pride And prejudice And zombies: dawn of the dreadfuls

chapter 3

A SHRIEK ECHOED OUT from the church, and Mrs. Bennet shrieked, too.

A moment later, there was a howl, and Mrs. Bennet howled.

Then there was a bellow and a squeal and a yelp and finally silence, and Mrs. Bennet bellowed and squealed and yelped but—a stranger to silence all her days—didn't stop there. Instead, she comforted herself (as was her way) with a caterwauled cataloging of the various and sundry misfortunes about to beset her and hers.

Jane and Kitty and Lydia huddled around their mother on the church steps, patting her and fanning her and cooing comfort. They were up to their twenty-third "Everything's going to be all right" when a grim-faced Mr. Bennet stalked from the church and swept right past the four of them.

"Where are you going, Mr. Bennet?" his wife called after him.

"Home!" he barked without looking back.

"Surely you're not walking!"

"We walked here, we can walk back!"

"But that was before—"

At last, Mr. Bennet stopped. "I will have no more of your buts! I have let them vex me too long!" He looked past Mrs. Bennet at his daughters, including Elizabeth and Mary, who were now trudging slump-shouldered from the chapel. "Fall in behind me, girls. We must quick-march to Longbourn. And if your mother can't keep up," he locked eyes with his wife, "we leave her."

He spun on his heel and stomped off again.

"Oh, Mr. Bennet, you can't, you can't!" Mrs. Bennet moaned, throwing the back of a hand to her forehead and going into a long, staggering swoon.

"He's not stopping, Mamma," Kitty told her.

"Well, come along, then, come along," Mrs. Bennet said, setting off after her husband.

Elizabeth, Mary, and Jane had already done so without pause.

It was a sunny, unseasonably warm April day—the reason they'd decided to walk to the church rather than take the carriage. Yet there was no birdsong to be heard as the Bennets began the mile-long trek home, nor were there foals, calves, or lambs to watch frolicking in the fields. All creatures great and small and in between, it seemed, had been put to flight by the horrible keening screeches cutting through the Hertfordshire woodlands.

And it wasn't even zombies making all the noise.

"They're back! They're back, after all these years!" Mrs. Bennet wailed. "The dreadfuls, right here in Meryton! And your father will be ripped to shreds and Longbourn will fall to that frightful cousin of his and he'll surely throw us out to starve in the gutter—if we should be so lucky before the unmentionables get us—and why oh why are we walking home when we could be set upon at any moment by a horde of sorry stricken and torn limb from limb? That must be what happened to that poor, dear, lovely what's-her-name who's been missing these past two weeks."

"Emily Ward," Jane said softly. Unlike her mother, she knew the name well: Emily Ward had been her friend.

"Why, if they can grab perfectly healthy young girls like her, a mature individual such as myself will be no match for them," Mrs. Bennet prattled on. "Look sharp, girls! They'll be coming for your beloved mother first!"

"You must try to remain calm, Mamma," said Mary. She herself did not look calm so much as addled: Her eyes were glassy, and she walked with the shuffling, stumbling steps of a clumsy somnambulist. "Remember: Mr. Ford hadn't been interred yet. If what I've read of the sorry stricken is correct, it will be days, perhaps even weeks, before more can dig their way from the grave to attack us."