Undead. John Russo
scream of sheer horror, and she dropped her club and ran—the man coming after her slowly, with seeming difficulty in moving, almost as though he were crippled or maimed.
He advanced toward Barbara, making his way between the tombstones, while she ran stumbling and gasping for breath, and tumbled and rolled down the muddy, grassy terrace to the car. She yanked open the door. And she could hear the slow, muffled footsteps of her pursuer drawing nearer as she scrambled into the front seat and slammed the door shut.
No keys. The keys were in Johnny’s pocket.
The attacker was moving closer, faster, more desperate to reach the girl.
Barbara clutched at the steering wheel, as though it alone might move the car. She sobbed. And almost too late she realized the windows were open—and she rolled them up frantically and locked the doors.
The attacker ripped at the door handles and pounded violently at the car.
Barbara began screaming again, but the man seemed impervious to screams and totally without fear of being caught or surprised.
He grabbed up a large stone from the road and shattered the window on the passenger side into a thousand little cracks. Another pounding blow, and the stone crashed through the window, and the man’s hands were clawing at Barbara, trying to grab her by the hair, the face or the arms—anywhere.
She caught a glimpse of his face. It was death-white—and awfully contorted—as if by insanity or agonizing pain.
She smashed her fist into his face. And at the same instant she tugged at the emergency brake and pulled it loose and the car began to drift downhill, the attacker following after, pounding and ripping at the door handles and trying to hang on.
As the grade got steeper the car managed to pick up speed, and the man was shaken loose and forced to trot after it. The car went still faster and the man lost his footing and clutched at the fender, then the bumper, as he tumbled and fell heavily into the road. The car gained momentum, with Barbara’s pursuer no longer hanging on. But he regained his footing and kept pursuing, resolutely, stolidly, in a slow, staggering shuffle.
The car was now plummeting down a steep, winding hill, Barbara frozen in the driver’s seat, clenching the wheel, frightened by the darkness and the speed, yet too scared to slow down.
The light switch! She yanked it, and the headlights danced beams of light among the trees. She swerved to avoid crashing as the beams revealed the grade in the road and the car bounced and lurched over it and she saw that it was narrowing to one car width; and, about two hundred feet ahead, the downhill grade was going to end and an uphill grade begin.
On the uphill grade, the car slowed…and slowed…as its momentum carried it some distance up the upgrade. Barbara glanced backward, but could see nothing—then, in the dim outline of the road, the pursuing figure of her attacker rounded a bend and she knew he was moving fast after her.
On the upgrade, the car reached a full stop. Then, with a bolt of panic, Barbara realized it was starting to drift backward, carrying her toward her attacker…as he continued to draw nearer. The car picked up momentum as she sat paralyzed with fear.
Then she grabbed at the emergency brake and yanked it tight, the lurch of the car throwing her against the seat. She struggled with the door handle—but it would not budge until she remembered to pull the button up—and as the attacker drew nearer she yanked the door open and bolted from the car.
She ran.
The man behind her kept coming, desperately trying to move faster in his shuffling, staggering gait—as Barbara ran as fast as her legs could carry her up the steep grade of the gravel road. She fell. Skinned her knees. Picked herself up and kept running and the man kept coming after her.
She reached the main highway, at the top of the hill. And she kicked her shoes off and began to run faster—on hard blacktop rather than gravel—and she hoped to spot a car or truck or any kind of vehicle she could flag down. But there was nothing in sight. Then she came to a low stone wall, on the side of the road—and she knew there must be a house somewhere beyond the wall. She struggled over it and considered hiding behind it, but she could hear the rasping breath and plodding footsteps of her pursuer not too far behind her and he would be sure to look for her behind the wall—it was too obvious a hiding place.
Then, looking ahead for a moment to get her bearings, she thought she could make out a soft glow of a window in the distance, across a field and through the leafy overhanging branches of scattered trees.
In the dark, stumbling over boulders and dead branches and gnarled roots, she ran toward the lighted window across the field.
She came to a shed first, at the edge of a dirt road leading to the house. Beside the shed, illuminated in the glow of a naked light bulb swarming with gnats, stood two gasoline pumps of the type that farmers keep to supply their tractors and other vehicles. Barbara stopped and hid for a moment behind one of the pumps—until she realized that she was too vulnerable under the light from the shed.
As she turned, the light revealed her attacker coming closer, shuffling toward her across the dark field with its shrubs and trees and overhanging foliage.
She ran toward the house and began calling for help as loudly as she could yell. But no one came outside. No one came out onto the porch. The house remained silent and cold, except for the glow of light from one solitary window.
She pressed herself against the side of the house, in a darkened corner, and tried to look into the window, but she could see no signs of life, and apparently no one had heard her screams and no one was coming out to help her.
Silhouetted in the glow of light from the shed, the man who killed her brother was drawing nearer.
In panic, she ran to the rear of the house and into the shadows of a small back porch. Her first impulse was to cry again for help, but she silenced herself in favor of trying to stay hidden. She gasped, realized how loud her breathing was, and tried to hold her breath. Silence. Night sounds…and the sound of the wild beating of her heart…did not stop her from hearing her attacker’s running footsteps slowing to a trot…then a slow walk. And finally the footsteps stopped.
Barbara glanced quickly about. She spied a rear window and peered through it, but inside everything was dark. The pursuing footsteps resumed again, louder and more ominous. She pressed herself back against the door of the house, and her hand fell on the doorknob. She looked down at it, sure that it was locked, but grabbed it with a turn, and the door opened.
CHAPTER 2
She entered quickly, as quietly as possible, and closed the door softly behind her, bolting it and feeling in the darkness for a key. Her hand found a skeleton key and she turned it, making a barely audible rasp and click. She leaned against the door, listening, and could still hear the distant footfalls of the man approaching and trying to seek her out.
A tremble shot through her as she groped in the darkness and her hand touched the cold burner of an electric stove. The kitchen. She was in the kitchen of the old house. She pressed a button and the stove light came on, giving her enough illumination to scrutinize her surroundings without, she hoped, alerting her pursuer to where she was. For several seconds, she maintained a controlled silence and did not move a muscle. Then she got the nerve to move.
She crossed the kitchen into a large living room, unlighted and devoid 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