Dave looked around the room.
“Michelle, go over and look out the window and tell me what you see,” Dave said. “I’ll hold the desk.”
Michelle looked at Dave like he was crazy, but finally walked over to the window and looked outside.
“It looks like half the mob decided to go somewhere else,” Michelle said.
“I think we know where they went,” Dave said.
“The other half is just standing out there,” Michelle paused and looked at Dave. “The other half is out there staring up at our window.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Dave replied. “They all know we’re in here. Fortunately, the windows on this side of the building are too high off the ground for them to get through.”
Michelle walked back over and leaned against the desk again with Dave.
Dave continued to study the layout of the room.
It was a small room, one desk, one chair and enough room to pace between the desk and window, but not much else.
He had seen closets bigger than this room in some of the newer houses being built around Kingsland.
Dave looked up at the ceiling and the two florescent lights that ran across the tile ceiling.
“Michelle, you keep leaning against the desk, I want to look at something.
Michelle nodded.
Dave moved across the room to a small door on the wall in the back corner of the room.
He opened the door and looked inside.
It was a closet that contained a broom leaning against the wall, a rod ran across the top of the closet with two cheap wire hangers hanging from the rod.
Dave grabbed the broom and began pushing the end of the handle up against the top of the closet.
The ceiling tile pushed upward.
Dave turned and grabbed the office chair and slid it into the closet.
He stood on the chair and again used the broom handle and pushed the ceiling tile until it lifted off the frame, angling the broom handle, Dave slid the tile off to the side.
Dave grabbed the rod that ran across the top of the closet and pulled himself up until he was able to see over the top of the drop ceiling.
He had been thinking that they might be able to climb up into the space between the tile and the original ceiling, maybe into a small crawl space or attic, but one look quickly dashed any hope of escaping through the closet ceiling.
It was an old building that had been cheaply constructed.
There was a space of about two feet between the drop ceiling and the original ceiling, but the light aluminum grid and wires that supported the new ceiling tiles was entirely too flimsy to support either his or Michelle’s weight without collapsing back down into the room.
Disappointed, Dave dropped back down into the closet.
When his feet hit the floor, he quickly turned and went back over and leaned against the desk next to Michelle.
“I was hoping we could get up above the ceiling,” Dave said. “But the ceiling would never hold us.”
“Do you think we could go out the window?” Michelle asked.
“We could, but I don’t think it would do us any good,” Dave replied. “They would see us coming and would be waiting for us. If they get into this room, going out the window would only buy us another few seconds before they had us.”
“Do you really think they can get in the room with us holding this desk against the door?” Michelle asked.
“The way they are clawing at and throwing themselves against the door, the door is going to start splitting and will give way,” Dave replied. “I didn’t think much of it when we were over on Sunnyside Drive, but I saw about three doors that looked like they had been clawed apart at the first house we went into.
I think I understand now what happened to the doors. They weren’t busted down by a battering ram or some large guy running into them.
They were slowly shredded and hammered on by those zombies until the doors weakened and gave way under the weight of so many bodies pushing against them. I’m afraid that is what will happen here.”
“But we are holding this heavy desk against the door,” Michelle said.
“When they break through the door and start pushing directly against the desk, it will start getting a lot harder for us to keep it in place. There are a lot more of them out there than there are of us.”
Michelle was now trembling.
“Couldn’t you lie to me and tell me that we could hold this desk and keep them out for a week if we had too?” Michelle asked and tried to smile but was too nervous to do more than force a slight grimace.
“I don’t lie,” Dave replied. “But in this case, I don’t need to because we will be out of here long before they can get in.”
“Right,” Michelle said. “It doesn’t work when I know you’re lying.”
“But I’m not lying,” Dave replied as he studied something on the wall in the corner of the room. “I think I see a way out of here. Stay here and keep your weight against the desk.”
As Dave started to move away from the desk, something began slapping against the side of the desk near where he had been standing.
He jumped when he saw what it was.
A skinny, bony arm had slipped in through the broken window and was reaching around the side of the desk.
The fingers were frantically opening and closing, trying to latch on to anything inside the room.
Every time the hand failed to latch on to anything, it hit the side of the desk making a loud slapping noise.
Dave quickly pulled his club from its holder and began to hammer at the flailing limb.
With each swing, the loud sound of breaking bone could be heard.
Instead of trying to get its arm back through the broken window, the zombie just continued to try to grab on to something.
When Dave was done swinging his club, the arm was reduced to a broken, mangled mess, that now flopped limply as it hung uselessly against the side of the desk as the zombie continued to reach into the room.
“Keep your weight on that door,” Dave said as he turned and ran over to the grate on the wall.
He quickly got down on the floor and looked into the grate and found that he could see through the holes in the grate and into the next room.
The two-foot wide, one-foot high grate was a cheap way of allowing for ventilation that had been used in a lot of the old building in the Kingsland area.
There were two grates in the room, one up near the ceiling to allow the heat to move from one room to the next and one near the floor for the cold air.
Dave reached in his pocket and pulled out his penknife and started to remove the first of two screws that held the grate to the wall.
When he had removed the screws, he pulled at the grate, breaking the seal created by numerous paint jobs that had been done in the building over the years.
When Dave had set the grate on the floor next to the opening, he looked in at the back of the grate on the wall in the next room.
He could see where the screws came through the wall, but unfortunately there wasn’t a way to unscrew them from this side.
Counting on the fact that the building had been constructed cheaply, Dave used the knife to try and cut the wall away around the screws.
The plasterboard cut away easily.
Dave reached through the opening, pushed his fingers through the grate and pushed until it broke free from the wall.
He quietly laid the metal grate on the floor in the other room and slid it away from the opening.
After pushing his head through the opening to see what was in the next room, he sat back on the floor and looked over at Michelle.
“We can get out this way,” Dave said.
“What good will that do us?” Michelle asked. “We’ll just be trapped in that room instead of this one.”
“But they will be looking for us in this room,” Dave replied. “They won’t know that we are over there. It will buy us a little more time.”
<
br /> “Until they look through that big hole in the wall,” Michelle said.
Dave got up and went to the closet and grabbed the two wire hangers.
Then he twisted the hangers until he was holding two long twisted pieces of wire.
“I don’t intend to make it that easy for them,” Dave said as he came over and stood next to Michelle and leaned back against the desk.
“OK, here’s what we are going to do,” Dave said. “I’ll hold the desk while you crawl through the opening and go into the next room. You have to do this quietly. When you get into the next room, stay down on the floor and go to the right, staying close to the wall. This will only work if they don’t know we are in that room, so be careful to stay quiet and against the wall where they won’t be able to see you through the window in the door.”
Michelle nodded nervously.
“Go now,” Dave said. “As soon as you are through the opening, I’ll be right behind you.”
Dave gave Michelle a smile to help her relax.
Michelle ran over to the opening, got down on her hands and knees, then shimmied through the opening.
Dave counted to twenty, hoping to give Michelle enough time to give him room to work after he crawled through the opening.
Dave looked around the side of the desk and saw the arm still flopping against the desk, then he too ran over to the opening and crawled through.
It took Dave a bit longer to shimmy through the opening as his shoulders were wider and he was a bit thicker through the body than Michelle.
When he was finally inside the next room, he took a quick glance to find Michelle crouched in the corner.
Then Dave reached through the opening and picked up the grate and pushed the wire hanger through one of the openings in the center of the metal grate.
He held the grate in place on the wall from the next room as he picked up the grate on this side of the wall and fed the other end of the wire hanger through the opening in the second grate, pushed it back in place and twisted the wire on this end until the two grates were held tightly in place over the opening.
When Dave was satisfied with his work, he crawled over and sat next to Michelle.
“You did good,” Dave whispered.
“I think I felt better being in the other room behind that heavy desk,” Michelle whispered back. “I feel exposed here without anything to hide behind.”
“Hopefully we won’t be here long,” Dave whispered.
Michelle looked at him strangely.
Dave pointed to the other side of the room and to another grate.
“We’re going to go to the next room?” Michelle whispered.
“I plan on going as far as we can,” Dave whispered. “Hopefully they will keep trying to get into the Dispatch Center while we go to the other end of the building. With them thinking we are at this end of the building, we might be able to find a way out on the other end.”
Dave got to his hands and knees and began to crawl along the floor, keeping close to the wall.
Michelle followed behind, she became very nervous as they crawled under the window of the door.
They finally reached the far corner and the next grate.
Dave removed the new grates as he had done before.
After he looked through the opening into the next room to be sure the layout was the same, he signaled Michelle to go into the next room.
Dave followed and secured the grates with the second hanger wire.
When he was done he crawled over to Michelle and smiled.
“Let’s keep moving,” Dave whispered.
“Are you going to check the closet to find another hanger to use on the next grates?” Michelle whispered.
“No, too risky,” Dave whispered back. “We’ll have to hope that the grates in these two rooms will be enough to keep them from knowing where we went.”
Dave crawled across the room and began removing the next grate.
A loud crashing sound vibrated the building.
Dave looked back to see Michelle, wide eyed, staring at him.
“They are in the Dispatch Center,” Dave whispered. “That sound must have been the desk toppling over as they pushed into the room.”
Michelle nodded as she turned her attention to the grate where they had just come through as the moaning sounds of the zombies grew in volume and the sound echoed through the grates into their room.
It sounded like a demolition team had entered the room and were tearing the room apart.
Dave quickened his pace and quickly removed the next grate so they could keep moving through the building.
Chapter 9
Dave and Michelle crawled through the opening in the next room and quietly sat against the wall.
“How many rooms have we gone through?” Michelle asked.
“I don’t know, I’ve lost track,” Dave replied.
“I recognize this room,” Michelle whispered. “This is the room where I had my interview. This is the first room on the right after you come in the door.”
“Carol Johnson’s office,” Dave said. “She is the county personnel officer.”
“That was who I talked with,” Michelle said. “Do you think we can get out of the building here?”
“I don’t know,” Dave whispered back. “It sounds quieter down this way, but I need to find out how many zombies are outside our door. Hopefully they are all down at the other end of the building by now.”
“You can take a quick look out the window in the door to find out?” Michelle said.
“Not a chance,” Dave replied. “The last time I looked out the window in our door, all hell broke loose.”
“Then how are we going to find out if we can get out?” Michelle asked.
Dave was studying the door.
“I think I see a way to find out without giving away our location,” Dave whispered. “Carol is a big wig and has a fancier office than you had.”
Michelle had a puzzled look on her face.
“Stay here,” Dave said and quietly crawled over and sat under the window in the door.
Michelle watched as Dave lifted his arm and grabbed the cord hanging from the open blinds that hung down over the window.
Then very slowly, Dave began to pull the cord.
He pulled the cord down about an inch then stopped and listened.
When he didn’t hear anything, he pulled the cord another inch and waited.
After a few minutes, the cord wouldn’t budge.
Dave looked up and saw that the blinds were now tightly closed.
Dave looked over at Michelle and smiled.
Next Dave laid down on his stomach and put his face up next to the mail slot.
Very slowly, he reached his hand up to the mail slot and pulled the flap in just enough to see out into the hallway.
He looked out into the hallway for a moment, shifting his head to try to look at the outside door then back down the hallway, then slowly let the flap fall back into place and crawled back over to Michelle.
Dave sat back against the wall and looked at Michelle.
“I can hear them banging against the hallway further down the hall, but it looks like we have an opening outside our door,” Dave whispered. “It doesn’t look like they got in through the main door, it’s closed and the desk we pushed in front of it is still there.”
“Do you think we can get out that way?” Michelle asked.
“Maybe, but before we go running out into the hall, I need to make sure we have someplace to go,” Dave replied. “Wait here.”
Dave crawled over to the two windows in the room.
Being they were now in a corner office, Dave could look out and see not only what was outside beside the building, but also what was behind the building.
Dave raised his head until he could first look out the side window.
Next Dave moved over to the back window and looked out, then he crawled back over next to Michelle.
“What did you see out there?” M
ichelle asked.
“They are along the side of the building and out back,” Dave replied, but there are only a few of them and they are scattered around. “I think if we can get out there we could make it to the car before we would have to deal with very many of them. I could use my club on any that get near us and knock them out of our way so we could get through.”
“OK,” Michelle said nervously, “But I’m really afraid to open that door. That desk was heavy, what if the zombies see us and can get to us before we can get that desk moved and open the door. If we’re lucky, we might be able to get back in the room but then they will know where we are.”
“Yeah, I thought of that too,” Dave whispered. “Then we would be back to square one. We would have to start working our way back through the vent holes again but this time we would be backing ourselves into a corner with no way out.”
“So we are just going to stay here?” Michelle asked, not sure if she felt relieved by that idea or if she should feel horrified that they were finally trapped.
“No,” Dave replied. “I think we are going to go out that back window.”
“I thought you said we couldn’t go out the window because they would see us and be waiting for us?” Michelle asked.
“They will,” Dave replied. “But right now there aren’t very many of them. I think most of them are still at the front of the building where all the action is. I think we can make it to the car. This might be our best opportunity. When they don’t find us in the dispatch center at the other end of the building, they might start roaming through the building looking for another victim. We don’t have any more rooms to run to, so we can’t let them discover us here. The mob out front might start roaming around the building too, making going out the window impossible. I think the sooner we go, the better our chances.”
Michelle sat nervously thinking about going outside and running through zombies.
Apocalypse- the Plan Page 45
