Dawn of the Dreadfuls Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES

  By Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

  “A delectable literary mash-up … might we hope for a sequel?

  Grade A-.”

  —Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly

  “Jane Austen isn’t for everyone. Neither are zombies. But combine the two and the only question is, Why didn’t anyone think of this before? The judicious addition of flesh-eating undead to this otherwise faithful reworking is just what Austen’s gem needed.”

  —Wired

  “Has there ever been a work of literature that couldn’t be improved by adding zombies?”

  —Lev Grossman, Time

  “Such is the accomplishment of Pride And Prejudice And Zombies that after reveling in its timeless intrigue, it’s difficult to remember how Austen’s novel got along without the undead. What begins as a gimmick ends with renewed appreciation of the indomitable appeal of Austen’s language, characters, and situations. Grade A.”

  —The Onion A.V. Club

  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES

  DAWN OF THE DREADFULS

  BY STEVE HOCKENSMITH

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY PATRICK ARRASMITH

  Copyright © 2010 Quirk Books

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2009943659

  eISBN: 978-1-59474-482-2

  Cover design and zombification by Doogie Horner

  Cover art courtesy the Bridgeman Art Library International Ltd.

  Interior illustrations by Patrick Arrasmith

  Production management by John J. McGurk

  Distributed in North America by Chronicle Books

  680 Second Street

  San Francisco, CA 94107

  Quirk Books

  215 Church Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19106

  www.irreference.com

  www.quirkbooks.com

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  EPILOGUE

  QUIRK CLASSICS

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  It was a cry that hadn’t been heard in Hertfordshire for years.

  page 15

  Their father was obviously unhappy with their limp grips and hesitant movements.

  page 37

  As Elizabeth brought back the sword to try again, the zombie reached out and grabbed it.

  page 63

  Side by side, Jane and Elizabeth stepped forward, weapons at the ready.

  page 85

  By the time the unmentionable had helped Elizabeth to her feet, it was obvious he wasn’t an unmentionable at all.

  page 97

  “Oh, Cuthbert! It is you! After all these years!”

  page 113

  The thing flailed at her, wailing, yet it could come no closer.

  page 170

  He hefted the blacksmith’s hammer and brought it down on the unmentionable’s crown.

  page 178

  It humped its way toward Mary like a massive, rabid inchworm.

  page 191

  “Grrrrruh!” Mr. Smith barked. “Grrrrrrruh!”

  page 233

  Scattered here and there over the grounds were dozens of ragged, staggering figures—easily two hundred in all, if not three.

  page 255

  By nightfall, however, the onslaught was once again relentless.

  page 263

  Mr. Bennet gave each of his daughters a long look. “You will die warriors, all of you.”

  page 283

  For Jane.

  We kid because we love.

  __________________

  CHAPTER 1

  WALKING OUT in the middle of a funeral would be, of course, bad form. So attempting to walk out on one’s own was beyond the pale.

  When the service began, Mr. Ford was as well behaved as any corpse could be expected to be. In fact, he lay stretched out on the bier looking almost as stiff and expressionless in death as he had in life, and Oscar Bennet, gazing upon his not-so-dearly departed neighbor, could but think to himself, You lucky sod.

  It was Mr. Bennet who longed to escape the church then, and the black oblivion of death seemed infinitely preferable to the torments he was suffering. At the pulpit, the Reverend Mr. Cummings was reading (and reading and reading and reading) from the Book of Common Prayer with all the verve and passion of a man mumbling in his sleep, while the pews were filled with statues—the good people of Meryton, Hertfordshire, competing to see who could remain motionless the longest while wearing the most somber look of solemnity.

  This contest had long since been forfeited by one party in particular: Mr. Bennet’s. Mrs. Bennet couldn’t resist sharing her (insufficiently) whispered appraisal of the casket’s handles and plaque. (“Brass? For shame! Why, Mrs. Morrison had gold last week, and her people don’t have two guineas to rub together.”) Lydia and Kitty, the youngest of the Bennets’ five daughters, were ever erupting into titters for reasons known only to themselves. Meanwhile, the middle daughter, fourteen-year-old Mary, insisted on loudly shushing her giggling sisters no matter how many times her reproaches were ignored, for she considered herself second only to the Reverend Mr. Cummings—and perhaps Christ Himself—as Meryton’s foremost arbiter of virtue.

  At least the Bennets’ eldest, Jane, was as serene and sweet countenanced as ever, even if her dress was a trifle heavy on décolletage for a funeral. (“Display, my dear, display!” Mrs. Bennet had harped at her that morning. “Lord Lumpley might be there!”) And, of course, Mr. Bennet knew he need fear no embarrassment from Elizabeth, second to Jane in age and beauty but first in spirit and wit. He leaned forward to look down the pew at her, his favorite—and found her gaping at the front of the church, a look of horror on her face.

  Mr. Bennet followed her line of sight. What he saw was a luxury, hard won and now so easily taken for granted: a man about to be buried with his head still on his shoulders.

  That head, though—wasn’t there more of a loll to the left to it now? Weren’t the lips drawn more taut, and the eyelids less so? In fact, weren’t those eyes even now beginning to—

  Yes. Yes, they were.

  Mr. Bennet felt an icy cold inside him where there should have been fire, and his tingling fingers fumbled for the hilt of a sword that wasn’t there.

  Mr. Ford sat up and opened his eyes.

  The first person to leap into action was Mrs. Bennet. Unfortunately, the action she leapt to was shrieking loud enough to wake the dead (presuming any in the vicinity wer
e still sleeping) and wrapping herself around her husband with force sufficient to snap a man with less backbone in two.

  “Get a hold of yourself, woman!” Mr. Bennet said.

  She merely maintained her hold on him, though, her redoubled howls sparking Kitty and Lydia to similar hysterics.

  At the front of the church, Mrs. Ford staggered to her feet and started toward the bier.

  “Martin!” she cried. “Martin, my beloved, you’re alive!”

  “I think not, Madam!” Mr. Bennet called out (while placing a firm hand over his wife’s mouth). “If someone would restrain the lady, please!”

  Most of the congregation was busy screeching or fleeing or both at once, yet a few hardy souls managed to grab Mrs. Ford before she could shower her newly returned husband with kisses.

  “Thank you!” Mr. Bennet said.

  He spent the next moments trying to disentangle himself from his wife’s clutches. When he found he couldn’t, he simply stepped sideways into the aisle, dragging her with him.

  “I will be walking that way, Mrs. Bennet.” He jerked his head at Mr. Ford, who was struggling to haul himself out of his casket. “If you choose to join me, so be it.”

  Mrs. Bennet let go and, after carefully checking to make sure Jane was still behind her, swooned backward into her eldest daughter’s arms.

  “Get her out of here,” Mr. Bennet told Jane. “Lydia and Kitty, as well.”

  He turned his attention then to the next two girls down the pew: Elizabeth and Mary. The latter was deep in conversation with her younger sisters.

  “The dreadfuls have returned!” Kitty screamed.

  “Calm yourself, sister,” Mary said, her voice dead. She was either keeping a cool head or had retreated into catatonia, it was hard to tell which. “We should not be hasty in our judgments.”

  “Hasty? Hasty?” Lydia pointed at the very undead Mr. Ford. “He’s sitting up in his coffin!”

  Mary stared back at her blankly. “We don’t know he’s a dreadful, though.”

  But Elizabeth did know. Mr. Bennet could see it in her eyes—because now she was staring at him.

  She didn’t grasp the whole truth of it. How could she, when he’d been forced to keep it from her for so long? Yet this much would be obvious to a clear-thinking, level-headed girl like her: The dreadfuls had returned, and there was more to be done about it than scream. More her father intended to do.

  What she couldn’t have guessed—couldn’t have possibly dreamed—was that she herself would be part of the doing.

  “Elizabeth,” Mr. Bennet said. “Mary. If you would come with me, please.”

  And he turned away and started toward the altar.

  Toward the zombie.

  __________________

  CHAPTER 2

  AT FIRST, it wasn’t just difficult for Elizabeth to follow her father. It was impossible.

  With her mother aswoon at one end of the pew and Kitty and Lydia shrieking hysterically at the other, both paths to the aisle were blocked. Elizabeth and Jane couldn’t induce them to any movement more gainful than mere flailing, and eventually Mary resorted to a sobering slap across Kitty’s cheek. The gambit actually paid off to this extent: Kitty stopped screaming and tried to slap her back.

  A moan from the front of the church broke up the tussle. It started low, almost literally so, as if bubbling up from the depths of the earth, a distant wail from Hell itself. Then it built to a high, piercing howl that rattled glass and emptied bladders all through the chapel. It was a cry that hadn’t been heard in Hertfordshire for years, yet nearly everyone there knew what it was.

  The zombie wail.

  The mourners shot for the doors like a great black arrow, and with miraculous speed Mrs. Bennet regained her footing and found the strength to join them in flight. Jane went with her, but not before pausing for a doleful glance back at Elizabeth and Mary, who were holding their ground in the aisle even as Kitty and Lydia and a host of other parishioners poured around them.

  Elizabeth could go after her father now. But would she? Should she, when reason surely said to flee, and fast?

  The debate raged for all of a second.

  Run! said Fear.

  Obey, said Duty.

  And then a third voice chimed in, one Elizabeth didn’t even recognize at first, so well trained were proper young ladies in ignoring it. The voice of Self.

  Oh, go on, it said. You know you’ve always wondered … .

  Elizabeth turned toward the front of the church, facing the throng rushing at and past her, and began walking against the flow. Each face flying by looked more terror stricken than the last. Yet when Elizabeth felt their panic worming its way inside her, threatening to infect her, she simply willed herself to stop seeing them. Everyone and everything merged into a great, dark blur, so much so that she didn’t even notice when her Aunt Philips flashed past, crying, “Lizzy, what are you doing? This way! This way!”

  Elizabeth didn’t let herself truly see again until she was almost at the end of the aisle. She looked back, wondering if Mary had come, too, and found her younger sister right behind her, so close that her steps brushed the hem of Elizabeth’s skirts.

  Elizabeth felt such relief she actually smiled. It was a compliment Mary wasn’t willing to accept.

  “I was simply following you,” she said.

  When Elizabeth looked ahead again, she saw her father watching them from beside the bier. He wasn’t smiling, though there was a curl to his lip and a gleam in his eye that suggested droll satisfaction, as when he and she shared a private joke at her mother’s expense. Only three other people had dared gather with him near (but not too near) the casket: Mrs. Ford; her brother, Mr. Elliot; and the Reverend Mr. Cummings.

  Of course, Mr. Ford was there, as well, but he didn’t count as “other people” anymore.

  “Come closer, girls. He won’t bite,” Mr. Bennet said. “Not so long as you stay out of range.”

  With slow, uncertain steps, Elizabeth and Mary joined their father. Mr. Ford turned toward them as they approached, watching with empty eyes. It comforted Elizabeth somewhat that the expression seemed so familiar: Mr. Ford never had been the friendliest of her neighbors, hoarding his small store of cheer for those more likely to bring him business.

  He’d been the village apothecary all Elizabeth’s life, building up a reputation thereabouts for both humorless competence and a heavy thumb upon the scales. Two days before, he’d bent down to retrieve a stray ha’penny from the road and was promptly run over by a joy-riding Lord Lumpley, who’d been momentarily blinded by a smiling milkmaid. All might have been well if His Lordship hadn’t circled his cabriolet to see what he’d hit (and get another look at the girl), compounding Mr. Ford’s minor scrapes and bruises with a most un minor severing of the legs.

  “Oh, Martin, my precious Martin!” Mrs. Ford sobbed, and Mr. Elliot had to hold tight to keep her from squeezing her husband to her heaving bosom. “To think we almost buried you alive!”

  Her precious Martin merely turned his vacant gaze her way for a moment before returning to the task at hand: trying to heft his trunk up out of the casket. He would have met with immediate success had he simply loosened his pants, thus freeing himself of the literal deadweight of his amputated legs, but this was beyond his now nonexistent powers of reasoning.

  “My dear Mrs. Ford,” Mr. Bennet said, “I’m afraid the only thing premature about this particular burial is that it was almost conducted with your husband’s head still attached.”

  IT WAS A CRY THAT HADN’T BEEN HEARD IN HERTFORDSHIRE FOR YEARS.

  “No!” Mrs. Ford cried. “He was just sleeping! Unconscious! Cataleptic! He’s better now!”

  Drawn by the sound of the woman’s distress, the creature in the coffin began making lazy swipes at her with its long, stiff arms.

  “Urrrrrrrrrrrr,” it said.

  “See! He recognizes me!” Mrs. Ford exclaimed. “Yes, darling, it’s me! Your Sarah!”

  “Oh, for
heaven’s sake,” Mr. Bennet sighed. “All he recognizes is an easy meal.” He turned to Mr. Elliot. “Might it not be best if you were to remove the lady?”

  “Yes … yes, certainly,” Mr. Elliot muttered with a quick nod. He was obviously anxious to remove himself, first and foremost, yet he managed to tug his sister along as he made his eager escape up the aisle.

  “Maaaaarrrrrrrrtiiiiiiiinnnnnnnn!” howled Mrs. Ford as she was dragged away.

  “Urrrrrrrahrrrurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” replied what was left of her husband.

  “How can she not see the obvious?” Mary asked. The bifurcated neighbor sitting up in his coffin had made a strong impression, yes, yet she seemed almost more disgusted by Mrs. Ford.

  “Don’t judge too harshly, for once, my dear,” Mr. Bennet told her. “Wishful thinking is a sin all England stands guilty of today, your fool of a father included. We told ourselves our long nightmare was over, that a new day had dawned. Alas, that was the real dream. But, goodness—just listen to me chattering away when there’s work to be done!” He turned back to the casket and began tapping a finger against his upper lip. “How … to … kill it?”

  Elizabeth gave a little start. She wasn’t sure, though, what it was that really shocked her. Was it hearing her dear Papa talk about killing an “it,” when “it” was a man she’d known all her young life? Or was it his cool, nonchalant tone as he did so?

  “B-but, s-sir,” Mr. Cummings said, “are you absolutely sh-sh-sure he’s a … a … a …?”

  Mr. Bennet finished the vicar’s thought for him.

  “A dreadful? There can be no doubt. Our Dr. Long is no Hippocrates, to be certain, but even he’s not so incompetent as to misdiagnose death when a man’s been cut in half.”