by J. Thorn
Ken grunted. Inches from a bite.
He threw a quick look over his shoulder. Dorcas was on the ground, the fat man on top of her. One arm was twisted strangely at her side. The other was pressed flat against the fat man’s forehead, trying to push his teeth away from her face and throat. And failing, an inch at a time.
Ken grunted. Stepped back and tried to play the world’s deadliest game of Crack The Whip as he spun the zombie around in a tight arc. At the same time, he fell to his side.
The move jerked the lug wrench free with a snap and a spray of blood and sludge. It also tore the zombie’s head sideways, pulling off a good amount of skin.
There was no way Ken was going to get his feet under him in time to counter any further attack.
But that was the risk he had taken. Hoping that this zombie, like the others he had seen who had suffered major head trauma, would lose whatever sense guided it to attack only humans.
And it worked. The thing’s face swiveled as the wrench pulled out of it. Its gaze fell on the fat zombie that was only an inch from chewing through Dorcas’ cheek.
The younger monster, still oozing puddles of viscous pink slime, fell on the back of the fat man with a scream. Began beating at it with fists, biting the back of its neck.
Ken got to his feet and ran at them both. He body checked the fat man, pushing the squirming mass of madness partway off Dorcas. Then he yanked her the rest of the way out. She screamed when he pulled her by her broken arm. He ignored it. No time to be gentle.
The young zombie and the fat one were biting at one another. Screaming. Blood and flesh started to flow as they pulled each other apart, one piece at a time.
“Come on,” said Ken to Dorcas. He pulled her to her feet. She almost fell, her knees wobbly from fear or shock or pain. “Come on,” he said again, giving her a quick shake.
He leaned down and scooped the lug wrench off the ground, then stood and put Dorcas’ good arm over his shoulder. He didn’t know if she needed it or not, but he wasn’t going to chance his only friend in the Apocalypse falling over and dying of shock.
Not when there are so many more exciting ways to die.
“Ken,” she said.
“If you’re about to say, ‘Just leave me,’ forget it.”
She snorted. “I was going to say, don’t you dare leave me. Not after I saved your ass.”
He almost laughed.
But didn’t. He had to save his breath. Because he heard something that sounded like thunder. Only there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
34
They were on South Americana Boulevard, crossing West River Street. A few blocks ahead of them, the massive footings of the I-84 freeway dropped to earth. The freeway curved and dropped down a ramp and converted gradually to city streets.
The thunder sound was coming from in front of them. From the rear. From all sides.
“What is that?” Dorcas panted.
Ken just shook his head. He had no idea. But knew it couldn’t be anything good.
Ahead, the darkness where South Americana crossed under the freeway ramp seemed to roil. It billowed in on itself, then exploded.
Dorcas cursed, the word spitting out of her like a bullet.
It was like the bees again. Only this time it was a mass of things that had once been human. He couldn’t make out any details, couldn’t see the eyes or the madly gaping mouths. But he didn’t have to. There was something tremendously unnatural in the way they were running. Pounding along the blacktop at bullet speeds, but not in any way he associated with a panic riot.
They were running as a unit. Coordinated. No unnecessary bumping or shoving. Together in a way that was almost as disconcerting as the mayhem he felt rolling off them in waves.
He skidded to a stop. Turned.
Saw another dark mass of death speeding at them from the other end of the street.
He broke right, running to the closest building with windows: a homeless shelter. He hadn’t even known the place existed, and felt a strange pang of shame at that. Boise was one of those places where no one seemed to be homeless. People had money problems – he was one of them – but they always seemed to be in the “pain in the ass but manageable” category.
The place looked like a warehouse, mostly brick and concrete. But the front was a series of windows. Which made Ken very uncomfortable. He remembered the cop, beating against the windows of the car.
How long will those windows hold up if the zombies try to get in?
Beggars can’t be choosers, Ken.
He pulled Dorcas toward the place. She resisted long enough to pull her arm from around his shoulders, then she was running under her own steam.
The thunder was deafening. A thousand, maybe ten thousand, pairs of feet hitting the pavement in a cadence that was somehow both chaotic and unified. Each running at his or her own pace, but all with one purpose: to rend and kill and change.
They got to the front door of the shelter. Glass, just like the ten-foot windows that fronted the place. Most of the windows had smears of blood across them, inside and out.
Ken hit the door with his shoulder. A sign across it said, “We are open for YOU!”
The door shuddered in its frame, but didn’t open.
Locked.
Ken looked inside the shelter. He didn’t think he and Dorcas had time to go somewhere else. But he also didn’t want to just break the glass – what would be the point of hiding somewhere with a wide open door?
He saw what looked like a soup kitchen setup: long tables, benches. Hot food setup in the back.
Everything was in disarray. Tables upended, benches overturned. A folding metal chair hung from a sparking bank of fluorescent tubes.
Lots of bodies. Lots of blood.
Nothing moving, though. Whatever happened here had remained here. Had stayed contained.
Not like the now-deafening thunder.
“We gotta get inside,” said Dorcas.
Ken nodded. He rattled the door once more, as though hoping it might have magically unlocked in the last second. Then he raised the lug wrench to smash through.
And a man appeared in the wreckage beyond the door.
He looked terrified, worry and grime and blood caking his face and making it difficult to see how old or young he was. But he had dark hair and a bristly-looking goatee.
“Let us in!” shouted Ken.
He could hear individual footsteps in the thunder, now. The shelter was slightly recessed from the street, but he had no doubt that the mass of monsters was only maybe a hundred feet away. Less.
The man in the shelter just shook his head.
“Let us in!” Ken screamed, fear cracking his voice into sharp jags.
Dorcas pounded her good fist against the window beside the door. “Please, we’ll die!” she screamed.
The man pointed beside him.
There was a little boy there. Holding the man’s hand.
Ken cursed. “We can help you!” he screamed. “We don’t have to do this alone!”
The man shook his head.
Ken raised his lug wrench to smash through the window.
“What about the boy?” said Dorcas.
“I have a family, too,” said Ken. He looked at Dorcas. She seemed to be considering his words. “We’re better off together,” he said. He brought the lug wrench down.
And stopped it in mid-air.
The man in the shelter had drawn a black, snub-nosed revolver and was pointing it right at Ken’s chest.
Ken looked at the man’s eyes. Had no doubt the man would shoot him if he continued his swing.
He nodded.
“Come on.”
They would have to outrun the thunder.
He turned.
And saw the first creature come into view past the corner of the building closest to them.
35
It was a man in blue jeans. He was wearing a Boise State U. baseball cap and matching blue and orange t-shirt. No blood on him, ot
her than a single spot on his hand where he must have been bitten.
He saw Ken and Dorcas and snarled. Swerved to run at them.
Ken ran. He knew Dorcas was right behind.
They ran in the only direction open to them: the thin bit of asphalt between the homeless shelter and the building beside it. The slap/crash of ten thousand feet pounded into the area after them.
Ahead was a chain-link fence that enclosed the back of the shelter as well as some other structure that looked like a supply building or maybe a large disconnected garage. Either way, it looked like it was closed up tight, and was certainly too tall to get on top of.
Beyond the chain-link fence – almost irrelevant information for Ken’s brain to process since there was no way they could climb over the twenty foot fence before they were overwhelmed by the horde behind them – there was just a blank wall of concrete. A huge footing of the I-84, an unbroken length of concrete where the freeway lowered to within thirty feet of the ground.
Dorcas started to slow. Ken could tell she had seen the same things he had. The fact that they were running into a dead end.
“Come on,” he barked, grabbing her arm and yanking it.
“Why?” she muttered, but ran on.
He felt like she was right. But felt like he couldn’t just stop. He owed it to his family to try.
All the way to the end.
Then he saw something. Tossed the lug wrench away. Dorcas veered as though to grab it.
“Leave it!” he shouted. And grabbed what he had seen.
Dorcas gasped as though realizing what he was going to do. She grabbed it as well.
The zombies were only fifty feet behind them.
And now he realized that they were in front of him, too: filtering into the space on the other side of the fence, between the shelter property and the freeway footing.
“We can’t go over,” panted Dorcas.
“I know.” He veered to the sturdy structure on their right. “Change of plans.”
As he turned, he saw the zombies that had followed them into the funnel between the shelter and the other building, a concrete block of a place with a sign proclaiming, “Get fit for the rest of your life! Free introductory YOGA classes!”
The things were thirty feet away.
He ran the last feet to the disconnected concrete building behind the homeless shelter. Threw what he was holding against the side. Dorcas helped him, adjusting the tall ladder that had been laying against the side of the shelter until it cleared the roof of the storage building.
Twenty feet. The growling hit him hard, worse even than it had in the school. It felt like he was being punched by someone who had a roll of nickels wrapped in his fist.
He shoved Dorcas up the ladder ahead of him. She started moving, faster than he would have thought someone could climb one-handed.
He was up an instant later.
The zombies were ten feet away.
Dorcas cleared the ladder. On the roof.
Five feet.
Ken jumped up the last few rungs. Onto the roof.
Two feet.
The zombies, led by the blue-jeaned BSU fan, reached for the ladder.
Ken grabbed the ladder and pulled it up after him. He felt it shudder in his hands as some of the zombies’ fingers brushed it, but none managed to grasp it or pull it down. He didn’t know if they could use it, but he didn’t want to find out.
He flipped the ladder up over the edge of the building.
It hit the roof with a clank.
Safe.
Then he felt Dorcas’ hand on his shoulder, tight and slick against his still-bare skin. She squeezed convulsively.
Ken looked down. His breath caught painfully in his throat.
The zombies didn’t need a ladder.
36
The zombie in blue jeans was gone. Probably still there, but gone just the same. The press of zombies had filled in the space between the homeless shelter and the ten-foot-by-twenty-foot structure Ken and Dorcas were crouched on top of. There were so many of the things in the space that it was impossible to see where one left off and another began. It was like the mass was a single amorphous organism, squeezing every possible cell it could into the area in search of food.
Over the booming growl of the zombies – or maybe between it, since Ken couldn’t imagine anything being heard over it – came the sound of tinkling glass from the front of the shelter. A few gunshots.
Then just the zombies. The throng that was so thick it was almost a jellied version of humanity. Pressing. Pressing. Pressing into the space behind the homeless shelter. Pressing up to the base of the building.
Pressing over and on top of one another.
It was like watching ants swarm up an anthill. The zombie in blue jeans was probably at the bottom, supporting others who came after, who in turn supported still others.
“Dorcas…,” said Ken, staring transfixed at the boiling mass of bodies that was rising ever closer to the top of their momentary safe haven.
“Already on it,” she shouted. She ran quickly around the perimeter of the roof, clutching her injured arm but betraying no sign of pain.
Adrenaline is a wonderful thing, Ken thought. He suspected he would drop dead at any moment. If he got far enough to enjoy that luxury.
“They’re everywhere,” said Dorcas. “Not as close as here, but moving up.”
The zombies at the base of the storage building were ten feet away from reaching the roof. Now nine feet.
Ken looked around. The roof was unbroken. No way to get inside and take cover. No weapons.
He looked over the side. The things were seven feet away. Bubbling ever closer to their goal.
What the hell is happening? Why?
No answers. Never any answers.
Ken thought for a moment about trying to hit a few heads with the ladder; maybe that would start a chain reaction of crazy that would stop the threat. But he discarded the idea as soon as it came. There was no way that dropping a less stable zombie into that mix would even be noticed, any more than the ocean would notice someone pissing in it.
Five feet away. The ones at the top reached for the roof before being buried under the next wave of zombies. Their fingers missed the lip of the roof, but not by much.
Ken ran back to the ladder. It was an extension ladder, opened up to a length of probably twenty feet, but it looked like it could be opened out another four or five feet. He hoped it would be enough.
He pushed the ladder out. Over the edge of the roof opposite the one they had climbed up on.
Fingers reached for it. Came up empty.
He kept reeling the ladder out. It touched the top of the chain-link fence surrounding the shelter property. He kept pushing it, using the fence for stability as he shoved the ladder up and over.
It ended about five feet short.
Five feet before touching the lip of the freeway just above and to the side of them. Ken pushed the leading edge of the ladder forward another inch, but any farther and he knew it would just fall off the building, teeter on the fence for a moment, then plummet into the horde below.
Just like they would fall if they tried to get out on the ladder. It would tip over into the zombies as soon as they crossed the fulcrum point of the top of the chain-link fence.
“So much for emergency bridging out of here,” he said.
He looked at Dorcas. Out of ideas and not knowing what to say. Goodbye seemed trite, seemed ridiculous in fact.
The look in her eyes stole his thoughts. Not just strong. If he had to pick a word at that moment he would only have come up with holy. This, he realized, was what he had always pictured avenging angels looking like right before they started kicking celestial ass.
Dorcas stepped onto the first rung of the ladder, the only rung that still rested on the roof of their all-too temporary sanctuary.
“I’ll anchor it,” she said.
He shook his head.
“You’ve got family.
All I’ve got is an ex-husband who was probably banging some girl half his age when this all went down.” She grimaced. “I hope she bit his wiener off.”
Ken still didn’t move.
Dorcas grabbed him with her good hand.
“Go! Get your family.”
Behind them, he heard the fleshy slap of a dozen palms on the roof. The growling all around them grew more focused, as though they knew that this was it.
The first zombies pulled themselves onto the roof.
37
Ken moved past Dorcas, stepping onto the ladder. But he didn’t up it, didn’t run over the point where it crossed the chain-link fence, didn’t attempt to jump from the end of the ladder to the edge of the freeway five feet away. He just moved a single rung past Dorcas, then spun around, one foot planted unsteadily on the rails on either side of the ladder.
Below him, the zombies reached for the ladder, reached for him. They hissed and growled like boiling tar in a moat.
“What are you doing?” Dorcas shouted. “Go!”
He ignored her. Waited. Watched.
The first zombies pulled themselves fully erect on the roof. Looked around as though taking stock. Spotted Dorcas. Spotted Ken.
“Come on!” he screamed. He grabbed her good arm and yanked her toward him.
“We’ll fall!”
He didn’t answer, just pulled her onto the ladder. It held up, supported by the roof on one side and the chain-link fence on the other.
“As soon as we get past the fence, we’ll tilt it,” she said, not adding the words, “and we’ll fall!”
Ken heard them anyway.
He kept moving forward. Crabwalking up the incline, hearing the clank-clank-clank of Dorcas doing the same right at his heels. Hearing even more the zombies growling and shrieking only a few feet below, boiling ever higher as they piled on top of one another to get to their prey.
The fence. Almost there.
Now Dorcas did say it. Screamed it. “We’ll fall!”
