“Yes, alas, our friend’s diction is no better,” Dr. Keckilpenny said, his own voice weary and rough. “Yet I find that I understand him now, all the same.”
Elizabeth stopped. “You do?”
There was only one small window in the attic, set high near the arching rafters, and the doctor was standing directly beneath it. The rays of sunlight caught only the topmost curls of his unkempt hair, leaving the rest of him little more than a faint gray silhouette.
“Perfectly,” he said. “I’ve already done some of your work for you. Hadn’t you noticed?”
He spread out his hands and cocked his head, and it took Elizabeth a moment to work out what he was referring to.
“Your trunk . . . the dead soldier . . .”
The doctor nodded. “Gone. I dragged him down to the second floor and pushed him out a window last night. I’ve overheard enough talk in the hall to know that sort of thing’s all the rage. And seeing as I didn’t need a spare anymore—”
A chill rippled across Elizabeth’s shoulders. “What do you mean you were doing my work for me?”
“You’ve been sent to kill my subjects, haven’t you?” Dr. Keckilpenny said. “I’m afraid, if you mean to see it through, you’ll have to kill me as well.”
Elizabeth laughed joylessly, and her fingers suddenly felt slick on the hilt of her katana, her grip unsure.
“Oh, come now, Doctor! Histrionics don’t suit you. You must face this with cold logic, as befits a man of science. Your experiment has run its course, and now necessity demands—”
“So that’s truly how you see me?” the doctor cut in. “A creature of unfeeling intellect without the passion even for a little melodrama when faced with his own failure? Failures, I should say because, by gad, the plural is called for here. No wonder you said I was . . . what was it? Only half a good man?”
Elizabeth was glad, at that moment, that she couldn’t make out the doctor’s face in the gloom of the room. She was sure to see pain she’d put there herself. And that pained her.
“I owe you an apology, Doctor. I spoke far too harshly.”
“Indeed, you greatly underestimated me. I am, at the very least, two-thirds of a good man, if not even three-quarters.” Dr. Keckilpenny chortled at his own joke, but the sound quickly turned into a snort of disgust. “I am an arrogant ass. I came here with the temerity to think I would accomplish what no one else could. All I ended up doing was what so very, very many have done before me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for one thing, I went and lost my heart. Who’d have thought I even had one to begin with? It was my mind people always thought I was losing. And then . . . I guess you could say I lost all the rest of me as well.”
The doctor stepped closer, shrugging off his cutaway coat as he came. His movements were stiff, deliberate, and as he moved forward into the light Elizabeth could see how pale and sweaty was his face.
He stopped a few feet from her, dangerously close to Mr. Smith. Yet the dreadful paid no attention to him. Its hungry gaze stayed only on her.
Dr. Keckilpenny tossed his coat aside and began rolling up the right sleeve of his shirt. It was stained reddish black, and once it was up over the elbow, Elizabeth could see why.
She gasped.
His upper arm was bloody and mangled, with a chunk ripped away as large as her fist. The flesh ringing the wound had turned purple, and the rest of the arm was as gray and mottled as marble.
“When?” was all Elizabeth could say.
“Not long after our little talk up here with Master Hercules or Lord Samson or whatever his name is. My better—or at least bigger—half. I was trying to interest Smithy in a game of whist and I grew careless, and the ingrate bit me. After all I’ve done for him! I suppose I could’ve gone down to see Dr. Thorne about it. I find I’ve grown rather attached to my limbs, though, ho ho, and the survival rate of the doctor’s patients hardly inspires confidence. And, well, I suppose my pride wouldn’t allow—”
A deafening crash echoed up the stairwell, followed by frenzied shouts and a long, piercing screech.
“Buh ruhz!” Mr. Smith howled as if in answer, and he tried to charge at Elizabeth, his feet slapping and sliding over the floorboards even as he went nowhere. “Buuuuhhhhhh ruuuuuuuhhhhzzzzzz!”
“Yes, yes—the lady has them in abundance, and quite luscious they are, too,” Dr. Keckilpenny said. “‘Brains,’ he’s saying, Miss Bennet. Buhrain-uhz. I know it because I can hear the call, as well, though the plague hasn’t fully taken me yet. It’s really a rather delicious irony: It was your mind I was attracted to from the beginning. My longing’s just growing a little too literal.”
There was more commotion downstairs, and Elizabeth heard her father shout “Quadrangle of Death, if you please! Very nice!”
“It’s time,” Dr. Keckilpenny said, and he straightened his shoulders and lifted his head high. “I’d prefer it if you attended to me first.”
“Doctor . . . Bertram . . . I can’t—”
There was a sickening riiiiiiiip, and Mr. Smith barreled across the room. He’d freed himself from his chains—by freeing himself of his arms. They plopped to the floor still in the sleeves of his moldy coat as he charged at Elizabeth.
“Brrrrrrrrrraaaaaaiiiiinnnnsss!”
Elizabeth jumped back knowing she wouldn’t get the katana from its sheath in time. But then Mr. Smith suddenly had arms again—two long, thin ones, wrapped tight around his body from behind, dragging him to a halt.
“Do it!” Dr. Keckilpenny shouted. “Do it now!”
Mr. Smith turned his head and bit a huge, pulpy hunk from the man’s shoulder.
The doctor screamed but managed to hold on.
“What you feel doesn’t matter, Elizabeth! What you think doesn’t matter! Just do!”
She took off both their heads with one swing.
There wasn’t much blood left in Mr. Smith, but the same couldn’t be said of Dr. Keckilpenny. A geyser sprayed the room as he fell, and Elizabeth’s gown was dyed bright red.
Her father and sisters came up the stairs a moment later, moving quickly but quietly, the door behind them again closed and locked.
“Oh, Lizzy,” Jane said when she saw the bodies lying near the top of the steps. “What—”
Mr. Bennet shushed her.
“Don’t speak,” he whispered. He paused to look all the girls in the eye, lingering longest on Lydia and Kitty. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. Our lives depend upon it.”
And so they all stood there, utterly still, surrounded by silence.
Lydia and Kitty stared at each other, seeming to carry on a conversation purely through grimaces, shrugs, and waggling eyebrows.
Mary closed her eyes, her face blank and tranquil, as if she were rereading a favorite book in her head.
Jane and Mr. Bennet stared at Elizabeth.
She stared at nothing.
She was facing the window at the far end of the attic, looking directly into a light she didn’t really see. Even if they survived, she knew, a part of her had died and could never be resurrected. The part of her that would hesitate. The part that knew mercy. Perhaps the part that could fall in love.
She’d be better off without it. Just look at the men who’d loved her and Jane. All dead or ruined.
A world with zombies in it had no tolerance for softness or sentiment. The dreadfuls infected everything just by virtue of existing. To live in their world, one had to become like them. Dead inside.
So be it.
Something shuffled past the attic door. Then another something, moving faster. There were groans and more footsteps and the sounds of furniture being clumsily overturned.
“Mmm-hmm!” said Lydia, jerking her head at the stairs.
Mr. Bennet glared at her and put a finger to his lips.
“Mmm-hmm!” she said again, pointing downward.
Kitty’s eyes went wide, and she started pointing, too. “Mmm-hmm mmm-hmm!”
“Oh, no,” Jane murmured.
Dr. Keckilpenny’s blood had flowed over the floorboards to the stairs. The first step down was coated with it. The second, as well. The third and fourth and fifth, all progressively less. Yet a single scarlet trickle was still steadily working its way toward the bottom of the stairwell.