by Chris Welsh
Chapter Twelve. 01:25pm
GOING DOWN. AGAIN.
The door was as closed as it could have possibly been.
It was outrageously and infuriatingly shut. It lacked any manner of handle to yank and offered no lip or anything to give us purchase. Several cursory smacks with the axe barely dented the door's pride. It was a door determined to remain closed to us.
It was the bitter ex-girlfriend of doors.
"It feels locked. Like, not just 'closed over'. It isn't moving at all when I shake it."
"It's an arsehole," I said, resorting to insults in the hope it'd open just to spite me.
It didn't.
We'd already scoured the place but in the absence of a better plan, we scoured again. I almost succumbed to the futility of it all, staring at the inviting edge with the niggling urge to take flight, until Susan trotted over to a metal box similar to the air conditioning units but, instead of a big spinning fan at one end, it had a set of double doors that neither Stuart nor I noticed earlier. Across the doors was a company logo in big, blocky letters, saying 'Deus'.
"What's inside?" I asked as she fiddled with the latch.
"Give me that axe and I'll tell you," she said.
I refused with a petulant shake of the head and instructed her to shift, then took a swing at the latch and felt the pang of a tormented muscle bolt up my arm.
I winced, disguised as a disgruntled sigh.
"Give it here," she said, taking it from me and slotting the handle into a small gap behind the latch. She used it as a lever and eased it down until the screws gave way, then gave me the smuggest of all looks. She shoved the axe back into my arms and scraped open the doors.
"Well then," said Stuart, on approach.
"Yeah," I said.
"Mm. What is it?" Susan asked.
-
It took a while to set up, but we did it in the end. The thing was on wheels, which helped, but the controls couldn't have been less useful if they were transcribed into Gaelic and painted on the wings of a skittish bird.
Essentially it was a small, weighted buggy on four wheels that moved in every direction. Steering involved the manipulation of two small sticks and a handful of unlabelled buttons, each a different colour and apparently assigned a function at random. Getting the thing in place was a mess of trial, error and the dumbest luck we could summon. At one point Stuart convinced it to rise up by three inches; he had no idea how he'd done it or how to fix it, so we left it at that. Eventually we got it positioned as we thought best, anchored to a vent by a length of synthetic rope I found reeled in the strange vehicle's cab.
Next to the control hub, it boasted a huge winch and two poles that struck off the side, from which a long basket hung, held by incredibly thick wires.
The design allowed the vehicle to rest at the edge of the building so the basket suspended over the waist-high wall. It could then be lowered by the winch so brave people could do whatever they did. Clean the windows most likely, judging by the box of wipes, mops and sprays in the corner. Or maybe they just made faces through the glass at people trying to work inside.
The wires were several threads twisted together, so coarse that it would tear skin into confetti if any dared to touch it. Normally, when I see a rope, something instinctual kicks in and I imagine sliding down it to a triumphant orchestral score. My flesh would shred down to the bone if I tried that with this specimen.
"Excellent!" Susan cried.
She danced a giddy jig, pleased that the rectangular platform was finally positioned perilously over the edge. "We can ride it all the way down!" she said, as she inspected how best to get on to it.
It felt like a fool-proof plan, so much so that I desperately racked up the ways it could all go horribly wrong. Most of the outcomes, playing and replaying like a twisted VHS in my head, resulted in us lying on the ground, dead, having toppled from many storeys. Some scenarios had snapped ropes; some ended with the whole buggy laying smashed up on top of our crushed corpses. The most inventive involved the inexplicable appearance of a clown and a giant foam pie full of dirty needles and zombie guts.
Stuart and Susan climbed across and smiled, encouraging me to join them. The carriage hung over the edge with nothing but air below. So much empty air. The ground was a thousand miles away. I spat but my eyes lost the wad before it landed.
"Come on, Wes..." Stuart said, holding his arm out to guide me like a geriatric boarding a bus. Climbing aboard involved straddling the waist-high wall then hopping across to the carriage. Between these two things was a foot-wide gap of nothingness.
Typically, I don't partake in the whole 'afraid of heights' thing, but I was afraid of this one. Terrified.
I still jumped it though, in an effort to gain bravery points, and I didn't fuck it up. I landed safely and with some degree of style. I reckon I would have made it even without Stuart and Susan holding my hands like doting, protective parents coaxing a nervous child into a swimming pool.
The trolley swayed and creaked as we moved around and settled on it. I tensed every muscle in my body to keep it steady as possible. The wire stretched and twanged like a hangman's rope pulling taut.
"Now what?"
"Now we ride it all the way down!" Susan said.
"How?!"
The height and the limp swinging in the breeze were getting to me, making me agitated. I became aware that the floor under my feet was secured only by a few bolts and nuts. I inspected the platform, seeing nothing but cleaning equipment and a storage rack for various types of brush. "There's no controls."
"I think they're back up on the machine," Susan said. Then she revealed her severe death wish.
Specifically it was a wish for my death.
"Wes, go back up and turn it on. You might be able to press a button and it'll take us all the way down."
"Yeah? Then what? I twiddle my thumbs on the roof until you come back and get me?"
"Well, no. But if you can jam the switch on, so we're riding it down, you can jump down to us as quickly. The wind's died down a bit..."
Death wish. She wanted me literally dead. That was the only explanation.
"If I do that, I'll die down a bit too! Fuck right off!" I said, laughing as I did so to let her know I thought she was mental. "You're mental," I added, so that she was sure.
"DOWN!" Stuart shouted to my mild confusion. We paused our argument to both look quizzically at him. "Oh, um, I thought it might be voice-activated..." he mumbled.
"I'm not throwing myself on to this thing if it's moving. That's ridiculous," I said, leaving Stuart alone in his bubble.
Susan's idea fell apart when it hit the prospect of a horrifying plunge. I lacked the balls and reliably tough joints for such a thing. Even if I landed it I'd be too pre-occupied picking splinters of shin bone from my thighs to survive much longer. It may have been a viable option if it wasn't a million feet up in the air, a height at which any misstep resulted in a Swanton Bomb into oblivion.
No way was I doing it. Not a single way. Susan could look at me like that all she wanted, with her arms folded and her lips pursed disapprovingly. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't attempt it for a big cake. And I love big cakes.
Behind me, in secret, Stuart decided he was going to do it instead, cake or no. He was back on the building and searching for the correct set of buttons before I finished spitting my final refusal.
He didn't bother to mention it to either of us; possibly because he thought I'd talk him out of it (I wouldn't have) or because stalling gave him time to talk himself out of it.
An alarming judder shook the trolley and the wires began to feed through the loops on the buggy's poles, lowering us down. A loud, whooping siren cut through the blustery air, causing Susan to scream and cover her mouth. We descended achingly slowly past the windows of the tenth floor with no sign of Stuart's triumphant return. Susan immediately filled with worry and called his name three times, each time escalating in severity.
"Stu. Stuart.
STUARRRT."
We reached the cusp of the ninth floor when his head appeared, disappeared, and then was replaced by his feet, legs and torso.
He spent less than two seconds in the air, but his face managed to cycle through almost every possible human emotion, skipping only things like joy and happiness, before settling on abject terror in time to land. His tie flapped behind him like a strange tail. He landed with a sickening, metallic clang, slamming into the hard flooring and coming to rest against the side of the trolley's cage. This made my heart jump into my mouth, possibly to get a better look. Stuart worsened my dread by making absolutely no noise or movement whatsoever. He remained in his messy lump-state after what I definitely classified as an awkward landing, breaking his fall by slamming his head and shoulder hard into the rails.
I may have done it differently, but I was in no position to question his methods. Just seconds earlier I cowardly shat every ounce of bravery out of my body and refused to make the daring leap. He had snatched my dithering candle of manliness and set it alight with his own powerful flame.
I wanted to commend him, provided he was still alive. Unfortunately he appeared deader than the Sega Saturn.
"Stuart!" Susan cried again, pushing past me to tend to him.
"Is he okay?"
"You should have done it!" Susan said, kneeling by his side and trying to roll him into a comfortable position.
"What, I should've died you mean?"
"No! That's not what I said! Just, you might have had more success, not taking a bloody age to jump down..."
I didn't want to say she shouldn't have suggested it at all so I said nothing.
"Sorry...the button...wouldn't press down. It was...being a dick."
Stuart sat up with Susan's help and rubbed at the side of his head. A big smile emerged, making half of his face shine with pride whilst the other half sank into weary soreness. A host of painful winces, 'oofs' and 'fuckinells' broke through as he clamoured to his feet.
"I balanced that bit of brick on it. Took ages to make sure it wouldn't roll off."
A second or two of silence ticked by as Susan stared at him, searching for the right thing to say. I wanted to express my concern that a gust of wind might strand us half down the building if it decided to use the rock as a plaything, but didn't want to tempt fate into fucking with us. He gave us two thumbs up and slumped against the side, causing the thing to gently sway as we passed the eighth floor.
"Cheer up, you two. Went quite well, I thought. Good idea Susan. Mostly. Did I look cool?"
"Absolutely," I told him. "Like an eagle, soaring through the sky."
"Are eagles cool?"
"...yes."
At some point between jumping and landing he'd sweated out through his shirt, creating large circular patches under each arm like his body had been storing tension in liquid form and released it to celebrate not-being-dead. His smile hid a hint of constant pain, maybe a twisted ankle or something bruised, but at the moment his adrenaline powered him through.
At least we were descending, slowly-slowly, inch by inch. Heading in the right direction. I glanced off the side and it didn't look all that far now. A manageable, acceptable distance. I silently pleaded for our transport to kick up a gear and get a move on.
Our chances of making it to some manner of safety were strong, or at least stronger than they had been before. Sure, technically, the roof was a haven of safety so long as we avoided taking Zombie Nelson's route but I didn't fancy sticking around with no supplies or sustenance. I would inevitably become lunch for the deceptively-courageous Stuart when he tired of munching mouthfuls of gravel. A film I saw once, perhaps even a documentary, suggested that the slightest pang of hunger could send the nicest of humans insane and ravenous, and Stuart's heroics made me doubt my effectiveness against him if he deigned to attack. Rescue could take days to arrive, if it ever did, and we had already missed lunch.
Cannibalism would creep into view as a viable option after only a few idle, marooned hours.
I thought back to the last substantial thing I'd eaten; a browning banana that morning as I stomped unhappily to the bus stop to start my work-ward journey. I thought about the birthday cake I'd tossed away, wishing I'd held my nose to deflect the rank scent and tucked in. The chocolate bar I ate seemed to only antagonise my tetchy stomach.
"I'm starving," I muttered to Susan as she comforted Stuart, ever so proud of him.
"Same. I usually have a bowl of porridge once the morning rush is over, which didn't bloody happen."
As a receptionist, the face of the company, the first human people see after setting foot inside the hallowed building of administration, she puts up with a lot of bother. Personally, I've harangued her numerous times, requesting she set up a temporary work pass because mine 'is missing' (read: I'd left it at home).
"Mornings are hectic, but after ten or so I'm left alone for a couple of hours. That's when I usually have my breakfast. My stomach's going crazy; I can feel it bubbling like a boiled kettle."
A presumably golden rule of zombie-epidemic survival; don't survive in a way that offers no ready access to food and fresh water. It makes the notion of 'survival' irrelevant. Instead, find somewhere with a stocked larder and hole up there until the last thing on the shelf is a tin of mackerel with a broken key. Avoid barren roofs of inexplicably placed office buildings; write them off immediately as poor ideas.
"How're you feeling, Stu?" Susan asked.
"Pretty okay. Banged my, well, basically everything in the landing, but no major damage I don't think. I wouldn't say no to three-courses and a bottomless mug of coffee though."
"Good to hear."
"I don't mean to sound trite but I could literally catch, kill, cook and eat an entire horse. Given the chance. Well, maybe not an entire horse. I'd probably leave its horsey face. I quite like horses. And I imagine the hooves are inedible too. Unless there's a special type of sou..."
"We need to find food. Soon," Susan said, interrupting my flow.
I thought I detected a certain level of threat in her voice. She didn't say it out loud but I sensed a subtext, aimed at Stuart:
'You and me, bro, a team of two. Doesn't Wes look tasty?' it said.
Or maybe it didn't.
We trundled past the seventh floor. I counted the windows above us, disbelievingly, confused as to how we could be travelling so impossibly slowly.
I groaned and rubbed my stomach.
"I've got some gum if you want a stick of that?" Stuart said, fishing a rectangular packet from his pocket and shaking it. It wouldn't fix my hunger but it might trick my stomach into momentarily believing I was feeding it actual food. It would either help or piss it off.
We chewed and relished the minty freshness, lowering down to the windows of the sixth floor.
I listened to the wires being fed from above, sounding less stable the further down we went. Occasionally the thing would stutter and jerk, or stall briefly, reminding us that our lives depended on whatever mechanical wizardry held the winch in place. Space on the craft was tight so Susan made some by jettisoning the cleaning equipment, stored in a plastic box that sat loose on the floor. She evicted the whole lot without a thought given to the contents. A mop-looking thing was forced to face gravity's wrath next because it had fallen over and hit her when she picked up the box. She called it a bastard and threw it with malice. The rest of the rack, holding a collection of brushes and other stick-like objects, swiftly followed.
A bucket spared itself from Susan's exile by hanging silent and inconspicuously on a hook attached to the mesh sides.
It sailed down to the ground almost in slow motion. The box shattered and ejected its contents, spreading squeegees, brushes, scraps of cloth and a single sponge. One of the mops landed like a javelin before losing its head and clattering across the ground. The collisions attracted the lone wanderer down below, but it merely stared instead of racing over.
I tried not to think about replicating the journe
y. Although if I did, at least I could aim for the tiny sponge; it would give me something to think about as I hurtled off my mortal coil. I'd still die, but the soft, orange block would soak up some blood and make things easier for whatever poor soul had to clean me up after the splat.
Susan appeared at my side, staring down with me, probably not thinking the same thing.
Stuart gasped behind us and caused a slight wiggle in the trolley.
"Don't look at the building," he intoned with a stern voice.
We were about in line with the sixth floor, by my guess.
"Really, don't. It doesn't matter, it isn't important, everything is totally fine, but don't look at the building."
I didn't look at the building.
Susan began to turn but Stuart yelped a wordless warning, making her stop and continue gazing at the endless forest.
"Honestly. There's no reason at all to NOT look at the building, but whilst we're here, for the next minute or so, just don't look at the building."
His hands shook with vigour and it wasn't long before his whole body rocked with some insane vibration dance, riding waves of nervous, kinetic energy. The stability of the craft suffered from his uncontrollable fretting but it seemed completely necessary for him to do it at that moment. I turned my head to get an impression of his face; he looked like he'd seen his own ghost doing worrying things with a pug-dog. On the front of a magazine that his mother read.
As requested, I didn't turn all the way but...I heard the unmistakeable thump of hand on glass and assumed the worst. My eyes closed and a lump formed in my throat the size of an aggressively inflated football.
Susan decided she no longer wanted to live in shadows and spun on a heel. She stopped, dug her nails into my arm and held her breath, exhaling only to mutter the words "You're fucking kidding me."
"What is it?"
