Dead Hunger V: The Road To California (10 page)

I went to all sides of the house and it was the same.  Then I went back to the west side of the house.  Below, the area between the two homes was packed tight with the zombies, but their faces stared straight toward the house – they did not look upward at all.  I moved back anyway.  Taking chances was stupid.

Then I looked at the roof of the home next door.  It was no more than six feet away.  A gap that with a running start, any one of us could manage, but not with a gaggle of zombies below.  They’d play hell with a living, breathing person’s concentration.

Then I had it.  I moved back to the opening and dropped back through the sunroof and onto the ladder.

The girls were there waiting for me. 

“What’s the plan?” asked Lisa.

“Up here,” I said.  “On the roof.  Then we take the ladder, put it between the houses, and we use it for a scaffold to cross over to the house next door.”

“And what do we do over there?” asked Stacy.

“We keep moving.  As far from here as we can until we can get off the roof, into a car and get the hell out of here.”

“That’s a good idea, Davey,” said Lisa.

“It’s all I got.  Got the dehydrated meat in those?” I asked, pointing to the three backpacks.

“Yes, and as much water as I could disperse between them,” Stacy said.  “They’re heavy.”

“I don’t think we’re going very far,” I said.  “We need to find a good vehicle.  That’s it.”

“The guy four houses down has a Forerunner SUV.  It’s in the driveway last I saw,” said Stacy.

“That’s perfect,” I said.  “Reliable and decent on gas.  Okay, this is kind of sketchy.  You ready?”

“Listen to that,” said Lisa.  “I’ll take that sketchy over this sketchy any day.”

We all grabbed a bag and threw it on our shoulders.  “Stacy, you go first, then just take two steps up on the roof and wait.”

She went.  In less than 45 seconds she was out of view.  Lisa went next.  She was faster.  I crawled up after them and turned, leaning down into the hole.  I grabbed one end of the ladder, opening it wider, and as it ratcheted open, I pulled it out as a straight, sixteen-foot ladder.

I was still amazed it could expand to that length and be as light as it was.  I nodded to the girls, and we moved as quietly as we could to the edge.

“I’m bound to make a little noise when the other side hits the other roof,” I said.  “When it happens, I’ll just jump out of sight.  I don’t want them to see me.”

I stood the ladder up and walked my hands down the rungs, but as the angle became sharper and sharper, the ladder became impossible to hold onto. 

It fell the last four feet and hit the other roof with a heavy thud.   I scrambled away from the edge and hung beside Lisa and Stacy for a moment.

In another minute, I went back to the edge.  No eyes looking up.

I waved the girls over to where I stood.  It was time to cross.

“Okay, I can toss the backpacks over after you two make it to the other side,” I said.  “Who wants to go first?”

“I’ll go,” said Lisa.  “If I make it over, we know it’ll support string bean here.”

“Ha ha,” whispered Stacy, nudging Lisa.  “Okay, go.”

I took Lisa’s back pack from her.  “Okay, sis.  Hands and knees, and just shimmy across the rails.  And be careful.”

As I looked, the six feet suddenly stretched until it appeared to be twenty.  Lisa crouched down and put her hands on the first rungs that stretched in the open gap above the heads of the human creatures below, situating her knees on the rails.  There would be no more discussion, for now that she was exposed, we all had to be as quiet as church mice.

The ladder appeared to be stable, but I held my breath anyway.  Stacy watched, and in the faint light of the night, I saw the watery glaze grow more pronounced as she worried for her friend.

Lisa was now almost to the halfway point.  The ladder teetered ever so slightly as the ends of the rails rocked in and out of the not-quite-identical slopes of the two roofs.

Three-quarters.  Lisa lifted one hand off the right rail and shook it out.  I saw her eyes staring downward, but I did not move any closer to the edge, for I did not want to draw their eyes to me, and in all honesty, I didn’t want to see what Lisa was forced to stare at as she crossed.

She raised her eyes to the other roof now as she drew to within a foot of it.  With two more moves, her hands fell to the shingles, and from there, she seemed to double her speed as she clambered to safety.  Lisa crawled up two more feet and scooted off to the side, looked at us with a relieved smile, and nodded.  She gave a thumbs up to Stacy and mouthed the words, “It’s easy.”

Stacy leaned to me and said, “Sure, it’s easy if you’re not shitting yourself and throwing up at the same time.”

I patted her on the back, and motioned for her to hold on.  I waved at Lisa and picked up one of the backpacks.

She stood and moved closer to the edge of the roof.

One, two, three – I tossed each backpack across, and she caught them, bobbling the last one twice until I felt sure it was going to drop and tumble onto the monsters that waited below.

She got it under control and rested them all away from the ladder.  She wiped at her forehead in a relieved gesture, and shook her head, sitting again.  Using her feet, she steadied the ladder and waited.

“Go,” I whispered.  “Your turn.”

Stacy looked at me, the fear now more prominent.  She didn’t move.

“You saw what Lisa did.  You can do it,” I said.  “Slow and steady.  It’s like six feet.”

“Might as well be six hundred,” she said, moving toward the ledge.

She was so light that I didn’t foresee any issues with her crossing.  I watched as she crouched down and took the first rungs in her hands.  Stepping to the side so I could watch her and offer any tips I felt I could chance whispering, I saw her eyes were squeezed closed.

I was about to say something, but looked down and thought better of it.  If she took her time, she could feel her way across – and if that made her feel better about it, then who was I to correct her style points.

Her body had just cleared our side, but she had moved her feet up an extra rung without moving her hands.  Now her butt was raised in the air, creating a high center.  As I watched, she opened her eyes and stopped.  Her bottom teetered from side to side, and she let go her right arm to attempt to grab the rail farther ahead.

I held my breath and took two fast side steps back to where the feet of the ladder rested on my roof, and glanced up at Lisa, whose expression was horrified.

Stacy screamed as she felt the ladder tilting, and I threw my leg forward, trying to hold the rail flat.  Even as I came in contact with the aluminum, I knew I’d been too late.  It slid away, even under Stacy’s minuscule weight.

The things below now
did
look up, followed by their arms reaching, reaching skyward for the girl; their meal.  I watched helplessly as Stacy’s scream again reverberated through the night and she fell completely off the right side of the ladder, clinging to the single rail with both hands, dangling down within reach.

The things moved in on her, pulling hard, and as her screams grew more shrill they were joined by Lisa’s as she watched in terror and shrieked, “Stacy!  Stacy!  Pull up!  Hurry, pull up!”

Then the ladder flipped completely over and slid down on top of the creatures who engulfed the girl’s body, their faces no longer looking up, but now burrowing into the sweet flesh of the nineteen-year-old girl who would welcome death as soon as it would take her.

I wasted no time.  Stacy was gone and Lisa needed me.  I got back, realizing it was tricky to run on a downhill and leap six feet, but as I said earlier, the roof’s slope was mild, and I wasn’t worried.

Three heavy clops along the roof and I launched off my right foot, realizing mid-flight that I was barely going to reach the other ledge.  I screamed, “Lisa, grab my arm!” as I felt my foot touch the fiberglass shingles, and she did take it as soon as it came into her reach.  She fell backward, pulling me forward, and I collapsed atop her and into safety.

Breathing insanely hard, I stared down at her, and then I dropped my face to hers and held her to me.    “I’m so sorry, Leese,” I said.  “I’m so sorry.”

Feeling the wetness of her tears against my cheek, I did not expect an answer.  I took one quick glance back, saw my feet were just six to eight inches from the ledge, and got to my knees and stood.  I held out my hand to my sister and she took it. 

We got to our feet and I helped Lisa work her way into one of the backpacks filled with supplies, followed by me slipping my arms through the straps of another one.  The last one – that had been Stacy’s – I slung over my shoulder.  Lisa allowed me to lead her across the roof to the opposite side, her sobs wracking her body with each step.  I worried that she would stumble. 

As I approached the opposite eave, I immediately noticed the house next to this one was smaller, therefore the roofs did not extend as closely to one another as on the opposite side.  Knowing Lisa could not avoid noticing it, too, I held up a hand and walked up the peak and looked down the other side.

I breathed a sigh of relief.  A large oak that should have been trimmed to keep out what everybody always told me were inevitable roof rats, grew massively between the houses, heavy branches extending easily over each roof.

I moved back down until I reached Lisa.  “We’re in luck, sis.  Big tree.  We can climb across on that.”

“I’m not feeling very agile right now,” she said, her voice paper thin.

“You won’t need it.  I’ll get the backpacks across and you can just take your time.  I looked.  Heavy branches, you can walk almost straight across.”

“Okay,” she said.  “Lead the way.”

I took her hand again and she allowed me to lead her over the peak.  As we stepped over the ridge vent, she said, “You’re right.  Even I can make that.”

“Exactly,” I said. 

We were across in two minutes.  She didn’t even ask me to take her backpack.  We then skirted across that roof and when we got to the other side, I had her wait on the rear slope as I went to the front of the house.  It was all clear.  I moved closer to the front eave and looked down the street.  The zombie horde was still concentrated around the Palmer house, though I did not think of the crowd of them in that way back then.  I was scared of them, but I hadn’t called them zombies out loud – perhaps only in my mind.

Some stragglers still moved along the street, but clearly did not smell us, because they moved toward the larger group.  I knew Stacy’s meager body could not provide a distraction for long and that soon, they would crash through a window or two in that house and realize there was no food to be had.  I didn’t know what would happen for sure, but I imagined they would disburse and go where the breeze revealed fresh meat.  I did not want me or Lisa to be anywhere in the vicinity when that happened.

Moving to the front of the house and looking down, I saw the silver Toyota 4Runner, just where Stacy said it would be.  Now we had to get the keys, get in it and go, assuming the battery wasn’t dead after four months.

I went back to Lisa.  “We might have to drop off the other side of the roof.  Looks like it’s only about eight feet at the rear corner, and there’s a small tree there.  It’s worth a try, ‘cause I don’t want either of us twisting an ankle.”

“Let’s go,” she said.  “I think it’s going to feel pretty good to be moving again.”

“I agree,” I said.

The tree turned out to be too small for our purposes, but Lisa found a 2 x 2 trellis attached to the rear of the house with ivy growing on it.  We were able to get down that way, and it took less than three minutes.

We got down and I pulled out my .45 again and tried the sliding door in the rear of the ranch style house.  It was locked, so I tucked the gun back inside my pants and put my palms flat against the glass, pushing hard and sharply upward.  Once.  Twice.  On the third try, the lock popped and the door slid open. 

I pulled my gun out again and immediately realized the only thing we hadn’t gotten from the Palmer’s house was flashlights.

“Fucking dark,” I said. 

Lisa reached in her pocket and withdrew a small, LED flashlight.  “Not so much,” she said, turning it on as she nodded at me to go first.

There was no smell of death in this house, which made me wonder where everyone was.  Maybe they’d been at church or something – it had happened on a Sunday – and this was not the vehicle they drove.  Or the gun range, or bowling alley.  Whatever.  They weren’t here, I could smell they weren’t dead, and that was all good news.

As it turned out, we did not have to linger long.  We checked the pantry, since we would only have to haul anything from here to the 4Runner, and found several worthwhile grocery items.  They were a big fan of canned, beef tamales, and had eight of those.  There were three cases of snack sized fruit cocktail – the kind with cherries – and also pudding. 

I realized I was starving.  They also had a full case of bottled water, and the crap wasn’t Zephyrhills.  It was Smartwater.

We found their stash of plastic grocery bags, filled what we could as fast as we could, and went straight out the front door.  I hesitated in the hallway.  They had some sort of thick, wooden, ceremonial spear that looked like it had been made in Africa.  It was roughly six feet long and had an amazing stone tip attached to the end that looked sharp as hell.