"Oh! Ummm...one, two, three, four...five! Five! It's hard to see because the glass is all smeared up with blood!"

"Lovely!" Gerald snarled, "I really needed to hear that. Now get your butt down from there and stop provoking them!"

"I'm not doing anything!" she protested, but dutifully started to descend from atop the booth's seat.

The last thing she wanted to do was excite the killer mob on the other side of the door into overwhelming the two men holding them out. All the pressure they were putting against the glass concerned her enough as it was. They weren't hammering on it, at least not yet, but they pushed against it constantly. And if they were pushing hard enough to make the two men strain like this to keep them out...sooner or later something was going to give.

"Ma'am, wait a minute."

"Huh?" She stopped climbing down and looked at Harley.

"I need you to do one more thing before you get down."

"What's that?" she queried.

"No shit," Gerald snapped, "What now? These things are getting more worked up!"

"I want," the larger man patiently continued, "you to try and see over their heads and give me an idea of how many are behind them in the store. We need to know what we're up against."

"Right," she nodded and stood again.

Holly could see the wisdom of this, even though the glare Gerald now fixed on her was almost as baleful as the ones on the other side of the glass. Allowing the other man to countermand his order guaranteed she would be facing a sullen and resentful boyfriend in the near future. She could already tell it was going to take some major ego stroking to unruffle his feathers later. But it would be best to worry about that later and focus on the task at hand.

"Ummm..." She squinted over the activity in the doorway. "There are a couple on the ground in front of the register...Holy crap, it looks like the whole thing came down...and there are two...no three... behind the mess in the corner. Oh god!" she covered her mouth with her hand. "They're eating...that..."

"I know," Harley soothed. "Don't think about it. Just concentrate on counting."

Holly swallowed and focused over them again.

"I think that's it. Five back there and five at the door. No...waitaminute...one of the ones at the door is leaving."

"Yeah, I can feel the difference." Gerald's sarcasm stung.

"Where's he going?" Harley ignored him. "Back to the counter?"

"She...I think...it's wearing a dress...but it just turned around and went down an aisle."

"I'm not sure I like the sound of that..."

"Maybe it got bored," Gerald puffed.

"I doubt it. They don't seem the type. Maybe she's going to go eat the one I took down earlier. But I sort of doubt that too."

"You killed one?" Holly perked up. "Then they're not what they look like!"

"Not really 'killed' it," Harley strained against the door. "Just 'broke' it. And trust me...they are exactly what they look like. By the way, you can go ahead and get down now."

"Oh, right,"

She clambered down from the booth seat, trying to ignore the reignited glare from Gerald.

He could pick the stupidest things to get jealous or insecure about, and part of her couldn't believe he was indulging in this kind of stupidity right now. Couldn't he see the other man was just being sensible? It should have been obvious. But she harbored no doubt she would later be accused of being secretly attracted the guy. Almost two years of being with Gerald had accustomed her to this behavior to the point it was just one more thing she planned around on a given day. She could handle it...

...assuming that getting ripped to pieces and devoured by dead people didn't get added to her itinerary.

"So you are saying those are really dead people out there?" Gerald's disbelief dripped from every word.

"Yeah," Harley grimaced as the door shifted a little. "I know it's hard to believe, but I got up close and personal with one and it was one hundred percent, grade-A corpse...odor and all."

"You mean like a zombie?" Holly frowned, "Like in the movies?"

"Well, like the old dead ones, I guess. Only these are faster, stronger, and more vicious. Meaner looking, too."

"Great!" Gerald exclaimed, "I'm stuck in a backwoods George Romero movie with the cast from Hee Haw."

"Gerald, please..." she gave an apologetic look to Harley.

"Look," the redhead huffed, "if you're done pissing these things off, why don't you do something useful and go find out what's holding up that waitress with those keys. Tell her I said the service around here stinks."

Holly winced, and nodded.

"I guess it's been awful quiet back there anyway," she turned towards the kitchen. "I'll go see what's going on." Truthfully, she was grateful for an excuse to get away from both the door and Gerald.

She made three steps before the sounds of all hell breaking loose erupted from the back of the diner.

Downpour Deke.

The dead woman hit Deke with a flying lunge.

He caught one wrist in a desperate grab and barely managed to get his other forearm up under her chin as the horror forced him backwards against the door to the back hallway. Her strength caught him by surprise, and the ferocity of the attack stunned him. She thrashed wildly in her attempt to close the final inches between the two of them and it was all he could do to hold on. Pain lanced in his shoulder where her free hand grabbed and drove her fingers into his flesh like spikes.

The young man screamed in pain, and also at the sight of the yellow toothed maw snapping like a rabid wolf less than an inch from his nose. The awful smell of the thing threatened to overwhelm him and Deke gagged in an effort to keep from inhaling its stench. And the way she kept driving her face at his reminded him horribly of the prelude to a kiss...before she would stretch those jaws wide and try to bite his face off again.

I don't want to die like this, he despaired...knowing full well that several people had already done exactly that in the past few minutes.

And then he was falling.

The door Deke had been pressed back against suddenly opened, and he tumbled backwards into the hallway beyond...with his grisly assailant right on top of him.

Stars blasted across his vision as his head bounced off the concrete floor. Pain split a fiery crack in the back of his skull, leaving him temporarily blinded and confused while thrashing with the horror on the cement surface. Screams erupted around him, and he heard the doctor's voice yelling for somebody to close the door.

The boot to the side of his head didn't help either.

"Ow! Holy Shit! Kick it, not me!"

"Sorry!" Marisa snarled, but the rate her boot flew back and forth past his eyes didn't diminish in the least. It connected with the monsters head three straight times, knocking it sideways, but the thing didn't seem fazed in the least. Its one glaring eye continued to stare straight into his own like killing him was the only thing in the universe that mattered. Even worse, the last kick dislodged his forearm from under its chin...giving it a clear bite at his face.

This time he couldn't stop it.

"Nooooo!" Deke cried out as the things widening jaws filled his vision.

Then all the air was driven from his lungs as something landed on both of them with tremendous force.

"Get...off...him!" Stacey shrieked, now sitting on its back. Her teeth were bared and her face was livid with what appeared to be pure rage. The girl grabbed the horror by the hair on both sides of its head and leaned back hard in an effort to pull its snapping teeth away from him. It worked...for a second.

Then with a wet tearing sound the corpse's entire scalp and the skin on the side of its face slid free of its skull, leaving the waitress holding the dripping white curls and death mask in her hand. Stacey shrieked in disgust and threw the offending mass down the hall towards the office. It landed with a viscous plop in front of Big Earl's door. At the same time, the sudden release of tension on the monster's head caused its bony cranium to fly forward and butt Deke between the eyes.

The stars returned, and the pain made tears well.

The boy groped blindly with his free arm, trying to get it between him and the things mouth again. Any second he expected the feel of those rotten teeth sinking into the sides of his face. He tried to turn over, but the combined weight of the monster and Stacey in these confined quarters had him pinned. His vision cleared enough to see the little waitress now had the thing in a rear headlock and was straining to hold it back. The combined pressure of both his and her arms under its chin held its jaw shut and was the only reason he still featured a nose.

Things were not going well.

And the clock was still ticking...

"Marisa," he gasped at the waitress, who currently looked to be hunting an angle to get another kick in. "The keys...the keys are in my front pocket. Go get that door locked and...Aughhhh!"

Pain now lit up his shoulder.

Deke twisted his head to see that the old trucker had arrived and somehow maneuvered over to the other side of him, grabbed the nightmare's free hand, and now started pulling it free from his shoulder. But as he pulled back, the dead woman tried to clench her hand into a fist...threatening to tear a huge chunk of his muscle free. The boy cried out again, and blood welled around the monster's fingers where they penetrated his shirt.

"Okay," the old man breathed loudly, "you want to play rough? So be it."

Deke's eyes widened as the old trucker pulled a hunting knife out from behind his back. It was a deadly looking thing with an antler handle, a saw-toothed back, and a wickedly curved blade. The fact it gleamed only inches from his face made it seem enormous. But with all the thrashing going on, Deke wasn't sure if the knife's appearance counted as a good thing or not.

"Hey now," he gasped. "Be careful with that! I don't wa...ow! Owww! Fine! She's twisting it...Cut her! Do what you got to do! Oh crap, it hurts!"

The trucker wasted no time in sliding the blade in under one of the withered fingers and then turning the edge up. "Turn your head," he instructed. "I don't know how much this blade will jump when it cuts through."

"Right," Deke twisted his face away...

...only to find himself nose to nostril holes with the horror on top of him.

Stacey still straddled its back and had its head gripped tight, with one of her arms under its chin. She was breathing hard, and obviously squeezing for all she was worth. It looked odd, but Deke realized it did an effective job of keeping the thing's mouth shut where it couldn't bite. At the same time, being eyeball to eyeball with this monstrosity was going to be the fuel for a lifetime's worth of nightmares.

Assuming he had enough lifetime left for nightmares.

"Got them!" Marisa stood up on his other side. She held the key ring in her hand as she pushed herself back to her feet. He hadn't even realized she had been fishing around in his pocket. "As soon as I find the right key that fits the lock, I'll have Harley back here to help!"

"You mean you don't know which key it is either?" Deke couldn't help but query.

"Hey!" she snapped. "Do I look like an assistant manager to you? I just...oh, nevermind!"

Marisa turned and raced for the front of the restaurant as fast as her long legs would carry her.

Deke hoped she got lucky and hit the right key soon.

He was hurt, and getting the hell beaten out of him by this monster.

The other problem was this thing didn't seem to tire, while Stacey was already showing signs of exhaustion. She was having to give it her all just to keep the things jaws shut, meaning her energy was depleting that much faster. Even worse, fresh blood ran in rivulets from the gashes in her arm and he knew that had to be taking its toll on her as well.

What he didn't know was how much longer he was going to be able to hold the thing's other hand out of the fight. He had it by the wrist, pinned between him and monster, and he suspected if that hadn't been the case it would have already managed to jerk free. Even under these circumstances, it still fought with unrelenting ferocity to get loose, and he knew it was only a matter of time.

Pain lanced in his shoulder again, and Deke groaned aloud.

"Only one more, son," the old man wheezed to him, "Just hang in there. I've almost got it free."

"Hanging in there," the boy whimpered.

Deke had a feeling this would be over in the next minute or two...one way or another. Unfortunately he could see several ways this could finish badly but hadn't managed to imagine any happy endings yet.

"There!" Grandpa Tom exclaimed.

Another flare of pain lit up Deke's shoulder...

...and then things went from bad to worse.

The monster jerked its freed hand back, now missing three fingers. The move seemed reflexive, but couldn't have been more effective if the thing had calculated it. Its elbow drove into Stacey's ribs with a thunderous impact Deke could feel through his contact with their bodies atop him.

"Ouff!" The girl grabbed her side as she tumbled off the creature's back.

The dead woman twisted with undiminished strength and jerked its other hand free of Deke's grasp. It now fixed its baleful glare on the young waitress gasping on the floor beside them.

"Stacey! Look out!"

Stacey's pain glazed eyes widened as she realized she had become the object of the thing's attention. The wounded girl mustered a thin scream and scrambled backwards as the horror clambered after her in pursuit.

It closed the gap with her in a second.

The monster lunged for the kill...

...only this time to be brought down by Deke from behind.

"Oh no you don't!" he grunted, snaking his arms under the creature's armpits and clasping his hands behind its neck.

Stacey scurried clear as he planted the things face into the concrete.

It still fought with wild intensity, but he had it in a full nelson and it couldn't reach him with either its talons or its teeth. On the other hand, now all he could do was hold on. It amounted to another stalemate, with its duration once again dictated by how long he could last before exhaustion caused his grip to fail.

Still, every second he held on to the thing was one more second Marisa had to get that door locked. He brought all of the strength he had left to bear on the monster, trying to force its head down into its chest. He couldn't believe how much effort it took, considering the shrunken state of the thing's neck.

"Deke! Over here!"

He looked up to see Stacey holding a large metal door open in the wall. She clutched her side with her other hand, and her breathing was short and labored.

"Try and throw her in here!" the girl repeated. "Grandpa! Grab her legs while Deke's got her like that! We can lock her in!"