by Gibb, Lew
When Olivia trotted up with Mandy at her side, Stacy grabbed her arm. “We have to get out of here. We can’t hold on forever.”
“No shit, Stacy.” Olivia shook the hand off and looked at Jerry. “What’s up?”
Jerry’s pockets were empty except for his Leatherman. “Does anyone have any change?”
Karen and Olivia looked at him like he had just asked them to shoot him in the head.
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier. This is exactly the same kind of door with a steel jamb we had at my junior high. There was this bully that liked to throw the geeky kids in the janitor’s closet then pound a stack of change into the gap between the jamb and the door. The stack would be just thicker than the space, and the pressure would hold the door closed even if someone pulled from the other side. They’d have to get a hammer and a pry bar to get the guy out.”
Olivia jammed her hands in the front pockets of her jeans, and Karen squirmed around to dig for change while still pressing the door closed. She elbowed Stacy, who seemed to be in some kind of trance. Between the four of them they had nine pennies, six quarters, and two dimes.
Jerry made a stack slightly thicker than the space and hammered it into the gap beside the latch with the hilt of his sword. The zombies seemed to translate the pounding into some sign that they should renew their attack on the door. The thuds were the hardest Jerry had felt yet, but the door didn’t open. The only movement was a slight vibration of the jamb.
Stacy dropped to her knees. “Oh my god! It’s working.” She jumped when another zombie body hit the door, but the relief on her face was easy to see.
“Hang on.” Jerry measured another stack of coins. “I want to do a couple more to make sure.”
Stacy rolled onto her side and curled into a ball while Karen and Olivia pressed the door closed and Jerry pounded more change into the jamb. Mandy edged close to Stacy and licked her ear while Kodi nudged her hand with his nose. The dogs were great at sensing who needed comforting, and it seemed to work. By the time Jerry finished with the third stack, Stacy was sitting up and hugging Mandy around the neck like the dog was a big stuffed animal.
Jerry backed away and put his hands on his hips. “Maybe now we can convince them we’re gone.” He shot a glance at Stacy. Olivia and Karen nodded their heads while looking at their near-comatose friend.
Thirty minutes later, the barricade held, but the zombies were still pounding at the door and patrolling the building’s perimeter.
“Maybe they can smell us?” Olivia said, returning from another check over the top of the wall.
Jerry grimaced from his spot next to Karen at the stairway door. They didn’t want to stray far in case Jerry’s coin-lock failed. Karen wouldn’t be able to hold it alone, and Stacy was still in a near-catatonic state, although she kept up an almost constant stream of mumbling that was only slightly less irritating than her whining.
Jerry didn’t think the zombies could hear Stacy—hoped they couldn’t, anyway—and figured they were just feeding off their own cacophonous racket. What could they do if the zombies were hanging around because of Stacy’s whining and moaning? He didn’t think he had it in him to silence her. They all felt scared. Jerry himself had had more than one episode where he hadn’t been able to think of anything but being with Rachel and holding her in his arms. When that possibility began to seem more and more remote, he had also felt the temptation to give up and let himself be consumed by the horde. In the end, he hadn’t been able do that to the people who cared about him and who counted on him. Even if he had run off like a jackass and gotten himself trapped on a roof for no reason.
“We need some kind of diversion,” Jerry said, scanning the roof and the surrounding area, as if looking hard enough would make something useful appear out of the surrounding trees and buildings. He imagined the tower-crane across the street pivoting toward them, dropping its hook, and lifting them to safety. Somehow, in his daydream, he was able to hold the cable and the dogs at the same time as the hook transported them over the heads of the oblivious zombies and deposited them in a magically zombie-free parking lot next to an armored car with a full tank of gas. Jerry shook the vision away. It would be dark soon. Maybe the zombies would go to sleep, and they could tip-toe through them to safety. Just thinking about it made his palms sweat.
“Did you see that?” Karen got to her feet and pointed. “Something flashed across the street at the construction site.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
“Dammit, Karen!” Olivia hissed. “Keep your voice down.”
Jerry flinched and pressed his weight harder against the door. The zombies on the other side of the door pounded a thumping backbeat to the adrenaline singing through his system and his own heart kicking like the bass box in the trunk of a high schooler’s street rod. Even though the chair was holding, none of them trusted it to keep the zombies on their side of the door, especially with the fresh assault Karen’s outburst had provoked. She’d actually yelled.
Karen flinched at the rebuke but pointed at the building across the road. “There’s people over there.” She said it in a high-pitched hiss that was still too loud.
Jerry hunched his shoulders but nodded. “I saw it, too. A flash like a mirror.” Or a telescopic sight. He scanned the partially constructed apartment building. It was typical of the style that had sprung up around Denver’s Union Station and overflowed into the surrounding area to accommodate the more than eighty thousand people a year who had been moving to the Denver since 2010. The building was just four layers of concrete floor supported by square columns. Rebar sprouted from their tops like the tendons of dismembered limbs.
A flash of yellow moved out of the deepening shadows at the rear of the first floor and resolved into the thin form of a woman. Not just any woman, Jerry realized as she knelt at the edge of the concrete.
“Holy crap,” Jerry said, losing control of his own voice in his excitement. “It’s Holly.”
Olivia looked like she’d been about to say something about his noise level. “You know her?” she said instead.
Holly unslung a bulky pack from her shoulders and begin to open it.
“It’s the girl I told you about. From the hospital.”
Holly pulled out something flat and a couple of small boxes.
Jerry smiled and felt like a massive weight had been lifted from his chest. “She’s setting up a diversion.” He moved toward the edge of the warehouse roof. “Check the other side by the ladder. If she’s over there, someone else must be coming from the other side.” Probably Alberto. Maybe Zach.
Kodi and Mandy, no doubt sensing his changed mood, bounded ahead and then circled back, checking in to see what they should do next. Even Stacy seemed to sense the change. She sat up and looked around like she was just waking up.
One of the zombies must have noticed the new potential meal at the construction site. A piercing screech rose up from the mass of zombies clogging the warehouse’s yard on Holly’s side. It was picked up by one zombie first, and then the rest of the horde joined in a single sound that made Jerry’s head hurt and reminded him of a hawk getting ready to swoop down on its prey. He arrived at the edge of the roof just in time to witness the zombies turn as a mass when the music started. He couldn’t make out the tune, it was so distorted. The zombies headed for the apartment building like a school of piranhas. When Jerry looked back at the unfinished building, Holly was gone.
“Come on!” Olivia yelled. She was on the ladder. “There’s some kind of big army truck up the street.” Karen was right behind her, guiding Stacy, who was acting a little like one of the zombies.
Up the street, the MRAP looked like an elephant ready to charge. Alberto stood in the open driver’s door. Jerry couldn’t read the expression on his face, but his posture said Jerry would have some explaining to do once he and Holly were finished saving his butt.
Jerry waved and ran across the roof with Mandy and Kodi bounding along at his side.
/> Halfway across, his pace faltered.
How was he going to get them down the ladder? It was nothing but a pair of steel rails with one-inch bars welded between them for steps and a cylindrical cage around the outside. Impossible to climb down with one squirming dog in his arms, never mind two.
The last zombies on their side of the building flowed around the far end, drawn toward the music and the screams of their comrades.
Jerry’s eyes darted around the roof. There was nothing but gravel, air handlers, and ventilation hoods. The MRAP rolled silently toward them. Lucky thing he decided to get himself into trouble at the base of a large hill. He leaned over the edge and looked down. They were about eight feet higher than the tops of the semi-trailers parked against the loading bays.
Olivia was already halfway down the ladder and looking up, urging Stacy to follow with a circular arm wave. Karen prodded the fearful woman into motion. Once she got going, she moved so fast she almost ran Olivia over. The pair scrambled for the ground with Karen following close behind.
Jerry called the dogs and positioned himself above the closest trailer. He scooped up Kodi with one arm under his rear end and the other supporting his chest. Kodi squirmed a little, like he usually did when Jerry lifted him, but seemed to decide it wasn’t some kind of torture and settled down just as Jerry leaned over the edge of the short wall. He twisted so the dog was pointed toward the front of the trailer and lowered the shepherd as far as he could before starting to relax the arm holding Kodi’s chest. Kodi seemed to understand what Jerry wanted—or he just figured he needed to get himself out of the mess his idiot owner had gotten him into. He pushed with his rear feet and launched himself away from the wall. The big shepherd landed in the center of the trailer’s roof with a hollow thud, took a few steps, then turned around and looked back at Jerry.
“Wow,” Karen said. Her head was level with the trailer’s roof, and she was looking wide-eyed at Kodi. His ears perked up at her voice, and he looked across at her. “That’s an amazing dog.”
Jerry smiled and bent to scoop Mandy, who had been whining and pacing since Kodi had gone over the edge. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Mandy handled the jump even better Kodi had, almost as if she had watched him and learned what was in store. Jerry hoped the next step of his plan would go as smoothly as he lowered himself over the edge. He dangled by his hands, hung there for a breath, then kicked away from the wall and dropped the three feet to the trailer. Both dogs came to his side and looked at him as if to say What’s next? Jerry moved to the front of the trailer with a dog on either side.
The MRAP rolled to a stop beside the trailer. The massive truck’s roof was only a foot lower than the trailer. The roof hatch opened, and Maria appeared in the opening.
She signaled for the girls to head around to the back of the truck.
Jerry was watching Olivia and Karen leading a tearful Stacy toward the lowering rear ramp when Kodi let out an excited bark. The big dog practically dove down the hatch, forcing Maria to move against the edge. Mandy followed with an excited whine that made Jerry’s heart speed up. It was the sound she made when she greeted her favorite people, and she hadn’t known Maria long enough to bond with her like that.
A bunch of zombies appeared behind the MRAP. Jerry couldn’t figure out if they came from the front of the building or if they had been waiting between the parked trailers. There were about ten of them, and the leader was moving almost as smoothly as a normal person, pumping his thick arms and opening his mouth in another of those haunting wails that were starting to sound more like words every time. Stacy screamed, and Karen grabbed the rear hatch and pulled, as if her weight would speed its descent.
When the hatch was three feet from the ground, a slim figure burst out of the MRAP and sprinted straight for the zombies.
At first, Jerry thought it was Holly. But the hair was brown and shorn instead of blonde and long. And the blade in her right hand was only about a foot long.
Then a rotund zombie with one arm burst from between the trailers and crashed into the black-clad figure.
As the pair went down in a tangle of arms and legs, Jerry noticed the red cowboy boots.
Jerry screamed, “Rachel!” and sprinted for the end of the trailer, moving even before he finished screaming her name. In two steps, he bounded across the MRAP’s roof and launched himself off the back end of the big truck.
He landed and rolled like someone in one of those super cool videos that probably needed about a hundred takes to get it right.But he managed to get it right on the first try. Jerry came to his feet, still running and still holding his sword and sprinted at the pile of zombies covering Rachel.
The point of his sword skewered the first zombie through the mouth just as it reared back and opened its jaws. The force of the blow drove the thing over onto its back. It was still twitching and squealing when Jerry yanked the blade free.
He used the momentum to make a backhanded slash at another zombie. The top half of the attacker’s head flew off, and the body slumped to one side. He stepped forward and kicked a zombie who had her face buried in Rachel’s stomach in the ribs. His steel-toed work boot made a sound like a fist hitting a pillow, and Jerry actually felt ribs crack. The woman rocked backward, and Jerry sliced a channel down her front from collarbone to hip that gushed blood before she fell forward.
The dogs each had a zombie by the throat, dragging them away from Rachel, who stabbed a cargo-shorts-wearing guy with a ponytail through the neck. Maria took out the last zombie with a slash. When she turned his way with a wild look in her eyes, Jerry barely recognized the woman who had been such a caretaker for their group.
Jerry reached out a hand and pulled Rachel to her feet. “Are you okay?” He was terrified that she had been bitten because of him. She nodded, and he wrapped her in a hug, feeling like it was the first time they’d met, like everything in the world was going to be all right.
“Wow, you feel good,” Rachel said, squeezing him back.
Jerry was just turning to head back to the truck when something covered his head like a bucket of warm water.
He used his sleeve to clear the wetness from his eyes. His sleeve glistened red. Rachel wiped a coating of blood from her face. The dogs snarled and barked at something behind Jerry.
He turned to find Alberto standing a couple feet to his right with a headless zombie at his feet. He was looking toward the far end of the warehouse where a mass of zombies was rounding the corner and heading their way.
“In the truck!” Alberto yelled.
Jerry pushed Rachel ahead of him, yelled for the dogs, and sprinted for the truck. He ran up the ramp a couple of steps behind the dogs, who had followed Rachel into the vehicle. The rear ramp thumped closed as Rachel collapsed onto the bench seat. Jerry dropped into the seat beside her and wrapped his arms around his wife.
Rachel put her arms around him, laughing and trying to avoid the dogs enthusiastic licking. She kissed him, her tears mingling with his own and with the dog’s saliva as they nudged in from both sides, licking them indiscriminately. He couldn’t believe how amazing it felt to have her back. He felt like a whole person again.
Alberto cleared his throat. When Jerry turned, his friend was standing by the back door with his arms crossed, his face pinched up like he had just eaten a rotten pickle.
“I am glad your stupidity did not result in your death.” He edged past them, giving Jerry a light slap on the back of the head as he passed and headed for the truck’s cab. “Or anyone else’s.”
Maria was sitting on the opposite wall between Olivia and the two other girls. She reached across, patted Jerry’s shoulder, and smiled. “We’re glad you’re okay.”
“Now,” Alberto said from the driver’s seat, “sit down, and let’s get out of here.”
Rachel wrapped her arms around Jerry again as the truck rumbled to life. On the way to the warehouse from their building, they had run over and through more than a few zombies w
ith barely a sound. Rachel wouldn’t have even known they had hit anything if she hadn’t seen them disappear beneath the hood. The MRAP made her feel even safer than the dump truck had. She wondered why she and Clay hadn’t thought to grab one of these amazing vehicles when they’d been at the stadium. She pulled back and looked Jerry in the eyes. “You’re going to have to explain the reasoning that led you to this decision.” She squeezed his shoulder. “But not now. Now, I’m just glad to have you back.”
She had been horrified to hear the story of how Holly and Jerry’s group had woken up to find him and the dogs gone, off to rescue her from the clutches of Zebulan Picke. Horrified, but not especially surprised. The guy sounded like a caricature of a TV villain, and Rachel wondered how much of Jerry’s actions were due to him being his usual alarmist self. Although from the looks of the three women he had rescued, he hadn’t been completely off base. And he had been right about the apocalypse, so she figured she should probably forgive him.
The MRAP lurched forward, and Kodi fell against Jerry’s knees. He grabbed his dog by the shoulders to steady him and held on, kneading the coarse fur on his neck. “Sorry.” He shrugged and avoided her eyes.
Mandy planted her front paws on Rachel’s legs and licked her face. Rachel ruffled her fur with both hands and kissed her nose. “I missed you, too, Mandy.”
Maria and the three rescued women smiled at each other and introduced themselves as the truck rumbled along. Jerry felt the truck roll over at least a couple zombies—or maybe they just hit a big pothole. Alberto yelled for them to get ready to pick up Holly.
The truck jerked to a stop, and Alberto lowered the rear door from the driver’s seat. Before the door was even halfway down, Holly sprinted through the opening. It was already on its way back up when she threw herself at Jerry and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Then she reared back and started punching. “Don’t. Ever. Do. That. Again!” she yelled, punctuating each word with increasingly painful blows.