“What did you do?” Hamilton screamed.
Cole had been hoping that the smoke wouldn’t be as thick or the heat so blistering. He had been hoping to hide somewhere, their scent hidden by the overwhelming stench of burning plastic. That was clearly impossible. And nor could they go back. The stairwell was choked with a squirming mass of black bodies.
“Up! We keep going up.” It was the least terrible choice left to them, only because it would put off the inevitable. If the zombies didn’t smash down the door, the fire would eventually roast them alive—if the building didn’t fall over first. They would not find salvation on the roof.
Chapter 31
The roof was on fire. The flames had eaten away at the supports and part of the ceiling had fallen in. There was a jagged hole forty feet wide that was growing every second.
“You stupid shit!” Hamilton screamed, seeing the raging fire. “Now what? Huh? Now what? Do you want us to just shoot ourselves? Is that why you dragged us up here? So we can have a nice view before we blow our brains in?”
Cole launched himself at Hamilton and threw him back against the stairwell door. “Hold the door shut! You can curse me all you want, but hold the door.” It was either that or let the creatures in, so Hamilton put his shoulder to it. McGuigan and Phillips did the same. Corrina stood off to the side looking small and lost.
“I’ll think of something,” Cole told her and then wandered a few steps away, staring around, his mind a complete blank. The control room for the elevator sat forty feet in front of him; the fire ran up its sides and engulfed its door. There were ventilation shafts that once had hoods and fans—they were now little more than gaping holes of rust that went plunging down seven stories.
The sides of the building had been constructed mostly of panels of black glass that were crisscrossed by long rows of ornate rectangles of reinforced concrete slabs, each ten feet long and three inches deep. The glass was gone and in many places the rectangles of concrete had either fallen away or had been whittled down so that the strips of reinforced steel within them could be seen. Cole saw that under the right circumstances, a man might be able to climb down the side of the building. These were not those circumstances.
To climb down safely would take time they didn’t have. He guessed that it would take half an hour at a minimum and although there were only a few zombies down below, wandering around behind the building, there were hundreds inside, and in seconds there would be dozens pouring through the doorway.
Imagining the beasts mindlessly throwing themselves from the roof to get at them sent a shiver down his back.
But what choice did they have? He stared down the side of the building. The lean of the structure would help. The fall wasn’t perfectly vertical. “I’ll draw them away to the front of the building,” he said to himself. It was the only way the others would have any chance. “Corrina! McGuigan! Get over here.” The girl sped to him, her pack and guns bouncing around on her back. “We’re going over the side,” he told her. “We’ll climb down and…”
She stopped in her tracks her face frozen in a look of shock. McGuigan had heard the idea as well. “Are you crazy?” he demanded going to the edge and looking down at the fall. “We’ll never make that. What are we supposed to hold onto? Huh? There aren’t any handholds for God’s sake.” He turned away from Cole’s insane idea and with his lips turned down, fish-like he stared around, hoping to see a ladder or a rope or another door that would be zombie free.
There was nothing.
“I’m not climbing down there!” he declared stridently, his voice high and trembling. “We’ll just have to think of something else. Like…” He was cut off as the building let out a deep mournful sound as it trembled beneath them and took on an even greater list. “Holy shit!” McGuigan cried, dropping down to his knees and holding onto the rock-covered rooftop as if he was about to be bucked off at any second.
Cole felt a jolt of fear, which clashed violently with the surge of hope that came with the sound. He turned back to the edge and looked over. The building’s list had increased by a few degrees and now the drop was even less shear. “Over the side! Hamilton! Forget the door!”
As neither Corrina nor McGuigan had budged, Cole decided to go first. He dropped and swung his legs over the edge. The angle was about ten degrees from vertical. If he slipped, he would slide down the wall at a speed just slightly slower than actually falling, and dash himself on the concrete below.
He went down, his face and chest pressed against the wall. With the building shaking around him, he realized that it was too late to attempt to climb. If they had two minutes before the whole thing collapsed, he’d be surprised. Doing his best to go from one tiny outcropping to the next, he slid down, grabbing any hold he could find with desperate fingers.
“Corrina, damn it! Get down here,” he cried, as scatterguns began to fire above him.
She was no longer afraid of the drop. Hamilton and Phillips had abandoned the door and now the roof was being flooded by the dead. She went down as Cole had, but was too short to reach the same holds and within seconds was half-sliding, half-falling, a scream ripping from her throat. Cole reached out to catch her, but the rag he grabbed tore in his hand and she dropped.
Her weight and momentum unbalanced him as well and he lost his grip. He slid, hit something sticking from the wall, went sideways, and rolled down the side of the building before hitting the jutting ledge of a window with his shoulder. It jolted him almost to a stop and he was barely able to grab the ledge.
“Cole!”
The strangled cry had come from Corrina. He was amazed to see that she was above him. Part of the rags she wore for a coat had caught on a piece of protruding cement and now it was cutting off her airway. She began to squirm in panic which loosened her coat’s hold on the rock and down she dropped.
This time, Cole was ready and instead of trying to catch her, he slammed his open hand into her torso as she rushed down and pinned her to the wall. “There! Right below you is another hold.” Before she could explain she wasn’t ready, he dropped her.
There was no time for getting ready. The building was groaning and shaking, and slowly the list was getting worse. It was worse for the building, but better for them. The angle was now like a dangerously steep playground slide. It was now or never. “Come on! Hamilton! Phillips!” They were all climbing now, but the building was shaking so badly that no handhold was secure for more than a few seconds. Hamilton let out a frightened curse and came scraping down. He knocked Corrina from the hold she had found and the two slid past him, locked in an odd embrace.
Then the building spasmed and they were all sliding down. For a few seconds, Cole was under the incredible delusion that they would get away unscathed. In his mind’s eye, he saw the building collapse much like a cardboard box would. As modern buildings were constructed much like a birdcage his visualization wasn’t completely off, however he didn’t take into account the effect of a century and a half’s worth of radiation on the entire structure. It had been on the verge of disintegration for years.
As Cole began to slide again, the top three floors collapsed into the rest of the building. Suddenly the entire wall they were on seemed to be sliding right off the girders. Cole watched in horror as the leading edge of the wall struck the earth and looked like it was being swallowed. The weight of the wall above crushed everything below it.
Corrina’s scream was engulfed up by the rumbling thunder and the cloud of dust that was suddenly everywhere. Cole slid right into it just as the rest of the building collapsed beneath them.
Their angled descent turned into a direct one, which was actually a much slower fall as they rode the disintegrating building downwards in a series of fantastic heaving jolts. There was no “holding on” to anything and he could think of nothing better to do than to curl into a ball and cover his face and head with his arms. He became something of a human pinball bouncing from walls to bending girders, to exploding slabs until he fou
nd himself lying amidst a huge pile of refuse, every inch of his body aching.
Somehow, he was alive.
Slowly he stretched his limbs as far as he could and decided that nothing was broken…probably. He had been saved by a heavy desk that had landed on top of him and had absorbed a few hundred pounds of concrete during the fall. Now it was in pieces around him.
“Cole?” Corrina’s wavering voice called out from within the grey cloud that had exploded into being all around them.
He was just about to answer when there was a snarling growl from off to their right. Someone, Phillips was Cole’s guess, hushed Corrina so loudly that the growl moved closer.
With a muffled groan and a face screwed up with pain, Cole squeezed out from the desk and sat up. He was bruised and aching but not injured. The same could not be said of Hamilton who had broken ribs and a kneecap that hurt so bad he thought he was going to puke. He was covered in the ubiquitous grey dust and Cole had mistaken him for just another hunk of rock and had tried to stand on him.
“Get off me, you dumb fuck,” he muttered.
“Sorry,” Cole whispered as he eased downward through the rubble towards the sounds of the growl. He found McGuigan next, pulling himself gingerly from the pile; there were splashes of red across his otherwise uniformly grey visage. His eyes were somewhat crossed, but he was moving. Cole left him and continued to stagger down.
Corrina was at the bottom. Somehow, she had ridden a slab of concrete all the way down only to be nearly buried in an avalanche of smaller rocks. Her left arm was shrieking in pain as the broken bones ground together, and her left ankle was already swollen to twice its normal size.
Not ten feet away was Sergeant Phillips, sucking his thumb. An entire building had fallen all around him and somehow, he had come through it with nothing but a smashed thumb nail. He was backing away as he sucked. The growling creature was closer. It appeared like a ghost, moving in the swirling dust. Cole’s first impulse was to pull one of his scatterguns, only he had lost one and before he could grab the other, he came to his senses. Although hundreds of Dead-eyes had been buried in the rubble, there were hundreds more roaming the cloud.
He would have to fight the creature like a caveman would, with a rock. Bending quickly, he searched through the slabs for something the right size. As he did, the creature turned toward Corrina, swinging its head back and forth. The dust had camouflaged her perfectly, and if she could’ve remained absolutely still and quiet, it might have moved on. She was in too much pain, and trapped and helpless as she was, her fear escalated to the point that she couldn’t control it.
Tears ran tracks through the dust and her breath came in hitches as she tried to free herself before it was too late. But the more she moved the rocks, the louder she became and the closer the Dead-eye got. Cole grew frantic. He had found a rock, but there was fifteen feet of broken uneven and dangerous ground between him and Corrina. Even if he could dance across the rocks, he’d be too slow to get to her. Phillips was closer and he stood on firm ground; why wasn’t he rushing to Corrina’s side? Why was he backing away? Cole snapped his fingers at him, but he only stepped further back and was now as shrouded in the dust as the Dead-eye.
“Fuuuck!” Cole growled as the creature suddenly came lurching forward. It had caught Corrina’s scent and before Cole could get halfway to her, it was on her, rending with its claws and biting down.
Its teeth clamped down onto her arm like a pitbull and began to shake its head. Amazingly she didn’t scream.
As much as she wanted to scream in pain and terror, she swallowed it. She could see the outlines of so many more of the monsters partially hidden by the cloud. If she screamed, she’d be torn apart in seconds. Cole was near. He stumbled down at her, a great rock in his raised hand. She knew it would hurt when he struck the beast, she just didn’t know how much. Where a second before, its rending teeth were still trying to get through the layers of rags she wore, now those same teeth went deep. The pain escaped through her gritted jaws in a high whine.
The beast’s head was crushed by the blow and it fell back.
But there were more of them. The dust was beginning to settle and they could be seen moving. They were going in every direction, and some were heading right for them. Cole slammed a hand over Corrina’s mouth. “Take it,” he hissed into her ear. “Take the pain. Can you do that?”
Although she was still in agony, she nodded. He took his hand away and began lifting the heavier rocks off her legs. There was blood. A piece of rebar had sheared through the muscle of her right thigh and poked upward wet and red. When he pulled it out, she sucked in a high breath and then bit down on her hand to keep from crying out.
She just barely held the scream in. Her bravery kept the entire zombie horde from flocking in; nothing could stop the closest one. Even with its nostrils caked in dirt, it could smell the hot coppery blood. Almost on all fours and looking like a mad ape, it charged, going for Cole as he reached for his rock. He grabbed it, turned, and received the full force of the beast square in the chest.
It was a she-zombie and not a big one either, and yet she was hideously strong. She pinned Cole down into the jumble of rocks. They were too uneven to pivot in either direction. He could only grab her by the throat and jaw and fight her head back. It was a fight that he was losing quickly. She was too strong and her endurance was unrelenting, while soon his arms were beginning to burn.
His only hope was that Phillips or Hamilton would come to his rescue. Neither budged and nor did McGuigan, who was paralyzed with fright. As he was higher up, he had a perfect view of nearly a hundred Dead-Eyes all within a stone’s throw. He slunk down low in the rocks.
Cole would’ve been dead if Corrina hadn’t smashed her fist into the back of the thing’s neck.
Use a fucking rock! he wanted to scream at her. The Dead-eye didn’t even seem to feel the blow—at first. Then, to Cole’s amazement, it jerked and lifted off Cole slightly. It looked Cole right in the eye, said, “Ahhhh,” and fell over him.
Corrina pushed the body off him before showing him the dart she’d had in her hand. He would’ve laughed if he could have, only the dead were everywhere. They snorted through the dust, trying to find the source of the blood, trying to find her! Cole pulled Corrina close, wrapping her in the rags he wore, hoping his body odor would cover the scent. They were not fooled. They flocked in toward the great mound. Running was out of the question, as was fighting. Their only chance was to curl up in the rocks and pray that they would be overlooked.
It was possible. The dust was just about settled by then and everything was perfectly grey. Even the blood on the shard of rebar was grey. The two looked just like more debris.
Above them, McGuigan was slowly covering himself in a layer of small rocks while Hamilton eased his Riker Ten from his holster. He had decided he would take out as many of the creatures as he could before shooting himself. Off to the side, Van Phillips was thinking the same thing, only he had lost his pistol in the collapse of the building, and for some reason the idea of using his scattergun to kill himself felt repulsive.
His brains would be everywhere and he could picture the dead licking the rocks clean. It was a horrible vision—and they were horribly close. Two of them were leaning over Cole and Corrina, snorting and groaning. Worse yet, there was one stumbling right towards him. He was kneeling, crouched beside a slab that had formed a small lean-to. He had the same choices as the others: hide, fight, or run. In the next ten seconds, he ended up doing all three.
Panic got his feet moving before he really understood the situation. He took two steps and then saw that there were zombies above, behind and in front. Next, he darted back to the leaning hunk of slab, but it was too late and the Dead-eye in front of him came surging forward with a scream of hunger.
Phillips blasted its head to pieces with a shot from the scattergun. “Cole! They’re on top of me! Cole! Ham!” The gun roared two more times and Cole had his name called over and over. There
was no going to the man’s rescue. Waves of zombies flowed all around Cole and Corrina. They could do nothing. Even if Cole hopped up and started shooting, Phillips was a doomed man.
He fired one gun dry and then pulled the next. After two shots it finally occurred to him that fighting would get him nowhere. With a cry he fled, running over the edge of the great mound. For a panicked man, it was a smart move. The zombies flailed over the rocks, breaking ankles and falling all over themselves. Phillips might have gotten clean away if he too hadn’t fallen. His foot came down on a rock that shifted beneath him and before he knew it, he was tumbling while his right leg was held in place. His tibia snapped like a dry twig and he howled louder than a wolf caught in a trap.
The desire to live was so great within him that he dragged himself across the wreckage for another minute before he realized that he would never escape. A thousand Dead-eyes were swarming in.
“No,” he whispered.
Yes. The thought slipped in. He knew there was only one thing he could do. Turning the scattergun around, he put his lips around the hot barrel. A second later his pink brains were scattered across the dusty stone and then, just as he had imagined, the hideous beasts were scrambling to lick it up.
“Fuck,” Cole said, as he listened to the beasts fighting over the body. The one word was all the sympathy he could manage. Filled as he was with fear and pain, there was no room left in him for sympathy.
Chapter 32
Although Phillips was dead, the flow of zombies continued in his direction until there were almost none around Cole and his shrinking group. Only the lame were left. This was exactly what Cole needed and yet he didn’t jump at the chance to dart them.
Dead Eye Hunt (Book 2): Into The Rad Lands Page 31
