Undead by John Russo Page A

stared.
    “All we have to do is just keep our heads,” Ben added.
    They looked at each other for a moment, until Ben turned and picked up the table top again. As he started hoisting it up to the window, the girl spoke, quietly and weakly.
    “Who are they?”
    Ben stopped in his tracks, still supporting the heavy table top, and looked with amazement at Barbara’s anxious face. Slowly, it dawned on him that the girl had never been really aware of the thing that had been happening. She had no idea of the extent of the danger, or the reason for it. She had not heard the radio announcements, the bulletins. She had been existing in a state of uninformed shock.
    Incredulously, Ben shouted, “You haven’t heard anything?”
    She stared blankly, silently, her eyes fastened on his. Her reply was in her silence.
    “You mean you don’t have any idea what’s going on?”
    Barbara started to nod her answer, but instead she was seized with a fit of trembling. “I…I…”
    Her trembling increased, she began to shake violently, and suddenly she flung her arms up and flailed them about, sobbing wildly. She began to walk in panic, wildly and aimlessly, in circles about the room.
    “No…no…no…I…can’t…what’s happening…what’s happening to us…why…what’s happening…tell me…tell…me…”
    Unnerved by her hysteria, Ben grabbed her, and shook her hard to bring her out of it—and her sobbing jerked to a halt, but she remained staring right through him—her eyes seemingly focused beyond him, at some far distant point. Her speech, still detached and rambling, became a little more coherent.
    “We were in the cemetery…me…and Johnny…my brother, Johnny…we brought flowers for…this…man…came after me…and Johnny…he…he fought…and now he…he’s…”
    “All right! All right!” Ben shouted, directly into the girl’s face—he had a feeling that if he couldn’t bring her out of her present state of mind, she was going to go right off the deep end; she might kill herself or do something which would result in destruction for both of them. He tightened his grip on her wrists, and she wrenched against him.
    “Get your hands off me!”
    She flung herself away from him, beating him across the chest, taking him by surprise. But in her momentum, she stumbled over one of the table legs, barely regained her balance, and threw her body against the front door and stood there, poised as if to run out into the night.
    She rambled, losing any semblance of rationality.
    “We’ve got to help him…got to get Johnny…we’ve got to go out and find him…bring him…”
    She advanced toward Ben, pleading with tears, the desperate tears of a frightened child.
    “Bring him here…we’ll be safe…we can help him…we…”
    The man stepped toward her. She backed away, suddenly frightened, holding one hand toward him defensively, and the other toward her mouth. “No…no…please…please…we’ve got to…we…”
    He took one deliberate stride toward her. “Now…you calm down,” he said softly. “You’re safe here. We can’t take no chances…”
    She pouted, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
    “We’ve got to get Johnny,” she said, weakly. And she put her fingers in her mouth and stared wide-eyed at Ben, like a small child.
    “Now…come on, now…you settle down,” he told her. “You don’t know what these things are. It ain’t no Sunday-school picnic out there…”
    She began sobbing hysterically, violently—it was clear she had gone totally to pieces.
    “Please…pleeeeese…No…no…no…Johnny…Johnny…pleeeese…”
    Ben struggled to calm her, to hold her still, as she writhed and squirmed to get away from him. Despite his strength, she wrenched free—because he was trying hard not to hurt her. She stared at him, their eyes met in an instant of calm—and then she screamed and started beating at him and kicking him—kicking him again and again, while he struggled to pin her arms