That line of thought did nothing to help me prepare to escape from this death trap of a house. Shawn was still asleep or at least doing a good job faking it. I had an idea that he had been as restless as I had been during the night. I made my way to where Jane set as slowly and as quietly as I could. I didn’t want to give away our position after hours of silence. Somewhere deep in my mind was the hope that maybe they had all just wandered off during the night. This hopeful little dream was crushed as soon as I made it to the landing and looked down into the foyer. There were so many zombies down there that I momentarily forgot how to breathe.
“Yeah. Friends have been dropping by all night.” Jane whispered from in front of me.
“How bad?” I asked.
“I would say we had somewhere between twenty and forty here yesterday when we went to ground. Now I would guess we have somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty in and around the house. I haven’t checked the outside for about an hour so. I’m not sure how it looks now.”
This was not the news I was hoping for. It would seem that all the Curious Georges that had strolled up the road had seen the others heading our way and decided that we were the fresh meat on the all you can eat breakfast bar.
“Any of them trying to make it up the stairs?” I asked.
“Not yet. I heard some beating on the walls last night, outside and in. I’m not sure if they were beating their way into other shut rooms or if they are trying to bring the entire second floor down on top of them.”
“Now that is a scary thought. I wouldn’t give them that much credit mentally to think about collapsing a house to get to us.”
“Like you said yesterday Charlie, we have no idea how far the variances go, physically or mentally.”
“True.” I said as I watched the zombies wander about below us. “Have any of them noticed you up here?”
“No. I don’t think they will either unless we make them notice us. Watch them for a bit and you will realize what I did over the course of the night. They never look up unless some noise or other stimulus makes them look up. We are up above their heads so as long as we stay quiet and be careful they would probably never notice us.”
“But they know we’re here?”
“Oh yeah. They definitely know that we are here. They just don’t know where. I’m not sure if they can smell us or if they remember seeing us come in here or maybe they can hear us. But somehow they know that we are still in the house and they are searching for us.”
“I really wish that we could figure out how they are able to zero in on us. That nugget of information would go a long way towards us becoming better prepared for these get-togethers.”
“Agreed.” Jane said then turned back to watch the stairs. Behind me I could hear Shawn stirring and I made my way back to the bedroom to try and ward off the inevitable moment of “Oh sweet Jesus we’re all going to die” that I knew Shawn would soon be having.
“Good morning.” I said as he was getting to his feet.
“Yeah.” Was all Shawn would say.
“Still pissed at us?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then I need to tell you, whatever you do, don’t look outside.”
Shawn’s head snapped up and his eyes locked onto mine. “You said they would be gone.” The tone he used wasn’t pleasant. It was actually down right accusatory. “You lied to me,” the voice said. “You’ve killed us,” the voice said. “I will never trust you again,” the voice said.
“It’s not as bad as it could be.” I said.
“Really? What does that mean? There’s only a hundred zombies surrounding us now?”
“Maybe a little more than that.” I said in quietly as I looked out the window.
“More. Than. A. Hundred.” Shawn was not pleased.
“It’s nothing we can’t deal with, trust me. The plan is still on and we will be back home before nightfall.”
“Trust you? You want me to trust you Charlie? What the hell? You are the one that put us in this position. I told you, I told both of you. I said let’s just do what we came out here to do. Let’s not go investigate those screams and gunshots. I said let’s just do what we said we would do. But you aren’t ever satisfied with just doing the boring stuff that you’re supposed to be doing. You have to go off on these tangents that put us in danger. Why wouldn’t you listen to me? Just this once, why couldn’t you have left it alone?”
I saw red. Not proud of it. I felt attacked, so I attacked back.
“If this is what I always do then why did you jump at the chance to come with me? If you want to complain about the decisions I make, then maybe you shouldn’t have made me your leader. Just a few things to think about.”
“I came with you and I voted for you to be our leader because I thought I could trust you and the decisions you would make. I can see now that I was wrong to have that faith in you. If we make it back to the roof I am never setting foot down here again.”
Ouch. Talk about playing rough. His remarks took the fight and the fire out of me. I looked him in the eye and said the only thing that I could think to say, “I will get you home safe and sound. Whatever you do after that is on you.”
I turned to walk out of the room and found that Jane was walking towards us. “Well there’s no sense in being quiet anymore after you two cheerleaders decided to stir up the whole hornet’s nest.” Jane looked pissed at us, but it didn’t matter to me.
“Let em be stirred up. That will help us escape.” I said.
Jane gave me a sly, almost comical, look. “You got a plan?”
“I always have a plan.” I said as I walked back out of the room. I made for the bedroom across the hall and once inside I picked up a laptop that I had found the night before and carried it back to where Shawn and Jane were standing.
“This right here is going to help us escape.”
“I don’t get it.” Jane said. Shawn said nothing. He was still smoldering off to the side from our altercation, and that was fine with me. As long as he did as he was told when the time came he could stay mad at me for the next two months.
“What do you see when you look down into the foyer or out one of these windows?” I asked.
“Trouble.” Jane answered.
“Death.” Shawn answered which actually surprised me. I was expecting only Jane to answer.
“You see, when I look out there I see only one thing, an opening.”
Shawn looked out the window then looked back towards me, “What could you possibly see out there that will help us escape this?” He asked.
“I see a couple of things actually. First of all, I see a bunch of hungry zombies. That is not a bad thing, not at all. They are very determined to get to us and that means that they can be controlled. A controllable enemy is a good enemy to have.”
“And how are you going to control them?” Shawn asked, but I think Jane already knew how. He had a smile on his face as Shawn asked his question.
I held up the laptop, “With this. It’s just like when we cleared out the inside of Wal-Mart. I will turn on the webcam and record myself yelling and screaming then I will set the player to loop the video file and I will set this sucker at the top of the stairs. The foyer of this house should look like a mosh pit in no time.”
“And that helps us how?” Shawn asked without as much anger in his voice now. It seemed he was actually interested.
“How do most magicians perform their magic tricks?” I asked.
“Misdirection.” Shawn said.
“Bingo!” Jane said and laughed.
“What am I missing?” Shawn asked.
“While the zombies are scrambling and climbing over each other to get in the front door we will be going out the back.” I had been walking as I was saying this and I stopped in the back bedroom. I pointed at the two side by side oversized windows. “We will be going out these back windows to be precise.”
Jane smiled even wider. “Nice.”
“Are you crazy? T
hat’s a two story drop. We’ll break our legs.” Shawn said.
“Take another look out that window.” I told him knowing what he would see. The ground in the back yard sloped up a hill where the woods reasserted themselves at the edge of the short, well maintained yards. The further out you jumped the less you would fall before you landed on the hillside.
“Why would you build a house like this with no back yard? That hill can’t be more than six feet away from the house.” Shawn asked.
“Some people don’t like big yards. They don’t want to have to mow them.” I said.
“Amen. That’s why I was looking at buying a condo if I got that ETSU job.” Jane said.
“Do you really think it will work?” Shawn asked.
“Will it work? It’s foolproof!” I said.
Jane looked out the window and said, “Nothing’s foolproof, but it sounds good to me. Let’s do it.”
I recorded myself for a good two minutes screaming and yelling. This by itself was whipping the local zombies into a frenzy. While I was doing this Jane was finding new and creative ways to remove the two windows from the back bedroom. I carried the laptop out to the top of the stairs and set it down facing the zombies, so the speakers could have their full effect. The dead were swarming over everything downstairs and were starting to try to climb over the furniture we had placed on the stairs. They were also standing beside the stairs beating on the banister. I retreated into the bedroom.
“I hope it’s clear because they are pulling the house apart in the foyer.” I said.
“Last couple are leaving now.” Jane said. He was already up and knelling in the gap where the windows used to be. I opened my mouth to say something to him, but never had the chance. With no warning whatsoever, he sprung out of the window and soared up and over to the hillside. He landed on the tips of his feet and then collapsed to his knees and hands and then fell into a roll that ended with him sitting on the hillside looking back at the window. It’s was all rather impressive. I was almost ready to applaud when Jane said, “Red rover, red rover, send Shawn on over.”
Shawn climbed up into the window and gave one look to the ground directly below him before flinging himself towards the hillside. He landed nowhere near as gracefully as Jane did. There was no collapsing and rolling. It looked more like a belly flop on ground. Shawn lay still for a few seconds before rolling over giving me a thumbs up and saying, “I am so glad I volunteered for this.”
“You’re up Charlie.” Jane said as I climbed up into the window frame. I was picking my landing spot when I heard a loud crack from behind me then an even louder crash. I couldn’t help but look around. Over half of the furniture had tumbled to the floor below as the banister let go. Zombies were crawling up and over what few items remained on the stairs. One was almost to the second floor already. Seeing that sparked something inside my head and I did the one thing that I should have never done. I let the panic bite in deep and I lost all self-control. I turned and flung myself out the window. Earlier I had picked a spot to aim for, but that was all forgotten. I was running on pure blind panic at the moment and it was too late for turning back. I flew off balance and out of control as I headed for the hillside.
Jane had most likely known what was happening as he had seen me turn back around and face the hillside because he had yelled, “Wait!” to me just as I leaped out into the air. Before his warning made its way out of his mouth I was coming in for a landing, but it was all wrong. I wasn’t coming in to land on hands and feet. I wasn’t distributing the weight of my body at all. I was going to land in almost a standing up position and that would be bad. Just before I landed I realized this and I attempted to correct myself, but any chance of that had already passed. I landed on my feet, off balance, with all of my weight crashing down onto my ankles. The right one decided it couldn’t live up to the strain and it rolled over to the side. The pain was instant and extremely intense. I cried out and fell backwards falling further down the hill. Jane and Shawn came scrambling down to check on me.
“Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay.” Jane said.
I tried to stand but my right leg buckled under the strain. I couldn’t put any weight on it.
“No. I’m not okay.” I said, and I felt my stomach sink a bit as I realized how far of a walk it was to Wal-Mart. “My ankle twisted when I landed. I can’t put any weight on it.”
“Get him.” Jane said as he got me under one arm and Shawn got me under the other. We began to make our way out of the yard slowly, much too slowly. I looked behind us as we reached the main road and saw that not all, but some, of the zombies from the house had seen us and were now in pursuit. I also could see that as slow as those zombies were, we were slower. They were going to catch us before long because of me. This was something I wasn’t prepared to let happen. I looked back out at the road in front of us and knew what had to be done.
“Guys. They’re coming after us.” I said.
“Just keep moving.” Jane said.
“That’s no good. They are gaining. I’m slowing us down too much.”
“Don’t even say what you’re about to say.” Jane said. “One foot in front of the other. We will make it home.”
“No. We won’t. They will catch us. They will eat us. It will suck. We gotta drop back and punt because plan A isn’t working.” I said.
“And what are you thinking plan B should be Charlie? Are you going to tell us to just leave you behind? Leave you here to be eaten while we escape.” Jane asked.
“Leave me behind? Yes. Leave me to be eaten? Are you crazy? I didn’t wake up this morning thinking that it would be pretty awesome to go out as a hero or a martyr. I want you to put me in that car up there and then run back to Wal-Mart, gather up the cavalry and come save me.”
“You’re serious?” Jane asked.
“Yes. Especially about the saving me part.”
Shawn gave a nervous laugh before looking back and saying, “They are getting closer.”
Jane looked over his shoulder as well. I could tell by the look on his face when he turned back around that he saw what I did. He looked me in the eyes and I nodded to him as we began to angle towards the car.
Jane and Shawn neither one liked my plan, but they also knew that it was realistically the only choice we had. They got me to the car and helped me sit down in the driver’s seat. Shawn looked at the car and frowned.
“Are you sure that this thing is going to protect you long enough for us to get back?” He asked.
“This is an Audi. Aren’t they supposed to be the safest cars on the road?” I asked.
Shawn never had time to answer. Jane put a pistol in my hand and two extra clips. Before shutting the door he said, “Hang tight and don’t use these unless they breach. We will be back as fast as we can.”
The door slammed shut and I automatically hit the door locks. Jane and Shawn turned to leave. I watched them sprinting down the road towards Wal-Mart, but I still knew my odds were iffy at best. With their desired meal disappearing from sight it didn’t take very long for the zombies to forget Jane and Shawn had ever existed and decide to check me out instead. In less than five minutes I was completely surrounded. At first they were just standing there looking into the car. I was laying as still as I could, hoping that they wouldn’t register any movement and would simply let me be. However, that wasn’t in the cards. The zombie at the front of the car raised both hands up into the air like the first zombie I had ever seen all those months ago at the side door of Carta Mundi. He brought both fists down onto the hood of the car, hard. The whole thing shook under the impact. This seemed to be the cue for the rest to begin pounding the car to pieces. Within minutes the front windshield had spider web cracks running across it. I began pushing myself onto the console in the middle of the car just in case one of the side windows shattered in the front I would be able to push myself into the back seat and maybe buy myself a few more minutes.
One of the zombies had crawled up onto the hood
of the car and was smashing his fists repeatedly into the windshield. If that front window went it would be all over. This was a fact I was very aware of, but it seemed that I didn’t have much of a chance at either stopping them or running away so all I could do was sit there and hope that the glass held until the others could get back to me. From where I was sitting I thought that this would be a very long shot and within minutes I was proven right. The front driver’s side window blew in and dead hands reached in after me. I kicked the dashboard with both of my feet sending me flying into the back seat and also sending lightning bolts of pain up my leg. I leveled the gun at the zombie that was starting to lean into the car and I pulled the trigger. The last time I had attempted to shoot a zombie had been during the battle of Gray and that attempt didn’t have a very good result. This time the zombie that was leaning into the car disappeared as the bullet carried his body away and into the growing crowd of bodies gathering around the car. I honestly think his brains landed somewhere on the other side of the road. I was amazed at my shot and almost cheered, but it was at that moment that the other front window blew inward, and the windshield began to sag into the car.
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