by Brett, Cal
By the time he reached half way, his fingers were burning from the strain of his weight. Each time he released the bar with one hand, he felt the other sliding and was just barely able to grab the next length. One slip and his body would pull loose and send him spiraling into the hungry mob below. The pads under his fingers were on fire as he wrapped them again and again around the rough iron truss. He swore there was some sort of grease on the bars causing his skin to slip and slide.
The other side seemed suddenly too far away and he began to fear that it might be out of reach. The muscles in his fingers were going numb and beginning to ignore his commands to hold on. He could barely get his hands to grip in time and he felt gravity pulling at him as if it had him by the ankles. Running out of options he used everything he had left to swing up and grab the bar between his knees. He quickly wrapped his arms through the bars to free up his hands and gasped in relief as he felt the weight shift.
“Robbie!” Kelly shouted. “Are you ok?!”
“Yea,” he panted as he clinched and unclenched his fingers trying to get blood flowing through them again. The skin was torn and blood was beginning to trickle through the lines of his skin. He doubted they would be able to grip the bar again. He could feel his weight pulling at the grip of his knees and the bar beginning to eat into his elbows. He knew he couldn’t stay in that position long.
Robbie hung his head back and looked straight down at the ghouls waiting below to feast on him. Then he glanced over and estimated the ledge to be about five feet away. It seemed such a short distance but he questioned whether he could make it. He decided the longer he hung there the worse it would get. He knew he had to move, and fast, before his muscles were too sore to go any further. Using his elbows and knees as clamps, he began crabbing along the piping towards the ledge and tall side windows. He closed his eyes and ignored the pain until his foot hit the outer wall. Then, although dizzy and exhausted from hanging upside down, he swung up and grabbed the cross beam. His bloody hand nearly slipped and it felt as if the beam were white hot but he held long enough to swing himself up and over. He slid down and slumped onto the metal shelf, shaking his hands to run cool air over the torn blisters.
He heard Kelly the first few times she tried calling to him but could only respond with a raspy moan of pain.
“Hey!” She shouted. “Move out of the way. I’m coming over!”
This brought Robbie back to his senses and he called back, “No! Don’t! You won’t make it.”
For a moment it seemed as if she didn’t understand, but he held up his hands to show her the blood and blisters.
“It’s too far,” he said, “and the bar has got some kind of grease on it.”
She paused and looked down at the crowds gathered at the base of her column. “What then?” She asked.
“Give me a minute,” Robbie replied. “I’ll go down to the other end of the mall on the ledge. I’ll make a bunch of noise so they follow me. When it clears out you climb down and back up on this side. See?” He pointed, “There’s another column that comes up on this side in the corner of the building over there. When you get up just follow the ledge this way and we can meet in the middle.”
Kelly thought for a second but didn’t see any alternative. “Yea, ok” she said. “Be careful.”
“You too,” Robbie said as he crawled to his feet and began to creeping along the ledge. It was only about 3 feet wide and divided by regular support beams and struts which made movement slow but much easier than hanging upside down from an iron bar over a sea of zombies. “Come on you fuckers!” he yelled.
The stumbling corpses below took notice and began to follow him like a tide that had rushed in one way and now crashed back over itself going the other. There were a lot of them, Robbie noted. They were bunched up like Black Friday, after Christmas and going out of business sales all fell on the same day. He could feel the floors and walls vibrate as the mass moved together. Once a large group of them got moving in one direction the others were drawn in by the noise and motion.
‘Pack animals in life and death.’ Robbie thought, while he threaded his way through the ceiling structures.
Kelly shifted around to the back side of the support beam so that she was exposed to fewer undead who might be looking up. From this side, it was only those further below on the first floor who could see her. That was ok. They were far enough away that they weren’t a threat. ‘Unless I fell,’ she thought, but she pushed that idea out of her head. She peeked around to watch the horde on the second level turn and begin to follow Robbie as he moved down the hall. He yelled and clanged his knife on the metal supports to keep their attention. Most of them followed, some looking up at him hungrily while others shuffled along following the mob, unable to raise their heads due to various gruesome injuries.
Within a few minutes, the mob had mostly cleared out down below. There were just three that she could see, still near the base of the column. Two stood motionless with their jaws open and staring off into space like shoppers trying to remember where they had parked. They were about ten feet apart from each other and Kelly estimated the nearer of the two to be five feet or so from the bottom of the column. The third had no legs and was dragging itself slowly along the tiles further away. There was notably no trail of oozing gore following behind the thing which told Kelly it had been dead and crawling that way for quite a while.
Kelly looked up and saw the mob of undead following Robbie across the walkway over the food court and decided her chances were as good as they would get. She scrambled down the outside of the column, used the railing as a step and jumped down onto the floor. The nearest creature spun towards her at the sound of her feet hitting the ground. But, it was slow and Kelly was able to bring her stick around to crush its skull. It collapsed into a heap with the other one coming her way in a drunken stumble. She dodged it and used its momentum to heave it over the balcony and down into the throngs below. She paused and leaned on the railing to watch it fall. There was a loud thud, which echoed through the empty building, as it crashed into the crowd below.
Kelly looked back down the hall and saw that the noise had captured the attention of the trailing end of the herd following Robbie. Several had started to break off and come back. ‘Time to go,’ Kelly thought and turned to run towards the column along the wall. To her shock something was tangled around her feet and her forward motion spun her towards the ground. The fall happened fast and she hit the ground hard, seeing stars for a second. When she opened her eyes her head was on the floor looking down the hall. She could see the undead crowding her way and, still in a foggy panic, she pumped her legs to clear whatever had caused her to trip. Then she realized what it was.
The damned legless one had hold of her boot. The fall had propelled her slightly ahead of it but the thing, it looked like it may have been a woman once, had a death grip on her shoe and was using it to pull herself up. Her mouth gaped open in a wide, hungry snarl revealing ragged teeth set in blackened gums. Kelly instinctively kicked at its face, knocking it back, but having no effect on its grip.
“Shit!” Kelly growled in anger and fear as she noticed the mob getting closer. Realizing she had little time, she flipped over and began crawling towards the column against the outside wall. The legless creature dragged along behind her but did not loosen its grip. Seeing the live, human prey moving in front of them caused the tangle of undead to surge forward. Kelly noted they were closing the distance quickly and she turned her crawling into a panicked kicking scramble across the cold tile floor. The last few feet she was able to stand and pull the creature behind her like a ball and chain.
When she reached the column the tide of snarling people eaters was just 15 feet behind her. Grabbing the decorative lattice of trusses she began scaling up in an adrenaline fueled route. She strained to quickly pull herself out of reach, hand over hand, too frightened to look back or down. She felt the vibrations of the undead crashing into the column as they all tried to be the first t
o sink their teeth into their fleeing prey. Just as she thought she might be out of arm’s reach, she was suddenly jerked to a stop so hard that she almost lost her grip.
“Aaaah!” Kelly screamed as she fought to keep her hands firmly on the ironwork. She was able to get one foot onto a bar and try to push herself up but her other leg was being held and pulled down. Glancing over her shoulder she saw that the legless woman was still latched onto her and the creatures below had grabbed onto her. They were unwittingly using her as leverage to drag their dinner back into their grips. Their arms flailed and Kelly looked out into the sea of undead faces glaring at her, willing her to drop down and join them.
Instead she shouted, “NO!” and began pulling herself up with all her strength kicking hard at the ghoul wrapped around her ankle. ‘How could these things be so strong?’ she wondered as sweat began pouring down her brow.
She kicked and kicked until suddenly she felt the weight come off her leg. Looking down she saw that the thing’s arms had come off and the torso tumbled back down into the throng. She watched as the half woman was swallowed up and disappeared under the crowd, likely to be crushed beneath their feet.
“Bitch!” Kelly yelled down as she kicked off the dangling arms and began to scramble up away from the horde of hungry mouths. Her hands and fingers burned as she reached the ledge at the top but she pulled herself over and lay back to catch her breath.
“You alright?” Robbie called from the other side of a tangle of support beams.
“I don’t know.” Kelly answered with a sigh, looking down at her foot expecting to see the hands still there, holding on. The tight grip of the legless woman were gone but had been replaced by a searing pain. “My ankle,” she cried.
“Bite?!” Robbie said with alarm.
“No…” Kelly groaned in pain. “Twisted, I think. That bitch grabbed my foot. I must have turned it wrong trying to get away.”
“Ok, wait there.” Robbie said. “I’ll bust out this window and come around to you.”
Kelly leaned back on the ledge stared down at the ravenous mob. Her heart raced, her arms ached, her ankle pounded and suddenly her chest heaved and tears welled up in her eyes. The salty water seemed to boil up uncontrollably from inside and pour down her face as she began to shake and cry. Her vision blurred and the things below seemed to melt together like an impressionist painting as her teardrops rained down on them. She was barely aware of the sound of breaking glass near or of Robbie pulling her from the ledge and out onto the roof.
Chapter 8
Robbie helped her into the shade of a huge sign for a long-gone department store and leaned her against its base. She sat there hunched over as her tears and adrenaline drained to be replaced with exhaustion and sore muscles. Robbie sat with her for a while then decided to give her some privacy by exploring the roof while she rested.
When he came back, she was stretching and massaging her ankle hoping the pain would subside. It wasn’t swelling, she observed with some relief, but it hurt like hell anyway.
“It will be dark in a few hours,” Robbie said kneeling next to her. “I think we can still make it to the river if we stick to the roof tops. It’s a little further from up here but safer than trying to get across from street level. Do you think you are up to it?”
“Yes,” Kelly sighed and looked around, “I don’t want to stay up here tonight.”
“That’s the spirit,” Robbie said offering her a drink from his canteen. “How’s the ankle?”
“Hurts like a bitch,” she winced.
“It’s maybe a mile that way,” Robbie pointed at the roofline of the buildings nearby.
“More like three miles if we stay on the rooftops,” Kelly growled.
“Maybe, but it’s safer up here and it’s mostly flat.” Robbie replied. “These buildings are close together so we should be able to move across without too much jumping or climbing. There’s a row of old warehouses as we get closer to the water.”
“Ok,” Kelly said holding out her hand. “Help me up.”
Robbie lifted her and pulled her arm around his neck for support. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I always hated malls.”
Kelly looked back at the window they had broken to get out.
“Forget something?” Robbie said.”
“No,” she replied, “just a little paranoid I guess.”
“I don’t think they can climb,” Robbie laughed, “not yet anyway. And the good news is, there is only one way out of that mall so that’s a few hundred we don’t have to worry about running into on the street any time soon.”
She nodded in agreement and they moved out across the rooftop. It was slow going even though the buildings were connected in many places and only inches apart in others. There were drops and climbs and uneven surfaces mixed with rocks and crumbling concrete. Kelly’s ankle held her back while Robbie’s blistered hands made his grip unsure. They had to stop often to rest, but as the sun was setting, they had gone far enough that they could see the river.
“Look,” Robbie indicated as Kelly limped up behind him. “You can see the water right through there.”
Kelly held her hand up to shade her eyes. The buildings closer to the water were taller, blocking much of the view, but she could see the glittering surface of the Apalachicola River in the distance between them. “I think we went too far,” she said, “the Century Bridge seems closer than it should be. “
“Yea,” Robbie answered. “We had to go upriver some, to the north-west, so we could cross over without going down to street level.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Kelly asked annoyed.
“Didn’t think it would matter,” said Robbie. “Even if there aren’t many dead on the streets, we’re in no shape to run or fight very well.”
“I guess,” Kelly sighed in agreement. The ache in her ankle had stretched up her leg and her other hip and knee were getting sore from compensating as she limped along. “I’m not going to be able to go much further,” she winced. “How long do you think we have?”
“Not far,” Robbie replied pointing along a row of warehouses that stretched out ahead of them. “We just follow the roofs down to the wharf area over there. See? We should be able to climb down there and then work our way along the waterfront up to the condominium.”
“It will be dark by then,” Kelly pointed out.
“Yes,” Robbie agreed. “We will have to play it by ear when we get to the wharf. If it looks clear, we’ll go down. If not, we will have to find a spot to hole up for the night.”
Kelly gave him a look he recognized as her not liking what he was saying.
“On the bright side,” he smiled, “it looks like these are all old warehouses so there should be plenty of zombie free places to sleep tonight if we need.”
“What makes you think that?” Kelly asked.
“These are all wide open, multi floor brick buildings built in the 1900s,” Robbie reasoned. “Nothing’s getting in, and with all these big broken windows and wide-open storage lofts, anything inside would surely have fallen out by now.”
Kelly gave him another look but didn’t have the energy to argue with him about his poor logic. The pain in her legs and back was growing while they stood there talking. It wasn’t much better when they were moving but at least the hiking and climbing gave her something else to concentrate on. “Ok, let’s go,” she said.
Robbie turned and climbed over the ledge onto the first of the warehouses. Unlike the office buildings, these had roofs with a slight pitch. They were also covered in layers of green moss and undergrowth that sprang from years of built up sediment. Medium sized bushes and trees had sprouted from the crevices making it like walking through a thicket on a hillside. Kelly watched him wind away through the calf-high grass and briars as she struggled over the low wall dividing the two roof tops.
Ordinarily, they would worry about walking through such undergrowth, especially as the shadows lengthened and it became difficult to see wha
t lay below. The dead could be lying still and dormant just below the grassy stalks. But, they were tired and their muscles ached and, while they remained wary, they both assumed the likelihood of any living dead skulking in the grass on a rooftop was small. As the thought ran through her head, Kelly eased herself down onto the mossy surface and looked over for Robbie.
She saw his silhouette nearly at the far side of the roof and began limping after him. Catching his shadow scrambling over the next wall, she started to shout after him to wait for her, but it was all she could do to push forward with all her joints on fire and back aching as if it were in a vice. She knew she would have to stop and rest again soon.
She limped on but her progress was further slowed by the uneven surface of the ground. The dirt piled in awkward ways and the lumps of grass and thorns made it so that she had to pause with each step to ensure she had a solid surface to place her feet. She miss-stepped a few times, pain shot up her leg and she nearly lost her balance. Each step seemed more difficult and she began to fear that if she fell into this lumpy grass she would not be able to get up again.
By the time she reached the low wall separating the next warehouse the sun had set. A thin ribbon of red marked the spot on the horizon where the star ducked behind the earth in the western sky. Kelly leaned on the concrete barrier to rest and take the weight off of her ankle.
Crunching of footsteps drew her attention to a figure approaching in the darkness.
“Is that you Robbie?” she called out.
“Yea,” Robbie replied.
“Where the hell have you been,” she complained. “I can barely walk. You can’t just leave me like that.”
