Genesis (13 page)

It was a man in blue jeans.  He was wearing a Boise State U. baseball cap and matching blue and orange t-shirt.  No blood on him, other than a single spot on his hand where he must have been bitten.

He saw Ken and
Dorcas
and snarled.  Swerved to run at them.

Ken ran.  He knew
Dorcas
was right behind.

They ran in the only direction open to them: the thin bit of asphalt between the homeless shelter and the building beside it.  The slap/crash of ten thousand feet pounded into the area after them.

Ahead was a chain-link fence that enclosed the back of the shelter as well as some other structure that looked like a supply building or maybe a large disconnected garage.  Either way, it looked like it was closed up tight, and was certainly too tall to get on top of.

Beyond the chain-link fence – almost irrelevant information for Ken’s brain to process since there was no way they could climb over the twenty foot fence before they were overwhelmed by the horde behind them – there was just a blank wall of concrete.  A huge footing of the I-84, an unbroken length of concrete where the freeway lowered to within thirty feet of the ground.

Dorcas
started to slow.  Ken could tell she had seen the same things he had.  The fact that they were running into a dead end.

“Come
on
,” he barked, grabbing her arm and yanking it.

“Why?” she muttered, but ran on.

He felt like she was right.  But felt like he couldn’t just stop.  He owed it to his family to try.

All the way to the end.

Then he saw something.  Tossed the lug wrench away. 
Dorcas
veered as though to grab it.

“Leave it!” he shouted.  And grabbed what he had seen.

Dorcas
gasped as though realizing what he was going to do.  She grabbed it as well.

The zombies were only fifty feet behind them.

And now he realized that they were in front of him, too: filtering into the space on the other side of the fence, between the shelter property and the freeway footing.

“We can’t go over,” panted
Dorcas
.

“I know.”  He veered to the sturdy structure on their right.  “Change of plans.”

As he turned, he saw the zombies that had followed them into the funnel between the shelter and the other building, a concrete block of a place with a sign proclaiming, “Get fit for the rest of your life!  Free introductory YOGA classes!”

The things were thirty feet away.

He ran the last feet to the disconnected concrete building behind the homeless shelter.  Threw what he was holding against the side. 
Dorcas
helped him, adjusting the tall ladder that had been laying against the side of the shelter until it cleared the roof of the storage building.

Twenty feet.  The growling hit him hard, worse even than it had in the school.  It felt like he was being punched by someone who had a roll of nickels wrapped in his fist.

He shoved
Dorcas
up the ladder ahead of him.  She started moving, faster than he would have thought someone could climb one-handed.

He was up an instant later.

The zombies were ten feet away.

Dorcas
cleared the ladder.  On the roof.

Five feet.

Ken jumped up the last few rungs.  Onto the roof.

Two feet.

The zombies, led by the blue-jeaned BSU fan, reached for the ladder.

Ken grabbed the ladder and pulled it up after him.  He felt it shudder in his hands as some of the zombies’ fingers brushed it, but none managed to grasp it or pull it down.  He didn’t know if they could use it, but he didn’t want to find out.

He flipped the ladder up over the edge of the building.

It hit the roof with a clank.

Safe.

Then he felt
Dorcas
’ hand on his shoulder, tight and slick against his still-bare skin.  She squeezed convulsively.

Ken looked down.  His breath caught painfully in his throat.

The zombies didn’t
need
a ladder.

The zombie in blue jeans was gone.  Probably still there, but
gone
just the same.  The press of zombies had filled in the space between the homeless shelter and the ten-foot-by-twenty-foot structure Ken and
Dorcas
were crouched on top of.  There were so many of the things in the space that it was impossible to see where one left off and another began.  It was like the mass was a single amorphous organism, squeezing every possible cell it could into the area in search of food.

Over the booming growl of the zombies – or maybe
between
it, since Ken couldn’t imagine anything being heard
over
it – came the sound of tinkling glass from the front of the shelter.  A few gunshots.

Then just the zombies.  The throng that was so thick it was almost a jellied version of humanity.  Pressing.  Pressing.  Pressing into the space behind the homeless shelter.  Pressing up to the base of the building.

Pressing over and on top of one another.

It was like watching ants swarm up an anthill.  The zombie in blue jeans was probably at the bottom, supporting others who came after, who in turn supported still others.

“
Dorcas
…,” said Ken, staring transfixed at the boiling mass of bodies that was rising ever closer to the top of their momentary safe haven.

“Already on it,” she shouted.  She ran quickly around the perimeter of the roof, clutching her injured arm but betraying no sign of pain.

Adrenaline is a wonderful thing, Ken thought.  He suspected he would drop dead at any moment.  If he got far enough to enjoy that luxury.

“They’re everywhere,” said
Dorcas
.  “Not as close as here, but moving up.”

The zombies at the base of the storage building were ten feet away from reaching the roof.  Now nine feet.

Ken looked around.  The roof was unbroken.  No way to get inside and take cover.  No weapons.

He looked over the side.  The things were seven feet away.  Bubbling ever closer to their goal.

What the hell is happening? 
Why
?

No answers. 
Never
any answers.

Ken thought for a moment about trying to hit a few heads with the ladder; maybe that would start a chain reaction of crazy that would stop the threat.  But he discarded the idea as soon as it came.  There was no way that dropping a
less
stable zombie into that mix would even be noticed, any more than the ocean would notice someone pissing in it.

Five feet away.  The ones at the top reached for the roof before being buried under the next wave of zombies.  Their fingers missed the lip of the roof, but not by much.

Ken ran back to the ladder.  It was an extension ladder, opened up to a length of probably twenty feet, but it looked like it could be opened out another four or five feet.  He hoped it would be enough.

He pushed the ladder out.  Over the edge of the roof opposite the one they had climbed up on.

Fingers reached for it.  Came up empty.

He kept reeling the ladder out.  It touched the top of the chain-link fence surrounding the shelter property.  He kept pushing it, using the fence for stability as he shoved the ladder up and over.

It ended about five feet short.

Five feet before touching the lip of the freeway just above and to the side of them.  Ken pushed the leading edge of the ladder forward another inch, but any farther and he knew it would just fall off the building, teeter on the fence for a moment, then plummet into the horde below.

Just like they would fall if they tried to get out on the ladder.  It would tip over into the zombies as soon as they crossed the fulcrum point of the top of the chain-link fence.

“So much for emergency bridging out of here,” he said.

He looked at
Dorcas
.  Out of ideas and not knowing what to say.  Goodbye seemed trite, seemed ridiculous in fact.

The look in her eyes stole his thoughts.  Not just strong.  If he had to pick a word at that moment he would only have come up with
holy
.  This, he realized, was what he had always pictured avenging angels looking like right before they started kicking celestial ass.

Dorcas
stepped onto the first rung of the ladder, the only rung that still rested on the roof of their all-too temporary sanctuary.

“I’ll anchor it,” she said.

He shook his head.

“You’ve got family.  All I’ve got is an ex-husband who was probably banging some girl half his age when this all went down.”  She grimaced.  “I hope she bit his wiener off.”

Ken still didn’t move.

Dorcas
grabbed him with her good hand.

“Go!  Get your family.”

Behind them, he heard the fleshy slap of a dozen palms on the roof.  The growling all around them grew more focused, as though they knew that this was
it
.

The first zombies pulled themselves onto the roof.

Ken moved past
Dorcas
, stepping onto the ladder.  But he didn’t up it, didn’t run over the point where it crossed the chain-link fence, didn’t attempt to jump from the end of the ladder to the edge of the freeway five feet away.  He just moved a single rung past
Dorcas
, then spun around, one foot planted unsteadily on the rails on either side of the ladder.

Below him, the zombies reached for the ladder, reached for
him
.  They hissed and growled like boiling tar in a moat.

“What are you doing?”
Dorcas
shouted.  “Go!”

He ignored her.  Waited.  Watched.

The first zombies pulled themselves fully erect on the roof.  Looked around as though taking stock.  Spotted
Dorcas
.  Spotted Ken.

“Come on!” he screamed.  He grabbed her good arm and yanked her toward him.

“We’ll fall!”

He didn’t answer, just pulled her onto the ladder.  It held up, supported by the roof on one side and the chain-link fence on the other.

“As soon as we get past the fence, we’ll tilt it,” she said, not adding the words, “and we’ll fall!”

Ken heard them anyway.

He kept moving forward. 
Crabwalking
up the incline, hearing the
clank-clank-clank
of
Dorcas
doing the same right at his heels.  Hearing even more the zombies growling and shrieking only a few feet below, boiling ever higher as they piled on top of one another to get to their prey.

The fence.  Almost there.

Now
Dorcas
did
say it. 
Screamed
it.  “We’ll
fall
!”

“Keep going, trust me!” shouted Ken.  No time for explanations.

They reached the fence.  He put his hand over the invisible line that would quickly turn the ladder from bridge into unbalanced teeter totter.  He kept going.

Passed onto the other side of the fence.

Teeth and madness below.

Dorcas
put her hand over the fence.

The ladder started to shift.

Clank
.

Ken looked back as the ladder slammed back to the rooftop, borne down by the weight of the two zombies fighting to crawl out after them.

“Keep moving!” he screamed to
Dorcas
.

One of the zombies fell off the ladder with a scream of rage.  Two more took its place.  Then another three.  The horde-organism had extended itself to the roof, and now pushed its living pseudopodia out onto the ladder, each with its own face and mouth and gut.

The ladder clanked.  Groaned as more and more of the mindless things pushed their way onto it.  Ken didn’t know what the ladder’s weight rating was, but doubted it was designed for lateral use by ten – eleven, twelve – full-grown people.

He pushed forward.  The gap was ahead.  Five feet.  A longish jump on solid ground.

But when you were running up an incline that was mostly made of holes, one of you concussed at least twice over and the other one nursing a badly broken arm… impossible.