Dawn of the Dead (26 page)

The zombies, attracted to the sound, started to move out after the convoy. The migration thinned out the mob at the mall entrance.

In the mall, Peter dropped out of the grille into one of the offices. He immediately charged out of the room and into the maintenance corridor, where he broke at a dead run for the mall proper.

“Downstairs first,” Peter shouted back to Steve, who followed close at his heels.

“OK,” Steve panted, trying hard to keep pace with the big trooper.

“Got your talk box?” Peter asked over his shoulder.

“Yeah.”

“Keep it handy,” he cautioned.

Outside, the psychedelic van with huge wheels and a special souped-up engine roared toward the mall entrance. The bikers waited on the other side of the lot, their engines idling. They continued to whoop and holler like the savage band of renegades they were.

The van, with Chickie at the wheel, crashed through the ranks of advancing zombies. Chickie’s blonde hair was wild and matted. She was dressed in black leather from head to toe and toted a switchblade six inches long. On many occasions, she used it well. She pulled the little vehicle up alongside the truck cab. Three men piled out and scrambled into the big trailer. The zombies in the immediate area clutched at the men, and the raiders had to fight their way clear. Chickie revved the engine again, and with the zombies clawing menacingly at her windows, she pulled out and went squealing back toward the main group of bikers.

The zombies continued to advance upon the regrouping ranks of motorcycles in the parking lot, but they were still pretty far away. The raiders didn’t worry. They opened fire with guns of all sorts and sizes and the barrage was deafening, as well as effective.

Several creatures fell in the hail of bullets. Some of the zombies that were only wounded struggled to get up only to be cut down again.

The van pulled up behind the bikes. The men still whooped and shouted, picking off the zombies as if they were ducks in a row at a carnival.

On the first floor of the mall, Peter and Steve dashed about, slamming down the roll gates on the still-open stores. In the background, the din of the shooting and screaming was clearly audible. They left the entranceway to Porter’s open until last so that they could get upstairs within the store if necessary.

At the trailer cab, one of the bikers stood guard, picking off zombies, which clawed at the passenger side window, at point-blank range. Another biker, this one clad in army-green fatigues, looked to jump start the engine, but to his surprise the engine started with a burst.

“Shit,” the raider said, sitting up at the wheel, revving the big engine, “it’s still taped up. It’s all ready for us.”

The ghouls still jumped and scratched at the windows as the truck pulled away.

Inside the mall, Steve looked up as the familiar sound of the cab’s engine filled the air. His heart skipped a beat, and he went to find Peter, slamming down the gate of the pharmacy before he took off. Peter was already running into Porter’s. He crashed up the escalator and into the second-floor aisles. Stephen broke for the hardware store, which was also open.

Meanwhile, the huge trailer rolled away from the mall entrance. A shout of victory went up from the raiders all over the parking lot. The zombies at the doors didn’t even try to enter the now unprotected doors since their attention was focused on the raiders. From all the other mall entrances, creatures began to converge on the parking lot.

On the other side of the lot, the bikers revved their engines loudly, as if giving one unified bellow. They prepared to make a run on the building. The three raiders from the truck hopped out of the cab and ran toward the doors. As they moved, they shot any zombies that got in their way. Some of the creatures fell, others clawed as the men ran swiftly by. The raider in the army fatigues was pounced upon by a huge redneck zombie who had been wounded in the shoulder by a bullet. The creature brought the running man down and started gouging at him. Still, the biker’s comrades did not lose one step or look to see if he were alive. They kept running toward their destination.

One of the raiders reached the mall door and slammed into it. To his surprise it was locked, so he just hauled off with his machine gun and blasted his way through. With a barrage of shells, the mechanism ripped open. The men pushed in through the doors. The little alarm units were knocked flying and sent out an incredibly high-pitched signal. The raiders’ heavy boots stomped on them, crushing them into wire and metal, as they charged by.

Peter was just slamming down the gates on the balcony when he heard the high-pitched alarms sound. He dove across the balcony. One of the raiders heard the rumbling gates and looked up to see Peter dive along the railing upstairs. He opened fire with his machine gun. The bullets just missed Peter and he started to crawl around the balcony, just out of sight from below.

In the meantime, Steve had just slammed down the hardware store gate, and he made a mad dash for the department store. But the raiders spotted him too, and opened fire. Like a commando, Steve ran in a zigzag pattern and dove into the big store, where he ducked into the shadows, leaving the big gate wide open to the marauders.

Springing up from behind the balcony railing, Peter leveled off his supergun on the raiders. One of his shots hit its target, and a raider fell back with a giant gaping wound in his chest.

The last raider, Thor, sensing Peter’s ability with his weapon, ducked out of sight, behind a column.

Steve now saw his chance to charge the roll gate. He jumped up and ran over, slamming it shut. Now he was securely inside the store.

The convoy roared toward the mall now, trampling zombies in their wake.

Just as the group reached the building, the remaining inside raider rushed to the doors. He held them open as the big fleet of rumbling cycles came screaming into the building. The tropical birds in the cages fluttered frantically. Some dropped dead from sheer fright.

Steve stood in awe, his fingers clutching the grid of the roll gate, as if he were a child watching a circus. The machines tore down the concourse, the sounds erupting as if from a giant earthquake. The zombies, many of them wounded and bleeding, lumbered after them. The raider at the door was grabbed by a zombie, then another. Peter, shooting from above, aimed first at the zombies, downing one of them, and then at the raider. His death by bullet was far more humane.

The main band of bikers, upon hearing the alien gunfire, pulled down a side concourse to regroup. As they turned very close to the department store, Steve had to run back into the shadows of the aisles in order not to be detected. He was sweating and trembling at the same time.

Peter moved to another spot on the balcony. The zombies wandered back into the building and onto the big concourse. Peter was indignant as he watched his once zombie-free building being invaded again by the despicable creatures.

Upstairs, Fran could hear the noise of the battle and was sick with anxiety. She was sure that the two men couldn’t fight off both the zombies and the raiders. She stood at the top of the fire stair with a few handguns in her holster, which barely fit around her swollen belly, and a loaded rifle poised and ready to shoot. On the landing below, little Adam scampered and barked excitedly, thinking it all a big game. Fran called to him, but the little dog did not listen.

“All right,” Thor told his followers as the bikes raced around, and several of them pulled directly in front of the department store. “Couple of guys hold off them zombies. Mad Charlie? Hit the gates . . . We gotta get that sniper.”

Thor rolled his bike out and the others followed. Peter sighted their movement from below and opened fire on them again. Hatchet caught a bullet in the leg and fell, and his bike propelled through the crowd of approaching zombies. The zombies pounded on their helpless prey.

The action below was too fast and furious for Steve and Peter to focus on it all at once. Neither of them could see the whole layout of the concourse. Steve was able to see Thor pull off behind another set of columns out of range while several bikers dismounted and started up the stationary stairs.

“They’re comin’ up, Peter,” Steve said into the walkie-talkie. “They’re comin’ up the stairs.”

Peter moved to another spot on the balcony.

Suddenly, the raiders at Porter’s door turned a machine gun on the roll gate locks. One flew open, then another.

Steve ran deeper into the store. His eye was caught by a glittering display of watches. On the other side of the counter were diamond rings. Another display case held pocket-sized calculators. He turned and couldn’t see the raiders but could hear their approaching footsteps. Suddenly he was filled with rage that these scavengers would dare invade
his
store. Using the butt of his rifle, he cracked the glass display case that held the rings and gathered them up, shoving them into his pocket. The pounding of the bikers’ boots grew louder. He could see some of the men rounding the corner. He started to charge up the escalator, but realized that he would be in the line of fire, so he ran into the elevator at the side. He hit the button, and the door closed, and the car started up for the second floor.

Peter continued to fire at the charging men on the balcony. He dropped one of them, and the others took cover. Just as Peter started to move further out on the balcony to get a better shot, the lights in the mall blinked out, the escalators stopped. They were in utter blackness, all power gone.

Upstairs, a frightened Fran was totally alone in the darkness. From below, she could hear the scared barks of the puppy. She carefully picked her way down the stairs toward the frantically yelping puppy.

“Peter, Peter,” Steve said into his walkie-talkie. He groped around in the dark in the stuck elevator.

The big trooper charged through the darkness and found his way into the maintenance corridor. Leaning back against the wall, he listened. He ignored the insistent buzzing on his talk unit.

The raiders on the balcony approached quickly, flattening themselves against the walls for cover.

More and more of the bikers spilled into the department store. Like a plague of locusts, they descended on the goods, raiding the counters and ransacking the displays. They threw things indiscriminately into their backpacks. One burly guy took a pair of delicate ladies’ panties, soiling them with his hairy paw as he threw them into his pack.

Other bikers moved to the various stores, breaking the roll gates easily by shooting off the locks. They raided the remaining arsenal in the sporting goods store with relish.

The main pack of bandits managed to hold off the wave of zombies for a while. But the creatures came at them with renewed vigor, and the raiders tired. The creatures pounced on them, and some of the bikers fell. The ghouls devored them, ripping at their flesh with their teeth and hands. The men’s anguished cries were drowned out by the luckier bikers’ cycles as they roared into the now liberated shops.

Chickie pulled her van outside the door and two of the bikers rode out to it and started loading supplies in through the double doors. The zombies were everywhere, but many of the bikers had a cavalier attitude toward them, throwing pies from the bakery in their faces, showering them with shaving cream from the pharmacy and pelting them with BB guns from the toy department. The slow-moving and slow-thinking zombies were befuddled by the looters’ antics. They seemed to be bothered more by the fooling around than by the sporadic gunfire.

Several creatures followed the raiders onto the balcony. One zombie pounced on the corpse of the raider that Peter had shot. It began to tear at the body, savoring the still warm flesh. Another zombie tried to muscle in on the catch, and the two of them began to wrestle over an arm that was almost severed from the body.

Other zombies continued to steadily move along the balcony. Some of the remaining raiders appeared at the mouth of the corridor, and Peter opened fire again. He killed one of them with a clean shot through the heart. The man flew back against the railing, his chain-wrapped body jingling and jangling. Then he toppled over, a resounding crash of metal heralding his fall. Several zombies attacked his body when it landed.

Peter dashed into the maintenance room. He rushed immediately to the power station and threw the emergency power switch. The portable emergency light units blinked on all over the mall.

Steve, who had managed to work his way to the top of the car by crawling through the hatch in the elevator ceiling, suddenly felt the car move. He tried to grab onto the cables but his hand slipped on the grease. Unfortunately, his rifle fell down between the wall of the shaft and the moving car, where it wedged itself.

Suddenly, the car stopped again, and Steve could see down through the escape hatch. Light spilled in as the main elevator doors opened. Just as he was about to jump to safety, he heard the voices of the raiders below. Two of the big bikers charged into the car. Whooping and shouting, they pointed to the open escape hatch.

Steve tried to blend into the wall as much as possible. The watches and rings in his pocket jingled against each other.

One of the raiders, with long greasy black hair, looked up.

“Come on, man,” said the other, sporting a handlebar mustache and a swastika emblazoned on the back of his jacket. “It’s your nerves. Let’s go . . .”

But the other raider was persistent. He aimed his machine gun up through the hatch and whooped loudly as he fired off a barrage of bullets.

“That ought to finish off them bastards,” he said as the shells banged and clattered around in the shaft. They ricocheted off the walls and pinged off the metal gears. One shell nicked Stephen on the arm. He cringed but did not cry out.

Finally, the raider had emptied his gun to his satisfaction, and they charged back into the store.

The remaining bikers continued to loot the store, stocking up on weapons, ammunition, tools, articles of clothing and food. Every once in a while, they would try a prank on the unsuspecting zombies, like locking them in the meat freezer or chopping their heads off with the meat cleaver. They seemed to have more fun torturing the creatures than collecting their loot.