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“Thousands,” Eddie said dully. “There are thousands of them. ” Then his eyes brightened. “But I know who is behind this. If we can find him…and kill him, then Hell will recall its armies. ”
Crow looked at LaMastra, who shrugged. “Yeah, we know, too, and if you want to kill that evil son of a bitch, then we’re all on the same team here. ”
“Amen to that,” LaMastra agreed.
Down the hall, behind one of the doors, gunfire erupted.
Crow spun around. “Val!”
2
BK led the way and Billy Christmas brought up the rear; between them were over a hundred customers and staff. BK had a heavy tree branch in his hands, the jagged end thick with blood. Billy had a piece of rebar he’d uprooted from a fence line. Less than a dozen of their charges carried weapons. Peppered through the group were customers who had eaten some of the candy corn; these were the only ones in the group who didn’t look scared. A few them even sang happy, trippy songs; some were crying and jabbering in invented languages.
“Incoming!” Billy yelled. “On your three. ”
BK spun to his right as a group of f
igures rushed at them from the shadows. He put himself between them and his group, club raised and ready. The lead figure in the other group had a chair leg. Everyone froze.
“BK…?” asked the leader of the other group.
“Jim?”
Jim O’Rear stepped out of the dense shadows beneath a big oak. Behind him Brinke and Debbie fanned out; each of them had clubs. Kramer was at the end of the line, herding the group forward.
“What the hell is going on here?” Brinke asked as Billy trotted up.
“Christ if I know. ”
“I think it’s something in the water,” Debbie said. “Drugs or something. ”
“Maybe. ” BK looked over the newcomers and saw that some of their party were showing the same dazed detachment. He caught Billy’s eye; Billy gave a small shake of his head. Drugs may account for some of it, but some of what they’d seen could not be explained away by drugs. No way.
BK pointed up the hill. “We’re making for the barn. Two doors, plenty of tools. We can hole up there. ”
O’Rear nodded. “Outstanding. ”
The groups merged together, friends seeking out friends and giving hugs; strangers embracing the way victims of a shared catastrophe will. The night around them seemed to be expanding—there were fewer screams and they were farther away.
Debbie had her head cocked to listen. “I think it’s…stopping. ”
“God, I hope so,” BK said. “But let’s get the hell out of the open. Jim, left flank, Kramer on my right. Billy, watch our backs. Come on—let’s go!”
They started running, heading toward the barn, each of them praying that would be the end of it.
3
“Shhh,” Foree said, holding a finger to his lips, “let me listen. ”
He pressed his ear to the steel door of the projection booth. The terrible screams that had torn the night for the last two hours had quieted. The woman who had first asked him if the monsters could get in still huddled close to him. Her name was Linda—a retired phys ed teacher who had come to hear Foree speak because she had gone to see the original Dawn of the Dead with her husband nearly thirty years ago; now she was trapped in the utter blackness of the booth with the star of the film, and everything was so surreal that she felt like she was in a dream. She touched his arm.
“You…you’re not going to open the door, are you?” Her voice was filled with appalling fear.
He reached for her in the dark, found her shoulder, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry, I’m not opening that door until I know damn sure that the cavalry has arrived. I want to hear bugles blowing. ”
She leaned her head against his arm, an act entirely devoid of flirtation. It was based entirely on the need to believe in the solidity of hope. Foree stroked her hair, calming her the way he would soothe a frightened child. The booth was so intensely dark that all that was left to the cowering survivors was patience and prayer.
4
