by Bobby Adair
I checked over my shoulder to see how close our pursuers were and ran into Jazz as she came to a stop. Together, we crashed into a big White who'd been lumbering through the maze to find the cause of all the excitement. From there, it was elbows, teeth, and blades as we wrestled with the beast to kill it before it injured one of us.
Luckily, we were both armed, and it died quickly. Both of us were panting when we finally climbed off the bloody monster and started to run again.
We soon found ourselves in what had been the pharmacy section of the store. Whites seemed to be closing in on us from two directions, though I told myself they couldn't know where we were, and what I was hearing was more an artifact of my panic than actual reality. My feet had stopped running, and my eyes were shooting from one spot to the next, over all the medical shit on the floor, desperately thinking that luck would smile on me and I'd see one of those goddamned Epipens laying there like a golden egg.
Jazz grabbed my arm and pulled. “We don’t have time.”
Moments later, she’d dragged me through a heavy steel door into a room built along one of the Walmart’s outer walls. It had no windows and no skylight above, so as I pushed the door through the crap on the floor and the hinges squealed an alarm to every White within earshot, we lost the last of our light. In the darkness, I shouldered the door until the doorknob clicked home and then I fumbled with the deadbolt until it latched.
As my eyes adjusted to the scant light coming in through the gap under the door, I saw Jazz looking around in the room, trying to figure out our next move.
The door reverberated when a body slammed it from the other side.
“They’ll get in,” I told her, though I knew she knew that.
“I can’t see anything,” said Jazz.
“Flashlight?” I asked. I’d sacrificed mine on those first two Whites.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Despite the tension, and panting, the adrenaline made me chuckle. “Yeah. It wasn’t a priority to hold onto, at the time.”
I felt around on the floor for the folding tables and chairs I’d seen tumbled over before the lights were extinguished.
More Whites were outside, smashing into the door with all their weight.
I started piling anything I could find in front of the door, wedging things under the handle to keep it closed. “We’re gonna need a way out of here.”
“What is this, some sort of break room or something?” Jazz was feeling around in the dark noisily, but the sound didn’t matter at that point.
“Can you see if there’s another door?” I asked, as I started to push a metal storage cabinet across the floor.
The door’s metal hinges were straining under the onslaught from outside. Screws were tearing out of the wall.
"We don't have long," I told her.
“Look up.”
“What?” I was already looking up and saw ten, maybe twelve feet up, the faintest of lights showing in a regular grid pattern.
“Ceiling tiles,” shouted Jazz.
As my eyes continued to adjust, I stumbled through the junk on the floor toward another metal storage cabinet on the back wall. “Here.”
I was pushing a table against the storage cabinet when Jazz arrived at my side. An agile hop put her atop the table, and she was climbing onto the top of the cabinet. Needing no guidance from me, she pushed a ceiling tile out of the grid above us, and a cloud of dust and rodent turds billowed down through a pillar of dull light from above. There were skylights above the ceiling tiles.
I was already climbing.
The doorjamb signaled its surrender with a loud crack, and the door broke free of the wall. The junk I’d piled in front kept it from falling. The Whites outside, though, knew they were almost in, and their frenzy drove them to push harder.
Jazz was already through the ceiling, perched along the top edge of a steel-framed interior wall, pointing back down. “Get that ceiling tile I dropped.”
Anger flashed across my face as I was already on top of the storage cabinet, and then I understood. If we replaced the ceiling tile to hide our escape, the Whites wouldn't know where we went. "Gotcha." I laid my machete across the ceiling grid and hopped back down to the table, which promptly collapsed under my weight. I hit my head on something as I fell, and my vision filled with stars.
Chapter 13
When my senses finally returned, Jazz was screaming at me from above. I sat up and put a hand to the back of my head, like that was the most important thing I could spend five seconds on. I felt a big knot on my skull, and my fingers came back sticky with blood.
“Zed!” Jazz shouted. “Get up here.”
The noise from the door caught my attention. My hastily stacked pile of junk was collapsing. Arms and hands were pushing through the gap between the door and the jamb. The Whites were going to break through at any moment.
“Forget the ceiling tile, Zed. Get up here now!”
That's when I noticed the emergency medical station sign on the wall by the door, a big red cross, a white box that at a glance I knew contained first aid supplies, a yellow box containing a defibrillator and a—I pointed as I wobbled to my feet. "What's that?"
“Zed!”
I made my way through the junk on the floor toward the emergency station beside the door, and the Whites on the other side went nuts. I had the same skin as them, but I was the object of their ire, and all logic was gone from their minds.
The white box bolted to the wall just to the right of the defibrillator said, ALLERGY EMERGENCY KIT. Behind the glass face were what I quickly deduced to be just what I needed—Epipens, two them, labeled for anyone over 66 pounds, two for—
“You need to come!” shouted Jazz.
I smashed the glass on the front of the emergency cabinet, grabbed two pens, and bounded across the room, feeling my balance come and go as I moved. I shoved a chair against the storage cabinet and handed the Epipens up to Jazz.
She tried to take my wrist instead.
“Take the pens, dammit!”
She did, and quickly stuffed them in her bag as the pile of metal chairs and plastic tables crashed to the floor along with the steel door.
I scrambled onto the top of the storage cabinet, cutting my arms and knees on the sharp edges, and before a White could get across the room, I pulled myself into the space above the ceiling. I sat on the top edge of the interior wall and kicked the storage cabinet over on top of a pair of Whites who’d just gotten close enough to jump for me.
“You’re bleeding,” Jazz told me as she did a quick survey of the space above the ceiling tiles and below the roof. It was a 3-D maze of wires suspending the ceiling tile framework, ducts, and dust spread over the Walmart’s admin offices, the break room, part of the pharmacy, and who knew what else.
The Whites were below, jumping and screaming. I was out of their reach.
My heart was pounding a mile a minute, my breath was coming in gulps as I tucked my legs up beneath me and grasped some metal conduit for balance.
Jazz was already moving. "Don't forget your machete, Batman."
I grabbed it and moved away from the hole, knowing it was only a matter of minutes or moments before the Whites figured out how to stand that metal cabinet back upright and come up after us.
“This way,” called Jazz. She was climbing quickly through the network of cables and conduit, throwing up a cloud of decades-old dust in her wake.
Choking the dust in and coughing it out, I hurried to follow. Not far ahead of her, a rusty ladder ran up into the sunshine above, through a roof access door, or hatch, or whatever the right word was. It had been left open. The smell of mold grew strong, and the insulation I kicked out of my way was mushy. Every pipe I grabbed was slick with slime.
Jazz was already at the ladder, pulling a hand away from a rung to look at it with disgust on her face. “Careful when you get here.”
A ruckus from behind told me our short head start had just ended—a White was climbi
ng into the ceiling space. Thankfully, he was as dumb as the rest of them.. He found his footing on the interior wall I’d been perched on a moment before, as others climbed up after him. He spotted Jazz and me and pounced in our direction, making a run for us, crashing through the flimsy ceiling tiles and back into the break room below.
“Hurry,” called Jazz from the top of the ladder as she pulled herself onto the roof.
The Whites who’d seen their buddy fall through the ceiling were more careful about where they put their feet, but more careless about their safety as they rushed through the 3D maze to catch me.
When I reached the ladder, I looked up as I climbed, and Jazz was standing on the roof, urging me to hurry. I didn’t need her coaching. Every White in the Walmart was aware of our location and seemed to be coming our way.
“What now?” asked Jazz, as I climbed onto the gravelly roof, earning more bloody scrapes for my rush.
I took a quick glimpse around to see the bubbles of the skylights running in regular rows over the sales floor for a few acres around us. Oxidizing green HVAC units as big as sports cars sat at regular intervals among them. Way across the roof, at the back edge, I spied the curving rails of a ladder built up and over the back wall. I knew, however, even as Jazz spotted the ladder and started to run in that direction it was no guarantee of a safe escape path.
“Go!” I positioned myself next to the access hatch so I’d be behind any White climbing the ladder to get through. I bent my knees and raised my machete, ready for the fight.
Twenty yards away, Jazz stopped and shouted, “What the hell are you doing, you stupid asshole? You don’t need to be a hero. What the—”
“Go!” I shouted again. “Make sure the way is clear. I’ll hold them here until you find us a sure way off this roof.”
She understood, and took off.
From somewhere across the rooftops, I heard the familiar sound of an M4 firing, and definitely not the .50 cal mounted on the Humvee. I didn’t know whether to worry more or less about that, but all thoughts of gunshots moved to the bottom of my worry list because a White was on the ladder below me and coming up fast.
Chapter 14
From behind the White, I hacked her in the side of the neck and she fell back into the hole, knocking others off the ladder below and enraging those trying to scramble up.
It only took seconds for the brainless mob to reorganize their upward assault, and the next White lost half its hand as it reached up to grab the top rung. He fell, and a satisfying second crash meant some of the Whites had dropped through the ceiling tiles to the floor far below. Far enough they'd be out of the chase.
Thirty feet to my left, a fist started to pound one of the skylights from below.
"How the hell?" I didn't have time to finish the thought, as it was time to hack again as a White was trying to monkey-rush his way up the ladder. He got a hand around my ankle as he wrenched his body into an attack that exposed his throat to my downward thrust. Blood exploded out of his larynx, and he slid back into the hole, nearly pulling me down with him.
I scolded myself for my careless mistake and gathered my feet beneath me just in time to pound the backside of my blade into the skull of a female trying to top the ladder.
On the skylight off to my left, the beating fist was replaced with a piece of metal. The skylight wasn’t going to withstand the assault for long.
Way over by the curved ladder, Jazz was leaning, hands on the rails, looking down.
I murdered another White and waited for Jazz to give me the signal to come. She didn’t. She glanced up, shook her head, and ran along the wall, still on the search.
Crap.
I killed another White.
And another. Each time, buying us a few moments of respite before the next mounted the ladder to come after me. With a distinct snap, the acrylic cover on the skylight to my left cracked, and that was the death knell of our safety.
“We’re out of time,” I hollered, as I glanced toward Jazz.
She was standing near the far corner of the building, peering over the edge. She turned back and waved me to come.
“Don’t wait for me,” I called back.
“I won’t—”
“I’ll meet you at the rendezvous.”
Jazz jogged a few paces in my direction, pleading for me.
“Dammit, just go!” I shouted, not because I planned to hero my way into an early death, but because I was betting that with me up here killing hungry fuckers, she could get away clean. I was just going to have to figure out my escape on my own.
Chapter 15
More Whites died under my blade.
Still, they came, as I tried to guess how much longer I needed to hold out before Jazz would be safely away. I gave up on that idea, though. I was buzzing hard on adrenaline and rage—rage at all the fuckers trying to climb through the roof to kill me. I knew from experience that time had a way of dilating when I was in the shit, meaning I had no idea how many actual seconds had ticked off the clock since Jazz went over the edge of the roof—maybe twenty, maybe five hundred. I decided my exit moment needed an alternative trigger.
The skylight off to my left was breaking away from the roof at the seam and fracturing into shards and gaping holes across the top. Every arm that reached through bloodied itself in the attempt, but none of that was an immediate danger to me. It was all impending, an important distinction.
I hacked again and again, then glanced back to my left.
When a head finally pushed through the skylight, I hacked my last White coming through the roof access panel and sprinted. I didn't run in the direction that Jazz had gone, instead, I detoured hard to my left. Just as the White with this head through the skylight turned to see me coming, I whipped my machete across his forehead and converted the crown of his skull into a bloody Frisbee.
Not looking back to admire my work, I raced for the far corner of the roof where Jazz had made her escape.
Once at the edge, I peeked over the parapet and saw the path to safety—or maybe the exit for the safety scenic overlook. A semi-tractor trailer sat parked by the building, maybe three feet from the wall, and about ten or eleven feet down. A glance over my shoulder told me all I needed to know about whether I had time to contemplate the height, fret jumping too far and rolling off the edge of the trailer, or any other of a dozen things that could go wrong. Whites were on the roof, climbing out of the roof-access hole, looking like a bunch of angry fire ants streaming in my direction.
Over I went.
I landed with a bang on the empty trailer, clomped loudly up the length of it and hopped onto the cab of the truck, down to the hood, over to the fender, and then I made my last leap to the asphalt.
In the vast, barren spaces between the sparse buildings, scores of Whites were on the move, though they weren’t organized. They weren’t even set on a goal. The local Smart Ones weren’t running the show yet. That was good.
Before putting any thought into what might be a good, bad, or optimal escape route, I made a beeline for an oversized DIY carwash for semi-trucks on the lot next to the Walmart, though the word ‘next’ implied a proximity that most city folks would misconstrue. I had to cross fifty yards of cracked asphalt and another hundred yards of bleached dirt to get there, with nothing but sparse, ankle-high scrub to give me cover.
When I ducked into the first carwash bay to catch my breath and look back, Whites were hopping off the roof, and the first handful of them was already running in my direction. Worse, all the running and howling had caught the interest of the random Whites from around the area.
Shit.
I looked myself up and down. Of course, I was still wearing my boots. I held my big machete tight, and I was spattered head to toe in blood. Though I was as White and hairless as all the beasts coming after me, at the moment, I didn't look anything like them.
Knowing I couldn't kill them all—no chance of that—and knowing I probably couldn't outrun them, I needed a new plan—a d
esperate plan that Murphy would most definitely frown on. I spun my wheel of fortune and picked the first idea that popped up.
I sprinted toward a nearby hotel.
Chapter 16
Once past the hotel, things got a little easier for me. A gas station, a McDonald’s, and several other hotels lay close by, meaning more cover, and more directions for my pursuers to guess where I went. I ran with every ounce of speed I could muster to reach the next hotel over before any interested White saw where I was headed.
Gasping for breath as I trudged through loose sand to reach the parking lot, I crossed the asphalt and flung myself against a wall next to a burned-out car. I hurriedly stripped off my boots and hid them beneath the car, along with my machete. I then ran and dove into the sand, quickly rolling in it as it gritted its way into every open cut. I had no time to dwell on the pain, and in moments I was on my feet again, running.
With the building keeping me hidden for the moment, I ran past the empty swimming pool toward the office and came across an opportunity—several vending machines, broken up by the pool fence. Empty cola cans and candy wrappers still lay inside. From a scavenging perspective, it was a common and utterly useless sight to come across, but for my purposes, it was perfect.
I ran up to the first of the machines, squatted beside it, reached in for a handful of wrappers, and scattered them on the ground around me. Another handful I held onto, pushing them against my face to make it seem as though I’d found a hidden morsel. My panting served to make it seem as though I was feasting.
The mob of Whites looking for me was breaking up, and I heard them howling from several directions. But when a group of them came running around the far end of the hotel, I looked up to watch them, because that’s what any curious White would do.
Several of them found me just as interesting, not because I was bloody—I wasn’t, not really. Most of that was obscured by the sand stuck all over me. I looked for the most part like any other dirty White, trying to scavenge a meal. That meal part was on the minds of a few of my pursuers as they came over to root around in the vending machines with me.
