Dawn of the Dead Read online

  “Down river. Got an idea maybe we can make it to the islands.”

  “What islands?”

  “Any island. What about you? Where you headed?”

  “Straight up,” Steve said with a smile as the propellers lifted the chopper off the ground.

  The imposter rushed off with his two partners. As they untied one of the launches from the dock, the WGON helicopter whined loudly overhead, completing a perfect lift-off.

  Then, the police launch started without a hitch and pulled out onto the dark river, leaving just the corpses and the strong smell of gasoline on the creaking pier.

  Steve, at last, felt in control again. The last hour had really been hairy. He didn’t know if he or Fran would have made it out alive if Roger and Peter hadn’t come along. But, now, as the lights on the helicopter blinked over the city of Philadelphia, Steve felt safe and secure in his metal womb.

  He took the bird over his favorite sights, almost a farewell salute. He didn’t know when, or if, they would be coming back.

  First they swooped over the art museum, the floodlights illuminating a path up the stone steps. The Rodin museum was a few hundred yards away. Steve wondered if the walking dead would soon make the city unfit for any kind of habitation. Maybe thousands of years from now archaeologists would uncover this city with all its art and treasures and wonder what disaster caused all its inhabitants to flee.

  It was an hour or two before dawn, and the city was now empty. Independence Hall, Betsy Ross’s house with the original American flag—all the monuments to a great civilization lay in the grips of an impending disaster. The oldest American heritage stood coldly in the night, awaiting its fate.

  For a second, Steve thought of his parents. He hadn’t even tried to contact them and wondered where they were, if they were still alive. They had instilled this love of history in him. As teachers, they were always reading, discussing. They were sorely disappointed when he decided to forsake his college education and try for the glamorous job of a reporter. They had hoped he would go for his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. They didn’t care what he studied, as long as he had a PhD after his name.

  In the cockpit, Fran surreptitiously lit a cigarette. Roger did, too. The only comment was Peter’s smirk.

  The big man leaned back, but was still uncomfortable. He didn’t have room to stretch out his legs. He looked down at the city. A wave of sadness overcame him and he spoke to the group for the first time.

  “Any of you leavin’ people behind?”

  “An ex-husband,” Fran said without a trace of regret in her voice.

  “An ex-wife,” Roger said thoughtfully.

  “You, Peter?” Steve asked, his eyes straight ahead.

  The trooper was quiet for a moment, his gaze still on the city disappearing below.

  “Some brothers.” And the tone of his voice told them that he didn’t want to discuss it any further.

  As the copter moved west, the lights on the ground below grew few and far between. It was still dark, even though dawn was approaching. Roger was asleep in the passenger seat, crumpled up like a child on a long journey in a car. Fran and Peter sat very close to each other, cramped in the rear of the cockpit.

  Peter was still staring out the window, but Fran could see that his eyes weren’t really focused on anything in particular.

  “Real brothers?” she asked, picking up the conversation where they had left it almost an hour before.

  He turned to look at her, and she noticed what fine strong features he had.

  “Real brothers or street brothers?” she asked tentatively.

  “Both.”

  “How many real ones?”

  “Two.”

  “Two,” she repeated.

  “One’s in jail. The other’s a pro ballplayer. But we catch up to each other once in a while.”

  He turned his head, and Fran didn’t know quite how to respond. It seemed as if he wanted to cut off any communication and human contact.

  But Peter Washington turned his head so that the woman couldn’t see the tears that were welling up in his eyes. How could he go off and leave them now? But there wasn’t anything he could do. Sammy was locked away in that prison. For what?—for stealing a few bucks from that rip-off liquor store in the ghetto. The guy deserved it. He’d been charging the poor people two, sometimes three, dollars over the standard price for years.

  And Tommy? He was a big superjock now. On the road somewhere. Hopefully in the Midwest. At least both of them would be relatively safe.

  Peter was really all the family they had left. Their father had deserted them when Peter was still in his teens. And as the eldest brother, he was responsible now. And Mama. Thank God she wasn’t alive. Even though she had probably worked herself to death trying to make ends meet, this night would have killed her for sure. But, at least she would have been proud of her eldest boy—he had realized long ago that the only way to make it was on his strength and guts, and he had certainly proved it tonight. All of them in this whirlybird had one thing in common, he thought to himself. They all had the will to survive.

  Peter turned toward the slender, blonde-haired, shivering woman beside him. Nodding toward Steve, who wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation over the roar of the engine, he asked, “He your man now?”

  Fran was taken off guard by Peter’s sudden return to conversation. She smiled slightly.

  “Most of the time, yeah,” she whispered, shaking the hair out of her eyes.

  “Just like to know who everybody is,” Peter said, a genuine smile coming over his face for the first time in a long time.

  “Yeah, me too,” she agreed, snuggling down in the seat.

  As the light finally dawned on the horizon, the little helicopter chugged through the varying shades of blue and pink, toward an unknown destiny.

  4

  The morning light now streamed into the helicopter bubble. The brightness caused Peter to shade his eyes with his hand. He hadn’t slept at all. His eyes were bloodshot, and they still itched from the tear gas. Fran was still asleep, crushed against the side of the rear cockpit. She seemed so peaceful. And Roger snored happily. Peter didn’t know how he could do it.

  As far as he could tell, they were somewhere beyond Harrisburg, and had been flying due west since they’d left Philadelphia. He had recognized the Piedmont Plateau of Lancaster. He wondered what the Amish people thought of this disaster, if they realized what was happening. Maybe they believed, as many did, that it was a punishment for the sins of modern living.

  They had flown over the lush Lebanon and Cumberland Valleys, which the mighty Susquehanna River nourished and which surrounded the state capital of Harrisburg. Now, as far as Peter could tell from his high school geography, they were passing into the Appalachian Mountains, which would lead them to the Allegheny Mountains and finally on to Johnstown and Pittsburgh.

  A sudden twitching of Steve’s head made Peter notice that the pilot was falling asleep. With a swift movement, Peter kicked him gently in the shoulder. Startled, Steve looked behind him, surprised that the big trooper was still awake. Steve smiled slightly, but Peter only stared back coldly.

  He’s a weird one, thought Steve. Wonder why Roger ever thought to take him along.

  “Any more water?” Steve asked, rubbing his face violently and pulling at the skin below his eyes to stay awake.

  Peter reached behind him to the supplies and pulled out a plastic container of water. Steve took a deep slug, and then felt guilty for taking so much. More cautiously, he splashed some on his face to revitalize himself. He didn’t know how long he had been awake, but it had to be at least twenty-four hours. He knew he had been at the TV station the day before at 4 a.m., and now it was way past that.

  He passed the plastic container back to Peter, who also took a hit.

  Suddenly, Fran stiffened and woke up with a start, as if from a bad dream. Peter’s expression softened when he looked at her. For a moment, she didn’t know
where she was or who this man was, or even why her bones ached so and her head spun. Then she remembered and the thought made her cringe.

  “You know where we are?” Peter asked Stephen.

  “I know exactly where we are,” Steve said aggressively. He didn’t like Peter’s attitude toward him, and also he had noticed Peter’s change of attitude whenever he spoke to Fran.

  “Harrisburg?” Peter asked, trying to trick Steve. He resented the pilot’s haughty posture.

  “Passed it about an hour ago.”

  Both men were talking loudly over the drone of the engine and were also trying to talk one another down. Their strident voices woke Roger up. He turned just as Steve told the others, “We’re pretty low on fuel. I’m just waitin’ for full light so we can see what we’re landin’ in.”

  The three other passengers looked down on the ground and could make out several large fires, probably warehouses and factories. The pea-green trucks of a National Guard convoy were also visible as they chugged up a winding country road.

  As the sun rose higher, more and more activity was visible on the ground. Search and destroy units made up of police, guardsmen and civilian volunteers moved across the countryside. Occasionally, a lone zombie could be seen wandering or staggering through the trees or over a field. Frequently, the creature was met by the staccato beat of gunfire as it was cut down.

  “Jesus,” Roger said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he watched the horror show below. “It’s everywhere.”

  “We’re getting pretty close to Johnstown,” Steve told him. “We’re better off away from the big cities. This map says there’s a little country airfield in Beaverdale. I’m goin’ to try and land there to refuel.”

  As they approached the airfield, quiet in the morning sun, there was no sign of life. A few private planes dotted the area, but the familiar crackle of the air traffic control tower radio was conspicuously absent. The WGON chopper buzzed very low, just outside the tower windows.

  As the whirlybird slowly set down near the fuel pumps, its blades created a wind blast that raised great clouds of dust from the dry earth. Sheets of old newspaper and other light debris were sent flying through the air in all directions. The place was as deserted as if an atomic bomb had blasted the area.

  One piece of torn newsprint blew flat against a window in one of the little sheds that housed snowplows and other maintenance machinery. The scrap stuck against the glass for a moment, as though glued there, and then it fluttered to the ground. Watching the journey of the scrap through glazed eyes was a zombie with a badly scarred face.

  The chopper landed by the fuel pumps, and the passengers, thankful for the opportunity to stretch their legs, scrambled out. Steve immediately ran over to check the pumps.

  “Shit, man. Damn near empty.”

  “Lotta private planes in farm country like this,” Roger said as he raised his arms high above his head and started to do a few jumping jacks to get his circulation going again. “Guess they all hit the pumps and took off.”

  “To where?” Steve asked as he dragged the hose over and started filling the chopper’s tank with what was left. “Where the hell can they go?”

  “Where we goin’?” Peter asked abruptly.

  Instead of answering him, Steve moved to the second pump and checked its gauge and then the hose itself. It spurted with more force.

  “There’s a good bit left in this pump,” he said as he stretched the hose toward the chopper. “Damn,” he uttered when it didn’t reach, “I gotta get it closer.”

  He jumped back into the cockpit, and the machine lifted off the ground.

  Fran, who had been standing around observing the whole encounter, had noticed the hostility between Steve and Peter. Men, she thought. Always needed their egos massaged. Now wasn’t the time to prove who was boss. They had to work together.

  She walked slowly backward toward a small rickety hangar area while she watched them interacting. Then she turned and looked down toward the private hangars. Most of them had been left wide open, and the planes they had housed were long gone. Obviously, their owners had been in a great rush, not expecting to ever have to return. It was frightening: where would they go? If the living dead had already caused havoc in this little out-of-the-way town, was anywhere safe?

  She noticed that one or two of the old wooden double-doors were still closed and locked with chains and padlocks. Maybe in there were the planes of those who hadn’t been fortunate enough to get away. Maybe those planes belonged to the ones who’d chosen to stay and fight the losing battle against the zombies. Or maybe those owners were now zombies themselves!

  The wind from the chopper blades blew Fran’s hair, and a swirl of debris and dust flew up around her shoulders. She tried to shield her eyes and nose from the dust.

  On the other side of the field, Peter kicked open the door to the chart house. The room was filled with dust from the partially opened windows, and it was totally dilapidated. A few small chairs surrounded an old wood table. Several half-finished cups of coffee sat on top of wrinkled flight charts, leaving brown rings soaked into the paper. A half-eaten sandwich was now the home of dozens of flies, which swarmed around and buzzed loudly. An old, cracked and filthy window shade clicked against its window from the gusting wind, which came in through the cracks in the wall. Peter flinched at the sounds and the stench of the room. Somehow he found this kind of situation more threatening out in the middle of nowhere than in the middle of the inner city. He guessed it was just what you were accustomed to that made the difference.

  He readied his weapon and walked over to the shade. Then he pulled it down and let it roll up on itself. It made a loud flapping noise, but there was nothing behind it. Peter heaved a sigh of relief.

  Outside, Steve was just setting the chopper down as Roger ran over with the hose nozzle. Ducking under the blades, Roger inserted the device into the tank receptacle even before Steve had idled the engine. There was something about this deserted airstrip that gave him the creeps too.

  Maybe all those hours in the copter had given him too much time to think, Roger pondered. When there was action, he was always ready. But when there was time to think, sometimes it gave him second thoughts about what he was doing. That had always been his problem with Louise. As soon as he’d had any time off just to sit around the house, he’d grown restless. Idleness made him uneasy.

  Steve hopped out of the cockpit and shouted over the engine noise to Roger.

  “I’m gonna see what’s left in the hangars.”

  He turned before Roger replied and trotted off after Fran. Frankly, he was a little worried about her exploring around here alone, but he didn’t want to alarm her.

  Meanwhile, in the chart house, Peter idly kicked an old coffee machine at one end of the room. The machine clicked loudly and, much to Peter’s surprise, spat out a cup. It didn’t look too appetizing, but the hot brown liquid would be all the warm nourishment he would be getting for a while.

  Peter’s eyes scanned the bulletin board while he waited for the cup to fill. Notes spilled out off the bulletin board to the coffee machine and even onto the walls. They had all been written hurriedly, in all sorts of handwriting styles and in various inks and colors.

  Some of the notes read:

  “LUCY—GONE TO JOHNSTOWN.”

  “Charles—I have the kids; Left with Ben. Mom’s dead.”

  “Couldn’t wait. Gone to Erie—Jack Foster.”

  The wall was plastered with such messages, some frantic, some matter-of-fact. Peter wondered how many of these had even been read by the right people.

  He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. A sudden movement from the closet door just across the room attracted his attention. It appeared locked but it rattled against the lock, once, twice, more regularly than if it were caused by wind drafts.

  Peter moved toward it cautiously. The door banged violently with a loud crash, and then it stopped. That was no wind, Peter thought, as he set his coffee on the chart ta
ble and took his rifle in both hands.

  Again, the door banged hard, and the skeleton key that had secured it was knocked out of the keyhole and fell to the floor with a metallic clang. Peter’s eyes were drawn to the caked bloodstain where blood had recently run out under the closet door and onto the linoleum floor.

  Another bang sounded, and then there was the unmistakable gurgling moan of a zombie. It was trying to break out of the closet!

  With remarkable calm, Peter raised his M16 and aimed it at the door about head height. The M16 roared in the little room, shaking the shack to its foundation. Splintery holes appeared in the old wooden door.

  At the sharp crack of the gunshots, Fran and Steve snapped to attention. Fran had been standing at the entrance to one of the little wooden hangars, while Steve was inside checking out the cockpit of an old Cessna. Upon hearing the shot, Steve immediately ran out and grabbed Fran’s hand. As they turned the corner to run up the grade toward the helicopter, they were confronted by two zombies. The zombies staggered slowly toward them, appearing in the dust cloud brought up by the blade of the chopper.

  Panic seized Fran. They were weaponless, vulnerable. She let out a scream.

  Steve gripped her arm more tightly.

  “Roger, Roger,” he cried, but the trooper couldn’t hear him under the whirling blades. He continued to fill the fuel tank, unaware that his friends had no protection and that he was in danger of being surprised from behind by one of the zombies.

  A third zombie was now lumbering toward the helicopter and Roger was still totally immersed in filling the tank.

  Inside the chart house, Peter stared at the closet door. There was silence for a moment and then another moan, and the door shook again with another bang.

  Taking careful aim, Peter fired two shots, lower right and lower left of the first, forming a neat triangle. Then, in a fit of violence, he fired a volley of shots just where the creature’s head should be. There was no way that the bullets could have missed their target this time.

  For a moment there was quiet. But, as a highly trained soldier, Peter still held his gun high.