Piece of piss, right?
“I’m coming to you,” was all I said. I caught their expressions which clearly said, “You’re going to do what?”
I don’t know why, but whenever I do something that people clearly think is either insane, or impossible, those reactions give me a little kick. When Nate said I had a hero complex a while back, he wasn’t totally wrong. However, I don’t do it for the praise and recognition like dads who change their own baby’s nappies, or clean the house once every three months, then expect to be lauded as heroic and noble by their wife for doing something they should be doing anyway. However, I do have a borderline insane desire to help, and that was given to me by Dean and Maria. They do such thankless jobs on a daily basis, but they did those jobs because they wanted to make a difference, to help others. Mine’s the same.
I’m only human though, full of flaws and insecurities, and now and again it does give me a little buzz when I get the chance to colour outside the lines a little. Everyone likes to be liked, no matter how many times they say they don’t care what people think of them. If I don’t know someone, or I don’t like them, then I don’t care what they think. Unless they think I’m awesome, in which case they are obviously correct.
Deep down though, everyone gets a little kick out of someone saying, “Dude, that was awesome!” before demanding the highest of all fives.
And this was going to be spectacular and absolutely fucking stupid, but realistically, it was the only way I was getting my friends out of this alive.
Packing the radio into the backpack and zipping it tight, I made sure the rifle was tightly slung across my back in a diagonal from shoulder to hip, slipped the backpack on over it so it didn’t flap about, then altered the straps of the backpack as tight as I could without affecting my mobility. The moon provided enough light as the sky was pretty clear, so I took off the NVG’s and packed them away too. Shit if I lost those, I’d have to leave Nate behind as he’d straight up throttle me, but I’d never be able to judge the run and jump wearing those things anyway.
Once they were safely stowed, I stood up, sucked in a breath, told myself what a fucking moron I was, and started a hurtling run down the far side of the roof, picking up a pant-shitting amount of momentum.
I had once chance to get this right. One stumble or fall, or if I missed my grip on the landing, and I was going ass or teeth first into the concrete yard. If the fall didn’t kill or cripple me, the nearby undead would get to me before I’d have any chance to get my shit together.
As I hurtled down, I was acutely aware – in the periphery of my vision – that the banging of my feet on the metal had drawn the horde’s attention. My focus, however, was entirely on not dying from this insane jump.
When you leap in parkour, there’s a brief period where time seems to slow. The moment you leave the safety of your launch and you’re in the air, your whole world shrinks to the point of your landing and control of your body. You’re beyond the event horizon, the point of no return, and there’s a weird hybrid of heart-stopping fear and absolute freedom that is hard to articulate.
Imagine adding, “there are zombies waiting to eat you down there if you do fall,” to that mix. This was a literal all-or-nothing moment.
The balls of my feet cushioned against the container’s metal side, and my hands locked to the lip with arms slightly bent, adrenaline burning through my veins as I hauled myself up. There’s no feeling like it. It’s even better when you hear your mates cheering for the insane thing you just did.
Once I was on the top of that container, navigating the containers and stacked pallets of assorted materials to the brick tower of my buddies was relatively simple. As I traversed the top of the outdoor aisle, concentrating on my route and balance, I had a wholly unnerving experience.
You ever see that card trick magicians do, when they have one card on the top, touching the edges of the deck? They move the top card along like it’s a magnet and the other cards rise and fall on their edges as the trickster moves it, like a wave going back and forth.
Well, I was the top card in the magician’s hand, and the zombies below were the rest of the deck. Where I moved, they swarmed and followed, almost forgetting that there were three other living people above them, clamouring beneath my location as I moved along. Eerie shit, Freya. Eerie shit.
“You,” said Nate as I dropped on to their brick tower beside him, “are a few bullets short of a magazine.” Then his big arms were round me, and he actually kissed
