yet was the now thirty foot gap between us and the ladder.
Erin was still waiting for an answer. Paul helped me out and pointed at the way we had come up.
“But there are zombies all over that thing,” she answered. “How will we get them off of there?” she asked, looking between me and Paul.
“That’s something we might have been able to do with the guns. It’s the gap that shuts that avenue down,” I told her.
“So now what?” April asked. “You bring him!” she spat, pointing to Justin, “but no way out!” “April!” Joann exclaimed. “They came to help.” She swore with a contemptuous wave of her finger .
“They’ve done nothing for us!” she screamed, “except bring us more troubles.”
“Listen April!” I yelled, “I think you were in a world of crap long before we got here. All I did was risk my family and friends’ lives so that we could help your ungrateful ass! I’ll tell you what, ” I continued, “ when I figure a way out of this, I’ll make sure to leave you here.” “Mike, she didn’t mean it,” the new guy said, trying to placate me.
“Yes I did,” she answered with fire in her eyes.
“Well, this is interesting,” the new guy interjected. “My name is Mad Jack,” he said as he extended his hand. I gripped it way tighter than I meant to, it hurt like hell.
“Nice to meet you,” I growled.
“Likewise,” MJ said, pulling his throbbing hand away.
“Hi Mike,” Joann said next, trying her best to not get sucked into the argument. Marta barely managed a weak wave. The kid… Freddy? No, Eddy, was hidden behind Joann’s legs. I didn’t see his mother or siblings anywhere. There was no reason to ask where they were, if they weren’t on this roof they were dead. Didn’t much matter how.
BT came back with a rag wrapped around each hand. I couldn’t help but ask what I did, it’s ingrained in my genes. “You get some Bacitracin on those?” I asked pointing to his hands.
Without missing a beat BT responded. “Yeah, they got a first aid station on the other side, fixed me up just right.” I almost, I said ALMOST, looked over his shoulder to see if he was telling the truth. He said it so dead pan I figured he just might be.
“Would you like a cigarette Mike?” Mrs. Deneaux asked me genially.
I might have taken it except for the murderous expression on Joann’s face. “Bitch,” she cursed before walking away.
I shook my head, damn thing was probably laced with poison. Deneaux shrugged her shoulders and lit the one that she had offered me, but she was smiling. I don’t know what got her rocks off but whatever it was, I could bet it was mean spirited. It was looking more and more like she hadn’t offered me that cigarette out of any sense of camaraderie, but rather to make a point of not giving one to Joann.
“Have you always been this way?” I asked her incredulously.
She responded by taking an extra-long drag on her smoke.
Marta had walked away to take care of her children she seemed to be warring internally with ‘glad to see us’ and ‘why are you here’. April walked off with Marta .
“She’s just under a lot of stress forget about her,” Alex said. “It really is good to see you my friend.” He clasped my hand. Did no one witness the ladder event? I pulled back sharply.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized.
I told him it was alright, but it was close to an hour before the crippling pain dulled. Most of that time I hid it in my coat pocket lest it be further abused.
“How did you find us?” Paul asked.
“Eliza led the way,” Justin said, coming up to us.
“She’s here,” I told them.
“Like
I nodded.
“I thought we were screwed, now I know we are,” Paul said, his right hand going up to massage the dull ache in his temples that my news had obviously caused him. “You got anything Mike, any sort of idea?” he asked as he began to pace.
I shook my head.
“Why in the hell did you come up here then?” he asked angrily. Not that he was being ungrateful, only that we had clearly endangered ourselves in the process.
Perla, Cindy and Brian had stayed in a tight circle amongst themselves. There had been introductions, but like cliques in high school people began to peel off into their own familiar groups. Joann and Eddy stayed close to Marta and her two kids. Mad Jack was pretty much a clique unto himself, but April would not stray more than a few inches from his side no matter how obviously he tried to lose her. Tracy sat down on the roof, her back against the retaining wall. The past few events had drained her damn near dry. Travis sat with her. Gary was off looking at the door that led down into the store. I so wished that he would stop jiggling the handle.
Paul, BT, Alex, Justin and I stayed together. We were the planning committee, so far without a plan. Mrs. Deneaux merely watched every group, a few moments spent studying each one.
“Anything yet?” Gary asked, thankfully coming away from his door handle turning expedition.
“Still locked?” I asked him.
“Yup,” he said straight faced. “And it’s a good thing too.”
“You think?” I asked him.
*
Gary hadn’t been away from the door for more than a few minutes when it looked like it was beginning to bulge out. I thought I was seeing things at first, but it was tough not to hear the groan as the metal of the door began to stretch and pop.
“Incoming!” Brian shouted.
What were individual groups moments previously now became one discombobulated mass.
“Joann, you and Eddy might want to get behind the first line,” I told her, motioning back. She looked terrified but she did it.
For all the pressure the door was under, it was kind of anti-climactic as it swung open gently. But what flooded through more than made up for the lackluster revealing. At first we could keep up with the zombies coming through the choke point. Zombies staggered in by ones and twos, then threes and fours, and like always they began to overrun our suppressive fire. So many zombies and so few bullets. It took me back for a moment to my time in the service when we were in class studying tactics .
When Iran and Iraq had been were having their Holy War (I always wondered if God truly approved of those that died in his name, whether you called him God, Allah, or Buddha, I doubt it. I can’t imagine an omnipotent being creating his children in his image so that they could murder, rape and pillage each other in his name. To me it sounds like a bunch of spoiled brats that were in need of some heavy slapping upside the head. Once upon a time he released the flood waters to purge man, the zombies were the modern version of a scouring. Lord knows we needed it, no pun intended.) Back to my original tangent; if I go off on too many branches, I’ll never find my path home. Iran was losing the war badly, so they did what any civilized country would do, they rounded up one million children, armed them only with the knowledge that Allah awaited them and then sent them in huge waves against the Iraqi machine gun nests.
So a million unarmed children running at full speed across the desert did what the entire Iranian army could not. They overtook the Iraqi positions. Oh, it wasn’t that the Iraqis couldn’t fire upon and kill children, it’s just that they couldn’t fire enough rounds to stop them, and that was what was happening to us. Although I could say I was eternally grateful I was shooting flesh eating zombies rather than innocent children who believed death by machine gun fire was a viable alternative to living in Iran .
We were yielding inches of precious footing on that roof and the zombies were taking feet.
“Hold tight!” I yelled, watching April. She looked like she was going to bolt followed by Joann. Where did the hell they think they were going to go?
Brass flew. I was burned more than a few times as the hot ejecta passed me by. We were so tightly grouped
