At the far end of the room, a metal staircase led to the roof. Noah sprinted to it and began to climb. Halfway up the stairs, he heard the screech of the file cabinet scraping against tile as the door was forced open. Two dead spilled onto the floor and were immediately trampled by the hungry mob that followed. Noah didn't look back. He ran to the top of the staircase and threw open a scuttle hatch.
The white gravel covering the expansive roof made it look like a desert dotted with skylight domes and secondary HVAC units. The only thing Noah could find to weigh down the hatch was a five-gallon bucket of roof sealant and a wooden chair. Better than nothing, he thought, setting the objects on the hatch.
He ran to the nearest roof-edge and peered over the side. It was at least a twenty-foot drop to the ground. There wasn’t much time, but a broken leg would only guarantee he’d be torn to pieces. That’ll be plan B, he thought. Noah jogged the perimeter of the store looking for another way down. As he made his way around the roof, he could see the undead wandering for miles in every direction.
He skidded to a halt, kicking up loose gravel. “No.” A dreary parade of corpses stretched down the road running in the direction of his house. “No!”
The roof hatch shuddered, startling him. Noah kept moving. His priority to survive was irrationally replaced by the need to get home. The dead moved slowly. Maybe, if he were fast enough, he could make it back in time to protect Abby.
At the front of the store, Noah discovered a pitched roof. The bottle redemption center had been tacked onto the main building a few years after the original store was constructed. It still left a ten-foot drop to the ground, but that was a height Noah could walk away from, assuming he didn’t thoroughly botch the landing.
The chair-weight fell off the hatch as the bucket of sealant hopped up and down. It wouldn't be long before they spilled onto the roof like ants fleeing a flooded colony. Noah looked over the parking lot, which was now a minefield of undead. He was trying to devise a route to the gas station when suddenly the sealant bucket was thrown clear and the dead began climbing through the hatch.
Noah held his breath, and with his pack in one hand and his rifle in the other, he jumped down to the redemption center. He slid down the blue tin roof and dropped onto the sidewalk below.
His feet stung when they smacked hard against the cement, but there didn't seem to be any real damage. The corpses in the parking lot began walking toward him. He raised his rifle and strategically picked off a few. Any dead that hadn’t noticed him before were certainly alerted to his presence now.
Noah bolted toward the gas station, weaving between pairs of reaching arms like a running back on the gridiron. Adrenaline seemed to slow time, yet speed up Noah’s reactions. In what felt like an instant, he was at the gas station looking for a functioning automobile.
Car after car had either no keys or was perilously low on gas, and with each failed attempt the dead drew closer and closer. The last vehicle was an enormous gas tanker truck. Noah reached up and opened the door. A writhing corpse fell out of the cab and onto the ground. Noah stumbled backwards, but he was steadied by a teenaged boy in a green, pinstriped baseball uniform. The boy grabbed him by the shoulders and mouthed his upper back, trying to find a piece of anatomy protrusive enough to lock his jaws onto. As Noah tried to pull away, the former truck driver wrapped his arms around Noah’s leg.
With the number of dead within arm’s reach, he knew that if he were taken down now, he’d never get back up alive.
He grabbed the boy by the wrists and doubled over, judo-flipping him onto the truck driver. The boy flattened the driver, causing his arms to splay out.
Noah stepped on the boy’s chest, caving his ribcage, and leapt onto the truck’s running board. He swung his body into the cab, and no sooner had he closed the door than myriad fists began pounding to get in.
Noah sighed, first in relief and then again in defeat once he saw that the key was not in the ignition. He looked out the cab’s windows for the driver, who most likely had the key, but there were so many corpses clustered outside that he couldn’t find him anymore. Noah’s chin fell against his chest. Deflated, he stared vacantly at the rubber floor mat. Then a smile slowly spread across his face. He reached down and grabbed an object glinting faintly in the shadows. A keychain.
“Yes!”
His hand trembled as he inserted the key into the ignition and turned, praying that it would be simply too ironic for a gas truck to be out of gas while sitting in front of a gas station.
Fortune finally gave back. The engine roared to life.
Noah breathed a sigh of relief. He shifted the clutch and put the truck into gear. It jerked forward, startling him. He pulled out of the station and onto the furthest lane of the main highway,
