiddley-fuck either way,” Hocker said before spitting again.

Dale and Donna exchanged glances, then walked slowly toward each other and embraced. Both of them felt the other sag into the hug and were grateful that they could keep each other from collapsing.

“It isn’t over yet,” Winfield said gruffly. He bent down and rolled the second attacker onto his back. The gaping black hole in his chest ripped open a bit more with the motion, and a horrible, rotting odor rose from the wound. The exposed bone looked yellow and spongy.

“It’s that prick up there with the fancy car, ain’t it?” Hocker said, suddenly tensing. He suddenly realized that he was still clenching Winfield’s service revolver in his hand, and he reached into his pocket for a handful of bullets.

As Hocker was reloading, Winfield came over to him and held his hand out. “I believe you have something of mine,” he said, his voice low and firm.

Hocker gave him a flickering, angry stare as he shoved the last bullet into the chamber and clicked it shut with a flick of his wrist. The black hole of the muzzle slowly swung up and pointed at Winfield.

“If there are any more of these freaks around, you certainly don’t expect me to go unarmed, do you?” he said.

The revolver pointed unwaveringly at Winfield, but he didn’t back down. He was thinking,
there are worse things than being killed by a punk like you
, but that’s not what Winfield said. Keeping his voice low, he simply said, “By the sounds I heard, I figure you already tried to shoot these guys. You know it isn’t enough to stop them.”

“It’s like I said,” Dale said, stepping forward to stand beside Winfield facing Hocker. “To stop these ‘freaks,’ you have to cut off their heads. That’s the only thing that will stop them.”

Hocker’s eyes shifted back and forth and between the men. He knew—
Oh, Christ! Did he ever know!
—they were right. The man he had fought with on the porch had at least
four
bullets in him, fired at point-blank range. Those bullets had enough kicks to turn his brains into pudding hadn’t been enough to stop him from barreling through the kitchen door and biting the shit out of him.

Hocker suddenly felt his knees buckle, and only now did he become fully aware of how badly he had been bitten. The blood was sticky and warm as it streamed down his back and soaked into the top of his pants.

“Give me the fucking gun,” Winfield commanded, “and I swear to God, if we get out of this alive, I’ll personally see that any and all charges against you, including assaulting a police officer for you and your lady friend, are dropped. And if you need a ride somewhere, I’ll make sure you get where you want to go.”

“Maybe I could have my cash and credit cards back, too,” Dale said.

Hocker was finding it difficult to look directly at the police officer. The pain in his shoulder was building to a powerful crescendo. He could feel a steady pulsation, thumping, from his biceps to the base of his neck. The flow of blood had abated, but it still felt as though a warm sheet was wrapped around half of his back. The early morning light in the kitchen should have been warming and comforting, but instead it looked hazy and dull.

“I think you’d better consider just how deeply in trouble we all are here,” Dale said, looking at Hocker. “If we’re going to get out of this, we’re going to have to pull together. That man who sent those two to attack us is not going to let any of us out of here alive… not if he can help it.”

“What the fuck does he want?” Hocker asked. He wanted to sound angry and tough, but the pain in his shoulder was spreading like fire in summer-dry woods.

“Are you ready for the truth?” Dale said, casting a glance at Winfield and wondering if, after what he had just seen, he had finally accepted the truth.

Hocker nodded. It hurt to hold his head up any more. He held the revolver out, handle first. Winfield took it and slid it into his holster. Then he took the folded money and credit cards and handed them back to Dale, who slipped them into his pants pocket.

“Those men we just killed,” Dale said, his voice catching for a moment. “They were already dead when they walked up onto the porch.”

Hocker snorted, wanting to spit but finding his mouth had gone desert dry.

“They were already dead,” Dale repeated. “And if we don’t figure a way to get out of here, we’re all going to end up just like them!”

IV

R
odgers had watched with detached interest as two of his creations approached the farm house. He had earnestly wished he could have seen Harmon’s face when he
finally
got to see the body of his dead friend… just before his buddy
killed
him! His interest turned to irritation and then to outright anger when he saw the man on the porch struggle with and escape from the two “men” he had sent to finish him off. Trembling with rage, he had watched as the man had run around behind the house to be followed by the two shambling figures.

Several anxious minutes later, the front door to the house opened, and two figures appeared on the porch. In the darkness beneath the collapsed porch roof, Rodgers at first mistook them for his two men, returning after dispatching everyone in the house.

Rodgers let out a loud gasp when he saw, instead, Dale Harmon and Jeff Winfield come to the edge of the porch and look at him.

“They’re both dead,” Harmon shouted. “Really dead this time.”

Rodgers listened as Harmon’s voice rebounded from the woods behind him. He had three more of his creations in the limo, but he had assumed that two of them would be more than enough to take care of everything. Obviously he had underestimated the situation. He vowed not to do that again.

“Did you enjoy seeing your friend again, Mr. Harmon?” Rodgers asked, his voice as sharp as a razor.

In reply, Dale flipped his middle finger high in the air.

“You could save us all a vast amount of unpleasantness if you’d just give yourselves up,” Rodgers said.

Winfield was studying the man’s position. With one hand on the limo roof and the other draped over the opened front door, he didn’t present much of a target. In training, he had hit much smaller targets at greater distances, but this was one of those times when one shot and one alone was going to count. When he saw his opportunity, he wanted to be positive he would finish it with a single shot.

“Those two are nothing compared to what else I have at my beck and call. By this afternoon, I can have this house entirely surrounded by my creations. You won’t be able to kill them all.”

“We’ll take out as many as we can,” Dale shouted. “And when it’s over,” Rodgers said, “I’ll have you and your friends inside there to replenish the ranks.”

He snapped his fingers, and the two back doors of the limo swung open. Squinting and turning their heads to avoid looking at the direct sunlight, three zombies slowly stretched to their full height. Rodgers glanced at them only briefly before turning back to Winfield and Harmon.

“These three should be able to finish the job,” he said, his voice booming. “But I’m not about to take that chance.”

With a quick motion of his arm, he gave each of the three a command. Dale and Winfield watched as one zombie walked forward, stopping at the foot of the walkway. The other two each walked out across the lawn, one to the left of the house and the other to the right. When they reached their positions and stopped, Dale and Winfield understood what Rodgers planned. From where the zombies stood, every side of the house was covered. They were trapped!

Winfield’s hand, holding his revolver, was itching to rise, aim, and squeeze the trigger. Now was the time to shoot, before Rodgers could go back to his funeral home to get help. But the angle was bad, and Rodgers kept himself shielded by the open door.

Rodgers beamed with satisfaction when he saw that his creations did exactly what he had told them. He was disappointed to see how poorly the other two had fought, and he wasn’t sure these three alone could do better. He only had four zombies left at the funeral home, but Higgins owned several more; they could miss one afternoon of the harvest. Rodgers would ask to borrow Higgins’ zombies, and Higgins would have to comply.

With a sudden intake of breath, Rodgers made a motion to get back into the car and get the assistance he needed to finish the messy job. But he caught himself and stood up, shielding his eyes against the morning sun as he called out to Dale. “I understand, Mr. Harmon, that you’ve been rooming at Appleby’s during your stay here in town. Is that correct?”

Dale wanted to reply, but his throat choked off as if Rodgers had his hands wrapped around his neck.

“Perhaps on my way into town, I’ll stop by to give my regards to your daughter. What is her name—ah, I recall. She signed the guest book. Her name is Angela.” Rodgers said. He followed this with a laugh that sent waves, chills up Dale’s spine.

“You won’t get away with this!” Winfield yelled. He was boiling with frustration that he couldn’t get a clear shot at Rodgers.

Rodgers tossed his head back, looking up at the blue vault of sky and laughing even louder, said, “But I can.” He sputtered between gales of laughter. “It will be over for all of you before anyone suspects anything. But if you’re worried about your daughter, Mr. Harmon, don’t be. Not in the least. By tomorrow evening at the latest, you will in all likelihood see her again.” His laughter pierced the sky, echoing from the surrounding hills. “The only problem
will be
you won’t
recognize
each other!”

V

A
ngie was relieved that the nurses had not strapped Lisa to her bed as they had said they might. After they cleaned her up and gave her a mild sedative, she had fallen asleep and was sleeping peacefully. For several hours, Angie and a nurse sat near the hospital bed watching her, helpless to do anything else. As much as she wanted to stay awake and keep an eye on her friend, Angie was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Every few seconds, her head would start to nod, and then she would suddenly come to and sit upright with a startled gasp.