The Glass Hummingbird

by E. R. Mason

  The view from the west exit had changed. The driveway to the West Gate looked suspiciously available. They stood on either side of the door leaning forward to look. Occasionally a battered zombie would stroll by in the distance, but otherwise the way was clear. Rogers spoke softly, “I’ll bet they’re gathering for an attack. They’re overdue. We may get really lucky on this.”

  Cassiopia stared worriedly.

  “Let’s skip the flash-bangs. No need to alert the entire army. I go first. You follow. If I stop to fire, you keep going past me, and I'll catch up, and believe me, I will. When we get to the office building next door, I go in first. You stick close right behind me. If it’s clear, we take a quick reading and keep going to the next cover.”

  Rogers slowly pulled the door opened and leaned out for a better look. “Oh brother,” she said and lunged out so fast it caught Cassiopia off guard. In a panic, Cassiopia burst out and made up the distance. On both sides of the drive, large gatherings of the undead were milling about. As the women sprinted toward the gate, they became alerted and began their erratic but determined pursuit. Some worked up to a slow run; others leaned more into their stagger, some fell trying.

  Rogers passed the gate and dashed across Executive Avenue. Other malingering hopefuls spotted the escape attempt and joined in. By the time the women reached the big metal doors of the Old Executive Office building, a large crowd of predators had formed a zombie marathon behind them. Praying the entrance was unlocked, Rogers slammed into the stainless steel bar on the door, and then said silent thanks as it pushed open. To her surprise, Cassiopia stopped behind her, pulled a pin on a stun grenade and tossed it at the rush of monsters. The loud bang shook the worn doors of the building, though neither woman looked back to check the effects.

  There was no time to stop, and they could not risk trapping themselves on a higher level. They could not use a vacant office to hide it. Every office would be searched relentlessly.

  The exit door on the opposite side of the building opened to a huge open-air pavilion with equipment, storage facilities, and other structures spread out across it. Rogers did not pause. She ran the length of the pavilion and re-entered the building through the nearest door. At the end of a hallway littered with garbage, a windowed metal door opened to 17th Street. Cassiopia quickly caught up, gasping for breath.

  Rogers fumbled and pulled out her door control. The SCIP door was close, slightly to the right. She jammed the control back in her pocket and looked out in the direction they needed to go. There was a large building across the street with a closed, roll up garage door and an office beside it. There were cars parked alongside the street in both directions amid trash and destruction. In both directions, there were too many zombies. They were not alerted yet, but they soon would be.

  Rogers looked worriedly at Cassiopia. “You see the big roll up door?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s where we need to go.”

  Cassiopia studied the layout. “The roll up doesn’t open from the outside. There’s no control. You have to be in there to open it. The office door next to it has a keypad lock. We’d need the key code to get in.”

  “Could you hot-wire it?”

  “Yes, if we can get the keypad panel open.”

  “There’s a lot of them out there. How long would it take?”

  “Maybe a couple minutes, if we can open the keypad. It needs a special screwdriver.”

  “I have one of those. Are you ready?”

  “I guess.”

  “They’re going to be coming up behind us any second. When we get there, make sure you block everything out and concentrate on the hot-wiring, no matter what happens, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Here we go. Three, two, one…go!”

  They burst out the door and zigzagged through parked cars. Halfway across the street, a second death-march immediately began. Zombies on both sides halted to look, then began their mad rush toward the prey. At the same time, the other mass of undead came storming around the street corner, already in search of the same victims. By the time Rogers reached the office door, three separate groups were gaining on them. With the butt of one machine gun, she smashed the keypad with all her might, shattering the plastic box that held it, twisting the chrome panel and buttons. As Cassiopia arrived, Rogers turned to face the attacking army and opened up with both machine guns. She emptied extra clips from her satchel onto the sidewalk, kneeled on one knee, and leveled one gun in each hand, as zombies were already crossing the street on the left and the right.

  Loud explosions of gunfire erupted, causing Cassiopia to jump and fumble the panel. Rogers waved her guns back and forth, spraying bursts in both directions. The closest zombies, those that had been the quickest, fell to the street, bringing down those behind as they did. Cassiopia jumped once more at the painfully loud sound of it, but forced herself to concentrate, furiously ripping wires from their connections. The waves of undead did not understand retreat. They kept coming and falling. The bursts of gunfire lasted longer and longer. When a momentary slow down in the attack occurred, Rogers popped out her clips and slammed new ones in. She snapped the right weapon up and brought down three attackers that were too close, and then began the methodical double spread of gunfire once more. Dozens continued to fall, creating barriers of bodies in the street.

  “Not going to last forever, Cass!”

  “I’ve got to short the right wires. I’m almost there.”

  Rogers emptied the clip in the left gun, and let it hang by its strap. She continued using the other with bursts that were as economical as possible. The general line of attack was working its way closer and filling out even more. As her gun neared empty, Cassiopia heard the life-saving click, and yanked the office door open. Rogers did not need to be told. They dove into the office and slammed the door behind them. With a sliding bolt quickly snapped into place, the two women fell to their knees and struggled to catch their breath.

  “Well…I wouldn’t want to do that again.” Rogers gasped when she could finally speak.

  Before Cassiopia could respond, a bloodcurdling pounding echoed from the roll up door. The thin metal door flexed inward from the pummeling. At the same time, hammering on the office door became equally deafening. Both women froze, wondering which entrance might suddenly give way. Rogers scrambled to her feet, drew out fresh clips, and snapped them in place. She stood and raised her guns.

  Cassiopia searched the room. It was a one-car garage. In the center, an antique auto with its hood up was in the process of restoration. The engine was missing, the doors absent. A tool bench on the right was scattered with stacked tools and parts. A perforated board against the wall held wire, hose, connectors, and other supplies. On the far side of the room, larger service equipment was stacked against the wall. To Cassiopia’s relief, in front of the parked auto was a beat-up heavy wooden door. Rogers watched over her shoulder as Cassiopia went to it.

  “Be careful what might be on the other side,” she called. The banging on the two front doors grew more frequent and intense, the roll up door flexing in farther with each assault.

  Cassiopia pulled on the wooden handle of the heavy old door. It would not budge. “It’s locked on the other side.”

  There was a ragged hole by the large wooden handle where something had once been attached. Cassiopia knelt and looked through the coin-sized opening. “I see the SCIP door!” she cried. “I can see the reflection of this door in the mirror. It’s an old-fashioned sliding bolt keeping us out. It’s a big one.”

  Suddenly a tremendous crash against the roll up door made both women jump. The door bent in and did not straighten out completely. A small opening by the door slides let light in. The pounding continued. The door began to flex more and more.

  “I could try to shoot it open,” shouted Rogers.

  “There’s push-plates on it. You’d be shooting into metal.” Cassiopia straightened up and looked around the garage. She checked the open hood of the ca
r and spied a battery in the engine compartment that looked new. Stacked on the bench were jumper cables, and hanging from the perf-board large rolls of wire.

  “There’s another way, I think.” She went to the workbench and dug in the mess, drawing out a heavy iron chisel. She pulled down a roll of wire and frantically began wrapping it around the chisel. Rogers glanced over her shoulder nervously but was drawn back to the pounding at the doors.

  With the wire wrapped to Cassiopia’s satisfaction, she dragged the jumper cables over to the car battery and clipped onto it. With the other ends connected to the wires on the chisel, a steady hum back dropped the pounding. With careful aim, she dragged the improvised electromagnet across the door at the spot where she had seen the sliding bolt. On the third try, there was a grating click, and the heavy wooden door jumped open. Without waiting, the two women charged into the adjoining room and into the glare of the SCIP mirror. They went to it, and without looking back at Zombie-land, jumped to reality.

  Chapter 19