by Ash Parsons
Simon shoves him back with the stool.
“Go!” Linus urges me, his voice firm but not loud.
Because if they can fight off this group, and not draw any others, maybe our plan can still work.
I nod and dart up the motionless escalator, falling in at the very back of the group, behind Annie.
We rush up the steps, trying not to listen to the struggle behind us.
At the top of the escalator, Janet is already climbing the barricade.
There’s a sickening drop to the right of the escalator. If the barricade shifts, or if she loses her grip . . .
Janet straddles the top of the barricade, the upended sofa, and reaches down to help Imani.
A clang sounds behind me, the solid metal thunk of a fire extinguisher hitting a skull.
I look back in time to see one of the zombies fall over the edge of the railing. I make the mistake of looking down to the first floor, where another zombie lies still.
The drop makes me woozy, so I look away fast.
Linus stands in the entryway of one of the escalators. Simon is in the other, both of them using the curved escalator sides to shield themselves somewhat, with their backs to the steps behind them.
Another zombie man stumbles forward, reaching for Linus.
There are only two zombies left, the one reaching for Linus and a final zombie behind him.
Simon hits the second zombie with the seat of the vanity stool, two of the tripod legs held in Simon’s hands.
The zombie falls, but pops up onto his feet again, fast.
Linus swings the fire extinguisher at the zombie clawing at him. There’s a dull clang as I look back to the barricade.
Annie clambers over, helped by Janet.
“Come on, June!” Janet urges.
I shove my mic stand arm through the straps of the scientist’s backpack. I put a hand on the potted plant, a naked-trunk spiky palm, and pull up to put a foot on the trash can, then shimmy, telling myself it’s not moving, it’s not shifting, it’s not about to fall over into the three-story drop to the right.
Janet has a leg hooked over the sofa armrest. She catches my hand and hauls with surprising strength.
My foot kicks off the cart, and I’m scrabbling over the top of the armrest, pulling and kicking into the empty air under the jutting armrest, like a swimmer struggling to boost out of a deep pool.
I get my stomach on the armrest and hook a leg up and then over.
“Good girl,” Janet says, patting my shoulder.
The clang sounds again, and I look back down to Linus just in time to see him fall backward on the escalator steps, as the zombie falls on top of him.
“Linus!” I shout.
Simon glances over, but he has to look back at the fast zombie he’s fighting. Simon flips the vanity stool around, shifting his grip to the circle of the seat. Using the feet of the vanity stool like a lion tamer uses the legs of a chair, Simon rushes at the zombie and boosts him up and over the escalator edge.
The zombie falls, landing on top of the others that Linus and Simon threw down while we were climbing.
I don’t watch to see if the zombie at the bottom gets up; my eyes are drawn back to Linus.
He’s beneath the zombie, but somehow crouched between the metal steps and the zombie’s bulk. The zombie’s head snaps around, unable to reach Linus.
“Hey!” I call to the zombie. “Hey, zombie guy! Nom nom!”
The zombie looks up at me.
“That’s right, look at this tasty goodness!” I stretch my arm out. “Nom nom!”
“Cut it out!” Annie hisses. “Stop calling to it!”
“I’m trying to help your boyfriend!” I hiss back, and don’t hear if she responds because it’s working, the last zombie on Linus has opened his mouth and is crawling forward, up over the metal steps, over Linus, who lies motionless beneath him.
Simon rushes up behind the zombie, grabbing Linus by the hand and pulling him up.
Linus stands, looking dazed.
The zombie man claws at the barricade, bloody, discolored hands grasping at the potted plant, the spiky palm, pulling, tugging, without thought.
The sofa I’m draped across sways.
“Get down!” I order Janet.
She looks like she’s going to argue for an instant, then she nods and shimmies down fast.
I’m going to have to follow her or try to find a longer weapon. There’s no way my mic arm will reach. I could throw it? Maybe there’s something else I could throw.
I look around—what’s within reach?
An accent pillow on the sofa has been smooshed into the crease at the back.
I grab it and hurl it at the zombie’s head.
It bonks off his head like a marshmallow.
It’s a pillow.
What the hell was I thinking?
Something brushes my elbow, tickling like spiders walking on my bare skin.
I twitch away and glance down.
The strings of a mop brush against my elbow. Standing at the bottom of the barricade, Janet holds the handle, boosting the weapon up to me.
I grab the strings, lift it up, and shove it, mop end down, into the zombie’s face.
He swipes at the mop strings covering his eyes. I lift the mop back up before he can get a grip on it.
He’s a big guy. Tall.
His center of gravity is several inches higher than the escalator’s handrail.
I push the strings into the zombie’s face again, then dangle them.
The zombie swipes again, a wild swing of his arms at the obstruction.
But I’m too fast, I pop the mop back, then shove it in again.
This time I tilt the strings in front of his eyes, and to the side slightly, causing him to twist on the stair, ever so slightly.
The zombie lets out a grunt and throws his arm wide, an uncontrolled arc.
Simon yells and swings the vanity stool like a baseball bat, connecting with the back of the zombie’s head.
The huge zombie tilts, then falls over the handrail like a sack of cement potatoes.
Behind Simon, Linus winces as he looks up at me.
“Thank you, June,” Linus says, in his impeccable accent, like we’re sitting in a garden and I’ve just handed him a cup of tea.
“You’re welcome, Linus,” I reply. I don’t think I was mimicking his accent. Was I?
19
Linus has a little trouble getting over the barricade; he’s either winded or injured. Maybe both.
“Excellent work, lads,” Janet tells him and Simon, giving them both a hug after they join us.
“Thank you. Both of you,” I say.
Linus nods and looks around. We’re all huddled at the top of the escalators on the third-floor landing.
I’ve discarded the mop on the landing. It was too hard to maneuver. Instead I’ve pulled the shorter mic arm back out, just in case. The makeshift barricade blocks much of our sight line into the large third-floor balcony lobby area to the right. So far, everything’s clear, but we keep our voices low, just in case.
Annie is working her phone next to the exterior windows. She barely even looks at Linus.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
“I took quite a fall,” he says. His hand goes to the back of his head. “Cracked my head.”
His hand comes away bloody.
“Oh,” he says conversationally. Like would you look at that?
“How about we take stock of the area, but you hang in the back. When we know it’s clear, you can get cleaned up and rest properly,” Janet says, but she looks at me for permission. For some weird reason.
“Good idea,” I agree. “Catch your breath first, though.”
Linus nods gratefully and leans over, his hands on h
is knees.
Imani’s voice next to me is low, pitched only for me to hear.
“Did you see that zombie fall on him?”
“Linus? Yeah,” I whisper back.
“Do you think, I mean, how do people get infected, anyway?” Imani pushes her hair back behind her ear. “On the show, it’s bites, right?”
“Yeah, bites only. On the show.”
“Did he look like he was limping to you?” Imani’s eyes look pained, like she’s hoping against hope.
But fears the worst.
“He fell on the escalator. Of course he’s limping.” But I glance over at Linus again, standing next to Janet.
And is a bite the only way to get infected? What if it’s just particulate, like a cough, or sweat getting into a cut?
Or in your mouth?
“I don’t want everyone to turn on him, or each other,” Imani whispers. “But we need to find out if he’s been bitten, don’t we?”
“Yes,” I agree. “I’ll take him aside and ask in a minute.” The pleading enters my whisper. “We can give him a moment, right? After all, he covered our escape. And we have to make sure there aren’t any zombies up here.”
My hand sweeps out, encompassing the third-floor lobby beyond us.
Imani glances back at Linus, smiling ruefully at something Rosa has said.
Imani nods.
“Okay, but keep your eye on him,” Imani instructs me. Then she steps over to the windows where Annie and Mia are already trying their phones.
“Any luck?” I ask them, even though Annie’s scowling, and jabbing her fingers on her phone like she would stab it if she could.
“No signal,” Annie says. “Anyone else want to try?”
Imani holds her phone up, first at one corner of the window, then another, before shaking her head.
“There must be a dampener,” she says. “Or maybe it’s just the steel or the atmosphere today.”
“Wait, why would there be a dampener?” Mia asks. “Aren’t those illegal?”
“Not if you’re military, or police,” Imani replies. “SWAT and special response teams use them.”
“That’s good!” The corners of Rosa’s eyes crinkle with her relieved smile. “That means help is on the way!”
“Or it could mean it’s happening everywhere.” Annie hugs the defibrillator case tighter. “What if the zombies are outside, too?”
“No,” Janet says, with absolute conviction. “No way. Otherwise we wouldn’t be locked in. If it’s a dampener, it means they’re out there working to contain it.”
“If,” Mia says. “We have to face that we don’t really know anything.”
“I wish I could call my parents,” Imani says. “They’d know what we should do.” Even though her voice is steady, I can tell she’s feeling it, and I’m feeling it, too.
The edge of tears, honed on the sharp longing to be out of here. To be safe in the circle of our parents’ arms.
I reach out and give her a one-armed hug. Imani leans down and rests her head on my shoulder for a moment.
“Do you really think everyone else onstage got out?” Simon asks us. “James, he was helping people. Hunter was with him. And Sam, he moves slow sometimes, because of his knees . . .”
Simon’s voice trails off, and I can see him picturing more of them: his fellow actors, castmates he’s worked with for the past three years. People who he’s come to call friends.
“They’re fine.” Mia’s voice is tough. No nonsense. “They’re just like us, fighting their way through this mess. That’s what we’ve got to keep doing.”
“Yeah,” Annie says. “Sam’s a tough old bird. Remember that day he had to film the fight scene with the barn zombie? He wouldn’t quit until it was right.”
Imani stands up straight. She smooths her tunic. “We’re not the only ones who got out of that ballroom. We’re going to find others. We keep looking,” she tells me.
Simon picks up his vanity stool and shifts his grip.
“Let’s go,” he says. “We should clear this level, for safety. We should check the bathrooms for zombies, then the lobby and sitting area, then we can try to make contact with those survivors in the balcony and figure out about the dampener or what’s next from there.”
I nod, and we form an impromptu phalanx—me and Simon in the lead; Janet and Linus in the rear; Imani, Mia, and Annie in the middle.
Around the corner from the escalators is a wide, extremely long lobby. There are upholstered chairs set in conversational groups at intervals beside the railing that runs alongside the escalator area. More chairs and sofas are set down the exterior window wall beyond that.
Bathrooms are up near us, catty-corner to the escalators. At the far side of the lobby, on the wall opposite the bathrooms, a long bar stands. Barstools are bolted to the floor in front of it, and a small flotilla of tall cocktail tables is scattered before them.
The balcony of the ballroom is separated from the lobby by a large semicircular wall bowing out in an arc. Four pairs of closed double doors are set in the curved wall.
Behind those doors is where I think other survivors are: the cheerleaders and stuntmen I saw climb up, and any others they managed to save from the ballroom floor.
Simon and I lead the way to the first set of balcony doors. I put my ear to it, but can hear nothing.
I reach out to the handle. My fingers curl around it.
The rough voice echoes out across the lobby, shocking me so hard I jump.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, sister.”
My head whips to the right, toward the bar.
Cuellar Tucker, the actor who plays the tough redneck, stands with an elbow on the bar, foot up on the rung of a barstool like we’re in a western and he’s about to mount his horse.
“Cuellar!” Simon’s voice is tinged with relief.
My hand drops from the balcony door. We step back from the doors and cross to the bar.
“It’s okay to come out,” Cuellar says to the bar behind him.
Then, sprouting over the top of the bar like a cautious lily, the bright white top of Siggy’s hair. Blair is close to her, both their eyes wide as saucers, wider still to see us standing there.
“Siggy!” Imani rushes forward, meeting Siggy at the corner of the bar. They hug, and Imani reaches out to grab Blair’s elbow.
Blair clasps Imani’s arm back, both looking surprised, and relieved, at the contact.
I’m right behind Imani, so Siggy hugs me next, squeezing tight across my shoulders. “Oh, June! I thought you were—I thought—”
She can’t say it, and she doesn’t have to.
“I know. Me too,” I say.
Imani and Blair look at each other, almost like there are words waiting to be said. Instead they hug quickly, once, and then draw apart.
Siggy and Imani stand between me and Blair. But that doesn’t stop my hand, reaching around instinctively behind them, and touching Blair’s shoulder, briefly.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” I tell her.
“Me too,” Blair replies. “Glad about you guys.”
We smile at each other awkwardly, but don’t hold eye contact for too long. The relief I feel that Blair is okay is real. But so is the lingering hurt from before the zombie apocalypse started.
Mia’s stilettos click as she crosses to the bar.
“Cuellar, you big lummox, good to see you.”
Cuellar laughs and puts down his drink. He holds his arms wide and then lifts Mia off the ground in a bear hug.
“I shoulda known barracudas would be okay,” he teases her.
“Still a charmer.” Mia squeezes him back.
Cuellar puts her down. Rosa and the others come forward, and we take a moment for rushed introductions.
“Hey.” I motion to Blair a
nd Siggy. “You might wanna take those badges off. Take my word for it.”
Siggy and Blair nod and don’t ask why, they just hurriedly pull the lanyards over their heads.
Then Simon asks Cuellar, “How’d you end up here?”
“Well, it wasn’t planned exactly,” Cuellar says, his rough voice lilting in humor. He turns and rummages behind the bar, bringing out another glass. He tips a bottle of whiskey at Linus.
“How about it, limey? Looks like you could use it.”
Linus winces but nods.
Cuellar pours another drink for himself and one for Linus.
“Anyone else want one, sing out or help yourself,” he says.
Mia immediately steps behind the bar and grabs a glass.
“Backstage was awful, and confusing,” Siggy says to me. “Everyone rushed to the exit, but only one door opened. I fell, and Blair helped me up, then we ended up near the back of everyone running out.”
Her eyes start blinking rapidly. “I can’t believe this is happening!” Her voice is small, and incredulous. “Is it anywhere else? I can’t get a signal, can’t text my parents or Mark.”
“I’m sure he’s okay,” I tell her.
Siggy grabs my hands, squeezing tight. “Do you really think so?”
“Absolutely. He’s safe,” I say, putting as much conviction as I can muster into my voice.
Siggy’s big blue eyes start to shimmer, but she takes deeps breaths and fights the tears back. It’s almost like I can see the love she feels for Mark radiating from her, like how heat lifts off pavement.
I rub her shoulder in a way that I hope says I’m sorry I ever gave her a hard time about Mark.
Emotions. Woof, they’re hard.
I glance at Imani. Her eyes are glistening, too, and I know she’s thinking about her parents. And Tishala.
“Okay,” Imani says, blinking fast. “So you’re in the hallway. Then what happened?”
“In the hallway there was one of them already. The infected,” Blair says.
“A zombie,” I say.
“Yeah,” Blair answers, nodding.
“It attacked the first group who ended up in the hall. Then they split,” Siggy says.
“She means the group split in half,” Cuellar interrupts. “Into two groups.”