by bret Wellman
Two buildings down and three stories up, more windows began to shatter as three zombies came tumbling out. They landed hard, getting back up and standing with broken bodies. Two of them had feet that dragged behind the fragmented bones they used to walk on. The third reached out with twisted arms.
A few more zombies burst from the next floor up, one from the basement level. A similar phenomenon began happening to a building on the other side of the street. One stumbled off the roof and smashed a red car that was sitting against the sidewalk.
A zombie fell from an apartment three stories above a restaurant. It tore through an awning and crushed a table that had been set up on the sidewalk.
As it stood up, Dan started noticing the same thing happening up and down the city in every direction. The buildings were like hives, feeding zombies into the street.
"Lucky is not the word I would use," he said, watching the numbers grow.
Zoey cut down the zombie that had fallen through the awning. "I don't think we are going to be able to hold out against so many."
Dan felt the vise as they began moving in from all directions. Their numbers doubled, tripled, anything living was fast becoming eradicated.
"I know."
Chapter 16
"We've got all the people that we are gonna get," said the cop, coming back to their side of the building. "We are out of bullets and have to close the doors."
"And then what?" asked Dan.
"The riot police and National Guard should be getting the streets back under control pretty soon. Until they do, we are going to wait it out on the roof."
Dan didn't like the idea of being trapped on the roof but couldn't think of anything better. "Okay, but we had better hurry. Another minute and we will be overrun for sure."
"Okay, let's get inside," the cop said loud enough so Barns could hear him.
Barns looked back from clobbering a zombie in the head. "Don't leave me!" He turned and almost started running as he made his way to the door. The cops held the door open for him to go in.
Zoey held her hand up, encouraging Dan to lead the way. "After you."
An awfully friendly gesture considering all the walking corpses closing in on them.
Once they were all inside, the two cops closed the door and locked it. The one that had been bitten coughed, and Dan couldn't help but notice the little droplets of blood on his hand before he wiped it on his pants.
"Alright," said the infected cop. "We need everybody to move to the upper floor. We are going to wait this out on the roof."
There was no objection from the crowd, they seemed eager to get to higher ground. A couple of seconds after everyone started moving for the escalators was when the first zombie hit the glass at the front of the building.
It smeared blood that was turning black in its rotting hand. It pounded repeatedly, spreading more black blood across the glass.
A second zombie came, then a third and a fourth. Small cracks were beginning to show in the bloodied glass.
The people inside the store were beginning to panic. The escalators were too narrow for everybody to all go up at once. They shoved each other as they fought for a higher spot.
"Are you guys coming?" Randy yelled.
Dan turned to see him and Lady Rose leaning over the balcony on the second level. They peered nervously at the growing number of zombies at the front of the store. Dan also noticed that Zoey, Barns and he were the only three not joining the crowd pushing their way up the escalators.
His attention snapped toward the front of the store as the crackling grew louder. There was a large zigzagging crack that shot from one end of the window to the other, like clear lightning.
He tightened his grip on the sword and lifted it over his shoulder like a baseball bat. Zoey and Barns saw him and did the same. He knew the window wouldn't hold long enough for everybody to make it to safety. So he was going to have to slow them down by force.
As the zombies’ numbers began to double it became hard to see the street behind them. They glared into the store, flashing bloody teeth and hideous wounds, smearing blood so thick the window looked like it had been painted that way.
"Zoey, come on!" Randy yelled down at them.
All at once the window gave way, disintegrating into thousands of tiny crystals that rained down on the monsters that were now climbing in.
Watching the horde moving towards him, Dan could only think one thing—fuck this!
He took a second look at the escalator; it was completely clogged with panicking people. They would never make it up that way alive. He looked around, searching for a second option. He scanned the room fast, filled with hopeless despair until he spotted them.
Lining the walls were giant wooden shelves that held small stacks of clothing. Where the top of the shelf passed under the second floor it only had a foot or two of clearance. Once upon a time it would have reminded Dan of a bookshelf in an old library. Right then it was looking a lot more like a ladder.
"We have to get to the wall," he yelled.
He wanted to run but was forced to face his attackers. He swung, decapitating the first and burying the blade into the skull of the second.
They hit them like a raging river hits a boulder, splitting at the tips of their swords and rushing past to attack the escalator.
The screams had already started before the zombies even reached them; it wasn't until afterwards that pain could be heard in those cries.
Dan was surrounded, standing back to back with Zoey and Barns, killing anything that tried to invade their space. Enough of the zombies continued past them, their attention on the other people, to make it possible with enough effort.
He began to shuffle his feet, trying to work his way to the edge of the zombies. "We have to move or we are gonna die!"
He was glad to see Zoey and Barns were sticking right with him. Unfortunately, his muscles were growing fatigued and he was no longer able to completely decapitate his enemy. He had to try stabbing upwards, hitting them under the chin to get to the brain. This turned out to be a lot harder in practice than it was in the mind.
"Run!" he yelled when he felt they were close enough to the edge.
He shoved the last two zombies that were blocking their path, causing them to fall down. The racks of clothing stood before him like a jungle as he dove in.
Zoey and Barns were parallel with him as they took off running through the store. They cut straight through the clothes, as opposed to running diagonally, until they crossed an aisle. Some of the racks toppled over as the clothes snagged them on the way by. The zombies were in pursuit, fanning out and taking every possible path.
More zombies were coming into the store to join the others. Some headed straight for the escalators, some for Dan, Zoey and Barns.
Dan sheathed his katana and slung it over his shoulder in time to reach the wall and leap for the highest shelf he could reach. His hand landed on a pair of pants and he immediately knew he had made a mistake.
As soon as the weight of his body hit the shelf, he yanked the pants and they slipped right off. Oh shit, was the dominant thought in his mind.
"Dan!" He heard Zoey yell moments before he landed flat on his back.
It hadn't been that far a fall but it had knocked the wind out of him. The fact that he had already been out of breath from the sprint across the store made getting up one of the hardest things he had ever done.
By the time he was just starting to climb the shelf, Zoey was already at the top and Barns was getting close.
A chill ran up Dan's spine as he heard the groans growing closer. He did his best to ignore them and worked on the tedious task of climbing the shelf. He had to keep pushing stacks of clothes out of the way in order to keep from slipping off again.
"Come on, Dan, climb!" Barns cheered him on from the top.
It wasn't until his feet were on the fourth step that his lungs relaxed and he was able to take a gasping breath.
"Don't slow down," Zoey warn
ed.
No shit! He thought to himself as he pulled higher.
A zombie grabbed his ankle and yanked. Dan was caught off guard by the force of it. His other foot was out in the air, only his hands were holding him to the shelf, and they were slipping. His arms began to shake the more parallel he was to the ground.
As a last ditch effort, he pulled in with his captured foot and kicked out with his free one. His heel landed square in the nose of the zombie; his foot slipped out of its hand.
As he came crashing back into the shelf, his hands slipped off. Barns caught his wrist before he could fall.
"No mo’ messin’ round, we got to go," Barns declared as he helped pull Dan to the top.
Zoey grabbed his shoulder. "Thought we lost you there for a second."
From his vantage point on the top of the shelves, Dan had a pretty good view of what was going on in the rest of the building.
The zombies had reached the top of the escalator and were now chasing the stragglers through the second floor. One man was chased by three zombies that tackled him into the railing, shattering the glass and causing them all to tumble back to the first floor. The man was dead on impact.
There were no more living people on the first floor; the dead now filled the aisles.
Barns climbed the railing to the second level first, followed by Dan and Zoey. There were only a few zombies between them and the second escalator, and they went down easy enough. The last one had fallen onto the escalator, forcing them to ride up with the body.
The third level was made for shoes. High heels, sneakers, flip-flops, every shoe imaginable was laid out on tables across the room. To the right of the escalators was a door with an exit sign over it; one of the cops was holding it open.
"Is there anybody else?" he asked as they approached.
Dan could only shake his head as he walked past.
Inside was ten feet of stairs they had to climb before going through another door and onto the roof.
The first thing Dan noticed was how good the fresh air felt on his face. The second was that the other cop was on the ground, having a seizure.
Chapter 17
Some of the people were rushing up to hold the man down and help in any way possible. The others, the ones that knew, got as far away as they could.
Dan rushed up and grabbed a fistful of the guy's shirt. "Get his feet, Barns."
He knew they had to get him off the roof because of what would happen once he stopped convulsing. Better to deal with him now, rather than after the transformation.
Carrying him proved to be harder than Dan would have thought. Not only was he heavy but he was shaking like crazy. They dropped him twice as he kept squirming out of their hands. It took much longer to get there than Dan would have hoped. By the time they had reached the edge of the building, he had gone still.
They were both unwilling to throw somebody who had not yet turned, so they set him on the edge and waited. A bead of sweat rolled down Dan’s forehead and into his eye. The salt stung, forcing him to use his shirt to clean it out.
"Do it," said Randy, walking through the crowd. "You know he's about to turn so just do it."
"No," said Dan. "We wait until he does."
"Why, so you can put everyone here at risk?"
"Because it's the right thing," said Zoey.
Randy looked bewildered. "And who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong?"
The other cop came running up, looking furious. "What are you doing?" he yelled.
It was right then that the first cop's eyes snapped open and he sat up. Dan kicked him in the chest causing him to roll backwards off the roof. He did not seem to care that he was falling, only that his new food source was getting farther away. He fell the three stories and landed on two other zombies, getting back up with a broken leg.
"Why did you do that?" The healthy cop grabbed Dan by the chest and jerked him so they were face to face. "Why would you do that!"
Dan flinched as he felt specks of spit hitting his face: "He turned."
"Turned? I was just with him a minute ago!"
"He got bit, he was fighting it."
He began to shake Dan. "He was fine, you motherfucker! He had three kids, three blond haired, blue eyed kids, and you just orphaned them!"
Dan was trying to think of something to say that would calm the cop down. All he could picture was the guy going for his gun. It was then that Barns stood up and punched him in the side of the head. The cop let go and dropped to the ground.
"He was hurtin' you, Dan. I don't like hitting the living," he was pleading.
Dan nodded, "I know, Barns, I don't either. Thank you for helping me out."
The loud bang reverberated behind them. The zombies were knocking on the locked door to the roof. They could see it shaking under the pressure.
Dan didn't like the way it looked; the attacks on the door were more violent than he would have thought.
"Oh dear," said Lady Rose.
Zoey stood up on the ledge of the roof and began to speak to the crowd. "Okay, everybody, we have made it this far, let's not start to panic now. I think we can all calmly agree that that door is not going to hold the zombies back permanently. Therefore we should try to put as much space between us and them as possible. I'm not sure how far we can make it on the rooftops alone, but we need to try. Sitting here will get us killed."
"Let's go, then," said a man in the crowd. "What are we waiting for?"
"But this is where they will look for us," said a woman. "If we leave, we may never get rescued." She was crying and pulling out crumpled tissues from her purse, to dab her tears.
Zoey looked at the crowd with a sad expression. "I know, it is an unfortunate consequence. The truth is that they are never going to find us here. If we stay, we simply won't make it once that door gives out."
"That door isn't going to give," said another man. "It is made of metal!"
That was what Dan had thought at first, but after watching the violent attacks coming from the other side, he knew it wouldn't hold forever. In fact, he felt it could give at any moment. The hinges alone were beginning to look slightly warped.
A small gap was beginning to form near the top corner of the door, every once in a while a dirty finger could be seen sticking out. The dead hissed and moaned at them through it.
"Anyone who wants to stay, stay," he said, grabbing the crowd’s attention. "The rest of us need to get moving."
He made eye contact with Zoey and she nodded to him. He waited for her and Barns to come over to them before he started walking. Lady Rose and Randy were quick to catch up, followed by about half of the rest of the people.
“You are signing your own death certificate,” one of the men that had stayed behind yelled.
“Whatever, buddy,” said Dan, “we will see who is the dead one in about two minutes.”
The roof was about three or four buildings long in one direction and one or two in the other. Dan started walking towards the farthest end. The only problem was that the next roof was ten feet taller than the one they were currently on. Even so, it was a lucky break that both were connected.
Dan got a running start at the brick wall that jutted out from the roof he was currently on. When he was close enough he leaped, his right hand catching the concrete ledge. It took a lot of effort but he was then able to pull himself up and roll onto the higher roof.
Zoey came next; he was able to get a hand on her slender wrist to help pull her up.
When they tried to lift Barns, it took both Dan and Zoey pulling on his shirt along with a bunch of people pushing from the ground. The entire time he kept saying, "Don't drop me now, don't drop me."
With everybody either pulling or pushing it wasn't long before they had almost all of the people onto the higher roof.
They were just lifting up the last person when they heard the cop.
"Get back here, you are under arrest for murdering an officer! The rest of you need to come back to thi
s roof and wait for rescue!" He was charging at them.
He had not gone ten feet when the door to the clothing store gave way and zombies began to spill out onto the roof. The cop spun on his heel at the sound of it.
"Damn it!" they heard him yell as he started running back towards the screaming people who were now under attack.
"Oh, boy," said Barns. "What do we do?"
Dan grabbed him by the arm and turned him away from the carnage. "We move."
He hoped the zombies would be stuck on the lower level of the roof. Deep down in his gut he doubted it. The nasty bastards had a way of getting wherever they wanted to be.
He began to lead the crowd toward the end of the roof, not running, but by no means moving slow. When he reached the edge of the building he found himself looking down into a shadowy alley. He felt confident when he saw that it was free of zombies.
Steam rose up from a manhole cover on the ground. It was swept up into the breeze where it dissipated. There was a mangy looking cat that sat on a dumpster that was overflowing with garbage. It hissed at Dan before leaping down and running away. There was a pile of boxes stacked against the far building. They were stained with either oil or grease, and falling apart from their time spent sitting in the weather.
Dan looked up and down the buildings for a way to get down and then back up on the other side. The building they were on had a metal ladder about thirty feet away that went down to the ground. The other building had a set of rusty stairs, a fire escape directly across from the ladder.
"Come on," he said, running to the ladder and hopping over the ledge. "Once we get to the bottom, we can climb back up that fire escape."
He had gone about ten feet when Zoey began to descend the ladder, followed by Barns and a few strangers.
The cries coming from the people that had stayed behind were horrific. They were the cries of people being eaten alive. Dan wished he had done more to persuade some of them. By simply walking away, had he condemned somebody that might have otherwise gone with him?
When Dan's feet touched the pavement, he looked up to see Randy and Lady Rose among the group of people near the top. As soon as Zoey had reached the ground they heard the people at the top begin to scream.
