Dawn of the Dead (10 page)

The little helicopter chugged off toward the northwest. As it flew across the deserted landscape, it seemed as if its lonely survivors were like Noah in his Ark. About sixty miles north of Pittsburgh, their view was assaulted by the sprawling tentacles of an enormous structure. Half a dozen roads converged on a parking lot the size of six football fields, veined with yellow lines and arrows. It was a huge shopping mall—“Shoppers Paradise,” the sign said—created out of the mountainous rocky terrain of the coal mining territory. It had been designed to bring a more suburban influence into the area. Fortresslike, the outer walls were all concrete, and they stretched upward for more than two stories. Entrance to the structure was through four doorways, situated north, south, east and west. Inside was a self-sufficient environment of shops that catered to all the needs of the community: food, clothing, shelter and leisure. A sophisticated system of air ducts and heating apparatus precluded the need for outside windows and focused the shoppers' attention on the flashy consumer products inside.

As the helicopter drew closer, the passengers noted that what few cars remained in the lot were parked haphazardly, some with their doors wide open.

The little machine eased itself down onto the roof of the building. The engine sputtered and coughed, and the blades slowed down so that their whirring noise was only a buzz.

Fran, who was now very uncomfortable, with an uneasy feeling in her stomach, and a pounding headache from lack of food and sleep, looked around in horror. In the parking lot, walking among the abandoned vehicles almost like shoppers on a typical Saturday, were hordes of the living dead. If she hadn't known better, she would have mistaken them for normal people, but their lumbering walk was unfortunately extremely recognizable.

At the north mall entrance, the all-glass revolving door, flanked by two ground-to-ceiling picture windows and several regularly hinged doors, was surrounded by a number of zombies. A few of them had managed to negotiate the hinged doors and enter the building. Others bounced off windows and clawed at the transparent glass in confusion. One creature was trapped in the revolving door and circled endlessly.

The creatures, as was their nature, wandered around aimlessly, with no apparent purpose. Even the whirring sound of the helicopter caused them no alarm.

“Oh, my God!” Fran cried in terror as she watched the loathsome parade from the ledge of the roof.

Stephen ran over to her side. He stared at the creatures moving steadily toward the building.

“No chance,” he declared, starting back toward the copter. “Forget it. Let's get out of here.”

Roger walked out to the couple and took a glance around the parking lot.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. They can't get up here.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, a frantic note in his voice. “And we can't go down there!”

“Let's check it out,” Roger said calmly but with authority.

He turned and noticed that Peter had already done so. He was the type who didn't wait for a consensus of opinion but made an affirmative move. Roger trotted over to him.

“Most of the gates are down,” Peter said, staring through one of the giant grids of transparent Plexiglas bubbles that faced down into the building. Roger peered through another of the bubbles.

“I don't think they can get into the stores,” Peter told him.

From their vantage point, the two troopers were only able to see a small segment of the interior. It was a square plaza with a garden beneath the sunroof of transparent bubbles. The space was open all the way down to the garden, which was only two stories below. Pathways to the entrances of the shops generated from the garden like spokes from the hub of a wheel. All but one of the heavy metal cage gates that protected the stores were down and locked into position.

Roger could see only three or four zombies tottering about. They bounced off the locked gates and would probably wander into the unlocked one eventually.

Peering around the bubble, Roger could see that halfway up the wall a balcony railing surrounded the entire place. There was a second level of stores with the same cagelike gates sealing off the entrances. As far as Roger could tell, none of the ghouls had made it up to the balcony—yet.

Fran and Stephen noticed the two troopers' fascination with the bubbles and jogged over to see what all the interest was about.

“I haven't seen any of them up on the second floor,” Roger told Peter.

“The big department stores usually use both floors. You probably have to take an escalator up to those floors from inside the store.”

“If we can get in up top—” Roger replied, but Peter was already off, looking across the rest of the expansive rooftop.

Suddenly, he ran toward a series of other housings that jutted up out of the otherwise flat surface. Curious, Roger followed.

Fran was still mesmerized by the scene below the plastic bubble. “What are they doing here?” she asked Steve. “Why do they come here?”

“Some kind of instinct,” Steve answered. The profundity of his next statement was almost a parody. “Memory . . . of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.”

With morbid fascination, they watched the zombies, who wandered aimlessly over the plaza. Some tried the gates but could not budge them. One, a woman, wandered out of the single opened shop, an appliance store. As the female creature left, she dragged a toaster idly behind her, pulling it by its power cable as it scraped loudly on the floor.

Peter and Roger reached an installation of large reflectors mounted in an intricate metal skeleton that stretched across a large area of the roof's surface. Behind the structures, a large power generator could be seen.

“Solar screens,” Peter said quietly. A scheme seemed to be forming in his mind.

“Can't be enough to power this place,” Roger stated.

“Emergency system, maybe.”

“It's pretty lit up in there,” Roger recalled.

“Guess the power's not off in this area,” Peter said to Roger's back as the big white man trotted off to another protruding structure on the rooftop. “A lot of Philly's still lit,” Peter continued to no one in particular. “Could be nuclear.”

But Roger wasn't listening. He had found something very exciting. “Hey, look at this,” he called to his three companions. He was peering down through a wire-hatched skylight. There were several of these skylights laid out over this particular area of the roof. He moved to another one, almost as if he were a voyeur in a porno house looking through the peepholes. Peter moved to the first. Fran and Steve ran over to see what
this
excitement was about.

“These don't go down into the mall,” Roger exclaimed. “What the hell is this?”

Fran and Steve peered down into the darkness, wondering what the attraction was that this roof had for the two men. All Fran and Steve wanted was to get back on the helicopter and fly off in the opposite direction to this place. It gave them the creeps. Any moment now they expected the zombies to charge up the roof and attack them. Each moment they lingered was precious. They wanted to exploit as many hours of daylight as they could and possibly make it to Canada, where they hoped the situation was different or at least improved.

Peter, in his steadfast, fastidious manner, pulled a flashlight from his utility belt. He had stayed in full uniform all the while. Roger, in the meantime, had stripped off all the police paraphernalia except for his ammunition belt and pistol holster.

Peter shone his light beam down into the space. The floor appeared to be only about seven feet below the window.

“Damn,” Peter emitted as he saw that there was absolutely nothing in sight: clear light gray floor, clear light gray walls.

“Hey, over here,” Roger called out as he moved to another window. “There's something here.”

Peter ran over and shone his beam down again. They could see a vast array of cardboard cartons . . . hundreds of them.

“Storage?” Roger asked.

“Civil defense,” Peter surmised as he moved the light beam. It illuminated a collection of large drums, stacked floor-to-ceiling and running deep past the line of vision. On the face of each drum was the familiar symbol of a triangle within a circle, and the letters “C.D.”

“And boxes of canned food!” Roger cried out happily, like a kid finding a toy.

“How do we get down there?” said Stephen. He just wanted to get off the rooftop, either back into the copter or inside the building. He felt vulnerable and exposed on the open rooftop.

For the first time since they'd disembarked from the helicopter, Peter acknowledged Steve's presence. With a sneer on his face, he destroyed Steve with one glance. Then he brought his rifle butt down against the glass and stared directly into Steve's eyes as the shattered pane crashed to the floor below.

They all peered with awe into the vast space. In places, the darkness was interrupted by shafts of sunlight that drifted in from the various skylights. The barren space was very quiet.

Peter shouldered his rifle, replaced his flashlight and dropped, feet first, into the room. He stood for a moment, silhouetted in a sun ray, waiting, watching, as if he were a hunting dog scenting the prey. Then he readied his rifle, looking this way and that across the large room.

“OK,” he called quietly, and Roger dropped catlike to the floor.

The two men instantly slung their rifles and moved to the food cartons. They had prearranged that they would carry the big boxes to the spot directly under the open skylight to facilitate Steve and Fran's entrance into the semi-darkened room.

In a few moments, moving quickly and without speaking, they had constructed a pyramid out of the cartons. It seemed as if they had designed a kind of stairway to heaven—except that this stairway could only lead to a greater hell with the monotonously circling zombies waiting below. The creatures had nothing but time on their side.

Fran was shaking as she watched the two troopers piling box upon box. Unsure of herself, she clutched Stephen's arm as he helped her get her footing on the cartons. Then she reached for Roger's outstretched hand and he guided her down the rest of the way. An anxious Steve followed, but whether his anxiety was for Fran or himself, it was hard to tell.

Peter had not waited for the two “civilians” to enter. He was already off, as if on some dangerous mission in an exotic faraway land. He had no patience for the two neophytes. He had already written Steve off as a weakling who, although he could pilot the helicopter, was of no use on the ground. And Fran, while she was certainly spunky, was a woman, and according to Peter, subject to overemotionalism.

In the enormous room, Peter noted only two doors, one at either end. The big trooper moved up to one of them as Roger came up behind him. Roger's gun was readied.

Peter turned the doorknob. A click told him that it was unlocked, and he gave Roger a familiar nod. Roger stood several feet back, his rifle aimed directly at the door and ready to fire. Then, with a sudden, commando-like motion, Peter threw the door open and ducked away flat against the wall. Roger stiffened, his finger all but pulling his rifle trigger, but there was no apparent danger.

Roger shivered slightly and took in a sharp breath. He hadn't realized that he had been holding his breath the whole time Peter was turning the doorknob. The blond trooper was determined not to let the other man see his fear. Roger realized that in order to gain Peter's respect, he had to be as coldhearted and precise as the big trooper. And, even at a time like this, respect was very important to Roger.

It was quite obvious to Roger that Peter had become impatient with Fran and Steve. And, since they were Roger's friends, he felt that he had to become even fiercer and more courageous to make up for his friends' lack. It was so ingrained in him that he had to please the authority figure, that even while his very life was in danger, he could only think about gaining Peter's approval and acceptance.

The door opened into another vast room, which seemed to be about the same dimensions as the first room and also contained stacks of C.D. supplies.

The troopers moved cautiously through the door into the area. The room was also empty, and the sun's rays pierced through the darkness from the skylights in this room as well. The room was dead quiet, and there was a door at the other end of it.

“Double damn,” Roger cried out. “Looks like a free lunch, buddy.”

In the first room, Stephen had started to open one of the cartons.

“Spam!” Fran said with disgust.

“You bring a can opener?” Roger asked as he walked back into the room.

“Oh.” Fran looked disheartened.

“Then don't knock Spam,” Roger explained lightly. “It's got its own key.”

Fran flipped the can over in her hand and found the little key.

Meanwhile, Peter had walked right past the group, as if they didn't exist. He had a fierce, concentrated look on his face, as though he were alone on a terrible mission. He walked with such a single-minded purpose that Fran mused that he had lapsed into a trance.

Peter strode toward the still-unknown door at the other end of the room. Roger, giving Fran a quick shrug of the shoulders as if he could read her mind, followed obediently.

At the door, the two troopers went through the same stylized S.W.A.T. tactics they'd used at the first door. The door swung open into a very small space. Again, to Roger's relief, there was no immediate danger.

As they entered, the men realized that they were on the top landing of a concrete and metal fire stair. Roger recalled his meeting with Peter, which had taken place in a similar location. Although it was now only twenty-four hours later, it seemed a lifetime.

The space was stifling: no windows; musty, stale air. A lone bare light bulb dangled from the ceiling, but down the stair at the next landing it was quite dark, and further down the stairs the blackness was so thick that Roger felt as if he had been swallowed by a great monster.