belonged to the little Z I just wasted. There was a plastic race car bed, a little pressboard desk and dresser, a plywood toy chest and a fishbowl that had some brackish water, but no fish. Absolutely nothing that would hold back the advancing hordes.
As we caught our breath, we could hear crashing sounds as the zombies fought their way past the table and chairs. In hindsight, I probably should have tossed down the fridge as well.
“Find an exit,” I told Tommy, realizing for the first time this room had no windows. “Bust up that desk,” I told Duncan. “We need splinters, anything with an edge.” Duncan pulled his close quarters weapon, a modified war hammer and set to work with gusto.
I went to the door and listened, hoping against hope that the zombies might lose us and leave or at least leave few enough behind to be dealt with easily. I could hear shuffling in the hallway and the attention was focused on the twit banging away on the end of the hall. I then heard something that chilled me cold. A small scraping sound, then a click. I realized instantly what had happened.
The damn zombie had turned the doorknob and opened the door!
I relayed the information to the other two and they just looked at me for a long moment. This changed a lot and I hoped like hell it was an isolated incident, otherwise it meant a whole new dimension to zombie fighting. If they could turn a doorknob, they could problem solve, which meant one very frightening thing.
They were starting to learn.
“God help us,” I whispered.
“No shit,” Duncan replied as he brought me some splintered desk legs. We stuck the pointed ends into the space between the door and the door jamb, putting four of them to good use. The hinged side we left alone, because it wouldn’t have helped.
I looked over at Tommy, who was busily ripping a wall apart. He cursed as he struck brick, then cast his eyes on the floor. He looked at me and I shook my head.
“We’re right over the store area, which would drop us right into the middle of it,” I said, pushing hard on a makeshift wedge.
“Dammit.” Tommy looked around, got his bearings, then stood on the small chair to punch a hole in the ceiling. “If it’s bricked up here, I have no plan.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said. “Just find us room to get through, a vent, crawlspace, attic, whatever.”
“Yeah, I just hate getting drywall in my eyes.”
“Poor baby,” I retorted.
“Listen you two-” Duncan started, but his eyes drifted to the door and his voice died away. I looked down and saw what he did.
The doorknob was starting to turn. Slowly, slowly, but it was turning. I grabbed the knob to stop it and the door shook as the dead on the other side groaned loudly and threw themselves against it. The wedges held, but Duncan had to pound them in with the war hammer because they had been loosened.
Tommy tore at the ceiling with both hands as the pounding increased. I leaned against the door to hold back the horde and felt the staccato drumbeat as a dozen dead hands flailed in the opening. Duncan waited with his hammer to pound back any pegs that worked loose.
Suddenly, the door heaved inward and all of the pegs clattered to the floor. I pushed as hard as I could against the door, avoiding the hands and arms that struggled to get around and grab hold of anything they could reach.
“Shit!” I yelled. “Tommy! We need an exit, NOW!”
“Just a minute,” Tommy sing-songed back.
“Haven’t got a minute!” I shouted, heaving against the door. Duncan was pushing hard as well.
“Your dilemma is important to us. Please hold and our next available representative will be with you shortly.”
“The one good thing that came out of the Upheaval and you ruin it.” At least the end of civilization had taken telemarketers with it.
I heard crashing sounds behind me as a zombie pushed its nasty head into the opening and tried to squeeze into the room. The door pressed against the sides of its skull, causing the graying skin to crack down the center and peel back away from its eyes and cheeks. Those milky eyes rotated a bit before they settled on me. Another hand came through the doorway and grabbed at my arm.
“Not a chance, pal.” I cursed, leaned against the door with my shoulder, and drew my SIG. I put the barrel in the Z’s eye and blew it to hell. The body slumped to the floor, but just as I pulled the trigger I realized I had managed to block the door from closing. This was turning out to not be a good day.
“We’re good!” Tommy yelled above the din.
I looked over my shoulder and saw a pair of hands sticking out from the hole in the ceiling he had made.
I glanced down at Duncan. “You first.”
“You can’t hold this door by yourself,” he said and proving his point, a sudden heave by the zombies nearly opened the door by a foot, but we managed to thrust it back.
“Grab that wedge and shove it under the door,” I said, pointing to the stick by his foot. Duncan complied and saw what I wanted him to do. He grabbed the other three and pounded them under the door as well. It wasn’t much, but it would have to buy us a few precious seconds.
“ Come on!” shouted Tommy from above, the hands shaking furiously.
“Go!” I said to Duncan.
Duncan impressed the hell out of me by stepping away from the door, bringing up his rifle and firing five times through the opening. Thumps against the door proved his accuracy.
“Thank me later,” he said as he stood on the small chair, grasping Tommy’s hands. In an instant he was up through the opening, then two more hands appeared. I let go of the door just as the zombies fell against it again, cracking it open and surging into the room, falling down over their dead companions. I leaped for the hands, knowing if I missed I was dead.
Thankfully, strong hands grasped me and I was pulled up through the ceiling with both men lifting me, zombie hands literally sliding off my boots as I passed from their clutches.
I stepped down onto support beams, realizing that this was an unfinished part of the attic and we could still fall through the ceiling if we weren’t careful.
I looked over at the two men. “Thanks,” I said.
“Anytime.” Tommy said. “But we aren’t safe yet.”
“Right. Let’s look around and see if we can’t find a way out of here.” I moved carefully into the attic, stepping around a brick chimney and heading over to what looked like a window.
Below us, the dead groaned at the hole that ate their dinner, unable to comprehend what had happened. They could likely still smell us and hear us, but they had no way to pursue. Thank God.
The window was nailed shut and painted black, but a tap with my knife handle cracked it quickly enough and I looked out the hole at the side of the building next to this one. I peered down, seeing there was no way we were going to make it down three floors without injury, so jumping was out. The building next to us was four stories, so we couldn’t escape that way, either.
The cracked window let in a decent amount of light, enough to see the other window on the far end of the attic. Tommy worked his way over there and popped a hole in the glass of that window. Looking around, he smiled back at us.
“Good news,” he said.
“What’s that?” I replied.
“Got a fire escape here.”
“Any bad news?”
Tommy looked out again. “Quite a few Z’s out there, but they look to be moving towards the other side of the building.”
“All right. Well, let’s hope they stay true to form for a bit and don’t look up. Let’s get the glass out as quietly as possible, then we’ll make our way up to the roof. These buildings are close together, so we should be able to make it back near the RV, or someplace where Nate can get us,” I said, pulling out my pickaxe to pry out the glass in the window.
“Think Nate’s okay?” Duncan asked, wincing as a piece of glass cracked under my work.
