on the ground, Randy was on wobbly legs and Katie stumbled when she hit the ground just a little too fast.
“I survived!” he said, leaning over to pick her up and planting a quick kiss on her forehead.
“Cut it out! Oow! Fuck!” Katie said in a low voice.
“What?”
“Goddamned ankle! I think I twisted my goddamned ankle!”
“Can you walk?”
“Given my other choice? Hell yes. Zombie coming.”
Randy turned and pulled out his pistol in a smooth motion, but waited for the slow zombie to get close before pulling the trigger once. The middle aged man in a business suit fell over backwards without another sound. From up above their ropes fell down around them, cut by the mob that had made it onto the roof.
Laughing Randy flipped the zombies on the roof off, “See ya fuckers! And you just cut the ropes you could've used to climb down faster to get us! Dumb-asses!”
Katie had stood up and picked up her rifle, “Uh Randy. Randy!” she screamed pointing upwards. The zombies were jumping.
Randy pushed her against the wall to get them out of the way of the falling bodies. At first Katie thought the zombies had just fallen off of the roof, perhaps pushed over by zealous companions. After the fifth one hit the ground she realized they were aiming for the two humans on the ground. “We gotta fucking move!”
“Our gear!” Randy shouted as she pulled him along.
“You got your communications, I got my rifle, leave the rest of it, we gotta get out of here!”
Another body, this one of a ten or eleven year old slammed into the ground in front of them, the body hit legs first and the girl's dress slammed into the ground as her broken legs crumpled under her. Katie caught a brief glimpse of both the girl's femur bones snapping through her leg muscles before the dress settled. Worse yet most of the zombies who hit the ground were not dead, they continued to squirm and reach for the two humans as they edged their way along the side of the building.
“Get ready, head for that alley!” Randy said, once they had moved across from a 'T' intersection with another back street. After the next zombie hit, he pulled them forward and into the safety between two other buildings, the zombies could not jump far enough to hit them after they stumbled a little way into this new area.
“Can you run?” Randy asked her looking at a zombie coming into the alley behind them.
Katie stumbled forward into a sloppy jog. “Fuck no! Goddamn it. This is the best I can do.”
“Are you bleeding?”
“I am too afraid to look.”
“Stop.” Randy called, stopping and falling behind her, “No Katie, really stop.”
She pulled to a stop a few yards ahead of him and turned, “What?”
“We don't know how they can see our teams, what if they can smell blood, like a dog?”
“Not physically possible, their noses don't have the…”
Randy cut her off impatiently, “And two weeks ago I would have told you the dead can't come back to life either. So check your ankle okay, if it is bleeding we will bind it up and move out. Quickly.”
Katie stopped and worked the top of her boot down, her progress was impeded by the camo suit, but eventually she could see the part of her ankle that was bothering her. It was swelling and a bruise was forming, but the skin was not broken. Behind Randy the slow zombie was closing in, but it was acting strangely, eventually it seemed to focus on Katie, or more specifically, her half exposed leg. Lacing her boot up and pulling her pants and the camo suit covering back down confused the thing even more. Behind the zombie a virtual mob of undead swarmed into the alley, led by a noticeable faster zombie dressed in military fatigues.
“Christ is that….” Katie began.
“Let's go!” said Randy sweeping her up to stay ahead of the mob. The zombies who had turned the corner were runners, they too, seemed confused as if Randy and Katie were not really there.
Getting to the street corner the two soldiers looked both directions then Randy led Katie diagonally across the four lane street into another alley. The two jogged down the alley and turned right at the end, getting onto an access way behind the tall buildings running the length of the block. Randy led them to another 'T' intersection and pulled them out to the next street. The next ten minutes were an agony for Katie as she moved along nursing her swollen ankle and cursing to herself.
Finally Randy stopped at a loading dock behind one of the many tall buildings and looked at a heavy steel door, which was propped open by a leg. The two had shaken off the zombies that were following them for the moment and he was looking for a new place for them to hole up, either for a few hours or for the night. Approaching the door he pulled out his pistol, ever so slowly he reached for the door and pulled it open. The leg was not attached to a body and the lights of the loading dock beyond were providing a dim glow to see by.
“C'mon. In here.”
“'bout time. I am about dead myself. These suits are not meant for running around in on a hot day in July.”
Randy helped her step over the leg and into the room beyond. Katie slung her rifle over her shoulder and pulled out her own pistol. Letting go of the door Katie watched it close on the leg again. “Should we move that and lock it?”
“I was thinking about that.” said Randy shaking his head. “They got military guys with them, you know converted over. What if they can think, like we were told they might be able to?”
“Yeah, maybe they can.” said Katie remembering the rifle shots at her and Randy on the rooftop.
“Well if they can then they would think we would lock the door, leaving it open behind us would not be too smart. So we wouldn't be in this building, because they can get in easy behind us.”
“Clever, but it also leaves the door open behind us.”
“I didn't say we would leave all the doors open behind us. This is a shipping department, probably there is a building maintenance department down here too. We go there and get keys, every other door we go through stays locked behind us.”
“All the way to the top?”
Randy shook his head again, “No way girl, we don't have any rope to play that tune again and I am not getting trapped up there.”
“So then where do we go Romeo?”
“Down. A basement if they have it, this building is old, maybe they have a leaky coal room we can hide in for a few hours.”
“You take me to the nicest places! Do you have radio contact?”
“Not from here. No way, I will have to go up a bit, but I will do that later. Right now I will conserve the batteries and find us a place to stay.”
As luck would have it they didn't need to find the maintenance area to find a set of keys, the keys found them. When Randy was moving out of the shipping area through a set of swinging double doors a zombie jumped on him and wrestled him to the ground. Behind the older man in the one piece building maintenance uniform were six of his friends. Randy's gun was knocked out of his hand and he hit the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Katie stepped forward and shot her pistol into the other group of zombies, knocking one down with a head shot, but burning through the rest of her clip without further effect. She pistol whipped the man on top of Randy with three sharp blows, the last of which cracked something at the base of his head and sent it into convulsions. Randy shoved the man off of him and recovered his weapon while Katie reloaded.
The remaining zombies were of the regular slow moving variety and the two of them methodically put bullets in each of their heads in short order. Turning back to the convulsing zombie on the ground Katie aimed her pistol only to be stopped by a touch on her arm by Randy.
He shook his head and rolled the zombie over. The man was still not in control of his body, but slowly his shaking started to subside. The name on his uniform said 'Kaleb', and his eyes tracked Katie and Randy's movements.
“What?” Katie asked, “You doing some field work here Randy? I don't think we could learn anything the eggheads back at base haven't already found out.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I think you broke its neck. That is why it was twitching.”
“What else are you hoping to learn?”
