“Son of a bitch,” she murmurs, mentally kicking herself so hard her ass is going to be bruised if we manage to make it out of this alive. And then I’m gonna have to kiss it better. I know, I know, poor me.
“Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Marty grumbles, a handhold or two from the giant metal tube. “So what the bloody blazes are we supposed to do now?”
He’s got a right to be angry, we didn’t completely think this through. But give me a break here, we’ve got a lot going on. Excuses aren’t going to get us over that air duct though. We need to devise a plan and we need to do it now. I know I can’t hold myself here forever.
“We gotta try to cut through the shaft,” I say after a few seconds of hearing nothing but their groans and panicked breaths.
“It’s metal,” Maxwell grunts with a shake of her head. “Swords aren’t gonna cut through that.”
“They also told us swords couldn’t cut through people,” Felecia shoots back, clearly still angry with herself for forgetting something so crucial. “Noah,” she whispers, “how are we gonna hold ourselves up and cut through the shaft at the same time?”
“What if I hang upside down, by my legs, that way I’ll have both hands to get enough leverage to cut?”
“Noah, no, that’s too dangerous.” Felecia’s guilt filled eyes well up as she shakes her head vehemently.
“Guys, guys!” What the hell’s Norwood squawking about, does he have an idea? Because I’m open to any and all suggestions right now, even ones from his crazy ass. “I don’t mean to interrupt brainstorming time but that fucker just jumped onto the rafters and he’s approaching us, at a rather alarming speed.”
“Dammit,” I grumble, “forgot to mention, some of them do that.”
“This,” Maxwell shouts, “is why we should have stayed in the Stryker!”
“If we stayed in there, we’d be trapped,” Felecia shouts back.
“Well, trapped would be better than hanging from a fucking roof.”
“Stop yelling at each other!” the little girl shrieks. “You’re not my mom and dad, so stop it. Stop! Look, there’s a screen thingy over there, on the big tube, if we can take it off, I can crawl inside. Then I can cut you guys a hole big enough to fit through.”
“Sami Slayer’s right,” Norwood shoots over his shoulder, swinging his way closer to the monkey bar infect, cutting him off at the pass. “This little chick is crazy man, she can do it.”
“She–”
“Shut up, Neil,” I shout, watching his head drop in shame before he’s able to formulate his protest. “Sami, you’re sure you’re okay with this?”
“The things I’ve seen you guys do, I’m sure. I’m the only one small enough to fit through.”
“This bitch just call me fat?” Felecia scoffs.
“Oh please, you’re so far from fat. You’re prettier than my Barbies. I promise, I can do this. It’s just, well, I can’t reach, I’m too short. Noah, can you hang upside down like you said, and let me crawl down you, like Caylee did on the cannon? I watched you guys, I know I can do it. You have to trust me.”
“Just let her do it,” Norwood yells from somewhere behind us, kicking at the dangling infect. “Another one’s already jumped up. I can’t hold them off forever. If we’re gonna do this, we gotta do it now!”
I nod at Sami and make my way over to the small vent, beads of sweat turned black from the dust dripping with every thrust. I think the dirt and grime are the only things giving me enough traction to hang here for this long. Truthfully, I’m glad to give my hands a rest.
“Oh my god, be careful,” Felecia winces with a grimace, climbing up into the rafters beside me. “Don’t look at me like that, yes, I realize I just sounded like a mother.”
I flash her a smile before lowering myself, wedging my knees and ankles against opposing beams. I don’t want to look down but where the hell else am I supposed to look when I’m suspended from the ceiling?
Oh my god, this is really freakin’ high. And that is a lot of zompires down there. Good news is, if I fall, the landing will probably kill me on impact so at least I won’t be eaten alive. Woohoo for small victories.
“Hang on, it’s held on by screws,” I yell up to Felecia. Have you ever tried yelling when you’re dangling upside down? It’s oddly difficult. Oh man, that is a lot of blood all rushing to my head at once. “I think I can unscrew them, it looks like flatheads. Gimme a minute.”
“Noah, dude, I don’t know how many more minutes we got.” It sounds like Norwood is struggling with another monkey bar warrior.
“Everyone, up in the rafters, now,” Felecia commands from her spot by my legs. “There’s just enough room. We can strike from above, cut off their hands before they grab us. That goes for you too.” I can only imagine she’s talking to Norwood, who, by the sounds of it, is still monkeying around. Get it? Monkeying, because he’s swinging from the monkey bars trying to… never mind.
It’s a good thing I remembered to clip my sword in before hanging upside down, but let me tell you, they do not make these things easy to unlatch. It’s a button, how am I having this much trouble? It’s because they’re waiting on me and that is the only reason. If we weren’t running out of time, I’d have had it out by now with no problem.
All I’m doing is unscrewing a vent cover, which is harder than it sounds given the size of my blade, but I still feel repulsed by it. The feel of the sword in my hand disgusts me, because I know what this sword is for. It’s not a little piece of metal that I’m twisting counterclockwise, not to me. I swear I see blood oozing from the hole as the screw and its accompanying washer fall from sight.
It doesn’t sound like metal clanging off metal, no, it’s the sound of humans ripping and tearing as the blade penetrates flesh, forcible entry, grinding against bones, severing ligaments.
The vent cover isn’t squeaking as it comes undone like it’s supposed to, not with this sword in my hand, instead it groans and growls while bubbles of blood burst in its throat.
I owe this weapon my life, it did everything I’d hoped it would do for me. But the appeal is gone, tainted by a reality too grim to fit in some childhood fantasy of sword battles with sticks. We think of them as being more honorable than guns, I know I always have. Maybe it had something to do with my negative experiences on those stupid hunting trips, but even as a kid, I found bullets to be the coward’s way out. Swords took skill. They’re not aim, squeeze, bang. I always felt like there was pride and honor in swords.
There isn’t anymore. Not after what I’ve been through. There’s no honor in severing limbs. It’s gruesome, and the willpower it takes to hack off a body part is so much greater than pulling a trigger. It’s disturbing. It’s personal.
There’s no doing the deed from a distance. There’s no deafening blast to overpower the sound of splitting flesh. It takes more skill, it really does, but the pride and honor I thought would be there, they aren’t. I’d rather fire a gun than decapitate a living creature. With every swing of the blade, I find myself dying a little more inside.
“Got it,” I shout, letting the vent cover spiral its way to the floor. The loud clang echoes through the facility but I don’t hear it like they do, to me, it’s a deathly scream followed by a sickening splat.
“I’m coming down,” Sami says with a hesitant grunt as she begins to climb over my legs, which are getting pretty close to numb by now.
I strap my sword back in and reach out both hands for a little girl determined to prove herself.
There are two types of survivors in this undead world we’re living in, those who fight, and those who hide. I have to believe the fighters will win, because hiding only works until there’s nowhere left to hide. That time has come and gone.
CHAPTER 7
She disappears into the airduct, contorting her tiny body until it squeezes through the opening. Do I feel right about sending a kid into this kind of situation, no, but what other choice do we have?
None of this
is right. We shouldn’t have to behead people in order to survive. We shouldn’t have been stabbed in the back by those we saved. We shouldn’t be here.
Life isn’t fair. I don’t think that sentiment has ever been more true than it is right now. All those stupid clichés, like rolling with the punches or dusting yourself off and trying again. You never really think about the meaning behind them until you’re living it. It’s not like they’re pieces of sage advice with hidden meanings that’ll somehow help you through the rough times. They’re just there. And now I understand them.
Sami’s hand shoots out a second later, waiting for me to pass her a sword. It’s crazy, even after everything I’ve seen, how some people rise to the occasion, while others wait for someone else to do it. She’s someone you could be proud to call your friend. She’s who I wanted them to be.
“Noah! One snuck by me!”
Norwood.
“He’s heading straight towards you!”
I arch my neck in time to see the upside down infect dressed as a firefighter racing towards me, except he’s not upside down, I am. His hands barely touch the rafters before he’s swinging onto the next one, his yellow eyes growing larger with every stroke.
He’s approaching me so quickly he’s leaving a trail of dust behind him, but I’m not all that concerned. Marty’s between us, and he’ll snip this bastard’s fingers off before he knows what hit him. I’m just the bait. I can see him up there, smiling beneath that signature mustache that I’m convinced must tickle his upper lip. Thank god he’s there because I’ve fought these zompires many ways, but never upside down. Right? I don’t know, if I have, I’m sure it’s not something I want to do again.
“Come on you little fucker,” Marty whispers to himself, prepared to strike from above at any second. He’s just gotta wait for the right–
Now!
His sword clangs off the metal beam, sending sparks bursting into the air. If you could build a zombie outbreak team from the bottom up, this is what it would look like. Alone, we’re a threat to the infection, but together, we can’t–
He didn’t fall.
How the hell is this firefighter still coming after me? Marty just chopped half his hand off, there’s no way he can still be swinging from the rafters. Why is he not splattering off the machinery below? There’s no way he could have missed, I never took my eyes off his sword, he brought it down at exactly the right moment. It was picture perfect.
Did he just… he did, the firefighter saw Marty waiting for him and he skipped that pipe. He launched himself right over it or below it or whatever you wanna call it, but his hand never even hit the bar Marty swung at. He got enough momentum to swing right past it. This son of a bitch knew it was a trap.
I grab for my sword, hoping to be able to unlatch the little clip with less difficulty than last time. Everything’s harder upside down. I can’t even swallow the lump in my throat that’s becoming increasingly difficult for saliva to navigate around. All the blood rushing to my head probably isn’t helping matters any.
My sword, where the hell is it? Oh please don’t tell me it fell last time I strapped it in. I thought it was the metal grate that crashed to the floor but was it actually my…
Sami. I don’t have a weapon. Sami’s got my sword. I can see the tip of the blade bursting through the cylindrical wall of the air shaft. I have nothing. I’m just dangling here, unprotected.
What am I supposed to do? I can’t even pull myself up. It’s not working! My legs are throbbing from the awkward positioning. My stomach muscles burn to the point they might as well be on fire but I’m only moving a few inches, nowhere near close enough to grab hold of the beams.
All I can do is watch him speed towards me with a sinister smile hiding behind those yellow stained irises. He knows he just outsmarted us. He knows he won.
“Noah, catch!”
Felecia drops her sword from the rafters.
It glides through the air in slow motion, freefalling towards me.
The sweaty, fabric wrapped handle lands directly in my hand like it was meant to be. I tighten my grip the second it meets my palm, no time to readjust, aim or even get my bearings straight. All I can do is swing the katana that’s saved our lives more times than I can count.
He sees it coming. I can tell by the way his facial expression changes. A couple days ago, I wouldn’t have picked up on it, it’s so subtle, they don’t make a habit of showing emotions. But this is one of those oh shit moments where he realizes this is it for him. He’s airborne, it’s too late to course correct.
Perfectly timed precision. My blade pierces his jacket, entering his stomach, sliding in with ease.
The impact jolts him, fingertips grazing my pants, scratching and clawing for a millisecond as I lower the sword, not out of strategy but necessity, bringing his body along with it.
Gravity works against him. His hands grab the blade but he’s falling too quickly. The high carbon steel slices his palms open as he slides closer to the tip. The harder he squeezes, the deeper it cuts.
With zero traction on the polished surface, there’s nothing to hold onto. The curved blade slips through muscle tissue, exiting his abdomen as effortlessly as it entered.
A small geyser of blood erupts from the open wound as he freefalls three stories into the turbines below, his eyes locked on me until the yellow streaks of lightning that surround his pupils become indistinguishable specks.
The firefighter collides with a safety railing, bending his body in half. I can hear his spinal column snap, a sudden crack over the hum of generators and the discomforting wail of the siren-like alarm.
“Noah, hurry, gimme your hand!” Felecia pleads, way too urgently for my liking. “We have more coming.”
I reach for her outstretched fingers but can’t grab ahold. My stomach muscles are too tight. I can barely move. I feel like Lance trying to hit a sit-up for that stupid physical aptitude test they make us do every year. Sorry, Lance is the fat kid in gym who plays video games all night and sleeps through every class.
They’re getting closer, navigating their way around my comrades waiting to strike from the rafters. It’s like they know they’re there, going out of their way to avoid them. I don’t care what anyone says, they’re getting smarter. These assholes should be staring at their hands right now, playing with their imaginary phones, not circumventing the trap we laid out for them. And how in the hell are they so god damn fast?
Norwood scurries after the one closest to me, hopping from one support beam to another like he’s a freakin’ squirrel. But it’s taking too long to work around the crisscrossing pipes, even in squirrel mode, Norwood’s not going to make it to me in time.
I reach for Felecia’s hand again but my stomach can’t do it. It’s like lifting weights, doing reps to fatigue. At some point, your muscles just fail. She’s right there and I can’t reach her. My entire torso feels like it’s on fire. All the struggling and effort in the world won’t make a bit of difference. I can’t reach her.
It’s too late, the barefoot hippie is one crossbeam away, and the other is only a stride behind him. How am I supposed to fight two at once from this position?
I readjust my fingers around the handle and prepare to enter an upside down fight I’m not ready for.
CHAPTER 8
He releases his grip, lunging for me before I even have my sword situated.
I’m not me lately, not since watching the helicopter fly away. It’s like I’m seeing everything unfold through someone else’s eyes. The me I was yesterday, he would have beheaded this bastard while doing a hanging sit-up, but after seeing our ticket out of here disappear over the horizon, my head’s not in it. My body’s failing me. It’s like I know it’s over but refuse to admit it. I’ve overstayed my welcome here and it’s become painstakingly obvious.
But not to her.
Felecia grabs the bottom of my bulletproof vest with one hand, a support beam with the other, and pulls, releasing a guttural cry th
at drowns out everything around me. She hasn’t given up on me.
I push into it, tightening every muscle in my body.
His calloused, hippie fingertips brush against my hair, barely nicking the side of my head. He missed! It worked. He’s spiraling through the air on his long descent, wondering where he went wrong.
My palm lands on the diagonal beam, covered in a thick layer of dust that plumes into the air on contact.
“Nobody touch him,” Norwood shouts, steroid-squirreling himself through the rafters. “He’s mine.”
A little presumptuous. I’m Felecia’s, not yours, you nut bag. I know I haven’t been myself but do I really have a secret affair going on with–
The zombie! There was a second infect just a stroke or two behind the hippie who’s currently splattering off an active turbine. Stroke doesn’t sound right, even though it looks kinda like he’s swimming through the air. Stride must be the word I’m looking for. I think a little too much blood might have rushed to my brain. It’s thumping so hard my hearing goes out with every heartbeat.
Norwood disappears from the rafters, dropping down to a narrow beam like he’s trying out for the Olympics. He swings forward, legs outstretched in dismount position, slamming them into the back of the airborne zompire, meeting the same fate as those who fell before him.
“I thought I lost you,” Felecia cries, pulling me into her with the hand not currently steadying herself on the narrow metal perch. “You can’t die on me, not allowed. Can you feel your legs yet?”
“Almost,” I say, trying to pound some feeling back into them. It’s like when you get sucked into your phone and sit on the toilet for way too long. I swear there are fire ants crawling all over my legs. They feel about five times bigger than they are, blood pulsing through them with the force of a kinked up garden hose.
I finally pry my eyes from Felecia and look around. They’re all as relieved as I am.
“I’m sorry brother,” Marty says with a sorrowful shake of his head. “I thought I had him.”
Blood Type Infected (Book 5): The Departed Page 4