Floodwater Zombies (33 page)

The rooftop door suddenly banged against the chair. Their heads whipped around to see the door open a few inches before the chair legs caught in the roof’s grooves. One black eye and the glow of a white necklace peered through the door. As soon as the eye landed on them, Woody grunted and pushed with everything he had. He reached for them with a pallid claw that was desperate for purchase.

“Jesus Christ,” Rory mumbled, trudging to the door with his gun pointed at the ground.

Woody snarled louder as Rory came closer, as if Woody still recognized his old friend. But this time Woody wasn’t interested in a round of eighteen holes followed by dinner and more drinks at Ruby Tuesday. More hands began sticking out of the narrow crack. The door vibrated angrily against the chair.

Rachel’s head turned in circles, searching the roof for a way off that didn’t exist. “What do we do?”

“It’s not going to hold forever!” Doc hollered, pushing Kourtney and Alex behind him and drawing his Colt .45.

“Good luck!”

Everyone turned to see Mick standing on top of the small wall on the rear side of the building, his back to the water below.

“Mick!”
Kourtney gasped.

“Mick, no!”
Hooper shouted over the storm.

Doc stepped forward. “You get off that wall right now,
Micky
Donovan, and I don’t mean maybe. The dead may have risen, but this is still my goddamn bar!”

Mick swallowed hard, the rain streaming down his haggard face. “I’m real sorry, Doc,” he said, bending down and setting Rob’s Saturday
Night Special
on the edge of the wall. He stood back up and wiped his face with his hand. “I hope y’all make it. I really do.”

“Mick!”
Rachel yelled over the bruising wallops assaulting the rooftop door. “Just stop and think about what you’re doing for one minute. You have kids!”

He laughed and wiped clear snot mixed with rain from his mustache. “Yeah, kids with their own families, who all live out of state!”

“We’re going to get through this!” Rory assured him over the guttural grunts behind him.

“For what?”
Mick yelled. “My wife’s been married to another man for six years now and my best friend is
lyin
dead in a pool of water downstairs!” He stared hard at the wretched hands reaching out from the shuddering door. Dirt framed their broken fingernails. “
Ain’t
nothin
to get through
for!
”

Kourtney inched closer and softened her tone. “Come on, Mick. I know you don’t mean that, sweetie. You love living your life and it’s your life to live.” She glanced behind her to the others. “Besides, you have us!”

Mick looked to Doc and Alex.

Doc nodded, pulling his grandson close to his side. “We’re your family,
Micky
! And your family needs you now more than ever! Now, you get down off that damn wall!”

Mick stared at him with sad eyes, wet curls hanging in his face. The banging on the door grew louder, more anxious.

“C’mon now!”
Doc barked, gesturing with his gun for Mick to get down.

Mick slowly turned to Rachel with a blank expression covering his face. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “Minute’s up,” he said gravely, falling backwards off the roof and hitting the water below with a loud smack.

“
Nooooo
!”
Kourtney screamed, running to the wall with the others in tow.

They leaned over the edge to see Mick floating on his back, his arms outstretched as a dozen or more stiffs swam towards him like ravenous Nile crocodiles. In an instant, his wide eyes found theirs. ‘
I’m sorry
’ he mouthed, just as the dead surrounded his body and moved in for the kill. The water around Mick turned red in a hurry and when he began screaming, they turned away from the edge with ashen faces.

The rooftop door rattled with another crushing blow, bringing reality crashing back down. The death moans from the winding staircase quickly increased in number and volume, as did the raggedy hands snatching at the air through the crack in the door. Rory and Hooper ran to the door, holding their guns out in case the chair gave.

“Come on!” Rory yelled to the others, staring at six or seven decomposing arms reaching up and down the gap.

“Save your shots!” Hooper yelled. “Only shoot if they get out!”

“Get to the front!”

Doc’s face wrinkled at the sight of the things fighting to free
themselves
from the tight stairway. He stopped and swept his hair back, clutching his chest.

“Keep moving!” Rory shouted.

The Colt .45 slipped from Doc’s hand and hit the wet floor without going off. He dropped to his knees and fell face first onto the metal flashing with a soft thud.

“Dad!”
Kourtney cried out, rushing to his side. “Dad!” she repeated, sliding to her knees and rolling him over onto his back.

“You and Alex g-get into that boat,” he sputtered, gasping for air.

“What’s wrong?” Hooper hollered over his shoulder, bracing himself for the corpses to break the door down at any second. There were too many of them now for an old metal chair with cracked padding to handle.

“He’s having a heart attack!” Kourtney replied, not taking her eyes from Doc’s twisted face. “Just breathe, Dad.
Deep breaths.”

Doc grabbed her arm with a shaky hand. “J-just do what I say!” He inhaled sharply and went limp, his eyes rolling up into his head.

“Dad!” she screamed, shaking him with both hands.

Chapter Eighteen

Hooper leaned against the wall with his arm wrapped around Kourtney, his wet t-shirt clinging to his body. It was hard to tell if she was still crying with the rain running down her cheeks but she had finally grown quiet. Alex buried himself into her side and brazenly refused to shed another tear. Rory glanced at the large vents in the center of the roof where he and Hooper had dragged Doc’s body so Alex and Kourtney wouldn’t have to look at it. The clawing limbs at the shaking door, however, were still in perfect view, a constant reminder of how much things had changed in such a short span of time. Hooper refused to let the door out of his sight. If the chair collapsed he wanted to be the first to know about it.

Rory stuffed his cell phone back in his pocket and sighed.

“I don’t know why you keep checking that thing,” Rachel said, leaning against the wall next to him. “Even if it did pick up a signal, no one is going to be able to reach us.”

He leaned his head against the wall and let the rainfall cascade down his face. The feeling of taking a breather when death was literally knocking at the door was surreal. They needed a plan and needed it fast, but right now everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion. Even the gnarled hands, scraping at the air, moved with grace in Rory’s mind. His adrenaline had fled, leaving him feeling sluggish and hopeless.

“Not without a helicopter anyway,” Rachel continued, staring blankly at her outstretched shoes she had borrowed from Rory’s mom. “Even then, there’s nowhere to land it.”

Rory let his eyes travel down the wall to Hooper, Kourtney and Alex. He never imagined this is how it would end.
A car accident, yes.
Attacked by zombies on Doc’s rooftop, no.
The worst part about it was having too much time to think. At least a fatal car accident would, most likely, be quick and painless. This was torture. Ultimately, he preferred the idea of meeting his maker at the wrinkled hands of old age, not his dead best friend. The only thing he knew for sure was he wasn’t going out like Mick. If this was his time to die then so be it, but he was going to fight it tooth and nail until the bitter end.

Rachel took his hand and squeezed. Her skin was cold and gray. “Are you okay?”

Rory’s eyes came back into focus. He nodded and carefully poked his head up over the edge of the wall again and squinted through the rain. The boat was still idling with a throaty grumble in the rising floodwater below, clear of the swimming dead for now. Most of the ghouls were either already inside the bar or had moved on to deeper pastures. A fat man swam out of the trees and smacked into the back of the boat with a dull thud. He stumbled to his feet, struggling to maintain his balance in the murky water rushing just beneath his leather belt. His black suit and tie made him look like something out of an old black and white comedy. Rory watched him stagger around the boat and stop. His soulless eyes studied the broken window, seeming to debate the best spot to squeeze his wide frame into the bar.

“Where do they keep coming from?” Rachel whispered, peeking over the edge and blinking water from her eyelashes.

“The lake, I guess.”

“But why are they in the lake in the first place?”

Rory shook his head, the snarling grunts behind them making it difficult to think. “Someone had to of dumped the bodies in the lake.”

“But who would…” She trailed off and met his serendipitous gaze.

“
The funeral home
,” they said at the same time.

“That would explain the soggy formal wear,” Rory said.

“But why?”

His gaze wandered to the door, the rain chilling his core while his mind finally found some traction. “They never buried the bodies.”

Rachel followed his gaze to the reaching arms. “Why wouldn’t they bury the bodies?” she asked softly.

He shook his head and peered back over the wall. “Maybe someone wants to build a housing development on
Rosehill
Memorial.”

Her face soured.
“The cemetery?”

“At this point, anything’s possible.”

She looked back to the boat, peeking over the wall with him. “Can we get to it?”

Rory’s eyes darted to the cherry-colored ski boat. It was rapidly filling with rain and if they waited much longer it would be as useless as Hooper’s Dodge Charger. “If we jam it in reverse it should free itself from the window.”