by Ash Parsons
It’s not pretty, but both cheerleaders manage to make it onto the balcony, although one appears injured, her thighs slamming into the railing as she lands.
The third stuntman spots the other two, guarding them from zombies, but so far none have made it past the group with the fire extinguishers.
For a split second I’m mesmerized, wondering how the stuntmen are going to get up to the balcony.
Two of the stuntmen form a base for the third, the smallest one, to climb up. He puts a foot in the crease of a thigh and hip, then steps on shoulders, then his feet are in their nested hands as the two stuntmen left on the ground send him up.
“We have to go!” Imani says urgently, grabbing my arm.
More zombies are now standing at the foot of the stage, mindlessly reaching for us.
If I look at them too long, at the sickly gray mottling, the disturbing muscle undulations that ripple under their skin, the red-threaded eyes . . .
The gaping wound in one neck . . .
My heart judders, and air is hard to draw, suddenly. Paralyzed, I’m paralyzed with fear. All my life I’ve heard that expression, and now I know what it means.
I can’t move. I can’t even breathe.
“Don’t look at them! Look at me!” Imani says. Her hands are hot on my face as she turns my head physically away from the zombies.
Behind Imani, one of the two stuntmen left on the ballroom floor is now boosting the other one up from his shoulders. The effort makes his face a series of creases and jutting tendon tracks.
He does one of those really loud, usually obnoxious weight-lifter yells.
But it works, he boosts the other man up, up, up. And now the stuntman he’s lifting grasps the balcony rail, pulling himself over.
Every zombie in the hall has turned to look at the last stuntman, even our group bumping against the stage.
How is he going to get up to the balcony?
Then I look at his face, grim and determined as he surveys the mass of zombies coming for him.
He knows. He always knew.
He wasn’t getting out.
He feints a lunge in one direction, and the closest zombie to him falls for it, creating a hole in the line of approaching zombies.
He slips through, no longer looking like a stuntman, but a linebacker in sudden possession of the ball.
He’s so brave.
I want to yell and clap. I want to cheer him on.
I also don’t want to do any of those things, because the zombies will head for us next if I do.
Me, I’m not so brave.
Imani grabs my hand and tugs, and I follow her, rushing the rest of the way across the back of the stage, past the burned out car chassis set décor, to the curtain at the side, where there will hopefully be stairs down beyond it.
Imani is reaching out to pull back the curtain when I think of it.
The guy swinging the fire extinguisher.
“Wait, Imani!” My voice is a whisper-hiss. “What if they got away but there’s a zombie back there now? Behind the curtain?”
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE ZOMBIE BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
My brain chatters the Wizard of Oz joke unhelpfully.
Imani pauses, hand outstretched.
“She’s right,” the camerawoman, Rosa, whispers behind me.
“So, what do we do?” Imani hisses back.
“We need a weapon.” I turn back to the stage behind us. There are chairs, the fancy padded folding kind, a tall stool, an empty microphone stand, microphone on the ground next to it.
“Wait here!”
I dash out, grab the microphone stand, and start to haul it over to the edge of the stage.
The stand is quite heavy, weighted at the bottom by a heavy black disc-weight, and it’s bulky, with an adjustable arm coming off the center pole.
As I wrestle with it, I can’t help but glance back into the ballroom.
The stuntman has sprinted out into the middle of the hall, dodging zombies and chairs.
He can’t run forever.
And that’s when I see it, and he does, too.
His squad, the stuntmen and the cheerleaders on the balcony, are waving, pulling their hands silently, urging him back toward them.
They can’t possibly help him. They can’t reach him, and even if they could, how could they possibly lift him? He’s huge—built like if The Rock met The Rock and then absorbed himself, becoming MegaRock.
His friends throw a thick, industrial-weight extension cord over the balcony. At even spaces, the cord has been tied into loops all the way up, like steps in a ladder.
The stuntman sees it and turns, pulling out of grasping hands and sprinting like a gazelle back across the hall to the extension cord.
The stuntman does a running leap and grabs it.
I reach Imani, and Rosa spins the attachment screw threads on the mic stand, pulling apart two separate weapons.
At the balcony, it’s like something out of one of those TV athletic competitions. The stuntman just swings and pulls himself, arm over arm, until he’s over the top and onto the balcony.
My heart does a happy swoop as his friends hug him, pounding his back, tears streaming down their faces.
Rosa hands Imani the base of the mic stand, and gives me the arm.
The stuntman points down to the other clump of survivors, hiding behind the overturned sound table. The two burly guys down there are still standing, swinging at the zombies with fire extinguishers.
The stuntman and the rest of the cheer squad haul up the extension cord and run along the edge of the balcony until they are standing over the trapped group.
The extension cord starts to lower swiftly.
We can’t get there from here. There are far too many zombies now butting against the lip of the stage, and too many more zombies in the rest of the ballroom between us and the extension cord.
But there are already survivors. The cheerleaders and the other people fighting, and more people making it out of the ballroom.
We can do it, too.
I take a test swing with the arm section of the stand. My ZombieCon! badge gets in the way, and the shoestring lanyard tangles around the thin metal. I nearly end up clocking myself in the forehead with the abrupt stop of my swing.
“Better take these off,” Rosa says, pulling her own ID badge from around her neck.
“Good idea,” I reply.
We shove our badges into our bags or pockets.
I take another test swing with the arm section of the mic stand.
Imani hoists the base, the heavy round disc resting on her shoulder like a flat parasol.
Rosa has broken the antenna off the burned-out car chassis.
“Let’s go,” I say.
I reach out and poke the mic stand arm through the curtains.
Nothing. No resistance, no zombie interest.
So, I reach out and twitch the curtain aside.
15
No one stands on the other side of the curtain.
Imani moves swiftly and silently down the steps and peers around. I pull the curtain back in place.
We can’t see the zombies, and they can’t see us.
Rosa and I join Imani at the bottom of the stairs. To our left is the tall, floor-to-ceiling black curtain. That curtain and a freestanding panel of chain-link fence are the only things that separate us from the zombies in the ballroom.
It feels bizarre to be protected by something so flimsy. It’s like when I was a scared kid, in bed, pulling my covers over my head.
If I can’t see it, it can’t see me.
Except it seems sort of true. So far.
It’s only a matter of time until one of those things blunders into the curtain, and then comes through to the other side.
Or wo
rse, the zombies might knock over the chain-link panel, which would take down the curtains.
We can’t be here when that happens.
Right now, all the zombies are preoccupied with the humans who remain on the other side of the curtain. When that distraction ends, we need to be gone.
To our right is the back of the stage. There’s a strip of floor between the stage and the back wall of the ballroom. The floor-to-ceiling curtain that runs along the back of the stage makes the area feel like a tunnel.
There’s one set of double doors set into the back wall.
And no actors. No stagehands or security.
No Siggy. No Blair.
They got out.
“Those doors have got to be unlocked,” I whisper to Imani.
She nods and darts to them.
I follow.
She reaches out her free hand and quietly pushes the crash bar.
It doesn’t budge.
She pushes harder. It makes a slight knocking sound, but the door doesn’t budge.
“Shh!” I hiss.
“You shh!” she hisses back.
I trade places and try the door. Then Rosa joins me, putting her shoulder against the door.
The quiet bump comes again, but the crash bar doesn’t budge.
“Now what?” Rosa whispers.
The tunnel.
“That way.” I nod at the curtain-lined walkway.
“Eek.” Imani’s voice squeaks.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “But we have to go. They went. No one’s here. We have to go that way.”
I go first, and we rush along the back of the stage, trying not to rustle the curtain, trying not to make a sound, unable to see what happens at the next open area on the opposite side of the stage platform.
And trying not to think about hands coming at my legs from the empty space under the stage.
There’s so much adrenaline in my blood I don’t stop when I get to the edge, just burst out into the second “backstage area” on the other side.
We’re still in the back of the ballroom, only separated from the zombies by the black floor-to-ceiling wing curtain and the smaller freestanding chain-link panel beyond it.
But this curtained-off section is bigger. Clearly, it’s where the actors gathered to wait for their panels. There’s a catering table stocked with snacks and drinks, and a few tall director’s chairs, some with coats and bags still sitting in them.
But I’m lucky, because there are no zombies here.
However, there are three people, two of them famous, standing by the closed double doors, staring at us and blinking.
Linus Sheppard speaks first, his British accent somehow sounding crisper in his urgent whisper.
“Are they chasing you? Are they backstage?”
He sounds like an ultra-posh librarian.
“No,” Imani whispers back. “Not yet.”
Annie Blaze crosses her arms. “They probably saw you, though.” Her whisper is a hiss of anger or fear. Or probably both, but it still sounds like an accusation.
“Take it easy, Annie.” The third person is a woman dressed in a rock-and-roll-looking red-and-black business suit. She has sleek black hair in a severe bob; the kind of hairstyle that looks both retro and French.
“Don’t handle me, Mia,” Annie hisses. “It isn’t your job right now.”
Mia lifts her hands and scowls in frustration. Her red-soled man-killer stilettos tap quietly as she stalks a few steps away from Annie.
Imani and I cross to the double doors.
“Locked,” Linus says, gesturing. “It wasn’t locked at first but—”
He pushes. The same rigid bar. The same slight knock as the door shifts in its cradle but otherwise doesn’t move.
I’m backstage with two actors from my favorite show: the veterinarian and the trucker’s daughter. And my best friend in the whole world. And Rosa, the ZombieCon! camerawoman. And Mia, whoever she is.
And there’s an actual zombie apocalypse going on.
It would feel completely surreal if it wasn’t for the mortal terror shooting through my veins.
As it is, it still feels surreal, but it’s almost in passing, like noticing a giant purple giraffe outside of a train window, and then it’s gone as the world whizzes by.
“Where is everyone else?” I ask. “Everyone from onstage? And the others who climbed up?”
“We were all back here. The door was open, just this one.” Linus touches one of the double doors. “We were the last to get here, to this side. We were all rushing out but the door fell closed after Sam.”
Sam. The older actor who plays the wise lawyer, Jamison, on the show.
“We got to it,” Linus continues. “But it wouldn’t open and they were already gone.”
Imani pushes the crash bar again.
“Dammit!” Imani hisses.
Okay, I don’t know what to do now.
What would I do if I was on the show? If I was on Human Wasteland?
I rush over to the catering table and unzip my mini backpack. I stuff in energy bars and several little bottled waters.
I slip the backpack back on and glance back at the others still standing at the locked doors.
Imani’s eyebrows couldn’t arch at me more.
“Just in case!” I say defensively.
“Uh-huh. Like we’re gonna be here long enough to get hungry.”
Linus puts his shoulder against the door again and pushes.
“Do you even watch the show, Imani?” I ask, frustration making my whisper snappish. But I’m not looking at her as I scan the table. Maybe there’s a knife or something. Maybe we could . . . I don’t know . . . wedge it in the door thingy and . . .
“We’re not on the show! This is real life!” Imani’s voice is compressed with effort. I look back. She’s pushing the door with Linus and Rosa.
Mia’s holding her phone up, trying to find a signal.
Annie’s hugging herself, looking like she’s about to cry, which makes tears want to jump into my own eyes.
“Feels a lot like the show,” I mutter.
Then I see it.
A shabby backpack with a large Mickey Mouse patch.
The guy who jumped onstage, the scientist’s bag.
I saw him, crouched at the end of Autograph Alley, messing with the door with some kind of screwdriver.
He put it in the bag.
I turn so fast I stumble on my own feet. I dig in the bag, a bunch of loose tools, bulky military rations, two water bottles, a bandana, electrical tape, duct tape, first aid kit—my hand closes around a screwdriver handle. I have it, it’s here.
A key.
Sort of like a key.
I sling the Mickey patch backpack on the front of me like a baby carrier, and rush over to the door.
“Stop pushing.” I pull them back off the door, and I hit my knees, okay, so that was a bit too hard, ow.
But I don’t stop. I’m looking for the screws or the holes or whatever he was messing with on the bottom of the crash bars.
The screwdriver isn’t really a screwdriver. It’s more like a hex key, the kind that comes with cheap, assemble-it-yourself furniture, a thin piece of metal that bends ninety degrees at the end and has a flat, stop-sign-shaped tip that slots into special screws.
It’s sort of like that, except completely straight and with weird notches and slots cut into the hexagon-cylindrical end. And the whole thing someone put on a screwdriver handle.
I jam the hex-end into one of the round holes at the bottom side of the crash bar. I rotate it, pushing, and feel a sort of sliding-click, and the whole thing pushes in slightly.
I start twisting it, how’s it go? Oh yeah.
Lefty-loosey.
Lefty-loosey.
Lefty-loosey.
I can feel the tension releasing. Something is changing at least.
“Hurry,” Annie whispers, her eyes on the curtains behind us.
I can’t help it, I turn and look.
The curtains are billowing slightly. Swaying, as if being pushed by shoulders or feet.
“I’ve got your back,” Imani says, lifting her disc-ended microphone stand base, cocking it on her shoulder as she faces the curtains behind us. “You just keep going, June.”
I turn back and twist some more. The hex-key-on-a-stick stops moving.
I pull it out and shift to the opposite end.
Rosa pushes the bar. It’s definitely moving more, but not enough to disengage the lock.
She steps back and I jab the key in the hole and twist until it shifts and indents into place.
Twist, twist, twist.
Annie mutters, “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
Her whisper chants me faster.
My hand hurts, my knees hurt, and my shoulders are wrenched so tight I feel like they’re up by my ears, but then the hex key clicks and stops twisting.
I pop the key out of the hole and stand up.
Rosa pushes.
For just an instant, it doesn’t move, then it shifts. There’s a double clunk of the locks at the top and bottom of the door opening, and a fresh blast of cold air whistles in through the crack.
“Good job, kid!” Mia whispers, tiptoeing closer in her high heels.
Linus steps up, and pushes the door open a tiny bit more. He leans forward, and puts his eye to the crack.
“Looks clear,” he says.
“Go!” Annie whispers, and she gives his shoulders a shove.
Not . . . not exactly a friendly move, there, but I guess she’s scared.
She doesn’t say sorry, not even reflexively, but he’s opened the door and stepped forward, glancing around behind it.
“It’s clear,” he says, and Annie runs.
Imani follows her, then Rosa and Mia. This hall isn’t fixed up like the one on the lobby side of the ballroom. Where that one had fancy, if industrial, carpets and light fixtures, and framed art pieces on the walls, this hall is a tile-and-white-wall expanse. A working, seemingly windowless corridor behind the front-of-the-house formality.