by A. R. Wise
“They won’t find us in here,” said Ben. “We can go upstairs and wait them out. Since they’re fresh, there’s a good chance they’ll keep moving for a while. As long as we don’t give them a reason to go ape shit, they won’t start trying to break the doors down.”
I spotted something skirting through the crowd, hidden by the shuffling legs of the horde as the group moved down the street. I leaned forward, closed one eye and squinted with the other so that I could see through the small gap between the thick curtains. “What in the hell?”
“What’s wrong?” asked Harrison.
I didn’t answer immediately because I wasn’t sure that what’d I’d seen was even possible. Creatures were moving within the horde, near the ground, but I wasn’t certain what the shapes were until they pierced the dead veil with their snouts.
The horde wasn’t populated by just the rotting corpses of human victims, there were animals in their ranks. I might’ve entertained the possibility that this was a horde of Poppers, and that living animals had overcome their fear of the dead to wander among them since it was well known that Poppers had no interest in consuming anything but humans, as opposed to the Greys who would eat anything that breathed, but these dogs were clearly dead as well. One of the mangy creatures at the head of the horde was a tall breed, with sleek black hair that was matted with blood from a gash on its side large enough that I could see it even from this distance. The dog was sniffing at the air, and then halted and stared in the direction of our quaint little hideout.
“They’ve got dogs,” I said.
“Dogs?” asked Harrison and Ben in unison.
“They’ve got zombie dogs out there,” I said as I gazed in terror at what was occurring only a few houses away from us on this squat little street. “They’re coming. They can smell us.”
Ben opened the curtain a bit wider so that he could see, and my warning was confirmed. More shapes emerged from the horde, slithering between those shambling legs like shadows given form. A pack of undead dogs were traveling with the horde, and it was clear that they’d caught our scent. The creatures rushed ahead of their lumbering counterparts, but the horde was inspired to quicken their pace as well.
Ben cursed and looked at me with the first hint of panic I’d ever seen him display. He glanced at the other side of the house, and I knew he was debating whether or not we should try to flee. He was going through a mental checklist of options, just like I was, and I think we arrived at the same conclusion at nearly the same time.
“Upstairs,” I said before he had the chance. “We can get on the roof if we have to.”
“Agreed,” said Ben as he knelt to scoop up Stubs as well as the only bag of supplies that we’d brought in with us. I’d inspected each bag, and knew that the one Ben had brought in was lacking food and water. It also wasn’t his normal, well-designed survival gear, and I’m certain he was angry with himself for not bringing that bag in first. Instead, we were going to have to make do with a few axes, clothes, tape, rope, and nails. This was the bag that was meant to help fortify any abode we stayed in, and Harrison had grabbed it out of the car first because we expected to spend the next couple hours hard at work securing this home.
Harrison went up first, and I stopped to allow Ben up after. Ben did the same, and motioned for me to go before him. Just as I did, we heard the first thump of a dog slamming into our home. It didn’t bark, or even growl, but the sound of its nails scratching on the door was unmistakable. I got to the top of the stairs and followed Harrison into the master bedroom. Ben lumbered up behind, the long gym bag filled with supplies thudding on his back as he came with Stubs whimpering in his arms.
More of the dogs reached the house, and they launched themselves at the door, thudding uselessly against it. The scratching intensified, and then I heard the sound of teeth gnawing at wood. The creatures were biting anything they could get their maws on, and were ripping at it. Next came the crunch of metal as a hound began to rip a gutter away from the house, causing the noise to intensify and echo even in our room.
“Move the bed over,” said Ben and we did as he requested. The posts squealed on the wood floor as we pushed the bed into place in front of the door, adding a small amount of protection. Unfortunately, this bed seemed lighter than it should’ve been, and I wondered if it was a prop of some sort like the television downstairs.
“Think that’ll keep them out?” asked Harrison.
“It might,” said Ben. “I’ve seen my fair share of zombies piled up outside a locked door, but these ones might still be strong enough to break it down. Doesn’t really matter.”
“Why the hell not?” asked Harrison.
I knew the answer, and said it before Ben, “Because we can’t stay here.”
“Exactly,” said Ben. “Even if they’re not able to break the door down, they’re damn sure going to outlive us out there. We don’t have any food and water.”
“What if they’re Poppers? They’ve got to be. If they’ve got dogs with them, then they’re not Greys,” said Harrison. “The whole group of them will be dead within a week.”
“When was the last time you saw Greys with dogs?” asked Ben.
“And those dogs were zombies too,” I said. “I’ve never seen that before. That’s not good.”
“Are you sure about that?” asked Harrison.
We ran out of time to argue about it. The horde caught up with the dogs, and we heard them start to break the windows on the first floor. The horde wasn’t as quiet as the pups, and their incessant moans of hunger filled the house, adding another reason that staying here was a bad option. Not only did we have nothing to eat or drink, but staying here to wait and see if this horde was filled with Poppers meant that we’d be subjected to their endless cries, which would keep us from getting any sleep.
Ben looked over at the attached bathroom and then at the window.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“We could take the bathroom door off and use it to make a bridge across the roofs,” said Ben. “The houses here are pretty close together.”
“You don’t think they’ll see us doing that?” asked Harrison.
Ben had set Stubs on the ground, and the puppy heard something that grabbed his attention. His head cocked to the side and he stared under the bed that we’d pushed against the door. He started to growl and Harrison hushed him. Then I heard something sniffing as the door to the bedroom rattled. Stubs barked in response, agitated by the undead dog that was sniffing us out.
Harrison scooped Stubs up and the dog continued to bark as he squirmed.
The horde thundered up the stairs, causing the entire house to vibrate with their ascent. The crowd was pushing past one another, desperate for a meal, and I could hear them screaming as they came. They were trampling one another, and the sound of their nails scratching at the walls grated at my nerves. When they hit the door, they crushed the dog that had sniffed us out, eliciting the first yelp from the creature that we’d heard since it arrived. The door buffeted, causing the bed posts to squeak on the floor.
Ben got down and pressed his back against the side of the bed while bracing himself with his feet planted on the opposite wall. Harrison and I helped keep the bed in place, but Ben wasn’t having trouble doing it alone and said, “Get the door down. I’ve got this.”
Harrison set Stubs on top of the bed and then opened the bag that Ben had brought in. Stubs stood defiantly in the center of the bed and offered an occasional bark at the horde that was trying to get in.
Harrison handed me a screwdriver and I got to work on the door, swiftly getting the long, brass-colored screws out of the hinges. I tucked the tip of my shoe under the door to help steady it as I got midway through the job. Harrison helped hold the door as I got the last couple screws out and then we carried it over to the window that looked out at the neighbor’s house.
Harrison was closest to the window and he grimaced back at me. “There’s no ledge or nothing out here on our si
de.”
“Can we lay the door down on the windowsill?” I asked.
“I doubt it’s going to fit,” said Harrison.
“There should be axes in the bag,” said Ben. “Use them to cut the door to fit.”
I opened the window and started to pry off the screen as Harrison went back to the bag to get an axe. Ben was still on the floor, acting as a brace to keep the bed wedged against the door. Harrison came back with the axe and we used its handle to measure the width of the window sill. The sill was only a few inches smaller than the width of the door. Harrison set about hacking out one of the corners of the bathroom’s door. It didn’t take long, although the noise had incited the horde, causing them to smash into the bedroom door even harder than before.
Harrison and I hefted the makeshift bridge and slid it diagonally through the window. We did our best to hold onto it, but by the time it was halfway out we knew there was a problem with our plan. Holding onto the door had become too precarious as it teetered out, and Harrison had only cut out the corner, meaning we wouldn’t be able to flatten it out until it was nearly pushed all the way through.
I tugged the door back a few inches so that the majority was on our side, and then said, “Harry, cut the door some more. Cut it about another foot up.”
He must’ve realized the same thing I had because he didn’t argue with me. He started whacking at the door again and had nearly cut away a large enough portion when we heard a disquieting crack. I saw the split emerge in the wood, spreading out from the wedge he’d taken up through the middle, threatening to split the door.
“Oh fuck,” said Harrison. He proceeded to curse over and over.
“What?” asked Ben. “What happened?”
“The door’s about to split in two,” said Harrison before cursing some more.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We can still make it.”
“There’s rope in the bag,” said Ben, but he winced in the middle of the sentence as the bed lurched suddenly forward, forcing him to press harder against the wall. He was still holding strong, but the strain was taking a toll on him. “Use it to tie the door together.”
Harrison hurried to retrieve the nylon rope and then brought it back to loop around the door. He tied several knots and then glanced at me with a weary sigh. “I hope this works.”
We pushed the door out diagonally and were then able to flatten it thanks to the larger cut that Harrison had made on the side. This allowed better leverage as we both got on our knees to pull our side of the door down as we continued to push it out, like a plank of a pirate ship. “I’m losing my grip,” I said through clenched teeth as the door was left with barely a half-foot from being entirely pushed out of the house.
Harrison had hold of the rope’s slack as he peeked over the edge and said, “I think it made it. I think we’re good.”
We tried to cautiously let the door fall, but the edge slipped out of my grasp and the other end fell fast to the neighbor’s roof, which was about two feet lower than the bottom of our windowsill.
“We did it,” said Harrison in disbelief. Then he laughed as he said again, “We did it!”
“We’re not out yet,” said Ben. “Harry, get Stubs and take him with you. You’re going first.”
Harrison looked puzzled, and then tremulous as he glanced out the window and back at Ben. He bit his lip and grumbled before saying, “Ben, I know you love that dog, but…”
“He’s going with,” said Ben, uncompromising.
Stubs was still barking at the door, and I understood Harrison’s concern. The last thing we needed to bring with us was a walking alarm that would alert the horde to our location.
“He’s going to give us away,” said Harrison. “I know you like that fucking dog, but be realistic, Ben. We can’t…”
“This isn’t up for debate,” said Ben.
“Like hell it’s not,” said Harrison. “If we leave the dog in here, then he’ll keep barking, and the horde will keep trying to get at him. It’ll give us some time to get the fuck out of here.”
“No chance,” said Ben. “If he stays, I stay. End of story.”
I picked Stubs up off the bed and tried to calm him. He was incensed by the horde outside the door, and continued to growl. I hushed him as I headed for the window.
“What are you doing?” asked Harrison.
“I’m going first,” I said. “And I’m taking Stubs. Hold the door down for me.”
Harry didn’t argue. He cursed some more, but he was always doing that. He gripped the bottom of the door that was laying on our sill and said, “Be careful, Red.”
We were only one story high, but the fall would’ve been deadly. Our attempt to build a bridge had attracted some of the horde to the rocky space between these two houses, and they shuffled about below, watching as I dared to crawl out onto the door. The sight of a new victim sent them into a fury, and they caterwauled below as I inched my way outside. I was hunched halfway out the window, my left leg curled up as my right stretched down back to the bedroom floor. The creaking door threatened to split in two and I watched the crack as it stretched a bit longer.
“This isn’t gonna work,” said Harrison from below me. He could hear the whine of the splitting door.
I held Stubs in my right arm, my hand cupping his underside as his legs draped. My left hand was gripping the bottom of the window that we’d opened as I dared to put my full weight onto the unsure bridge.
The crack immediately spread the second I relied on the door to support my full weight. It was too late to go back now, and I forced myself to take a step out across the splintering wood. The rope kept the bridge together, but my weight was causing the other side to slide down the neighbor’s roof until the edge of the door fell into the feeble gutter that was weighted with two decades worth of pine needles and leaves. The gutter groaned and pulled away, causing the door to shift and fall. I bounded the last few feet and slammed on my side atop the neighbor’s roof, with Stubs held out safely above me. The slick roof was angled, and I began to slide off, just as the gutter pulled away from the wall. My foot pressed against the door as it fell too, and I pushed myself back up just as the makeshift bridge fell away.
Harrison cried out a curse as he tried to hold the door steady, but it fell from his grasp and bashed into the group below, causing them to bellow even louder.
I’d made it safely across, but Harrison and Ben were still stuck on the other side.
12 – Don’t Bet on Bravery
Annie Conrad
I could hear Ben asking, “Is she okay?”
“She’s okay,” said Harrison as he looked at me from the window of the house I’d escaped. “She made it.”
But what now?
I rolled over so that I could sit up, and placed Stubs on my lap. I stared in at Harrison, who looked helpless and afraid, and I tried to think of how best to handle the situation. No good solution offered itself.
“We’re fucked,” said Harrison as he looked down at the ground below.
“I can try to break into this house to see if I can find anything useful,” I said. “Maybe we can build another bridge.”
The screams of the horde got louder and I could see from my vantage as they pierced the door that stood between them and my friends. When incensed by the promise of food, zombies will batter themselves into bloody stumps to break down a door. Whereas a living person might require an axe or other weapon to break into a room, the horde were happy to do the work with their shattered fists. A bloody hand forced its way through the hole, and then an arm came quickly after, as if I were witnessing the birth of a demon pushing its way out of the walls.
Harrison got the axe and leapt onto the bed to start hacking at the intruder. The zombie didn’t retract its arm, even after Harrison’s first chop left it dangling half severed. Blood splattered the old man’s face as he took another swing, lopping off an arm that fell to the bed followed by a fount of black, syrupy fluid.
It wouldn’t
be long before the horde got to them, and I knew I had to act fast if I was going to help save them. “Throw me the keys,” I screamed, but neither of them could hear me over the roar of the creatures at their door. I yelled out again, and this time got their attention.
“What?” asked Harrison as he came to the window.
“Throw me the keys to the Jeep.”
“Why?” asked the befuddled old man.
“Just throw me the damn keys.”
He turned to Ben and said, “She wants the keys to the Jeep.” Then he looked back at me and said, “Ben wants to know what you’re gonna do.”
We had to scream at each other over the cries of the zombies below. “I can break into this house, and then sneak back over to the Jeep. If I start it up, I can draw some of them out of your house. Then maybe you and Ben can fight your way out.”
Harrison relayed my plan to Ben, and then looked back out at me as he shook his head. “Ben says that’s nuts, and I agree. We can find some other way out.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “Either give me the keys or I’m going to try and hotwire it. If I have to do that, then I’m dead for sure. Give me the fucking keys.”
Again, he relayed my message to Ben, and then went over to collect the keys. He returned to the window and was about to toss the keys over when he paused and said, “You’d best be careful, Red.”
“Always am,” I said just before he tossed the keys across the short gap between the houses. I caught them and shoved them into my pocket before settling on what to do next. I watched as Harrison returned to his gory task of hacking at the intruders coming in through their broken door, and I knew I had little time to waste.
I scampered over the zenith of the home, using my left hand to balance myself as I ascended the crest and searched for a window that I could break into. Unfortunately, this house was a copy of the one I’d just fled, and there were no windows that were easily accessible from the roof.
However, the next house over had been damaged by a fallen tree, and I could see into a portion of the attic. If I could make it across, then I could slip in through the gap and make my way inside. My other option was to simply jump down to the ground below. I was only a single story high, and could certainly handle the leap, but the zombies that had massed outside of the house where Ben and Harrison were trapped had noticed my escape. Several of them had watched me cross the gap, and they were trying to find a way to get up to me. Zombies aren’t smart enough to see someone on a roof and deduce that they needed to go inside to climb stairs, but they will wander the exterior of a house blindly. If I made noise by dropping down, there was a good chance I’d be swarmed in seconds.