“So what’re you thinking?” Jersean nods at the container.
“I’m thinking that this is our ignition switch.”
“Better be careful not to blow your damn self up.”
“What, and beat the military to it? I would never.”
It isn’t long before the crowd is gathered by the window, standing over a three-foot tall pile of linens and clothes. They’re all staring at me, waiting to hear the next move.
“Looks like they’ve elected a new leader,” Jersean sounds relieved.
I walk to the window. It’s still open. The sheet is still there, daring an escape. I try to peak over the ledge without making myself a target. I can see the two fallen bodies, their blood and insides splashed in large dramatic pools across the crumbling pavement.
“We don’t have much time, let’s do this.” I grab the man next to me, a random selection. “Help me get these out the window. We want to throw them to the left side of the rope, not directly beneath it; otherwise we’ll be roasting ourselves.”
“Aight, I can do that.”
“Don’t stick your head out there, or anything else you care about. We’re gonna have to throw from inside. Don’t give those bastards something to shoot at.”
He looks nervous, but he nods his head and picks up an armful of sheets and a couple pairs of pants. We swap spots and he puts his back to the wall, standing on the tips of his toes, straining to look down, trying to find his target.
“Tie one of the sheets around the whole bundle,” I manage at the last second. “It’ll hold it all together so it doesn’t come apart on the way down.”
“Oh yeah, shit, that’s a good idea.”
“What’s your name?”
“DeAndre.”
“Don’t miss, DeAndre.”
He exhales deep, squints one eye shut, and sets the other on his target. “I got this,” he whispers, before letting the payload fly.
It’s a touchdown!
A goal!
A homerun!
Whatever the hell you want to call it, it’s a damn good start!
“Nice, man, nice!” I wrap him up in a big hug that he seems moderately uncomfortable with, but I don’t give a shit, it’s a small victory on a day of defeat, we’re celebrating.
I take up the next pile, secure it, and let it fly. It lands right on top of the first one. “Alright, we’re on a roll.”
By the time I’m finished, DeAndre is ready to go.
We switch back and forth like that, the folks in the hall watching us, biting their nails, cheering us on after each successful throw. The final load is mine. I leave behind a single shirt and prepare the rest for launch.
Perfect landing.
It’s all just waiting for some fuel and a match.
I can’t help but crack a smile at the thought of the snipers sitting behind their scopes watching the building vomit piles of clothes and dirty sheets. The radio chatter has got to be something.
I take up the kerosene container and pop the lid. “Everyone, get back a little.” I’m gonna have to give this thing a good bit of momentum; the container is gonna have to go out the window just a little if there’s gonna be any chance of the liquid getting on the small mountain of fabric. That’s gonna give the government boys a window of time to take a shot at me; granted, it’s a damn small window, but it’s still a window.
I rear back, holding the container low around my knees. I count off to three in my head and then heave upwards, taking two big steps towards the window, listening to the liquid as the force of movement propels it towards the mouth of the container. I reach the upward end of my swing and the liquid leaves the nozzle, popping a rainbow arch as it hovers above the fabric pile below. Before I can admire what looks to be another small victory, the container explodes in my hands.
11
No, there’s no fire.
The container is ripped from my grasp and turned into a field of shrapnel, crop dusting the alley below with the remaining kerosene; the sound of the gunshot comes a second or so after—these bastards are a good distance off.
Someone grabs me from behind and pulls me backwards.
It’s DeAndre. “Whoa, boy, you got lucky. You still got all your limbs?”
I check my hands and fingers; everything is intact. “Yeah, I’m good.” I’m soaked to the elbows in kerosene.
“Well shit, there goes that plan,” someone in the crowd behind me proclaims.
“Nah, we’re still good, we’re still all good.” I pick up the shirt I’d held back. I’d planned on sticking it in the top of the kerosene container and using it as a fuse. Luckily, I’ve got a plan B. I begin using it to wipe the excess kerosene from my hands and arms. “Jersean, you got that lighter?”
“Yeah,” he offers it to me.
“Nah, man, I’ll go up like a pile of dry leaves with all this shit on me. You’re gonna have to do it.”
“Me?” He takes a step back.
“Chill, you don’t even have to poke your head out. Just ball it up a little, light it, get a good flame going, and toss it. You can see your target from the hall, man, you’ll be fine. I got a little of the liquid onto the clothes before they shot the damn thing out of my hands, so it should go up, no problem.”
“You’re pretty optimistic about all this.”
“Beats curling up and playing dead. Take this and get it done.” I hand the shirt off to him and back away, putting some good distance between myself and the flames; just the fumes coming off me would probably be enough to turn me into a torch.
The shirt goes up quick. Jersean does a panicked little dance, holding the flaming fabric with two fingers; for a moment, I think he’s just gonna toss it on the floor and flee. He pulls himself together after a few bleak seconds, gets a good grip, and sends the ball of flame flying from the window.
The ignition outside is audible. There’s a whoosh sound as the pile catches fire. A few seconds later, black smoke is rising up past the window. Folks around me start clapping and laughing. They’re patting me on the back and hugging each other.
No time for that.
“Let’s go, this burn is gonna go quick!” I got my AK shouldered, checking the alley and as much of the street as I can see for approaching soldiers; they must have all finished evacuating; that don’t bode well for us.
A woman rushes the window. “I’m going!” It’s the heavyset woman that chastised me for my plan and said she wouldn’t be participating.
“Wait…careful…”
Her legs are already swinging from the ledge as she clumsily pulls the sheet to her chest. Before I can give another word of warning or advice, she pushes off. Her grip holds for about a second before she free falls. She hits the bottom and squeals as her left leg shoots out from beneath her at a gruesome angle.
“Goddamnit! She broke her fucking leg!” People are trying to shove in beside me to get a glimpse of the show as I elbow them back. “The dumpster! Get behind the dumpster!” I yell.
The woman is screaming and trying to push herself up.
“Stay low! Pull yourself behind the dumpster!” The dumpster is only a few short feet away from her. She could roll there.
She’s blinded by the pain and not hearing a damn word coming out of my mouth. She comes up to her knees. The force of the bullet sends a mist of blood and brains soaring up the back end of the alley. She falls over sideways, her mouth open at a crooked angle, her tongue sagging from the corner of her lips, her blood pumping from the massive wound in her head with the last few beats of her heart.
“Shit, I told her! I fucking told her!”
“Dad, stop yelling and cursing, you’re scaring me!” Alisa stomps her feet, tears rattling on the bottom of her eyelids.
“Sorry, sweetie, we’re gonna be fine. You’ve just gotta listen to me. All of you,” I turn to the pale cheeked crowd at my back, “when you’re on the rope, listen, or you will die, just like her!”
“Nah, fuck this, I ain’t goin’.”
>
“Then don’t go! I don’t give a shit! If you want out of here then get on the rope, now!”
There’s a moment of silence. A moment where I think of jumping on the rope with Alisa and leaving these idiots in the dust.
“I’m going,” DeAndre slaps me on the chest and takes a deep breath before hopping up into the window. He squats there, securing the rope with both hands, coughing as the thick smoke rides the back of a small breeze across his face.
“Make sure you grip with your feet as you go down, not just your hands. You haul it behind the dumpster. Stay real low.”
“I’ve got this.”
As he starts to descend, another gunshot cracks the air, but the bullet is wildly off course. But it’s enough to light a fire under DeAndre’s ass. He lets go of the rope, falling the last few feet. He lands in a crouched position and immediately scurries for the dumpster. He rolls behind it just as another shot ricochets off the pavement.
DeAndre gives a thumbs up.
“He made it! Alright, who’s up next?”
DeAndre’s safe passage seems to have lifted morale. Everyone in the hall is standing in line to be next on the rope. I’m all but shoving them out the window at this point.
There’s an invisible clock counting down inside my head.
Why the hell am I sitting here playing the hero, putting me and my daughter last?
Man, I hope it don’t come back to bite me in the ass.
“Come on! Move it! Let’s go!”
Some teenage punk is taking his sweet-ass time getting down the rope.
There are three of us left: myself, my daughter, and Jersean.
“You two go on ahead,” Jersean says with a hand at my back.
“You sure, man?”
“Without you, we’d all still be sitting here waiting to die; least I can do is watch your six. Go on, before I change my mind.”
I’m anxious to get out with Alisa. And yeah, there’s a small part of me that feels like I’m owed my turn and that feels like I’ve already done my part.
The smoke is thinning.
“Alisa, grab the rope, it’s going to be just like before.”
“But—”
“Alisa, go!”
She flinches and pushes out, legs wrapped tight around the sheet-rope.
A shot rings out and blows a chunk out of the window sill.
Alisa screams.
“Go, baby! Go, go, go!”
She loosens her hands and knees and goes into a rapid slide. She’s going to hit hard, but on the flipside she’s not an easy target.
She lands on her heels and falls to her butt. She goes over onto her hands and knees and immediately starts for the dumpster.
I don’t wait. The pile of bed sheets and clothes are just smoldering ashes giving off a thin, grey, film of cover. I look back over my shoulder at Jersean. “Stay right behind me. As soon as I’m halfway down, you follow.”
He nods.
I toss the AK out of the window, leaving the handgun and hatchet zipped up and holstered in the pockets of my coveralls; there’s no way I can hold onto it going down the rope…at least not the way I plan on going down. It’s a two-story drop; I figure it can survive the fall. You hear a lot about guns while living in the south. I remember a range master going on and on about the resilience of the AK, You can bury that sumbitch in sand for a year, come back, dig it up, and it’ll still shoot true.
I hold the rope with two hands and extend myself out over the alley, my feet planted against the building. I start running, straight down towards the ground. Right before I face plant the pavement, I push off the wall and get my feet under me. As soon as I hit the ground, I retrieve the AK and go into a roll. The snipers are firing in rapid succession, the bullets cutting small craters around me, the heat from the bullets scorching the hair on my head. I do a final, clumsy, front roll towards the dumpster, a bullet sparking off the metal directly above me. I’m pulled into cover by the rest of the group; a couple of them immediately begin checking me for wounds. But I’m not worried about me, I’m worried about Jersean; he was supposed to be on my heels and I don’t see him anywhere.
I brave a peak around the corner of the dumpster and see him lying face down, two holes in his back, blood pooling around his body.
No time to mourn. No time to second guess.
I can hear the unmistakable sound of fighter jets approaching; a distant whooshing…almost like white noise playing on a very large television at max volume.
“You hear that shit?” DeAndre asks, letting me know I’m not just being paranoid.
Behind the complex, there is a drainage canal that runs a couple miles in either direction. Depending on the time of year, there could be anywhere from a few inches to a few feet of water flowing through there; thankfully we’ve been going through our annual drought. “Run! Get in the canals and don’t stop running!”
I pick up Alisa with one arm; my rifle is secured under the other. I lead the charge down into the canal. At this point, it’s every man and woman for themselves. I’ve done my part to save these people. It’s time to worry about me and my baby girl.
The whooshing sound is drawing closer, turning into more of a hissing, rattling my jaw, threatening to tear through my ear drums. I’m in the center of the canal, sprinting through shallow, stagnate puddles of water.
The impact of the missile, the explosion, is the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. It quakes the earth and the force of the blast hunches me over; I stay on my feet and keep moving. I hear someone scream in pain. Maybe the shrapnel got them? It’s not my problem anymore.
The sound of the first impact masks the second, but I see it this time, directly to my left, the building two down from the one I live in…lived in…it’s consumed by a halo of fire that pushes out towards me and takes me off my feet, dislodging Alisa from my arms and throwing us to the other side of the canal. Lying here, dizzy and unable to catch my breath, I watch as my neighborhood is ripped to its foundation. The jets zip by overhead, releasing clusters of missiles, their white tails streaking the sky as they plummet downward and unleash their fury on the place I once called home. This doesn’t feel real. This is some shit I’m used to seeing on the news in some third world nation I have no intention of ever visiting. On top of that, these aren’t terrorists; these are the people that are supposed to protect me and mine from shit like this. This is my flag turned against me.
Alisa crawls into my arms, she’s screaming, but I can’t hear her. I wrap her tight as the shower of debris and ash begins to rain down around us, the skyline now eclipsed by smoke. To my left, the bodies of the ones that made it out of the building with me litter the canal. Some of them are crawling towards me, having been knocked on their asses by the initial blast. Others have been cut in half by shrapnel or crushed by debris.
DeAndre is closest to me, he’s yelling something, his face is covered in soot and cuts.
I struggle up to my feet as more explosions erupt across the street. I grab Alisa by the wrist, pulling her along with me, my head still ringing. I have no idea where the AK went and there’s no time to pause and look for it. I look back and DeAndre is following along, hunched over, holding his stomach. There is blood leaking between his fingers.
Not good.
Nothing I can do.
Stopping and trying to help him right now would likely just lead to both our deaths—and the death of my daughter.
“DAAAAAD!” Bethany’s voice swells in my ear, every word sounds like it’s being yelled from the opposite end of a dark hallway. “Those men are chasing us!”
I’m not really paying attention to what she’s saying; the hellfire rising into the sky to my left and the cover of the small bridge one hundred yards in front of me are my primary focus. It’s not until a bullet snaps past my right ear that I register her words, Those men are chasing us!
I turn my head as I’m running and see DeAndre. Behind him, riding the edge on the other side of the canal, is a brown Hum
vee. It’s trailing us and closing the distance rapidly. There’s a soldier standing in the middle of the thing and he’s controlling a very large gun. I see the muzzle breathe a long string of fire. DeAndre’s right arm detaches from his body and the center of his chest evaporates. He vomits blood as he goes down. The rounds that pass through and around him create granite geysers in front of me.
Every instinct in my body is screaming survival!
Every muscle in my body is screaming fatigue!
The bridge is so close and I can see the drainage tunnel in the wall beneath it; our salvation.
The high caliber bullets carve a straight line in the ground beside me. I’m weaving left and then right as I run. It’s something I saw on the news years ago. This city up north had been experiencing this outbreak of sniper attacks, something like five people in two weeks had been popped by this crazy bastard, turned out the guy had carved out a shooter’s nest in the trunk of his car and had made the lock removable so that he could fit the muzzle of his rifle through it; some tourists caught him at a rest stop. But during the scare, when no one knew when or where this guy was going to strike, the local news crew filmed these people walking down the sidewalk doing zigzag patterns, thinking that it’d make them more difficult targets.
Did it work?
Hell if I know, but it can’t hurt.
Between the booms and the crumble and crash of the buildings around me, I can hear the roaring engine of the Humvee. I can hear the bassy thump-thump-thump of the mounted machine gun.
The Humvee is in the canal now.
The bridge…the drainage tunnel…is just a few more steps.
Alisa is screaming in my ear, giving me a play-by-play of the scene taking place at my back.
We cross under the bridge and are three steps from the mouth of the drainage tunnel. The drainage tunnel entrance is a pitch black circle. The pavement drops off at a fifty degree angle, a slippery, slime ridden slide that drops off into the darkness. I deposit Alisa into the tunnel, her feet slip from beneath her and I hear her scream echoing off the walls of the tunnel, growing more distant as she vanishes from sight.
I’m ready to dive in after her when I’m punched in the back of my left shoulder. It’s strong enough to knock me the last two steps into the mouth of the drainage tunnel; not exactly the entrance I planned on making. As I’m falling forward into the darkness, the outside wall of the opening passes by my face and I notice the fresh blood splatter. It occurs to me that it’s my blood.
Tower of the Dead: A Zombie Novel Page 9
