Steve Hockensmith - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Dawn of the Dreadfuls

And his looks—they were pleasing indeed. So very, very pleasing . . .

“Lizzy, did you hear that?” Jane said.

Elizabeth blinked her eyes, and again she was seeing herself in the mirror instead of Master Hawksworth.

“Hmm, what, hear something?”

Jane was sitting up stiffly on her bed, and she turned toward the door and pointed. “Out there. In the hall.”

Elizabeth listened. Then listened some more. And just when she was about to say “I don’t hear anything,” she did.

A soft, clacking sort of sound it was, like fingernails rapping lightly against glass or a fork tapped against a tabletop.

“You hear it?” Jane asked, voice low.

Elizabeth nodded.

“What do you think it is?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I thought everyone else was asleep.” Elizabeth attempted a nonchalant shrug, yet when she went on talking she did it at a whisper. “Perhaps it’s a branch brushing against one of the windows.”

“I don’t think so.”

Jane nodded at her own window. Outside, dark shapes loomed in the dim moonlight—the silhouettes of the nearest trees.

They were perfectly still. There was no wind that night.

The quiet clicking continued.

Then a floorboard creaked.

Elizabeth turned to the bureau, put the hairbrush upon it, and slid off the stiletto knife she’d left there earlier.

Jane reached under her pillow and pulled out her nunchucks.

Master Hawksworth had insisted that the girls begin sleeping with their weapons. “So that even in your dreams, you will remember you are warriors,” he’d said. None of them had appreciated this much at first—particularly Lydia, who almost strangled herself with her own garrote one night as she dreamed she was putting on a new diamond choker. But Elizabeth was grateful for the edict now.

Slowly, she rose and crept toward the doorway. Moving silently was something they’d spent hours practicing that very day, walking again and again over a bed of twigs, dried leaves, and shards of shattered glass, doing laps and dand-baithaks by the score until they could all get across without making a sound. So there was no squeaking of old wood beneath their feet as they gathered together by the door.

The creaking outside, however, continued, as did the muffled rattle.

“I will go first.”

Whisper soft as Jane’s words were, Elizabeth could still hear the tremble in them.

“We will go together,” she said, and without waiting another moment—for what could waiting do but give fear more time to take root?—she opened the door.

Side by side, Jane and Elizabeth stepped forward, weapons at the ready. They found themselves in a soft, low light flickering along the hall—the glow of a single candle resting on the floor at the end of the corridor. Beside it in the dim light was a hunched form in a shroud-like gown, its back to the girls.

There was another rattle, and the thing at the end of the hall shifted its weight and moaned softly.

“It’s trying to get into Father’s room,” Jane whispered.

Elizabeth started down the hall. “The stiletto would be best.”

“No.” Jane caught Elizabeth by the arm. “The nunchucks.”

“Don’t be a fool. This is work for a blade.”

“That little thing? It has no range. With these, at least, I can stun it before—”

“You can’t stun a zombie.”

“Of course you can.”

“No, you can’t.”

“We must ask Papa.”

“Well, I hardly think now is the time.”

“I didn’t mean now .”

Both girls raised their weapons and readied themselves for a charge. They froze, however, when the creature pressed itself to Mr. Bennet’s door and spoke.

“Mr. Bennnn-nnnnnet . . . Mr. Bennnnn-nnnnnnet . . . open uuuuuu-uuuuuup.”

“I’m exhausted, woman,” Elizabeth heard her father say. “Let me rest.”

SIDE BY SIDE, JANE AND ELIZABETH STEPPED FORWARD, WEAPONS AT THE READY.

“Oh, I won’t disturb you. I just want a little company.”

“You just want a male heir, you mean. And I’m too tired to give you one.”

Jane gasped.

“Oh, my,” said Elizabeth.

This was worse than finding a zombie in the house.

Mrs. Bennet finally heard the girls behind her and turned and screamed.

“What’s going on?” cried Mary, bursting from her room clutching a trident.

Kitty and Lydia stumbled into the hall next, the former holding a battle-ax, the latter brandishing a chamber pot (for she’d ignored the Master’s order and had left her cutlass out in the dojo).

“Who screamed? Who screamed?” Kitty panted.

Elizabeth nodded toward the far end of the hall.

“Oh, ummmm . . . I’m afraid that was me, dearest,” said Mrs. Bennet, and she straightened up and started smoothing out the wrinkles in her nightgown. “Your sisters startled me, that’s all.”

“What were you doing out here, Mamma?” Lydia asked blearily, eyes half lidded.

Many’s the time Elizabeth had thought her mother impervious to shame, but now, at last, she saw a blush on the lady’s face.

“Just saying good night to your father.”

“But you said good night to us all hours ago,” Mary pointed out.

“Oh, hang it all! We’re doomed! Doomed !” Mrs. Bennet blubbered, and she dashed down the hallway to her bedchamber, knocking her daughters aside like so many skittle pins.

“Good night, Mrs. Bennet!” Mr. Bennet called after her from behind his firmly locked door.

Mary, Kitty, and Lydia lowered their weapons and began shuffling wearily back to their beds.

“If these are the fruits of matrimony,” Jane said softly, “we owe Mrs. Goswick a letter of thanks.”

Elizabeth trudged down the hall to retrieve the candle her mother had thoughtlessly left behind on the floor.

“Indeed,” she sighed. “‘Wedded bliss’ would seem to be entirely overrated.”

Countless times, she and Jane had exchanged similar sentiments after witnessing some unseemly scene between their parents. Yet, for the first time, the words felt strangely hollow to her.

She raised the candlestick to her face and puffed on the wick, but the little flame didn’t go out.

THE NEXT MORNING’S training began with the usual laps and dand-baithaks for everyone: for mustering on time instead of showing their devotion by arriving early; for breathing too loudly during morning meditation; for having their sparring gowns laced too tight; for having their sparring gowns laced too loose ; for, in short, whatever Master Hawksworth could think up. The flimsiest of all the infractions was assigned to Mr. Bennet, who was sent outside to run a hundred sprints across the grounds—backward—for supposedly blinking too frequently.

“Remember: Even one wink of the eye gives The Enemy time to strike,” the Master said. “Now, go!”

Mr. Bennet had lingered a moment, expressionless, before bowing and heading for the door.

It seemed to Elizabeth that Master Hawksworth relaxed a bit whenever her father wasn’t around. He was less likely to dole out punishments from a corner of the dojo, leaving most of the actual demonstrations to Mr. Bennet, and more likely to take off his coat and vest and move . Sometimes, he merely demonstrated new stances. But other times—the times Elizabeth and her sisters loved most—he flew around the room showing off “ninja fighting styles” with names like the Striking Viper and the Tiger’s Claw.

So it was to be this day.

“The time has come for the Way of the Panther,” the Master said, stripping down to his shirt sleeves. “The panther is powerful, but supple. Quick, but controlled. Fierce, but poised. You, too, must be all these things. Like so.”