Dawn of the Dreadfuls Page 27

  They were drawing their swords as they darted around a corner.

  “There’s no time for that now!” Mr. Bennet called after them.

  “Well, there’s a little more time than you might have thought,” Elizabeth said.

  “We’re not going down there, you know,” said Jane.

  Mary hefted one side of the wood panel that had been hastily fitted to hide the landing before the cellar door. “This is really quite heavy, Papa. Together on the count of three …?”

  Mr. Bennet looked at her, then Jane, then Elizabeth, and despite the bags under his eyes and the deep sadness within them, he seemed to be on the verge of cracking a smile. And perhaps he would have, if a familiar voice hadn’t called out from the darkness below.

  “Mr. Bennet! You march those girls in here this instant!” Mrs. Bennet demanded. “You’re not going to leave me down in this filthy hole all alone!”

  “Did you hear that?” one of the maids grumbled from under the stairs, where she stood stuffed in with the rest of the household staff. “The silly cow thinks she’s all alone.”

  “Farewell, Mrs. Bennet. I …”

  Whatever Mr. Bennet had been about to say went unsaid, and he instead stomped down the steps, met his wife at the bottom, and kissed her. Then he turned and marched back out of the attic, leaving Mrs. Bennet sobbing in the arms of her sister Philips.

  When he reached the landing again, he couldn’t meet his daughters’ gazes: For once, he was the one blushing and looking away.

  “Come now, all together,” he said, grabbing one side of the false wall. “One … two … lift!”

  There was a distant clatter of boards falling to the floor just as he and the girls got the panel in place, and an otherworldly yowl echoed through the halls.

  “That would be in the north wing, by the sound of it,” said Mr. Bennet. “Jane, run along and greet the new arrivals, hmm? I’ll join you shortly. Mary, go see what’s keeping Lydia and Kitty. And you—”

  He turned toward Elizabeth and took in a deep breath as her sisters darted away. It almost seemed as if he was waiting for them to get out of earshot.

  “We will be retreating to the attic at the first opportunity,” he said. “It is essential no unmentionables see us go up there, so it’s difficult to say when that opportunity might arrive. Hopefully, it will be a matter of minutes. When we get there, we will lock the door behind us and hope for the best. There can be nothing in that attic that might give us away, however. Even the slightest disturbance would spell our doom.”

  “So Dr. Keckilpenny’s captives—”

  “Must be dealt with. And I thought it best that you do the dealing.”

  “Of course, Father. It will be done.”

  Mr. Bennet nodded just once, wordless, and headed for the north wing. Elizabeth went to the stairs.

  She was barely aware of the steps under her feet, and the grunts and thumps and hammering from the halls below went unheard. All she could think of was Dr. Keckilpenny and what she could—and couldn’t—say to him.

  She’d tried to see him the day before, during a brief lull between breaches. She’d found the door to the attic locked, and she lacked the nerve to knock. She’d laughed about it to herself as she’d gone back downstairs to face another onslaught. The dreadfuls she could face. But a man for whom her feelings were … complicated? That she ran from.

  Only she couldn’t run from it now.

  The door to the attic was still locked. She rapped on it firmly.

  “Dr. Keckilpenny! It’s Elizabeth Bennet! I need to speak to you!”

  There was no answer from the other side of the door. No sound at all.

  Elizabeth knocked again.

  “Doctor! Please! It’s urgent!”

  Still nothing.

  Elizabeth could hear the noises from downstairs. Shrieks and the scuffling of feet.

  She pounded on the door with both fists.

  “Dr. Keckilpenny! Are you there? Are you all right? Answer me!”

  When there was no response, Elizabeth stepped back for a kick that she hoped would break open the door. She knew it was worse than futile: Damage the knob and lock, and the room beyond would be useless as a hiding place. But what choice was there?

  And she had to know about the doctor. Would it end with him so embittered toward her that he’d actually leave her to the dreadfuls? Or could it be that he wasn’t up there at all? Perhaps he’d engineered his own escape, abandoned them, just like Master Hawksworth.

  The thought of the Master gave her the rage she needed. No lock was going to stop her. She swiveled on her right foot and drew up her left just as steps started down the stairs on the other side of the door.

  A moment later, the key rattled in the lock, and the door opened. Not wide. Just a crack. Then the footsteps began again. And by the time Elizabeth was inside, at the bottom of the stairs, Dr. Keckilpenny was nearly at the top.

  He hadn’t said a word to her.

  It was words she’d always liked best about the man. He had so many, and never quite the ones she expected. She found herself longing for a few of them even now, as the sound of fighting grew louder from the ground floor and she climbed to the attic with her hand on her sword.

  Mr. Smith spoke to her first.

  “Buh ruhz,” he growled. “Buh ruhz!”

  He was in his usual position, standing with arms thrown back behind him as he strained against the shackles that held him in place. He was noticeably more decayed, however, his skin blotchy and bloated, peeling away here and there to reveal glistening sinew and bone beneath. A family of flies had discovered him, it seemed, for the right side of his face was aswarm with maggots.

  “Buh ruhzzzzzz … buh ruhzzzzz.”

  “Good day to you, Mr. Smith. And you, as well, Doctor. I must admit, I’m disappointed to find your pupil’s vocabulary unexpanded.”

  Elizabeth winced at her own words. Death was at their door—quite literally—and here she was chattering away like it was just another guest come for high tea.

  She stepped toward Mr. Smith.

  “Yes, alas, our friend’s diction is no better,” Dr. Keckilpenny said, his own voice weary and rough. “Yet I find that I understand him now, all the same.”

  Elizabeth stopped. “You do?”

  There was only one small window in the attic, set high near the arching rafters, and the doctor was standing directly beneath it. The rays of sunlight caught only the topmost curls of his unkempt hair, leaving the rest of him little more than a faint gray silhouette.

  “Perfectly,” he said. “I’ve already done some of your work for you. Hadn’t you noticed?”

  He spread out his hands and cocked his head, and it took Elizabeth a moment to work out what he was referring to.

  “Your trunk … the dead soldier …”

  The doctor nodded. “Gone. I dragged him down to the second floor and pushed him out a window last night. I’ve overheard enough talk in the hall to know that sort of thing’s all the rage. And seeing as I didn’t need a spare anymore—”

  A chill rippled across Elizabeth’s shoulders. “What do you mean you were doing my work for me?”

  “You’ve been sent to kill my subjects, haven’t you?” Dr. Keckilpenny said. “I’m afraid, if you mean to see it through, you’ll have to kill me as well.”

  Elizabeth laughed joylessly, and her fingers suddenly felt slick on the hilt of her katana, her grip unsure.

  “Oh, come now, Doctor! Histrionics don’t suit you. You must face this with cold logic, as befits a man of science. Your experiment has run its course, and now necessity demands—”

  “So that’s truly how you see me?” the doctor cut in. “A creature of unfeeling intellect without the passion even for a little melodrama when faced with his own failure? Failures, I should say because, by gad, the plural is called for here. No wonder you said I was … what was it? Only half a good man?”

  Elizabeth was glad, at that moment, that she couldn’t make out
the doctor’s face in the gloom of the room. She was sure to see pain she’d put there herself. And that pained her.

  “I owe you an apology, Doctor. I spoke far too harshly.”

  “Indeed, you greatly underestimated me. I am, at the very least, two-thirds of a good man, if not even three-quarters.” Dr. Keckilpenny chortled at his own joke, but the sound quickly turned into a snort of disgust. “I am an arrogant ass. I came here with the temerity to think I would accomplish what no one else could. All I ended up doing was what so very, very many have done before me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, for one thing, I went and lost my heart. Who’d have thought I even had one to begin with? It was my mind people always thought I was losing. And then … I guess you could say I lost all the rest of me as well.”

  The doctor stepped closer, shrugging off his cutaway coat as he came. His movements were stiff, deliberate, and as he moved forward into the light Elizabeth could see how pale and sweaty was his face.

  He stopped a few feet from her, dangerously close to Mr. Smith. Yet the dreadful paid no attention to him. Its hungry gaze stayed only on her.

  Dr. Keckilpenny tossed his coat aside and began rolling up the right sleeve of his shirt. It was stained reddish black, and once it was up over the elbow, Elizabeth could see why.

  She gasped.

  His upper arm was bloody and mangled, with a chunk ripped away as large as her fist. The flesh ringing the wound had turned purple, and the rest of the arm was as gray and mottled as marble.

  “When?” was all Elizabeth could say.

  “Not long after our little talk up here with Master Hercules or Lord Samson or whatever his name is. My better—or at least bigger—half. I was trying to interest Smithy in a game of whist and I grew careless, and the ingrate bit me. After all I’ve done for him! I suppose I could’ve gone down to see Dr. Thorne about it. I find I’ve grown rather attached to my limbs, though, ho ho, and the survival rate of the doctor’s patients hardly inspires confidence. And, well, I suppose my pride wouldn’t allow—”

  A deafening crash echoed up the stairwell, followed by frenzied shouts and a long, piercing screech.

  “Buh ruhz!” Mr. Smith howled as if in answer, and he tried to charge at Elizabeth, his feet slapping and sliding over the floorboards even as he went nowhere. “Buuuuhhhhhh ruuuuuuuhhhhzzzzzz!”

  “Yes, yes—the lady has them in abundance, and quite luscious they are, too,” Dr. Keckilpenny said. “‘Brains,’ he’s saying, Miss Bennet. Buhrain-uhz. I know it because I can hear the call, as well, though the plague hasn’t fully taken me yet. It’s really a rather delicious irony: It was your mind I was attracted to from the beginning. My longing’s just growing a little too literal.”

  There was more commotion downstairs, and Elizabeth heard her father shout “Quadrangle of Death, if you please! Very nice!”

  “It’s time,” Dr. Keckilpenny said, and he straightened his shoulders and lifted his head high. “I’d prefer it if you attended to me first.”

  “Doctor … Bertram … I can’t—”

  There was a sickening riiiiiiiip, and Mr. Smith barreled across the room. He’d freed himself from his chains—by freeing himself of his arms. They plopped to the floor still in the sleeves of his moldy coat as he charged at Elizabeth.

  “Brrrrrrrrrraaaaaaiiiiinnnnsss!”

  Elizabeth jumped back knowing she wouldn’t get the katana from its sheath in time. But then Mr. Smith suddenly had arms again—two long, thin ones, wrapped tight around his body from behind, dragging him to a halt.

  “Do it!” Dr. Keckilpenny shouted. “Do it now!”

  Mr. Smith turned his head and bit a huge, pulpy hunk from the man’s shoulder.

  The doctor screamed but managed to hold on.

  “What you feel doesn’t matter, Elizabeth! What you think doesn’t matter! Just do!”

  She took off both their heads with one swing.

  There wasn’t much blood left in Mr. Smith, but the same couldn’t be said of Dr. Keckilpenny. A geyser sprayed the room as he fell, and Elizabeth’s gown was dyed bright red.

  Her father and sisters came up the stairs a moment later, moving quickly but quietly, the door behind them again closed and locked.

  “Oh, Lizzy,” Jane said when she saw the bodies lying near the top of the steps. “What—”

  Mr. Bennet shushed her.

  “Don’t speak,” he whispered. He paused to look all the girls in the eye, lingering longest on Lydia and Kitty. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. Our lives depend upon it.”

  And so they all stood there, utterly still, surrounded by silence.

  Lydia and Kitty stared at each other, seeming to carry on a conversation purely through grimaces, shrugs, and waggling eyebrows.

  Mary closed her eyes, her face blank and tranquil, as if she were rereading a favorite book in her head.

  Jane and Mr. Bennet stared at Elizabeth.

  She stared at nothing.

  She was facing the window at the far end of the attic, looking directly into a light she didn’t really see. Even if they survived, she knew, a part of her had died and could never be resurrected. The part of her that would hesitate. The part that knew mercy. Perhaps the part that could fall in love.

  She’d be better off without it. Just look at the men who’d loved her and Jane. All dead or ruined.

  A world with zombies in it had no tolerance for softness or sentiment. The dreadfuls infected everything just by virtue of existing. To live in their world, one had to become like them. Dead inside.

  So be it.

  Something shuffled past the attic door. Then another something, moving faster. There were groans and more footsteps and the sounds of furniture being clumsily overturned.

  “Mmm-hmm!” said Lydia, jerking her head at the stairs.

  Mr. Bennet glared at her and put a finger to his lips.

  “Mmm-hmm!” she said again, pointing downward.

  Kitty’s eyes went wide, and she started pointing, too. “Mmm-hmm mmm-hmm!”

  “Oh, no,” Jane murmured.

  Dr. Keckilpenny’s blood had flowed over the floorboards to the stairs. The first step down was coated with it. The second, as well. The third and fourth and fifth, all progressively less. Yet a single scarlet trickle was still steadily working its way toward the bottom of the stairwell.

  If they tried to stop it, to blot it up with a handkerchief or the hem of a skirt, they would surely be heard. All they could do was watch as it dripped down another step … then another … then another… .

  All the way to—and finally under—the door.

  Footfalls suddenly stopped in the hall.

  The knob rattled. The wood shook.

  The pounding began.

  “Well,” Mr. Bennet said, “there you have it.”

  Kitty began to whimper, but Lydia silenced her with a simple “Oh, don’t start in with that.”

  “At least this way, our ruse will be more convincing,” Jane said. “The dreadfuls will find people alive in the house. Once they’re done up here, it’s doubly likely they’ll go away again satisfied.”

  “Oh, hurrah—I get to satisfy a zombie!” Lydia rolled her eyes and stamped a foot. “Hmph!”

  “We won’t really let them, um,” Mary blinked, then swallowed, “eat us, will we, Papa?”

  “We won’t let them do anything, child. We will fight. We certainly won’t take the easy way out, if that’s what you’re asking.” Mr. Bennet gave each of his daughters another long look. “You will die warriors, all of you. You’ve already passed the test that proves it: You chose to come out and face death with me. And in the choosing is the being.”

  “That’s why you released us from our training the day of the ball,” Elizabeth said. “You wanted to see what choice we would make.”

  Mr. Bennet nodded proudly. “Mary, Lydia, and Kitty came and found me as I helped with the evacuation of the village. And the next time I saw you, your sword was bac
k at your side.”

  “And what of me?” Jane asked. “I was dancing with the baron when you arrived with the dreadfuls at your heels.”

  “Yes. But weren’t you just doing your duty as you understood it—staying close to the man you’d been told to protect? When it became obvious that man was unworthy of your protection, you removed it as only a true warrior would.”

  Jane seemed relieved even as the banging on the door grew louder.

  “I wanted to be certain you wouldn’t make the same mistake I did,” Mr. Bennet said, gazing at Jane, then Elizabeth. “Twenty years ago, I chose a passing fancy over my own honor. You have proved yourselves stronger than that. Stronger than I was … and am. I’m certain you would have become far greater—”

  The door’s top panel splintered, and a bloody stump popped through. It was followed by clawing hands that ripped frantically at the wood, tearing it apart, splintered shard by splintered shard.

  As the Bennets stepped back, spreading out across the attic, giving themselves room to fight, Elizabeth allowed herself one last glance at all her sisters. With them, at least, there could still be love, and she felt lucky, in a way, to die surrounded by it.

  She was smiling when she looked again toward the top of the stairs and braced for the ghoulish faces that would appear there any second.

  “Let’s make a game of it, shall we?” she said. “Whoever kills the most, wins.”

  “I will kill twenty!” Lydia declared.

  “I will kill thirty!” Kitty countered.

  Mary paused for a moment of sober calculation.

  “I will kill thirty-two,” she said.

  “I will kill as long as I must,” said Jane.

  “And I will kill as long as I can,” said Elizabeth.

  The door gave way.

  The whole house shook.

  “What—” Lydia began.

  The booms came then, so many of them in such quick succession they could have been rolling beats on some monstrous drum. Screams followed—high, whistling, eerie, neither human nor zombie.

  “I can’t believe it,” Mr. Bennet said, and he burst into raucous laughter. “To hear it again now, after all these years! The most beautiful sound in creation!”