Undead Read Online Free PDF

lots more of them, though, soon as they find out we’re here. I’m out of gas, and the gasoline pumps out back are locked. Do you have the key?”
    Barbara did not reply.
    “Do you have the key?” Ben repeated, trying to control his anger.
    Again, Barbara said nothing. Her experiences of the past couple of hours had brought her to a state of near-catatonia.
    Ben thought maybe she did not hear, so he came into the living room and addressed her directly.
    “I said the gas pumps out back are locked. Is there food around here? I’ll get us some food, then we can beat off that creep out there and try to make it somewhere where there is gas.”
    Barbara merely held her face in her hands and continued to cry.
    “I guess you tried the phone,” Ben said, no longer expecting an answer. And he picked it up and fiddled with it but could not get anything but dead silence, so he slammed it down into its cradle. He looked at Barbara and saw she was shivering.
    “Phone’s no good,” he said. “We might as well have two tin cans and a string. You live here?”
    She remained silent, her gaze directed toward the top of the stairs. Ben followed her stare and started toward the stairs, but halfway up he saw the corpse—and stared for a moment and slowly backed down into the living room.
    His eyes fell on Barbara, and he knew she was shivering with shock, but there was nothing for him to do but force himself back into action.
    “We’ve got to bust out of here,” he said. “We’ve got to find some other people—somebody with guns or something.”
    He went into the kitchen and started rummaging, flinging open the refrigerator and the cupboards. He began filling a shopping bag with things from the refrigerator, and because he was in a hurry he literally hurled the things into the bag.
    Suddenly, to his surprise, he looked up and Barbara was standing beside him.
    “What’s happening?” she said, in a weak whisper, so weak that Ben almost did not hear. And she stood there wide-eyed, like a child waiting for an answer.
    Amazed, he stared at her.
    “What’s happening?” she repeated, weakly, shaking her head in fright and bewilderment.
    Suddenly they were both startled by a shattering crash. Ben dropped the groceries, seized his jack-handle, and ran to the front door and looked out through the curtained window. Another shattering sound. The first attacker had joined the second man at the old pick-up truck, and with rocks the two had smashed out the headlights.
    “Two of them,” Ben muttered to himself, and as he watched, the two men outside started to beat with their rocks at the body of the truck—but their beating seemed to have no purpose; it seemed to be just mindless destruction. In fact, outside of smashing the headlights, they were not harming the old truck very much.
    But Ben spun around with a worried look on his face.
    “They’re liable to wreak the engine,” he said to Barbara. “How many of them are out there? Do you know?”
    She backed away from him, and he lunged at her and grabbed her by the wrists and shook her, in an effort to make her understand.
    “How many? Come on, now—I know you’re scared. But I can handle the two that are out there now. Now, how many are there? That truck is our only chance to get out of here. How many? How many?”
    “I don’t know! I don’t know!” she screamed. “What’s happening? I don’t know what’s happening!”
    As she struggled to break his hold on her wrists, she burst into hysterical sobbing.
    Ben turned away from her and moved for the door. He lifted the curtain and looked out for a moment. The attackers were still beating at the truck, wildly trying to tear it apart.
    Ben flung open the door, and leaped off of the porch, and began cautiously advancing toward the two men. As they turned to face him, he was revolted by what he saw in the glow of the light from the living room of the old house.
    The faces of the attackers were the faces of humans who were