Yue checked on everyone while LeBron and Lisa stood watch. Lisa was facing the access door in case the crawler up there hadn’t actually been killed. LeBron was facing out in the other direction. Shaun was breathing. Yue assumed he’d passed out from blood loss. He was actually still bleeding. She’d come back and bandage him in a minute. She rushed over to Drew who was sitting Indian style with his hands pressed to his chest. She pulled out her knife and sawed away at his shirt.
Once she had the shirt out of the way she could clearly see the massive black and blue mark on Drew’s chest. She touched it and he squealed like a pig. His eyes opening wide at the pain from even her gentlest touch. Lisa walked over to stand beside her and asked if he was ok.
“Yeah. I think his rib may be cracked but it doesn’t look like the bullet went in any further than that. Probably thanks to all this other crap he was wearing.” Yue said. She felt like they should wrap a bunch of bandages around Drew but didn’t really think it was the right time to have him strip down and get medical attention. More infected could fall out of the sky at any moment.
“Who shot him?” Lisa asked thinking she already knew the answer.
“Wendy.” Yue said sadly glancing over at the corpse of the crazed woman. She knew she shouldn’t feel bad killing someone who’d just shot her brother, but she did. Lisa spit on the woman’s dead body and turned her attention back to watching for incoming.
“We’re not going to survive up here.” LeBron said loudly enough so that they could all hear him. With Shaun bleeding out on the ground, Drew struggling to get a decent breath of air and Harley lying on his side whimpering Yue couldn’t really argue the point. The sun hadn’t been down that long. No way they were going to survive the entire night out here.
“What are you thinking?” Lisa asked.
“We open the access door and spend the night in the stairwell. We’ve got extra boards and screws and chains. We secure every door the best we can and hope they don’t beat their way in.” LeBron said.
It was a Hail Mary. There was a decent chance the stairwell was already full of the monsters. Although the fact that the door wasn’t being pounded on from the stairwell side was a good sign. They needed to get that chain off and get in there. Yue looked sadly at Wendy lying cold and dead on the tar covered roof. She’d just wanted to get the door open and make a run for it. She’d basically been about five minutes ahead of where they were all at now.
Yue walked over to where LeBron was surveilling the top of the access structure. He was watching in case they hadn’t killed the one who’d jumped up there earlier. They’d flung a bunch of hot lead in that direction when the hand popped up. Until he saw a body though, he wasn’t taking any chances. Yue heartily approved of that approach and told him to keep at it. She needed to work on trying to get the chain unhooked so they could get in the stairwell.
She’d just gotten the chains disconnected from the D-rings holding them together when Lisa, Drew and Harley all lit up a crawler. The skinny, long legged monster leapt across the gap between buildings like a stuntman in a scene out of superhero movie. The long arc of its jump had been perfectly visible this time. It was easier when they were all focused and knew where to look. Before it’d even landed it was taking hits as the defenders on the roof went fully automatic on it. Harley and Drew might have just been spraying bullets into the night sky with their injuries, but Lisa looked like she was trying to win a prize at the range.
Lisa’s sudden calm in the face of danger had a little bit to do with wanting to impress the people she was with and a lot to do with not wanting to look like Wendy. She’d witnessed how unattractive it was to run around like a freaked-out idiot. She’d made a promise to herself right then that she wouldn’t be the weak link in this team. She didn’t have her dad around to protect her anymore. She refused to just lean on Drew. At the moment Drew needed her more than she needed him anyway. She wasn’t going to let him or herself down.
Moving quickly Yue opened the door to the stairwell and went inside. She’d gathered some of the glow sticks together. She snapped the ones that weren’t glowing yet and tossed them one by one down the stairs. Holding her flashlight and her pistol she waited to be attacked. When nothing attacked her, she ran outside to start grabbing more supplies. She asked Harley to go grab Shaun. Lisa was already helping Drew into the stairwell. LeBron started to help grab supplies, but Yue told him to stay on guard. Realizing no one was watching the other side of the roof Yue gave up on gathering supplies and stood sentry instead. She knew the others would be out soon to finish grabbing everything.
Shaun and Drew were ditched on the small landing right below the roof access. They were propped up against the wall halfway between the roof and the third floor. Lisa making sure Drew had a gun in hand in case a crawler made it into the stairwell while the rest of them were on the roof gathering supplies. Working quickly to sling their crap inside they got the door shut before any more monsters showed up to rain on their parade. They looped the chain through the sides of the push bar and cinched it down as much as they could. It was the same thing they’d done to the doors on the other levels.
Harley used the drill and some concrete screws to put up a two by four. It took him longer than usual with his broken fingers. When that was done, they ran another short length of chain from the two by four around the other chains to make sure they stayed tight. Last thing they could think of to do was screw in some hooks to the door itself and run some more chain around those. The battery for the drill died about halfway through all that. Considering they’d only been charging it in the truck for a few hours that actually wasn’t bad.
Two doors later Harley couldn’t fill his wrist anymore. They had hand tools they could use as well as the drills, but they were nowhere near as efficient or fun. Harley would’ve probably just said screw it and given up but every single door on every single level was now being pounded on. He was making LeBron do most of the work anyway. All it was going to take was one smart crawler to get the other ones to pull instead of push and they were screwed. It was super unlikely that was going to happen. On the off chance it did Harley and LeBron were killing their wrists to upgrade the security of each of the doors.
While they worked on securing the doors Yue and Lisa saw to Shaun and Drew. Drew was awake and coherent now. He was in a ton of pain but what else was new. Just another Tuesday for him. Shaun was awake but groggy as hell. He was also pale enough to audition for the lead role in an Anne Rice novel. Yue had removed his shirt and cleaned the wound as well as she could. She’d bandaged him up and was trying to get him to wash down some antibiotics with a big jug of warm drinking water. The more he drank the less likely he was going to die. It wasn’t like they could hook up an IV machine to him.
The irony of that being that they were doing all this in the stairwell of a medical complex that was probably full of all kinds of supplies they could use. Even if they survived until the morning though they wouldn’t be able to risk going inside the building. Every shadowy corner was going to have a crawler lurking in it by first light. They were just going to have to make do with what they had and hope it was enough. She didn’t see herself pushing the point and risking the lives of her brothers to save the life of some random dweeb they’d run into on top of a roof.
Even as she thought that she knew she’d be one of the first ones to go through a window in the morning looking for an IV bag if she thought they needed one. She’d shot an uninfected woman tonight. A terrified woman who’d just lost her nerve and wanted to get off the roof. Wendy had shot her brother, so Yue felt justified in dropping the hammer on her. That feeling of justification couldn’t fully assuage her guilt though. She hated that it’d come to that.
Drew was staring at her from his uncomfortable seat on the concrete. He could tell she was hurting. The stairwell sounded like the inside of a drum with all the crawlerz beating away on all the doors on all the floors. Her big-hearted brother stood up despite the pain he must be in and h
ugged her. He held her while she cried. Eventually they both sat back down again. Leaning against the wall with Yue on one of his shoulders and Lisa on the other Drew passed back out.
Chapter 32: Wake up Sunshine!
They slept together like a pack of wolves on the wide ledge. Sleeping bags spread out all over the place as they each failed to stay awake. The stairwell lit up in an eerie green glow from the slowly dimming glowsticks. On top of the noise from the crawlerz assaulting the thick doors on each level there was the psychic hot flashes to deal with. It was like they’d occasionally see or feel what the crazed attackers trying to get at them were feeling.
This forced psychic connection was bad when they were awake. It was infinitely worse when they slipped off into a restless sleep. The second they fell asleep they connected infinitely more intimately with the monsters trying to get at them. As soon as their eyes closed the walls came down and the crawlerz thoughts rushed in. They dreamed of rending flesh, of snapping necks, of the delicious rush from warm human blood filling their mouths. At times it’d get so intense they’d snap awake screaming.
It wasn’t a pleasant way to spend the night. They huddled together. They clung to one another for warmth and support. Their minds ripped slowly apart by the nonstop psychic onslaught. The endless night dragging on and on until finally interrupted by the mundane trilling of Drew’s iPhone telling them they’d made it. They’d lived to see yet another dawn.
The pounding on the doors subsided but didn’t stop completely. There must be levels where the stairwells were shielded in darkness. Stifling yawns, they gathered their gear to walk down the flights of stairs to the ground level. Standing on the floor Lisa wondered out loud why they hadn’t just slept down there instead of up on the much smaller ledge towards the top.
“If they got in then we’d have been buried down here. Up there the ones we killed would’ve slowed down the ones coming behind them. We’d also have had the roof as a last resort.” Drew answered. She’d already figured all of that out and just been joking about sleeping on the bottom floor. Seeing the look on her face Yue jumped in to end the conflict before it got started.
“Yep. By sleeping on the extremely uncomfortable ledge, we increased our life expectancy by a whole two to three minutes if they broke in. I’m with Lisa. Next time we go for comfort.” Yue said. She smiled at Lisa and they fist bumped. Drew stood there looking confused. LeBron and Harley both grinning over his confusion.
Limping out into the bright morning sunlight they blinked away their exhaustion and went to make sure the truck was ok. They could feel the weight of a thousand warped minds focusing on them from the surrounding buildings. The massive frustration expressed by the twisted thoughts of the monsters trapped in the buildings by the bright sun. There were occasional flashes of movement as the monsters struggled against that sun phobia. They wanted nothing more than to break out and consume the humans below.
The truck was fine. They hadn’t really expected it to be damaged. The only thing they’d been scared of was crawlerz breaking in to use as a den to avoid the sun. The cage had done its job and kept them all out. They cautiously confirmed nothing had slithered underneath the truck to spend the day. Once the undercarriage was declared danger free Lebron, Lisa and Yue went to carry stuff from the building back to the truck. Drew wriggled painfully up into the cab and passed out in the sleeper section. He’d meant to stay awake long enough to beg someone for some drugs for the pain, but his exhaustion had taken control.
Shaun sat outside leaning against the wall of the building his crazy coked out cousin had died on top of. He was rudderless. He was feeling extremely weak from the loss of blood. Most of his strength was being used just to cope with the pain that kept surging up in his arm. Yue had asked him if he wanted to get in the truck and rest while they humped the gear out of the building. He’d asked if it was ok if he just sat down in the sunlight for a little while instead. Nodding with understanding she’d watched him wander over to the wall and sit down leaning against it.
“I’m all for feminism and everything but how come the girls are doing all the physical labor lately?” Lisa asked. Yue thought maybe Lisa needed to go take a nap as well. She was snapping away at everyone non-stop this morning. Then she looked over and saw that she was just trying to make a joke. The big bags under her eyes a clear clue as to why everything she said was coming out sounding a little bit bitchy.
“Cause the boys keep getting themselves hurt.” Yue answered back.
“Hey. I’m standing right here? I took a frag to the shoulder less than a week ago. Harley’s relaxing in the truck and all he did was break a couple of fingers.” LeBron said. He was still having a lot of issues using his right arm. It’d made the battle on the rooftop the previous night even more exciting for him.
“Not to mention the bullet that hit Drew didn’t even make it into his body. Just cracked a rib and ricocheted somewhere. I think she just had like a .22 or something. He could totally be helping. Big wus.” Yue added.
“I get it. We’re all hurting. Pretty much any of us would be sitting in an emergency room in the old days. Now we just slap on a Band-Aid and grab a fistful of pills out of Harley’s pill bag.” Lisa said. They were back inside the stairwell now collecting more of their gear. They opted to leave the two by fours up on the wall instead of taking them with them. They didn’t want to risk any crawlerz getting into the stairwell with them. They had extra building supplies already on the truck anyway.
It took a depressingly short amount of time to move all their worldly goods from the stairwell back to the truck. It took them longer to get Shaun up into the cab. At some point he’d passed back out. They’d found him unconscious on the ground after they finished loading the truck. No one had noticed him collapse. Yue bent down with everyone watching and felt around for a pulse. She couldn’t figure out how to find a pulse so put her hand over his mouth instead. She let herself relax when she finally felt him breathing. That was good enough for her to render her professional medical verdict of ‘not dead’.
They drove around town after getting Shaun shoved in the back with Drew. The two of them taking up most of the space. Yue had it in her head they needed to find some kind of adult Pedialyte. She’d been laser focused on an IV bag of saline or whatever until Lisa pointed out none of them knew how to administer an IV bag of anything. At that point she’d flipped over to wanting Gatorade or Pedialyte or just a big bag of sugar to pour into the water they were trying to get an unconscious Shaun to drink.
They scored a big zero on finding a place to ransack that didn’t look like they’d be ripped apart by crawlerz as soon as they went inside. The obvious places for food and medical supplies had all been looted already. Yue asked Harley for a couple of pills to give Drew. She’d already given him her last antibiotics. The massive bruise spreading across most of his upper body seemed a little severe for the over-the-counter pain meds she had left.
Harley was getting more and more protective of his stash as the bags of pills kept getting lighter. She had to show him the bruise on Drew’s chest before she could pry away a couple of his pain killers. The fact that Harley was obviously high as a kite wasn’t super reassuring either. It did explain how he was able to use his broken fingers to drive with so easily though. From a first aid perspective they’d just taped the two fingers together with a pencil in the middle as a splint.
Harley himself was on cloud nine. Spending the previous night having those slimy things slipping through his thoughts had fully fueled his desire to escape through the rapid application of pharmaceuticals. As they rode around town, he was starting to struggle with keeping the truck on the road. Every time he scraped by a car or had a really hard time turning down a different road, he felt Yue’s eyes boring into the side of his skull. Trying to come up with a way he could just get high and ride around in the truck all day he asked if any of them wanted to learn how to drive.
Even in his altered state of mind it was a little insulting ho
w quickly all three of them volunteered to do whatever it took to get him out of the driver’s seat. Harley brought the truck to a stop in the middle of the street by pressing the brakes way too hard and looked over at them.
“Surprised you want anybody to move with two women up in your lap.” Harley said grinning lasciviously at LeBron. The Oxy making him forget the obvious.
“One’s my sister and Lisa’s basically my sister-in-law so not quite as great as you’re making it sound.” LeBron said.
“Sister-in-law? You know something I don’t know?” Yue joked poking LeBron with her elbow. Lisa batted her eyes around tiredly with a small half smile playing at the corner of her lips.
Harley passed out in the driver’s seat. Yue told everyone to be quiet while she rummaged around in the big man’s jacket. She confiscated three bags of pills from him. She hid them in her bag instead. LeBron told her Harley was going to kill her if he found out. Yue snapped back that she wasn’t trying to sit around and watch Harley overdose. Especially not while he was driving them down the interstate at a hundred miles per hour.
Crawlerz: Book 3: The Mountains Are Calling Page 28