Zombies! A Love Story Page 5

  “Get over here! Hurry!”

  Mom and Chief Mallory ran across the rooftop. They grabbed the hose to help me and we pulled for all we were worth. The ladder rose, one end still on the alley floor, but the three zombies were in the way, preventing it from raising any higher. Still, we got Chuck over the top, and into my arms, which was all I could ask for at the moment.

  I held him hard. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”

  He squeezed me back all too briefly, then pulled free. “Come on, pull!”

  The four of us heaved, and the ladder smacked one, then spun and hit another in the head as it rose. It was heavier than I’d expected as we hauled it above the creeps, and then I saw why. One was dangling from it.

  Mom pulled out her gun and popped it in the head. It fell and I stared at her. “When did you learn to shoot like that?”

  She said, “John taught me.”

  The ladder was suddenly much lighter, so we completed our task without any more trouble.

  When the ladder was up top, we stood it on end, with the hose on the highest part. Mom the Chief held onto the bottom where the curved handles braced against the inner lip of the roof. Chuck and I pulled the hose tight, over top of the tallest chimney pipe for leverage, and then we slowly moved forward, lowering the ladder as we did.

  And it worked. It spanned the gap to the next building.

  We untied the hose, rolled it up. Chuck looped it over his shoulder, and then led the way as we crawled on hands and knees, from rung to rung, forty feet above a slathering mob of undead something or others, to make it to the roof of the bank next door.

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  ONCE WE WERE all safely across, on the middle building, the bank, we raced to its far edge. There was a smaller gap, still too wide to jump. The people on the diner roof, which was lower by six feet than the bank roof, were beating zombies over the head as they tried to get to the top of the fire escape ladder.

  “Why aren’t they using the guns they took from your office?” Mom asked. “You said they had them.”

  “He also said he went back for more ammo,” I said quickly. “They used it all getting into the diner, didn’t they Chief Mallory?”

  He nodded. “It’s probably about time to start calling me John. Given...everything.”

  Chuck was, as usual, thinking. Crouching near the ledge, looking at the people fighting to stay alive on the next building over, and thinking. Then he said, “Got it. Quick, unknot the firehose.”

  He took the hose off his shoulder, unrolling it and stretching it out across the roof. We each picked a knot and loosened it. The entire operation took three or four minutes but it felt like hours. Then Chuck tied one end of the hose around a smoke stack and carried the other end to the edge of the roof.

  He waved an arm at our neighbors. “Hey!” he shouted. “I’m going to throw this hose over there. Someone needs to tie it off, so I can come help you.” He swung the hose over his head and let fly. It landed on the roof beside ours. One of the other survivors, a blond girl who looked about sixteen, came running.

  “Tie it around something,” Chuck told her.

  “Tie it good,” I added. “Are you sure someone older shouldn’t do this?” She looked back toward the fire escape. I did too. Blue arms were clawing their way up, while the increasingly exhausted crew of others pounded, pushed and shoved. Old Mrs. Applegate had taken the teenager’s place, using the butt of a shotgun to pound on zombie heads. God, she had to be seventy-five.

  “They can’t,” the girl said. And then she dragged the hose around a smokestack, knotted it, then wrapped her legs around the thing and sat on top of it for good measure. “Hurry.” One word. Her eyes were huge. The poor thing was terrified.

  Chuck took off his shirt. I decided that if he tried to put it back on, I would burn it. He slid the rifle over one shoulder by its strap. Then he slung his twisted up shirt over the now unknotted firehose, and wrapped an end around each hand. And then he just jumped, right over the side.

  He slid on this makeshift zip-line and for a second or two and I thought his plan was flawless, but then the hose sagged under his weight, and I realized it was coming loose from the far side. The girl, wide eyed, was sliding inexorably toward the edge, hanging onto the hose that was pulling her forward. She screeched.

  Don’t let go , I thought.

  “Let go!” Chuck yelled.

  She didn’t let go. The hose was torn from her hands, and probably a lot of skin along with it, as she screamed bloody murder. Chuck plummeted. Thank God he was only about twenty feet off the ground by then. I saw him hit, and my heart went into my throat, until he sat up a little, gave his head a shake.

  I didn’t hesitate. I was over the side and shimmying down the dangling firehose before my mother could finish shouting at me not to go. Seconds later I was on the alley floor, kneeling beside him, one hand on his bigger-than-I-remembered shoulder and the other running over his hard head. “You idiot! Are you okay?”

  “Dammit, Suz, why did you come down here?”

  Noises, all too familiar guttural ones, came from the mouth of the alley. Three of the creeps were shuffling toward us. I pulled my gun, but knew if I fired it we’d be overrun in seconds. The sound would attract them as sure as the kids’ screams had done. Chuck pulled out his rifle and pushed me behind him. “Climb back up,” he ordered. “Do it now.”

  “There’s not time for us both to make it, and I’m not leaving you.”

  “Dammit, Suz, why are you being so–

  “Because, you idiot, I–”

  Something hit him in the shoulder, then clanged against the wall. We both jumped, but it was the firehose from the other building. The girl was leaning over the ledge, strawberry blond hair and pale skin with freckles. Not a local, that was for sure. “Hurry!”

  There wasn’t time. They were too close.

  Chuck shouldered his rifle, and with a series of shots–pffft! pffft! pffft!–shot the three creeps in the head with framing nails. One after another, they dropped to the ground.

  I wondered if body shots would’ve worked just as well, and doubted it. “Go,” he told me. All confident and bossy. It probably should’ve pissed me off, but it made me feel safe and protected instead, despite that another handful of stragglers were already coming into the alley.

  Chuck grabbed the new hose. I grabbed the original one, and we both climbed for dear life while the people above us pulled. The second teenager and the little boy were helping strawberry paleface haul Chuck up as he climbed. Mom and the Chief were pulling me.

  I got three feet above head level before the creepers grabbed onto my hose and started jerking it around while they tried to figure out how to climb up after me. Bright, they were not.

  I aimed my gun, but before I could fire it, pffft! Nail to the head. Zombie to the pavement. End of story.

  I looked across at Chuck. He had one arm and one leg twisted around the firehose, and was shouldering the rifle in his free arm, looking hot and heroic and not the least bit like a science geek. He winked at me. Winked. Who was this sexy super hero anyway? Then he slid the rifle’s strap over his shoulder and returned to climbing.

  I did the same, finally making my way over the top, mostly because of Mom’s and Chief Mallory’s efforts, not my skills at rope-climbing. I’d never done very well at that.

  Then again, neither had Chuck.

  Mom grabbed me, sobbing, but I extricated myself to turn. Chuck had made it to the top of the next building, but the creatures were flooding onto it from the still attached fire escape.

  Chuck started taking them out with the air rifle, but I had no idea how many nails he had in his pockets. Mom and the chief took aim, too.

  “Chuck!” I shouted. “Pull up the fire hose and throw one end over here!” I rapidly pulled ours up, made sure it was still tied securely on our end. I threw the nozzle side across the gap to the other building. He threw his to me in return, and then we were both tying
the loose ends off.

  We ended up with two hoses side by side, spanning across the gap between the two buildings.

  Chuck shouldered the rifle again, dropping to one knee and firing at the creeps who were still piling onto the roof. He yelled at the others, “Come on, you have to cross to the other roof. It’s your only chance!”

  Mom and the chief were on opposite corners of our building, where they could pick off the zombies on the other one, with no risk of hitting the survivors. I pointed my gun as well, keeping it aimed far from the people now gathering near the makeshift rope course. “Come on,” Chuck shouted. “Come on!”

  The strawberry blond came first. No hesitation. She sat on the ledge, then eased herself onto the hoses, leaning forward and wrapping her arms and legs around both of them at once. Almost immediately she rocked sideways, and shrieked but held on. Now she was face up, arms and legs hugging the hoses, head toward us, and she pulled herself along, letting go only with one hand at a time to keep moving forward.

  It took only a couple of minutes, but we were running out of time. The second girl, copper skin and jet hair, was on the ropes before the first one got off, and she moved a lot faster. Then came the woman with the little boy, his arms and legs were tight around her neck, and she’d tied him there with what looked like a pair of men’s belts. She came fast, motivated, I thought, by having to save her child.

  She got halfway and I could see she was exhausted. But though she slowed, she kept coming. When she was within reach, I stopped shooting long enough to help her the rest of the way.

  That left Mr. Reynolds and old Mrs. Applegate. The old librarian looked at the hoses, then across at me. Then she shook her head slowly. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” I shouted. Dead creeps lay all around her. We were picking them off as fast as they could fall over the ladder and onto the roof, but our ammo wasn’t going to last forever.

  Mrs. Applegate just shook her head. Then Mr. Reynolds untied one of the hoses on their end, and was rapidly, frantically wrapping it around her.

  “It’ll never work.” I said to no one in particular.

  “My husband’s a rock climber. He knows what he’s doing,” the woman who’d brought her little boy across said. “Hurry, Bill! Hurry!”

  He got Mrs. Applegate all knotted up, and then picked her up and lowered her right over the side. “I’m gonna let her go. Pull her up fast, don’t let her hit the wall!”

  We had to put our guns down and grab onto the hose. No one to shoot now, and the creeps were surging onto the roof next door unabated. Mr. Reynolds let Mrs. Applegate go, and she dropped several feet, then swung toward our building fast while we hauled the hose backward. And yeah, she hit the wall, but it could’ve been a lot harder. We kept pulling until we saw her head near the top. Then Mom and I ran forward to help her up and over, while Chuck and Chief Mallory kept the hose pulled tight.

  I heard a scream just as I got Mrs. Applegate onto her feet, and spun with my gun drawn to see Mr. Reynolds kicking at a creep that was trying to tear into his leg as he was climbing onto the remaining hose.

  I fired without thinking, and the creature went down. Then Reynolds came across the hose, hand over hand, arms and legs wrapped around it. It only took seconds.

  When he got onto our roof, he limped to his wife, and she wrapped her arms around him and held tight, with the little boy in between them. Chuck untied the hose that still connected our two buildings, and tossed it over the side. The opposite roof was crawling with them now, all reaching over the ledge toward us, slathering and groaning, occasionally falling off the roof to smack down onto the pavement of the alley below. And then just getting up again, more bent and broken than before, but still moving, still hunting.

  Chuck came to stand beside me, looking just like I was. We were close, our sides touching, silent, staring at the hordes on the other building. I was wondering about our next move. I presumed he was doing the same. But when Mr. Reynolds extricated himself from his loving wife and son, and came over to us, my silence reached it’s end.

  “You saved our lives,” Reynolds said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “You caused all this,” I replied. “We don’t want your thanks.”

  Chuck closed a hand around one of mine and squeezed. “You saved Mrs. Applegate’s life. Risked your own to do it. That was amazing.”

  I supposed it was. The man might not be 100% pure evil. Maybe he had a grain of goodness in him. One of the goons had been trying to snack on his leg. It could’ve been the end of him, all because he’d taken the time to save Mrs. Applegate. I glanced down at the leg in question as I thought it.

  The pants were torn, and the flesh behind them was, as well. Torn and bleeding.

  Shit.

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  “I CAUSED ALL this? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Reynolds asked.

  I dragged my gaze off his leg to see that he was looking at me as if I’d sprouted horns. “You poisoned my town, is what that’s supposed to mean. Do you know how many people have died?” I gestured at the slathering things crowding the edge of the roof next door. “Or worse?”

  “My husband had nothing to do with this,” the woman said, but she didn’t look at me, she looked at him, a question in her eyes. Like she already knew it was possible.

  I noticed Mrs. Applegate and my Mom hustling the little guy, Curtiss, who must’ve been about five years old, out of earshot.

  “Suz thinks it was the potato chips, Mr. Reynolds” Chuck told him.

  “What potato chips? I don’t know what you’re–”

  Before he finished, I’d dug the crumpled bag I considered evidence from my pocket, and held it up in a fist. “These potato chips. Everyone I know for sure ate them, turned into one of those...those creeps. Everyone I know for sure didn’t eat them, stayed the same. They have your freaking name on them, and from what I understand, the GMO potatoes you made them out of haven’t even been approved by the FDA yet.”

  He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “Technically, the FDA consultation program for genetically engineered plants is voluntary, not mandatory. And since this is a plant, not an animal–”

  “Aside from the mantis DNA, at least.” I threw the bag at his chest.

  His eyes widened and he shot a look at Chuck. “I presume she got that piece of confidential information from you, Mr. Brown?”

  “Yeah. And you don’t need to fire me. I quit, Mr. Reynolds.”

  He rolled his eyes. “There is no proof it was the potatoes–”

  “The prisoners ate them. Except for one of them, that is.” The chief closed his eyes and gave a shudder. “I ate everything they did, except those chips.”

  The man’s wife said, “But...but how could potato chips cause something like...like...this?”

  I met her eyes. Blue eyes. Pretty. And brave, and devoted to her kid. That said a lot about her, in my book. “Because your husband’s science team added the DNA of an insatiable carnivorous predator to the potato, and then used the population of Bloody Gulch for lab rats, Mrs. Reynolds.

  She took a step backward, away from her husband. “You had a bag of those chips in your briefcase when you came home last night, Bill,” his wife said softly. “But when little Curtiss asked if he could eat them, you...shouted at him. You got far too excited. Why?”

  “Not because I thought he’d turn into a flesh eating monster, Tam.”

  She moved closer to him, tilting her head to one side and narrowing her eyes as she searched his. “But you thought they might not be safe, didn’t you?”

  He lowered his head. “I didn’t want my kid to be the first to eat them.”

  “So you fed them to other peoples’ kids instead,” Chuck said softly. He sent me a look. “You were right, Suz. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  He couldn’t hold his wife’s accusing eyes. As soon as he looked away, she paled. “Oh my God, it’s true. You did this, didn’t you?”
>
  “I didn’t know. Tam, I swear to God, I didn’t know.”

  She was backing away from him, shaking her head in horror. “Always taking shortcuts, putting profits ahead of everything else. How many times have I told you it would backfire sooner or later? How many times? It’s food, Bill. It’s food. You can’t play God with something that basic.”

  He was looking at the floor, at his feet, but she advanced on him, gripped his chin and lifted his head, turning it toward the building beside ours. “Look at what you’ve done, Bill. Look at them. Those were good people. Innocent people. Families. You did this to them. For money.”

  He sank to his knees, shoulders shaking.

  “Get up,” I told him. “This isn’t finished.”

  Chuck’s hand on my shoulder didn’t do a thing to ease my anger. I wanted to bury the fire ax in the bastard’s cranium. “Ease up on him, Suz. He was careless and greedy, but no one could’ve predicted this.”

  “Anyone who’s ever read a sci-fi novel or watched a horror flick knows when you try to improve on nature, it ends in disaster.”

  “Suz–”

  “We have to know everything he knows, Chuck. We have to.” I held Chuck’s eyes with enough intensity that I knew I had his attention. Then I looked down at Mr. Reynold’s bloodied and torn pants leg.

  He followed my gaze, saw what I saw, looked back at me, alarm in his eyes.

  “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  The man was going to turn. I wanted to know what he knew before that happened. And I wanted to get him somewhere else. Away from his kid.

  I said, “Where else have those chips been sent, Mr. Reynolds?”

  “Nowhere. Just here. We grew a small crop of the potatoes in the experimental hydroponics lab at the plant. Processed them into chips to test the market.” I scowled at him and he shook his head. “Not to see if they were safe. God, they’re potatoes. Why would we doubt their safety? We were testing for flavor and texture and so on.”