pride And prejudice And zombies: dawn of the dreadfuls

Chapter 36

THERE WAS NO DIVISION between upstairs and downstairs now. There couldn't be, with the soldiers gone. Everyone was needed at a window or door with a gun or a sword or a knife or a poker or even just a leg from a broken chair. Tradesman, yeoman, gentleman, seamstress, fishwife, farmwife, lady—they all fought side by side, for surely the dreadfuls would be equally democratic. They would eat anyone and everyone.

For a time, at least, the unmentionables had full stomachs (those that still had them), and the assaults on the house tapered off while they enjoyed their picnic on the lawn. When the attacks began again, they were sporadic and easily beaten back. At first.

By nightfall, however, the onslaught was once again relentless, and hardly five minutes went by without a board somewhere giving way. It took Elizabeth nearly half an hour just to walk down a hallway with a bust of the Prince Regent—which she intended to drop onto the zombies from a second-story window—for every few steps she had to set down the prince and pull out her sword and add to the collection of freshly severed limbs lined up along the wainscoting. One would-be intruder was particularly persistent, managing to squirm its way inside even after all but its head and chest and left arm had been sliced away. A woman in a tattered yellow ball gown smashed a chamber pot into its face as it slithered after Elizabeth, slowing it for a moment. When it whirled on the lady, hissing, Elizabeth was finally able to slice through the top of its skull, and its brain-filled crown fell forward onto the floor looking like a hairy bowl of porridge.

BY NIGHTFALL, HOWEVER, THE ONSLAUGHT WAS ONCE AGAIN RELENTLESS.

Elizabeth sheathed her katana and looked up at the woman who'd helped her—and was shocked to find that it was Mrs. Goswick.

"Thank you," Elizabeth said.

Mrs. Goswick shook her head. "No. Thank you, Miss Bennet."

When Elizabeth finally got the Prince Regent upstairs and out a window, she was only mildly disappointed that it was too dark to see the damage he did down below. It was a cloudy, moonless night, sparing her the sight of the zombie host ringing them in. At last count, it had been nearly a thousand strong.

"Do you think he made it?" Mary asked, stepping up to the window with a large, lumpy satchel. She reached in, pulled out a blue croquet ball, and hurled it down into the darkness. "The Master, I mean?"

Elizabeth helped herself to one of the balls and threw it out the window with all her strength. A second later, there was a sharp clunk followed by the sound of something heavy falling to the ground.

"Does it really matter?" Elizabeth said.

Mary started to toss out a mallet but seemed to change her mind when she found its heft to her liking. She leaned it against the wall, then pulled out a ball and whipped it into the night.

There was another clunk, and a zombie wailed.

"I suppose not," Mary said.

She and Elizabeth kept throwing croquet balls until they were all gone, at which time Mary announced that she was off to look for loose bricks. She took the mallets with her to hand out downstairs.

Elizabeth lingered a moment at the window, wondering if she might take advantage of a quiet moment to slip up to the attic and, if not apologize to Dr. Keckilpenny, at least assure herself of his well-being. She still felt a fondness for the man, despite the things she'd said the last time she'd seen him, and a part of her longed to put any awkwardness between them to rest.

But then someone screamed "They're coming through the wall!" and she was running for the stairs with her sword in her hand.

It turned out to be a small hole—little more than a crack in the plaster just big enough for four broken, bloody fingers to wriggle into the drawing room. But it was going to get bigger.