Undead Read Online Free Page B

of any signs of life. Her impulse was to call for help again, but she stopped herself for fear of being heard by the man outside. She darted back to the kitchen, rummaged through drawers in a kitchen cabinet, and found the silverware. She chose a large steak knife and, grasping it tightly, went to listen at the door again. All was quiet. She crept back into the living room. Beyond it she could dimly make out an alcove that contained the front entrance to the house. Seized with panic, she bolted to the front door and made sure it was locked. Then, cautiously, she peeled back a corner of the curtain to see outside. The view revealed the expansive lawn and grassy field she had run across earlier, with its large shadowy trees and shrubs and the shed and gasoline pumps lit up in the distance. Barbara could neither see nor hear any sign of her attacker.
    Suddenly there was a noise from outside: the pounding and rattling of a door. Barbara dropped the curtain edge and stiffened. More sounds. She hurried to a side window. Across the lawn, she saw that the man was pounding at the door to the garage. She watched, her eyes wide with fear. The man continued to pound savagely at the door, then looked about and picked up something and smashed at it. In panic, Barbara pulled away from the window and flattened herself against the wall.
    Her eyes fell on a telephone, across the room on a wooden shelf. She rushed to it and picked up the receiver. Dial tone. Thank God. She frantically dialed the operator. But the dial tone stopped and there was dead silence. Barbara depressed the buttons of the phone again and again, but she could not get the dial tone to resume. Just dead silence. For some reason, the phone was out of order. The radio. The phone. Out of order.
    She slammed the receiver down and rushed to another window. A figure was crossing the lawn, coming toward the house. It seemed to be a different figure, a different man. Her heart leapt with both fear and hope—because she did not know who the new man could be, and she dared not cry out to him for help.
    She ran to the door and peered out through the curtains again, anxious for a clue as to whether this new person in the yard might be friend or foe. Whoever he was, he was still walking toward the house. A shadow fell suddenly across a strip of window to the left of the door, and Barbara started and jumped back because of its abruptness.
    She peeled back a corner of the window curtain and saw the back of the first attacker not ten feet away, facing the other man who was fast approaching. The attacker moved toward the new man, and Barbara did not know what to expect next. She froze against the door and glanced down at her knife—then looked back out at the two men.
    They joined each other, seemingly without exchange of words, under the dark, hanging trees, and stood quietly, looking back toward the cemetery. From inside the house, Barbara squinted, trying to see. Finally, the attacker moved back across the road, in the direction of the cemetery. The other man approached the house and stopped in the shadow of a tree, stolidly watching.
    Barbara peered into the darkness, but could see little. She lunged toward the phone again, picked up the receiver, and heard dead silence. She barely stopped herself from slamming down the receiver.
    Then suddenly came a distant sound—an approaching car. She scampered to the window and looked out, holding her breath. The road seemed empty. But after a moment a faint light appeared, bouncing and rapidly approaching—a car coming up the road. Barbara reached for the doorknob and edged the door open ever so slightly, allowing a little light to spill out over the lawn. There, under a large old tree, was the unmistakable silhouette of the second man. Barbara shuddered, choked with fear at the thought of making a break for the approaching car. The man under the tree appeared to be sitting quite still, his head and shoulders slumped over, though his gaze