Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel (14 page)

“You don’t have a choice,” he
says, “move!” He pushes her forward again as he hears the shambling steps
below. “Hurry, through here,” he opens a door.

“No, what if there’re more of
them?!” She says, pulling away.

“Its file storage,” he replies
and pulls her in through the door. “There’s never anyone in here.” He pushes
the door closed and ducks down as he gently pushes April away from the window.
The dead moan from the other side. Their voices mingle, creating an unnatural
chorus of deathly howls. Johnny places his finger over his lips and mouths the
words - “Be quiet.”

The bodies meander out of view,
taking to the next flight of stairs. Johnny watches their shadows dance against
the far wall through the faint light that comes through the window. He waits
patiently with his back pressed tightly against the door until the last of the
group flutters away.

“Are they gone?” April asks
under her breath.

He nods his head and relaxes
against the door.

With a hollow thud, hands pound
against the door and pick up pace into a deafening rhythm.

“Go grab that chair,” Johnny
shouts, bracing himself against the door again.

April pulls one of the chairs
from a small waiting area adjacent to a set of offices. She drags it to Johnny
and he places his foot against the door to secure it until he can manage to firmly
set the chair against the knob, letting the feet dig into the carpet.

“That’s not going to hold for
very long,” he says as his eyes flash with fear. “Follow me.”

As they make their way to the
stairs, they hear the door give and the chair lightly thump against the carpet.

“Fuck!” Johnny shouts and pushes
April in front of him. “Go!”

They wind their way upward and
Johnny notices level twenty-eight as they pass a marker on the wall. Ten more
stories and they’ll be on the top floor, and he’s running out of ideas. His
legs are burning as he takes each step, but the adrenalin keeps him pushing
forward. The image of being devoured by the dead surges to the surface of his
mind and he pulls the pistol from his waistband. If he has to use it, he knows
he can. No matter what, he can’t let them take her. He watches as her hair
tousles along her back in front of him. Blood-stained streaks of blond flash
through his imagination. He wouldn’t look into her eyes if he had to do it. He
couldn’t bear the weight of her stare.

“Keep going, just keep moving!”
he shouts when he hears the dead below.

He can’t let it end this way, he
can’t manage another death on his hands.

“We’re running out of stairs,
Johnny,” she says, peering up to the final level.

“Go through the door at the
top,” he replies, gripping the pistol tighter.

April pushes the door aside.
“Where are we?”

“It’s the penthouse,” he answers
and pushes the door closed. “They were remodeling it when…” he trails off as
the dead bombard the door.

They back away as bodies slam at
the door.

“I don’t want to die this way,”
April cries.

He looks at the gun in his hand
and back toward the door. The sound of the pounding recedes as his heart thumps
out a steady rhythm in his chest. He swallows and holds up the gun, aiming it
at the door. Fingernails drag in a screeching assault and the knob slowly
begins to turn.

“Johnny, over here,” April
shouts. “There’s more stairs.”

He turns just as the dead pour
through the doorway and runs to April at the base of a small set of stairs
situated between steel framing and plastic drop cloths.

She is halfway up the stairs
when Johnny reaches her. The moaning dead are already in and looming in the
darkness below, shuffling through the doorway and filling the entry.

He reaches out as April opens
the door, revealing storm soaked skies and pelting rain. Blue light shivers through
the rolling clouds overhead, nursing a boom of thunder in its wake. He slams
the door behind him and grabs a length of weathered board from the roof,
placing it against the handle as rain slaps his face.

He scours the roof, looking
beyond the vents and air-conditioning units. A few pieces of equipment litter
the roof. A swing stage lies against the edge of the roof next to a bosun’s
chair and lengths of rope used to clean the windows of the high-rise.

In a panic, Johnny sticks the
handgun in his waistband and grabs the spool of rope, tossing the end over the
roofline. He attaches the other end of the rope to a parapet clamp and fastens
it with a knot. He tests the line to make sure it is secure and looks over the
edge of the roof, watching the rope dangle in the wind and slap against the
side of the building like a thrashing snake.

“What the hell are you doing?!”
April asks as the rain courses along her face, creating thin trails of wet hair
that dance against her cheeks through the drain of water from her brow.

“We’re going to have to go
over,” he replies.

“The hell I am!” she protests.

“We have to, there’s no choice,”
he replies as he focuses on the rope. “Once we’re far enough down, we can break
one of the windows on the lower levels.”

“Are you crazy?!” She backs away
from the ledge. “The glass is shatterproof. There’s no way we can break it.”

“We can with this,” he points to
the gun nestled in his waistband. “Those
things
are
not
going to
fucking kill me,” he grits his teeth. “I would rather die trying than to let
them win.”

April glances over the side and
bites her upper lip. Her hands begin to shake as she stares at the ground far
below. “Are you sure about this?”

“No, but we don’t have any other
options.”

She swings her leg over the edge
and swallows hard as she grips the rope. She is near tears as she looks back at
Johnny, fiddling with the bosun’s chair, “I love you,” she says.

Johnny stops adjusting the
straps and looks into her eyes. “I love you too,” he says and watches her swing
her other leg over the edge and descends out of sight.

A gust of wind nearly knocks
Johnny over and he hears April screaming. Her voice is hoarse as the terror
thrashes in her throat. Her fingers are clawing at the edge of the roof,
scraping against the flashing as she searches for a handhold. Instinctively, he
leans forward and the gun slips from his waistband. It slips so smoothly that
he barely registers it falling along the side of the building. He reaches out,
hoping to stop it before it is too late, but the glinting metal only plummets
farther away.

·11

“Hold on, baby!” Johnny's voice
is booming as he leans out, grasping at the air, trying to grab onto April's
wrist.

“I’m slipping!”

He leans farther over the edge
of the building, stretching, grasping at her blouse. He’s searching for a hand
hold, something to clutch in his fingers, the slightest grip of fabric to pull
her to up. Her hair is disheveled, whipping in the wind that roars along the
side of the building, brushing against her horror stricken face in clots that
drape across her eyes.

“Please, Johnny... Help me!” she
screams frantically.

Another gust of wind tears
through, thirty-eight stories up, dragging April a few inches in its wake. She
screams, cries out again, and pleads for her life.

With a whoosh, the wind turns,
the blast slaps the girl against the side of the building; her legs knock hard
upon the reflective glass, flailing in succession, causing a hollow thud that reverberates
against the window. Her fingers lose their grip and she flails once before
Johnny catches hold of her wrist. Droplets of rain glisten upon his hand,
beading along the surface of his skin, mingling in with the hairs upon his
knuckles. His muscles strain as he supports himself on the ledge by pinning his
legs between a water pipe and the flashing of the roof.

“I've got you,” he says, only
somewhat relieved as he pulls at her with both hands. “I'm going to swing you
over toward the ledge. I need you to grab on when I get you high enough,” he
yells.

Tears streak across her face,
and her mouth hangs open as if she were trying to reserve one final breath
before death takes her. She feels the rain on her skin as the storm builds
again. The wetness tingles against her skin, tastes sweet as it enters through
her gasping mouth. She thinks this to be the last feeling she may ever have,
the last memories of a suffering life, the final reward before she is ripped
out of Johnny's grip before she plummets over thirty stories to the waiting
concrete below. A shiver runs through her as she imagines herself falling,
screaming through the air towards the growing crowd of bodies that ogle at the
unfolding scene above.

“Are you ready?” Johnny asks as
his grip tightens on her already bruising wrist.

April nods her head. It is the
only thing she can manage to do without crying out in dread. She reaches out to
her left as Johnny begins to swing her in a wide arch that makes her arm feel
as if it were about to snap out of its socket. The wetness on her arm makes
Johnny's grip loosen and she slips an inch before snagging the ledge. With her
heart racing, she digs her fingernails into the flashing, clutching desperately
with the strength she has left. Johnny grabs her underneath her arms, braces
himself, and wrenches her onto the roof in one swift movement.

Boom! A slap of thunder cracks
in the sky, reverberating through the building like a quake.

Rain falls in heavy successions,
battering Johnny in the face as he pants through exhaustion. He holds April
tightly in his arms, stroking her hair out of her face, laying kisses upon her
cheek, never wanting to let her go. Their throbbing hearts beat against one
another, heavy, intent, slowly calming as the panic subsides.

Crack! Lightning sweeps across
the sky followed by thunder that sounds like the engines of a jet clapping
against the heavens.

“Are you alright?” Johnny holds
April's face in his hands, looking deep into her eyes.

Her body shivers. A light
convulsion as the terror lingers at the edge of her soul, dwindling down into
the recesses of her memory, “I think so...” she answers, gulping in air as if
it were her only reason for living.

Johnny pulls her into his
embrace, feeling the warmth of her body against his own, relishing the moment.
“I've always told you that I would never let you fall,” he says, cradling her
head in his hands.

“Forever?” she looks into his
eyes.

“Forever and ever,” Johnny
replies.

Johnny's attention is diverted
to the ledge where the rope dangles off into oblivion. He silently curses
himself for thinking that she could climb down alongside the building as tired
and weak as she is. Starvation was taking its toll on April's body, making her
frail. He feels a fool for ever considering it, for even thinking that she
could make it. But their choices were limited. With the ravenous dead slamming
against the roof access, it was only a matter of time before they forced their
way out. Even now, Johnny could hear their rasping moans as they threw
themselves against the door. He wonders how long it will be before they get
through, wretched and driven by hunger. The thought of being eaten alive makes
him shudder as he scours his mind for another option.

His attention rests upon a
ventilation shaft on the far side of the roof, wet and shiny, calling out to
him, beckoning him to take the chance.

“We've got to get out of here,
baby,” he says, still staring at the protrusion on the roof.

April's attention drifts toward
Johnny's gaze, following his line of sight until she realizes what he’s looking
at. Her eyes close as she grimaces at the thought of scaling down into the
building again, knowing what waits inside. She begins to sob, “I don't want to
go in there again. Please, Johnny, there has to be some other way.”

“Listen, we'll be fine. I'll go
first. If you fall, I will be right below to catch you.”

April composes herself, takes in
a deep breath, and says, “Alright.”

Johnny pulls a small pry bar
from his sling pack and begins working on the vent cover, shearing off the
screws that attach it to the base. He swipes back his wet hair several times as
the rain washes it back into his face and feverishly continues his assault on
the fasteners as he hears the dead battering the roof access in the background.

The vent cover falls to the roof
with a clang, gyrating against the hardened tar. Johnny looks down the dark shaft,
trying to judge its depth. A tinge of fear shakes him when he can't see the
bottom. Through the night sky, there’s a lightning strike, followed by another
clap of thunder which gives off enough light for Johnny to see deep inside. It
goes down for around ten feet before curving off to the left into shadow.

A sudden crash sounds off in the
background, making Johnny whirl around in time to hear the roof access door
clap against the wall. “Change of plans,” he says to April. “You go first. Support
your back against the side of the vent with your legs.”