pride And prejudice And zombies: dawn of the dreadfuls

chapter 26

AFTER SOME QUICK (and, thanks again to Jane, courteous) debate, a subject was settled on for the experiment the Reverend Mr. Cummings had agreed to. Since it wouldn't do to unduly disturb a respectable member of the community, the party would remove itself to a far corner of the parish grounds and pay a call on a connectionless pauper woman who'd been planted there three months before. This had the added benefit of seclusion, the gravesite being further removed from the road.

All the same, before a single spade bit into the earth, Mr. Bennet insisted that the tent canvases the troops had brought be strung up around the grave.

"It wouldn't do to have our trial here observed," he explained while the soldiers argued over the best spots to pound in their tent pegs. "We have been spared panic in Meryton, thanks to complacency and ignorance. It is to our advantage to preserve that just a little longer, if we can."

"In my experience, complacency and ignorance usually do a fine job preserving themselves," Lord Lumpley yawned, idly eyeing Jane as he leaned against a mausoleum nearby. "But if you feel you must put up your little dressing screens . . ."

"Why, though, Father?" Jane asked. "What advantage could come from hiding the truth?"

"He wishes to avoid another Birmingham," Ensign Pratt chirped. The junior officer was doing his best to loom up over his men as they began hammering pegs into the ground, but given his size, looming over anything larger than a dachshund was an impossibility. "People fleeing in huge mobs, clogging the roads, falling prey to the dreadful swarms."

"Not just falling prey to them. Feeding them." Mr. Bennet gave Ensign Pratt an approving nod. "I'm glad to know you're old enough to have at least read of The Troubles."

"Might have a hard time putting up those tents, Sir," one of the soldiers reported. He waved his hammer at a peg he'd just pummeled into the turf with one blow. "Ground here's all marshy like."

"I'm sure they'll hold, Roper. Carry on." The ensign looked over at Mr. Bennet. "At least it will make for quick digging."

"That it will," Mr. Bennet said, poking a toe into the spongy sod. "For everyone."

He threw his daughter a somber glance that moved her hand to her sword.

Ensign Pratt frowned, but Mr. Cummings didn't even seem to notice anything was amiss, for he'd been busy leafing through his Book of Common Prayer in search of something appropriate for such an uncommon occasion.

Lord Lumpley, on the other hand, couldn't help but notice, given that his eyes rarely strayed from Jane. He straightened up and began backing away from the others.

"Well, now that we've got this under way, no doubt there are other matters I could be attending to around the village. Perhaps Miss Bennet and I might—"

"Hello," Roper said, seemingly speaking to the tuft of grass he was kneeling over. "One of my pegs is coming back out."

"What's that you say?" Ensign Pratt asked, moving over to take a look.

"I would advise stepping back, gentlemen," Mr. Bennet said.

"Yeah . . . right you are, sir," Roper said—just as a hand burst from the earth, a tent peg piercing the palm. Gray fingers clamped themselves around the man's ankle.

Roper shrieked immediately and with much enthusiasm.

"Fire! Fire!" Ensign Pratt squealed, leaping away pointing at the hand—and now wrist and forearm—jutting up from the ground.

Roper tried to flee, but the fingers remained locked on tightly. All he could do was limp in circles, screaming, as his fellow soldiers scrambled to collect their muskets, which had been propped up in a neat pyramid several yards away.