I opened the window and stepped out onto the ladder. The creatures were below me, but they didn’t notice; they were still pressing into the alley. I climbed up to the roof then ran over to the edge.
The alley was crammed. They were coming in from both ends and meeting at the truck and van, filling the space between them. There was still a group directly below me slapping the door I’d escaped into. They were banging on the door to the glass shop, too.
“Sara!” I called out. There were no windows in the side of her building either. She’d have to open the door or go up on the roof. The two buildings weren’t the same height. Her building was a few feet taller.
“Sara!”
I looked down. The creatures had heard me, and they were reaching for me. A thought passed through my head of losing my balance and spilling over the side into their waiting hands. The thought brought on a tightness in my scrotum and a wave of dizziness that forced me to step away from the edge.
“Sara! I’m on the roof!”
I went to the front of the building and looked down onto Broadway. They filled the street below me, more tightly packed nearer our buildings. The crowd extended out about a half block away from our location, getting sparse along the edges. There were several hundred of them down there, with more coming in.
I went to the other side, which looked down on the roof of the next building. It was about three feet lower. I jumped onto the next roof and ran along two more rooftops until I came to another edge. Below me on this side was a parking lot. There were a couple of cars, a dumpster, and four zombies down there.
I returned to the roof of the diner.
“Sara!”
There was the muffled pop of a gunshot from her building. I pulled the .45 from my waistband, even though there was nothing I could do to help her.
“Sara!”
I paced on the roof, anxious. After what felt like forever, she came into view at the edge of her roof.
“Sara! Are you okay?” I called over.
She waved and looked down into the alley.
“I had to shoot one in the garage,” she yelled to me. “It’s empty. If you could get to the van, I could open the door for you.”
“Can’t do it now,” I said. “There are too many.”
“Did you grab any guns?” she asked.
“Just this,” I said, holding up the revolver.
“Anything to eat or drink?”
I held up the plastic bag, “Just a few things. This is Plucky’s Diner, so I can probably find more to eat downstairs.”
She stared across to me but didn’t say anything. I knew what she was thinking. She had no food, water, or alcohol, and she had three rounds left in her rifle. Unless someone came to lure the creatures away, we’d be surrounded for at least a few more days until the end of her cycle, and maybe longer than that.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said but not loud enough.
“What?”
“It’ll be okay!” It didn’t sound any more believable the second time.
She nodded then looked around.
“I’m going down for a little while to look for food and water in the building,” she said. “Meet me back up here later, okay?”
After she disappeared from view, I decided to go back down into the diner to look for something I could use to get provisions over to her. I was second-guessing myself and starting to think that we should have stayed in the van. At least in there, we would have had the supplies we had collected, and we would have been together. Of course, inevitably, they would have gotten in to us, or we would have run out of food and water, or we would have gone crazy cooped up in there with the noise and almost un-breathable air. This was better--not ideal, but better. We would have more options this way. I just needed a moment to come up with one of those options.
In the short term, she would need water, food, and alcohol. I thought I could throw the items across to her. I guesstimated the distance between us to be about twenty to twenty-four feet. I would be throwing the items up, too, because her building was higher than mine, but I didn’t think that would be a problem. I just had to make sure that if she didn’t catch them, they would not break.
I emptied the plastic bag of supplies I’d grabbed before we left the van. I had a bottle of vodka, two one-liter bottles of water, a partial jar of peanut butter from the old lady’s house, and box of cereal bars. I thought I had grabbed more, but I had been in a rush.
In the diner’s storeroom, I found several packages of hamburger buns, but they were all green with mold. There was a big box of those small packets of crackers restaurants give out with soup, chili, and salads. There was another similar box of packaged croutons. I found five large cans of tomato paste and a large can of pinto beans. The rest of the food—produce and meat—was probably shut up in the huge, walk-in refrigerator, and I had no desire to open any more refrigerators. All that were left were the big condiment tubs.
I emptied one of the water bottles into a couple of plastic cups then poured half of the vodka into the bottle. I got a small pile of the cracker packets, the peanut butter, a knife, the two water bottles (one with water, the other with vodka), and a couple of cereal bars. I tied it all up in an apron from the kitchen making what resembled a hobo’s sack then I went back out on the roof.
Sara was already waiting for me when I came out.
“Did you find anything?” I said.
“They’ve broken through the front windows of the building,” she said. “And there’s no door to close off the stairs. I’m going to have to stay on the roof.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not dead.”
“I have some stuff for you here. I’m going to toss it over. Try to catch it; there isn’t any glass in it, but the stuff is fragile just the same.”
I threw it harder and higher than I thought I needed, because I wanted to be sure it made it across. It sailed over the divide and disappeared from my view. Sara chased after it. She returned to the edge with it in her hands and was untying it.
“Did you catch it?”
“No,” she said. “But it’s okay. Thanks.”
“Sniff those bottles before you drink,” I said. “One of them is water, and the other is vodka.”
“We’re not going to stay here, are we?” she said. “We can’t.”
“I think I could get away on the far end on that last building over, but I don’t know how to get you out. There are too many around your building.”
“These aren’t enough supplies to last more than a day or two,” she said. “I don’t want to put you in any danger, but I’m stuck on a roof over here.”
I looked over the edge again. Hundreds of ghastly faces gaped up at me. Some of the creatures from the alley had started moving around to the new access in the front of the building, but others flooded in to take their place.
“I’m going to go over there and see if there is a way down.”
I crossed the three rooftops to the far end and looked over the edge again. The creatures that had been below were no longer there, but it was far too great a drop to the cars and dumpster in the lot below. I moved to the back of the building. It had no fire escape at all, but the middle building did. There were several infected individuals on the back side of the row of buildings, but they were making their way toward the Quality Glass building with the others.
“I can get down and get away,” I said. “But I don’t know how to get you out of there.”
“Just do the best you can. I’m not going anywhere.”
I went back down into the diner to make myself a small supply pack. I couldn’t take the water with me, so I drank as much as I could while I stood there. I went back through the kitchen and looked out through the dining room. I thought there might be a chance I could leave through the front door, but there would be no way; the crowd on Broadway was too thick. There were so many out there, they were pressing against the windows of the diner too and eventually their weight would pus
h the glass in.
I wrapped up the vodka, some crackers and croutons, and the rest of the cereal bars into another apron and tied the pouch from my belt. I had hoped I could find something I could use as a weapon—something quiet, portable, and club-like—but nothing jumped out at me. I did grab a large knife from the kitchen, but more for use as a tool and not for killing zombies.
When I came back out on the roof, Sara was eating peanut butter and drinking from one of the bottles.
“I’m going,” I said. “I’ll do my best to lure them away. Is there a fire escape on the back of your building?”
“There’s an old ladder, but it doesn’t go all the way to the ground.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “Just be ready to go and I’ll try to get something underneath it.”
“I’m ready to go now,” she said, giving me a small grin.
“It might be a couple of minutes or it might be a couple of days,” I said.
She nodded, “Be careful, and please hurry.”
I crossed over the rooftops to the fire escape and was about to climb down when she called out, “I love you!”
I hesitated and almost pretended like I didn’t hear, but I couldn’t be an asshole and leave her hanging like that…not again…not now.
“I love you, too,” I said. I waved to her, she waved back, and I climbed out onto the ladder.
Chapter 20
When I dropped down to the ground, a couple of them came at me, but they were slow. I easily outran them and headed through the parking lot on the far end. I didn’t stop, because I doubted any of the cars sitting in the lot were unlocked, and I didn’t want to put myself at risk trying to open their doors. Still, I didn’t want to be out on foot; I needed the relative safety of a car until I could figure out what to do about Sara. I ran down the block, away from the mob, until I got to the intersection with 9th Street and crossed over to the post office.
The Clayfield post office was constructed almost a hundred years ago, and other than the new, automated stamp dispensers, computer equipment, and wheelchair ramp, the structure really hadn’t changed much. I had a photograph in the museum from the 1920s depicting Clayfield’s Christmas parade, and the building is in the background, looking exactly as it does now. The original look had been maintained, both inside and out.
The smell of death was strong inside the building, but I saw no one on the customer side. I tried some of the doors to access the employee section, but they were all locked. I was hoping I could find a locker room or a break room—someplace where the employees might have stowed their purses and coats so I could get some car keys. The only way to get into the back, was to crawl over the counter. I was about to do that when the employees started shuffling out to greet their first customer in more than a month.
There were five of them back there that I could see—all animated corpses—and I didn’t think it was worth it; there were other cars. I went out the way I came and looked back east on Broadway to the Quality Glass building. Sara was standing at the corner of the roof still peering down into the alley. It almost looked as if she were a performer standing on an elevated stage while her adoring fans gathered below.
I continued farther west on Broadway, past the First Presbyterian Church, past an appliance repair shop, and then crossed the street to Carter’s Plumbing Supply. The storefront was all glass like most of the downtown businesses. I cupped my hands around my eyes and looked into the building before going inside. I didn’t see anything but toilets, shower stalls, and racks of PVC and perforated septic line.
A little bell above the door jangled when I went inside. I waited there to see if anyone would come to investigate. No one did. Immediately, I saw something I liked. There was a square wooden bin with several large pipe wrenches propped up inside. I pulled one out. It was about three feet long and heavy. I could swing it one-handed, but I had no control. I’d have to use it like a baseball bat. I considered taking a short length of PVC instead; there was a rack holding five-foot pieces PVC of different circumferences. I liked the longer reach, and they’d be easier to swing with one hand, but I didn’t know how well they would hold up. The pipes might stun the creatures, but the wrench would crush skulls. It would slow me down, but I went with the wrench.
Once I had secured my weapon I went into the back of the building. I found an office, and there was a set of keys on the desk. I took them and headed out again.
The keys went to a white Honda sedan parked next to the building. I needed to find something that would make a lot of noise, so I drove farther west to the outer edge of town to the firehouse next to the old Westside Elementary School.
The big fire trucks were gone—likely taken and used by Nathan Camp and his group that day Jen had been shot—but there was a red Chevy Tahoe parked off to the side. It had the red lights mounted on top, so I figured it would have a siren.
The truck’s door was unlocked, but the keys were not in the ignition. On a whim, I pulled down the sun visor and then looked under the seat. I found them hidden under the floor mat. There was a console mounted under the dashboard that had a bunch of buttons. I cranked the truck then started pushing buttons until the siren sang. I left it on so Sara would know I was coming, and drove back into town.
When I got to the intersection with 9th Street, I took a right, away from the post office and parked in front of the First Christian Church. I thought it was a fitting place to lure them, since that had been Sara’s hiding place when Canton B had first hit Clayfield. I left the engine running, got out, and continued on foot heading south on 9th.
I didn’t want to be out in the open like that, particularly when I was so close to the siren. There was a tiny drive-in restaurant, not much more than a kiosk, across the road and south of the church. I hoped there would still be keys in some of the vehicles there.
The eatery was one of those places where you pulled up out front and the waitress came out to your car. It had a similar operating premise as Sonic, but much less sophisticated. I remembered the food being pretty good, though. There were three cars parked in front of the building. In the warmer months, they would have had their windows down, and there would have been trays hanging off of them out of the car. However, when their drivers had pulled up there for lunch that fateful day more than a month ago, it had been the middle of February and below freezing. All of the windows were up.
One of them was still occupied. I moved past it to check the other two. The infected were moving in by this time. All of the ones that had not yet picked up on Sara were zeroing in on the red Tahoe. It was only ones and twos at first, but then groups of five and more began to appear.
The first car I checked was locked and next one was unlocked but without keys. I took a quick look around. The things were closing in. I didn’t think they’d noticed me yet; they seemed fixated on the noise.
I bent at the waist and looked into the occupied car. Keys dangled from the ignition. The thing inside was strapped in. A purse in the seat next to it told me it had been female, but that was the only clue. All of its hair had fallen out except for a few greasy strands. It looked a lot like one of those Egyptian mummies after they unwrap them. Then I got to thinking about how many of those things the old movies used to scare us—mummies, Frankenstein, zombies, vampires, and ghosts—were all things that had come back from the dead. I looked around me again at the crowd closing in on my location, and I had to agree—dead things coming back to life is scary as hell.
I didn’t want to take the chance of searching for another car. I knew it would smell bad, but I decided to carjack the mummy lady. I opened the door and put her down with the .45. That attracted some attention away from the siren, but it didn’t take much to unbuckle her seatbelt and roll her out onto the pavement. There was this ugly, oily-looking stain in the seat, but I tried not to think about it; I just climbed in and shut the door before any of the others could get to me. I can’t even describe the odor inside. The car started right up, and the stereo was playing
an audio book. That was kind of nice, but I turned it off; I needed to focus on rescuing Sara.
I drove south a couple of blocks (with the windows down) away from the siren, and then circled around and parked on 8th Street in front of the museum, a block north of the Quality Glass building. Sara saw me and waved.
We waited for the crowd to move to the siren. Although a few broke away, they would only walk so far then return to Sara’s location. After several minutes, Sara looked out at me and raised her hands as if to say, “What now?”
I had no idea what now.
As I watched more of them shuffle in, I realized the siren was doing more harm than good. It was pulling in creatures from farther away who would then join the group around Sara’s building. I had made the situation worse.
I considered stretching a rope from rooftop to rooftop and getting her to come across like a zip line, but while escapes like that worked in James Bond movies, I thought it would be too risky to attempt. Besides, we would have to move quickly, because they were after Sara, and when she moved, they would move with her. I needed to get the zombies away from the building, which wasn’t happening, or I needed to get a vehicle in there.
I waved to Sara. There was no point in trying to talk to her; she’d never hear me. I pulled away and headed west on North Street. I stuck with the side roads and drove back to my house on 17th. I was going to have to get rid of that car (I just couldn’t take the smell), and I would need more supplies. Also, I really needed a few moments of quiet so I could think.
I parked the car on the street and went into the house. I hadn’t left much when Sara and I were here weeks before, but I had left some clothes behind—mostly things I thought I’d never wear. I stripped off what I was wearing, including my boots to get the stink off me, and tossed it all out the front door onto the lawn. Then I went to my bedroom to find something clean to put on. What I ended up with was a pair of khakis, an old tank-top I’d hadn’t worn in years with Joe Camel on the front, a black tuxedo jacket, and a pair of gray running shoes.
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