by Chris Lowry
“Let’s see if we can find a way down.”
Rat joined him as they toured the edges of the roof. Zombies surrounded them on three sides, but the forth was another building, higher than the one they were on.
“How do they know we’re here?”
Taylor moved up next to him to peer over the front of the store. They were hidden by the sign, but zombies were gathered at the front of the store, bouncing off the glass as others made their way through the door.
“I think they smell us.”
“I know I need a shower, but I didn’t think we were that bad.”
Taylor sniffed, but didn’t laugh.
“What? You don’t want to die laughing?” Rat shrugged.
“We’re not dying yet,” said Taylor.
“Have you told our friends down there?”
Taylor double checked the ammo in his banana clip. It’s light. He fishes a few precious bullets out of his shirt pocket and reloads.
Rat watches him. He only has one bullet in his pocket that he examines and puts it back in. That one he’s saving for himself, just in case.
“What’s the big plan, boss?”
“Up.”
He didn’t look at the twelve foot wall the building butted up against, but Rat did.
“No rope.”
“You’re the rope.”
“Be the ball, Happy.”
“What?”
“Nevermind,” Rat sighed. “You’re going to use me as a ladder, aren’t you?”
“Your arms aren’t strong enough to pull me up.”
“But my legs can hold you?” Rat didn’t sound so sure.
“A man’s legs are his strongest muscle,” Taylor assured him.
“My strongest muscle is my junk,” Rat said off handed.
“I think you mean your mouth.”
“That’s what your mom told me last night.”
They traded looks as Taylor huffed, like they had this sort of conversation a lot.
“You done?”
“One more thing your mom said to me,” Rat slung carried his rifle to the wall.
“How do you want to do this.”
“Make a cup.”
Taylor demonstrated with his hands, clasping them together to show Rat how to make a foothold.
“The wall’s twelve feet, at least. I can make it if I stand on your shoulders.”
“I got it.”
“You have to stand up straight.”
“I got it,” said Rat.
“Use the wall to brace your back.”
“I said I can do it.”
“Then get to it.”
Rat planted his back against the wall and cupped his hands. Taylor put the tip of his toe in the grip and vaulted up.
He planted his foot on Rat’s shoulder and lunged, using his fingers against the smooth surface of the wall. There was nothing to grip, he just tried to maintain his balance.
Rat moaned.
“I thought we were losing weight with no food to eat.”
“Steady.”
Taylor put both feet on Rat’s shoulders and tried not to lean back too far. He shoved his rifle up and over the edge of the roof and listened to it clatter to the gravel covered tar on the other side.
“Hurry.”
He reached above his head and grabbed the roof with the tips of his fingers again.
“Higher.”
Rat grunted and groaned.
“I think I just shit myself.”
“It’s a hernia,” Taylor shot back.
He was still a couple of inches shy of the edge. Rat couldn’t extend to his full height.
“Hey Rat?”
“Yeah?”
“This is gonna hurt.”
“What is?”
Taylor toe jumped from his shoulders to reach the roof. His sore fingers grabbed the edge and he fought for purchase.
Rat screamed as the toes bounced off his bony collar and collapsed under the powerful thrust of Taylor’s legs.
Taylor fought his way over the roof and fell on the other side.
“Did you make it?” Rat screamed up at him.
Taylor planted himself on the roof and looked down.
“Do you see me on the wall? On the ground beside you?”
“It’s a roof.”
Taylor worked the strap off his gun and adjusted the length to as along as it would go.
“Grab it,” he wrapped one end around his fist and dangled the other down to Rat.
He couldn’t reach.
“Lower!”
“I can’t go any lower, I’ll flip off the edge.”
“I can’t reach it.”
“You’re gonna have to jump.”
Rat tried to jump. His hands batted the strap away.
“Hang on.”
Taylor turned over and tied the strap to his rifle. He positioned himself on the edge of the roof again and heard a moan.
A zombie lurched across the roof toward him.
He rolled to the side, and kicked out with his foot. It caught the zombie in the stomach and pitched it over the edge of the roof.
It splatted down in a wet explosion, barely missing Rat.
“What the hell man! A little warning next time.”
Taylor didn’t bother to look over. He watched the roof for any other Z that might have been trapped up here with them.
He couldn’t see a doorway or an opening, so he didn’t know how it got up here. Maybe trapped from the beginning.
He didn’t like not knowing.
“We better hurry,” he said.
“I’m waiting on you,” Rat called up.
Taylor held the rifle over the edge. This time Rat could reach the strap, but just ass he was about to, Taylor yanked the rifle back up.
“This isn’t a time to be teasing,” Rat called up.
Taylor pulled the magazine and double checked the chamber to make sure it was empty.
Then he leaned back over and this time let Rat grab the strap and wrap it around his hand.
He pulled up and back, and listened as Rat’s feet slapped and slid on the wall as he climbed up.
Finally the smaller man was over the edge. He crawled the rest of the way up and perched on the lip of the roof.
“You just going to nap there?” he said to Taylor’s prostate form.
Taylor pushed himself up with his elbows and reloaded his rifle.
“We can catch our breath later.”
He led Rat to the far edge of the roof. They glanced down at the empty alley below.
“Guess they can’t smell us up this high.”
“Not yet.”
“That’s a long way down.”
“I was thinking across,” Taylor pointed.
The alley was eight feet wide with another roof lower and on the other side.
“Jump?” Rat gulped.
“It’s not far.”
“I was never that athletic.”
“You can’t make it?”
“I don’t know.”
“It can’t be more than eight feet.”
“So?”
“So, didn’t you take a Presidential
Fitness Test once? Every man should
be able to long jump at least that far.”
“Look, I don’t know what you did before- but I was a desk jockey. I sat in a cubicle for eight hours a day, and on my couch watching games on Sundays. I’m a little out of practice.”
Taylor studied the jump, then the alley. He strolled the length of the building, checking the back and front of the store.
“We could jump down, and run for it.”
“It must be twenty feet down!”
“Keep your voice down. They find this
alley and you won’t have a choice.”
“We could stay here. Something is bound to distract them.”
“I’m not starving up here if they won’t
leave.”
“They might.”
Taylor lift
ed an eyebrow and cocked his head to one side. He peered over the edge of the roof as a zombie shuffled around the corner and began making its way toward the building.
It didn’t look up, but just stopped and milled around, attracted by the sound of their voices.
“All right,” Rat sighed. “They won’t leave.”
“Then we should.”
He backed up as far as an air conditioning unit would let him, held his rifle away from his body and sprinted toward the edge of the roof.
His hiking boots pounded across the pea gravel roof, scrunching with each step and sending a small spray of stones over the edge as he leaped.
He landed on the other side with four feet to spare and pulled up short, gasping for air. He shot a huge grin across to Rat and motioned him to make the jump.
Rat looked down.
The first zombie has been joined by two others.
He let out a dramatic sigh and backed up to the air conditioning unit. He held his gun up just as he had seen Taylor do and pounded across the rooftop.
He mistimed the jump and leaped too soon.
His body flailed across the space, and slammed chest first into the precipice.
His rifle skittered out of his hands and clattered to the alley below as he dug for purchase on the crumbling concrete edge.
The zombies in the alley below reach up for his legs, but he’s still too high.
Unless he slipped over the side. He began to fall, his feet sliding up and down the side of the building, toes scraping against the wall.
Rat screamed.
sails across the alley and slams chest first into the precipice.
Taylor grabbed his sleeves, and hauled him back to safety.
Rat collapsed on the ground and sobbed for air.
“Thanks man.”
“You lost your gun,” Taylor glared over the edge. “And your noise.”
The volume of the zombies increased as more filtered into the alley below.
Rat pulled himself up.
“We’ll find another.”
Taylor moved to the far side of the building where another roof was connected. It was a straight shot across, building by building up the block to the end of the row.
Four building rooftops separated by small three foot walls.
Taylor hopped the first and began jogging to the next. Rat jumped after him.
“I know where to look, if we could just get there.”
The two men reached the last roof and peeked over the edge. It was zombie free and best of all, a gridlock traffic jam filled the road in front of them.
CHAPTER FOUR
“You know, I always hated traffic in this damn city,” Taylor said as he made the short leap off the building to the roof of a truck below.
A wave of abandoned cars covered the roadway between buildings stretching as far as either could see in both directions.
Some were crashed. Against buildings, against each other, against disturbing black smears that had once been red.
It was a gridlock nightmare that spoke of thousands of people trying to escape and getting trapped instead.
“Wonder what happened to them?” Rat said as he stepped down behind him.
Taylor knew. Rat knew too, he was just voicing a little hope that some of them got away.
He tried to step softly to minimize the noise, but the clang of the metal stretched up the empty street.
There were a lot of open doors on the cars, smashed windshields, abandoned suitcases and bags.
People lived their whole lives collecting things. Clothes, books, figurines and furniture. They filled their homes with it and never gave thought to being prepared.
And when shit hit the fan they packed the dumbest things. Like more clothes, and pictures, memories of a past life.
Taylor had one picture in his backpack, sheathed in plastic to protect it.
He thought of it as his eyes landed on a discarded doll, string yarn hair flittering in the wind.
“We’ll make a run for it,” he said as he cleared his throat.
“Didn’t work out too well for them.”
“I know a place up here,” he nodded in the direction he was leading them.
“I know a lot of places. I used to drink at a bar two blocks from here sometimes. Think they would still have beer?”
“We’re going to a building, some place defendable.”
“Think the beer would be warm?” Rat clambered over the cars after him. “I mean I hate warm beer but I haven’t had any in so long, I might pretend we were British, you know.”
“I hate warm beer.”
“You don’t even want to try then?”
“This place, this building,” Taylor explained. “It’s a high rise. I knew a girl who lived on the fifteenth floor. We’ll get in, grab some food from the other apartments and lock up for the night someplace safe.”
He nearly slid off the slick roof of a truck and caught himself. The noise reverberated off the walls of the building and the two men froze to see if they had been heard.
Taylor looked down. The windshield below him was cracked, colored with dried blood.
“You said that last night.”
“We made it through last night,” Taylor reminded him.
“I don’t want to sleep in the sewer
again.”
Taylor reached the end of the long row of cars where they bunched up in an intersection.
Some idiot had run a red light and plowed into another car, setting off a chain reaction of fender benders that built a metal wall.
Rather than move the damaged cars out of the way so people could pass, it created a nest of twisted bumpers, shattered doors, and crunched autos. The buildings blocked the sun as it settled toward a western descent and cast the intersection in a dusky twilight, even though it was only late afternoon.
“Rat, you see that white building?
Rat glanced up the road where he pointed. A white building squatted in the distance not too far away, a half mile or a little more.
If it was just a normal day, the walk would take them twenty minutes if they caught a light.
A zombie apocalypse threw off a lot of time tables though, and a half mile through the desolated urban wasteland might as well have been the silk trade route.
“Kind of hard to miss,” he shrugged.
“If we were sprinting, it’d takes us less than five minutes to reach it. It’s not far. We’re going there. I used to date a girl and she kept a key under the mat. We’ll break into a few places, score some food and lock in tight for a few days while we rest. Then we’ll come up with a plan.”
“We still have to make it there.”
“Don’t be a Debbie Downer. We can make it. We will make it.”
A moan lifted up from the mound of cars behind them. It was followed by another and they caught a shifting in the shadows as something moved toward them.
“Please God let that be a grizzly bear,” Rat muttered.
“We’re not that lucky.”
Taylor jumped off the hood of the truck and landed with a grunt. He lifted his rifle and stood guard while Rat slithered out of the truck bed and across the roof.
He planted his feet, took a step and slipped. His legs went one way, his body the other and he crashed down onto the hood. The angle bounced him over the side of the truck, jerking his legs over after him in a wide semi-circle.
His ankle cracked against the edge of the car beside them and he cried out.
“Damn. Damn. Damn.”
Rat popped up and hobbled toward Taylor.
“How bad?”
The small man rested his weight on the ankle. It nearly folded under him as he tested it. The grimace on his face told Taylor all he needed to know.