Smith gripped the ladder’s rungs at waist height and tested the stability by pressing down and shaking the side rails left and right. The ladder shifted a couple of inches but seemed pretty solidly held in place.
“Looking good,” I said.
Smith shrugged. “We’ll see when we get up there.”
I glanced him up and down. “Are you going to get changed? You look weird dressed in that silly-assed robe.”
Smith raised his hands defensively. “Who the fuck is around here to see us? Besides, it’s cool. Not cool as in hey, fucking cool, man! But cool as in not hot.”
“Fair point,” I muttered. “Your choice. But if you come back as a zombie, you’ll be wearing that woman’s robe for all eternity.”
“Fuck you, Wilde Man,” Smith snorted. “Just get your skinny ass up that damn ladder.” He jutted his chin at the skylight.
“You want me to go first?” I suddenly felt apprehensive. I hadn’t been good with heights since the Julia situation in Manhattan.
“You got a problem with that?” Smith huffed. “Okay, I’ll go up first if you want. I really don’t give a fuck but all the time we stand around here yakking, the more of those undead bastards are flocking to this damn house, which by my reckoning makes our chances of getting out of here that little bit more difficult.”
“All right, all right,” I sighed. “I’m ready, let’s go.”
Smith lifted the two sacks containing the spare spears and handed them to me. “You take these up with you. Put the straps over your shoulders on opposite sides and don’t let them catch on the window frame at the top.”
“Yes, sir,” I barked, imitating a military stooge.
Smith glared and shook his head. “I’ll take care of both the weapons and I’ll follow you right up onto the roof.”
I did as he suggested, slipping the two quivers over my shoulders so the straps crisscrossed my chest. The containers felt heavy at my sides and I hoped they wouldn’t hinder my ascent to the skylight. I looked at the ladder and then over the edge of the guard rail at the sea of rotten, sneering, snarling faces below. I felt a pang of panic rising in the pit of my stomach. What if I fell from the ladder? I couldn’t begin to imagine what being ripped to pieces by an avalanche of teeth and fingernails could possibly feel like. Even though I’d seen plenty of people succumb to that nasty fate.
Smith slapped me around the face. Not hard, just enough to grab my attention.
“Hey, kid, you okay? You look like you kind of zoned out for a second there.”
I nodded.
He looked me straight in the eyes. “Come on, Wilde Man, we can do this. We got no other way out of here.”
I took a few deep breaths. “I’m okay.”
“Atta-boy,” Smith said.
I shuffled in line with the ladder’s bottom rung and glanced up at the elevated frame. Blue sky and a few wispy white clouds were visible through the broken window. I gritted my teeth and began to slowly climb.
The wailing and screaming below me grew more frantic but I didn’t dare take a look downwards. I didn’t want to see all those decomposing faces leering up at me. The rotting stench of the undead corpses was bad enough to contend with. Instead, I tried to stay focused on moving up the ladder, one rung at a time.
I kept going and soon breathed in fresh morning air and felt the warmth of the sun on my face. I reached the skylight but faced a problem.
Chapter Twenty
The gap between the broken glass and the skylight frame wasn’t big enough to fit through. The window had only partially shattered and a semi circular rim of glass with a fine but sharp edge remained in the frame.
I made the mistake of looking back down the ladder and took a wobble. I saw Smith’s face turn from enthusiastic to deeply concerned in a split second. I gripped the side rail and steadied myself, forcing away the queasiness creeping through me. The image of Julia’s terrified face as she plummeted down from that Manhattan building flashed through my mind for an instant. I stayed motionless for a few seconds, gathering my breath and allowing my heart rate to slow down.
“Take it easy, kid,” Smith called above the moans and yelps booming from the floor below. “Hang on in there.”
I clung to the sides of the ladder but turned my head to look back at Smith. “There’s still a big old chunk of glass inside the frame. I can’t fit through,” I yelled.
Smith shook his head and screwed up his face. “Just punch out the glass or something. Come on, Wilde Man. Quit fucking around.”
Hitting the remains of the window with an unprotected fist was a bad move in my view. Glass shards could easily tear an artery in my arm or wrist.
I knew the longer I took, the worse our situation would become. Time was limited. More undead would flock to the house, following the original horde like farm animals and restricting our chances of escape. I thought about taking off one of my new found deck shoes to try and batter away the glass but the soles were made of rubber and not really tough enough for the job.
I needed a solid object with enough weight and strength to break the remains of the window. The only possible items I could use were the spare spears in the elongated sacks positioned at the back of my shoulders. Reaching them was going to be awkward as I’d have to twist while on the ladder.
I tried stretching my right hand over my left shoulder. I could reach the cover flap on top of the spear holder but the angle was all wrong to withdraw one of the metal shafts.
I was busy trying to figure out a way of retrieving one of the spears, when I heard a whooshing sound a fraction of a second before the window above erupted around me. Glass chips scattered over me and fell onto the zombie crowd below.
I glanced upward. The remaining glass in the skylight had totally gone. I glanced behind me and saw Smith brandishing one of the spear guns with a sheepish grin on his face. The bastard had shot the glass out of the window, the spear passing inches above my head. I gritted my teeth, rage rising within me.
“You could have killed me, you fucking maniac!” I yelled.
“Hey, just lending a hand is all,” Smith shouted back. He raised his arms out wide, still holding the spear gun in his right. “You looked like you were in a little trouble so I resolved the problem. No need to thank me, Wilde.”
I opened my mouth to holler some additional abuse but gave up before I uttered a sound. What was the point? No matter how much ranting and raving I did would change Smith or curb his psychotic behavior. He probably thought it was pretty funny to scare the shit out of like that. But that was Smith all over and I guessed if he’d been slightly meeker we wouldn’t have survived for so long.
I shook my head and continued my ascent with a pissed off grimace.
The welcome fresh breeze ruffled my hair when I clambered through the circular skylight. The roof was finished in rough white stucco and curved away from the window on all sides. I perched myself in a sitting position beside the skylight, taking in the surrounding view.
Directly in front of me, the castle stood on the rocky hillside with the blue ocean beyond. The early morning sun turned the castle’s turrets and battlements a hazy shade of pink. To the right, the road continued onward through the village and out into an overgrown wilderness. The large forest we’d trudged through the previous day stood to the left.
I shuffled myself around in a circle and gazed beyond the domed rooftops of the small houses on the opposite side of the road. Another larger, dome shaped building stood behind the smaller dwellings, set back away from the road and a distance between the other houses, as if it was separate from the rest of the village.
My interest in the bigger house increased. I saw a long driveway that lay on the opposite side of a tall wire mesh fence. The driveway sat beyond a pair of high metal gates and between a large graveled area. Two huge, white statues of lions stood either side of a large wooden front door. The fence line seemed to run around the whole of the property boundary and an overgrown grassed lawn combined with
a yellow tiled patio covered the grounds at the rear. I thought I saw the edge of a swimming pool incorporated into the patio section, directly at the rear of the property but the structure masked most of the area. I couldn’t see any zombies roaming around inside the compound or any other signs of life.
“Give me a fucking cigarette,” Smith boomed from behind me.
I turned my head and saw him emerging through the skylight. He clambered onto the roof and crouched beside me. The moans from the undead still inside the house drifted up through the broken window.
“I haven’t got any smokes with me,” I snapped, returning my gaze to the large house. “You know that.”
Smith rifled through one of the spear holders at my shoulder. “I put that rolling tobacco in this damn case.” He agitatedly bustled around inside the container. “A-ha, here we go.” He pulled out the matches and tobacco pouch and set about rolling a smoke, handing me the first completed one. I took it and stuck it in my mouth.
“What do you have eyes on?” Smith asked, striking a match.
I lit my smoke and was about to tell him about the big house in the distance but began a fit of hoarse coughing instead. I simply nodded at the building and hoped he understood.
“A big old stack, huh?” Smith mused, following my gesticulation.
I managed to compose myself and stifle the coughing for a moment. “There’s a high fence that runs all the way around the property.”
Smith nodded. “I see that.”
“You think there might be some guns or stuff we can use in there?” I asked.
Smith shrugged. “Possibly. It seems whoever lived there didn’t want nobody just rocking up and knocking on the door. It looks as though the previous occupants didn’t much like their neighbors or they didn’t want to be bugged by nobody.”
“You think it’s worth checking out?” I was curious. The house looked in a reasonable state seeing as it had probably been abandoned some time ago. Maybe the owners had fled to the castle and barricaded themselves inside the fortress when the undead took over. Perhaps they’d left some of their firearms behind.
Smith nodded and flicked his cigarette butt over the side of the wall. I did the same. The dry tobacco burned extremely quickly and was rough as hell on the back of my throat.
“We do have one problem,” Smith said.
“What’s that?” I asked, feeling tired of every small thing being confronted by problems.
“We’re on a roof and we’re surrounded by fucking zombies.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Smith took out one of the spare spears from the pack on my back and reloaded the empty gun.
“We’re running low on ammo,” he muttered.
I carefully stood up, trying to get a better view of the grounds surrounding the small house. Unfortunately, Smith was right. Masses of undead jostled and staggered around the backyard, the side garden and the front of the property. They didn’t notice me on the roof but were all attempting to bustle their way inside. I returned to my sitting position with a sinking feeling in my gut.
“What’s the plan?”
Smith turned his head toward the castle in the distance and squinted at the rising sun.
“Well, sooner or later, probably sooner, that whack job with a sniper rifle is going to spot us on this rooftop and start taking pot shots at us. With all the fuss those undead motherfuckers are making, whoever is up there is going to come over to this side of the castle wall and take a look at what’s going on down here.”
I sighed. “Ah, great, so we’re either going to get shot right here or eaten to death if we drop down off the roof?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“How did they know we were in this damn house?” I seethed. “I’m sure they didn’t see us when we sneaked in around back.”
Smith shrugged. “I don’t know, kid. Maybe they just sensed us. We probably give off a different vibe to people who’ve been here awhile. Those crawlers might have kept crawling and followed our tracks. We both know they all follow each other if they think one of them has a sniff of a live one.”
“Smith, they’re dead. They aren’t supposed to have any senses or be capable of sniffing out humans like dogs do.”
“Sorry, Wilde Man,” Smith said, shrugging again. “I don’t have all the answers you want. It’d take a better man than me to say what those zombies or whatever you want to call them are capable of.”
I felt exasperated. There had to be some way we could get off the damn roof. I glanced around our near surroundings. The house next to the one we sat on top of was around thirty feet away. Too far to jump across.
I scoured the neighbor’s backyard. Maybe we could find a way to get beyond the adjoining wall between the two properties.
A risky and probably stupid plan began to take shape in my mind. I had no intention of getting shot off the roof by some crazed sniper. He could shove his high velocity rifle up his ass as far as I was concerned. The situation had gone on too long and I intended to put an end to our isolation.
I rose up again, just enough to peek into the neighboring side garden. I saw two zombies stumbling around the area; both looked as though they were trying to find a way out beyond the side gate, rattling it and moaning intensely.
“Smith, how high would you say this house is?” I asked.
“I don’t know, fifteen, twenty feet maybe.”
“What was your original plan when you said we’d go out through the skylight?”
“I figured we could get up here and jump down at the front and then high tail it out of here.”
“How long would you say that ladder is?”
Smith shrugged and looked back through the broken skylight. “Around ten feet, I guess.”
“Okay, let’s pull it right out here on the roof,” I said enthusiastically, while rising up from my sitting position.
“What the hell you got in mind, kid?” Smith grunted, still squinting at the sun.
I grabbed hold of the top ladder rung and began to haul it upwards and towards me so the whole frame slid out from the skylight, jutting upwards at a forty-five angle.
“Just sit there, why don’t you?” I snapped.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” Smith groaned, pushing himself up.
We maneuvered the ladder from the hole in the roof and slid it across the domed top towards the neighboring side garden.
“There’s no way that’s going to reach the ground over that wall,” Smith groaned, pointing downward at the narrow space below. “Those damn zombies will be on us in a flash.”
“Not if we lean the ladder between the top of the wall and the side of the house,” I said. “We can climb down, hop into the neighbor’s garden, pop the two stiffs in there and let ourselves out the gate.” I cleared my throat, the plan was running wild in my imagination and Smith listened with an expression of morbid fascination. “Then we move our asses fast across the street and get over to that big house in the distance, scale the fence and we’re safe for a while.”
Smith threw his hands in the air and kind of laughed in a wheeze. “What the hell, kid? The plan is so stupid it might just work. And besides, I ‘aint got nothing else. We’ll run with your idea. What the heck, let’s go get ourselves killed. I ‘aint got nothing better to do today.”
“All right then,” I said, with a slight smile.
We carefully shimmied down the curving roof, leaning backwards against the drop with the ladder held between us. Smith and I silently maneuvered the ladder so it was wedged between the sloping side of the domed house at one edge, while the other end rested on top of the vertical wall dividing the two properties. If we got it right, we could clamber across the ladder horizontally at a height of around eight feet from the ground. It wasn’t perfect and we were going to have to be quick crossing over the space but it seemed to be the only conceivable way out of our situation.
I tested the ladder’s stability by pressing the rungs up and down. We crouched at the e
dge of the sloping roof, another step forward and we’d topple over the edge. A few undead roamed around near the side wall below us but they seemed more intent on staggering to the backyard and getting inside via the French doors at the rear. I took a glance back over my shoulder and could still see the castle’s ramparts and the top of the towers but we were almost hidden from any sniper’s view. I turned my attention back to the job in hand.
“Okay, you want me to go first?” I whispered.
Smith kind of wobbled his head. “Whatever, it’s your show, kid.”
I adjusted the two spear packs on my back so they were directly in line with my spine. The last thing I needed was for them to sag over the ladder’s sides and weigh me down.
I positioned myself at the edge of the ladder with my hands on the side rails and my knees on the first few rungs. My mouth was dry and I took a couple of deep breaths.
It was then all the consequences of failure to cross the ladder hit me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Come on, man, just get over there,” Smith growled, as I hesitated on the ladder’s edge.
I bit into my lower lip then gritted my teeth. I looked down to the paved area below. The fall wouldn’t have inflicted any serious bodily damage but I’d be trapped between two packs of marauding undead if I toppled from the ladder. I had to go for it.
I moved quickly forward, coordinating my arms and legs so I shuffled my knees across the rungs while keeping a firm grip on the side rails. The wooden frame clunked up and down slightly but held in place. I heard a few interested grunts and growls to my left but didn’t look to see if I’d been spotted, keeping my focus on the looming side wall.
I reached the end of the ladder, which protruded over the wall into the neighbor’s side garden by a few inches. I stopped moving when I reached the top of the wall. The two zombies, both females with wild, matted hair and wide eyes had noticed me and turned away from the side gate in the neighbor’s yard. Their cataract stares were fixated on me and let out guttural growls like rabid dogs.
The Left Series (Book 6): Left On An Island Page 10