Dust was in the air, and most dust is human skin, and the scream was coming.
She opened her mouth—
“Dana! C’mon!” She turned away from Jules, and Curt had heaved the couch over onto its back. He was trying to shove it across the timber floor to pile it behind the door, and in his grimace of effort she saw the first glimmer of madness. His eyes kept flickering to Jules’s head, and the blood still glistening around his right eye emphasized its size and deepness.
He’s losing it, Dana thought, and she swallowed her scream.
They pushed together, neither commenting when the couch knocked the head aside. Marty and Holden pulled back at the last moment, and Dana and Curt shoved the couch until it was wedged just beneath the doorknob. Flush with the wall and door, it would provide some small measure of barrier.
But not for long.
Wham! Big-zombie struck again, and the whole cabin seemed to shake and creak. More dust drifted down from the ceiling, hazing the air and dancing in candlelight. Five minutes ago this light was so romantic, Dana thought. She glanced at Holden, he threw her an uncertain smile, and she realized how shocked they all were.
Fisting her hands, she felt the tackiness of Jules’s blood between her fingers and on her palms.
“What is that thing?” she cried.
“I don’t know,” Curt said. “But there’s more of them.”
“More of them?” she asked, glancing at Marty.
He nodded.
“I saw a young girl. All… zombied up. Like him.” He nodded at the door, seemingly unembarrassed by his choice of words, and no one mocked him. “And she was all ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ too, but she’s missing an arm…” He trailed off, frowning. Even another impact from big-zombie couldn’t upset that brief, loaded moment of silence among the four of them.
It can’t be, Dana thought, but at the same moment she knew it was.
“Oh God,” she said. “Patience. That diary we found… ”
“‘The pain outlives the flesh,’” Holden quoted. “She must have… bound a mystical incantation into the text so someone would come along, read the diary aloud and—”
“And I did it,” Dana said quietly. She glanced at Marty. “You told me not to, but I did it.” Marty only shook his head, his expression sad, not accusing. But she didn’t need someone else blaming her in order to feel the sudden flush of guilt.
“Look, brainiac,” Curt snapped at Holden, aggression hiding his terror. “I don’t give a limp dick why those things are here. We gotta lock this place down!”
“He’s right,” Marty said, nodding. Shivering. Dana could see them all shivering now, and she felt it in herself. For now it was adrenalin coursing through them, and they had to take advantage of that. Once the shivering became due to fear and pain, their bodies would grow cooler, their muscles would weaken, and whatever chances they had at survival would grow much less.
Wham! Another impact against the door. The frame shook, wood cracked, but the sofa was wedged tight beneath the handle.
“We’ll go room by room,” Curt said. “Barricade every window and door.” He headed toward the back of the cabin, alone, then turned and waved them to him. “Come on! We gotta play it safe. No matter what, we have to stay together!”
Damn right! Dana thought. The thing outside impacted the cabin again, and again, and she couldn’t imagine being alone.
Crash… crash… crash…!
Dana turned her back on her friend’s dead stare.
SEVEN
Sitterson knew that Hadley would be panicking right now. That was just his style. Once the real game began, he became edgy and nervous, seeing the few obscure ways things could go wrong, instead of the many ways they were going right. It was Hadley’s way of working, that was all. How he kept focused, maintained his composure.
But that still didn’t prevent it from pissing off Sitterson.
Least they could do was enjoy themselves a little.
Hadley slumped down in his chair, one hand to his forehead.
“Calm down, I got it,” Sitterson said as he tapped some keys. “Watch the master work.” He brought up three new windows on his computer, then tapped a switch on his control panel array.
“There.” He sat back in his chair, hands laced behind his head, and glanced across at Hadley. “What?” Hadley asked.
Sitterson sighed and nodded at the large displays.
“Eyes on the screen,” he said. “The camera never lies.”
This is so fucked up, Marty thought. Things had gone from laughter to panic in a matter of minutes, and now there was running and shouting and screaming and dying, and he wasn’t sure just when things had changed. Seeing Curt outside, of course… bleeding, panicked raving… that had been when reality had become more terrifying for him. But he had a feeling that everything had begun to change much earlier than that.
Curt’s behavior with Jules had been so unlike him, and even earlier, down in the basement when they’d been looking through all that weird old stuff, something had seemed not quite right. The stuff down there was stacked and piled and stored so haphazardly that Marty couldn’t help but see some order in it all, as if it had been placed that way. Maybe he was the only one who could see that, and it was his laid-back approach to life that encouraged him to find order in chaos, but he thought not. Not completely, at least. There had been something more.
Something like design.
Now Curt was leading them to the back of the cabin to make sure all the doors and windows were secure and blocked up. And though Curt was the jock everyone looked up to and respected because he was cool, good-looking, and generally a great guy… even that felt wrong.
Holden and Dana moved close together, not holding hands but touching fingers as they walked. Marty coveted their security.
Thump! The thing hit the cabin again, and Curt came to a halt just at the beginning of the corridor, looking around as if suddenly lost.
“What’s the matter?” Dana asked, her voice terrified.
Curt seemed confused. He shook his head, frowning, running one hand through his hair and spattering a dozen tiny blood droplets onto the cabin floor.
“This isn’t right…” he muttered. Then he looked at the others almost as if he no longer trusted them, face hard but eyes afraid. He settled on Marty. “This isn’t right. We should split up. We can cover more ground that way.”
Hold on now… Marty thought.
Holden and Dana swapped a glance, and Marty saw something change in their stances. The fear was still there, the tension, but for a few seconds… it looked as if they were listening to something else. Some inner voice that whispered things they did not understand.
Are they hearing voices too? Marty thought, but even thinking it made him feel slightly ridiculous. He was the dope-head, as Curt was always so keen to tell him. He was the one who heard the fucking voices.
“Yeah…” Holden said, and Dana nodded at him. “Yeah, split up. Good idea.” “Really?” Marty asked. And behind them, the living room window exploded inward. He ducked and span around in time to see glass slivers jingling to the floor and timber frame shards spiking inward. And through the ruin of the window protruded big-zombie’s arm. His fist was clenched around a handful of glass and wood, but there was no blood.
Beyond, his shadow pressed close.
“I got it!” Curt shouted, running at the window. “You guys get in your rooms!” He shouldered into a bookcase and it started sliding toward the window, screaming across the floor, books tumbling, while the zombie’s arm thrashed to clear more broken glass and framing.
“Wait…” Marty said, but his voice was lost amid the chaos.
Dana and Holden shared a glance, a nod, and then Dana said, “Let’s go!” They headed for their separate rooms on the left, parting without even a hug, and for a moment Marty couldn’t move.
This isn’t right, he thought. He looked back at Curt, who was now shoving against the bookcase while big-zombie leaned in the window and pushed back, seeking entrance even while Curt strove to prevent it.
“Go!” Curt screamed at Marty, angry at his indecisiveness. So Marty went, because there was little else he could do. Maybe Curt was right. Maybe they should all check their windows and doors individually, then go back and help him fight that big fucker.
But even as he entered his room and dashed to the window, it was almost as if he could foresee what would happen next. We’ll be locked in, he thought. And he turned back to his door.