Drink in case of Emergency (25 page)

There is an interesting rule of thumb, that it takes you about twice as long to go up something as it does to go down. This most appropriately applies to hillsides and mountains, however it is also applicable to stairs. Strangely enough it doesn’t apply to ladders though.

Because of this rule, Scott, Justin, Chris, and Tyler had made it down to the fifth floor in what felt like record time. When they had reached the fifth floor, they paused. It was on the fifth floor that it became blatantly obvious that they were not alone in the building.

On the way down the stairwell, the noises had been covered up by their own feet pounding on the stairs, as well as their conversation, which echoed off the concrete walls. Once they reached the fifth floor though, the sound below them became louder and clearer.

It wasn’t talking, or groaning or moaning like one might expect, if one had watched too much TV. It was the sound of a large group moving. Bodies bumping into things, feet shuffling, and clothes rustling.

“You guys hear that too, right?” Justin asked. He was the furthest down the stairs, as he had been leading the way.

“Sounds like someone’s waiting for us in the lobby.” Tyler said, his voice falling to a whisper.

“Sounds like a lot of someones are waiting for us in the lobby.” Scott confirmed.

“Let’s get out here, see what we can see.” Chris pushed through the stairwell door with a big 5 painted on it, leading the group into a plain office hallway. The group moved quietly, and Justin shut the door slowly behind them, making sure to keep it from banging shut and giving away their position.

“So, what now?” Tyler asked when they were safely in the fifth floor hallway with the door closed behind them.

“Well, it looks like a few of the zombies followed us in the front door.” Scott said. “Anyone know where the back door is?”

“First, lets see what the situation is.” Chris suggested. While he spoke, his eyes were moving fast, and his mind even faster. He was scanning the hallway, and his mind was putting together what he remembered of the layout on the ground floor. “Tyler and Justin, take a right up there and start breaking into offices. Watch out for any night janitors who might be trapped in one of the rooms. You’re trying to get an outside window to get a peek at what’s going on outside on the North side of the building. Then check the West. Scott and I will take the East and South. Meet back here in five minutes.”

The group split up and quickly checked the perimeter of the building from their fifth floor vantage point. They met back up in only three minutes.

“It looks like that apartment building we passed a few blocks back followed us in. There’s a trail of zombies leading up to the front door.” Justin reported, with Tyler nodding in response.

“There’s a group of them to the South, too.” Scott suggested.

“So we are going out of the North or East, I guess.” Chris responded. “Anyone have bright ideas on how we get out of the building in the first place?”

“Based on how noisy they were, I don’t think we can fight our way through.” Justin said in frustration. “Not enough bullets.”

“Could we just push through?” Tyler asked. “Like when we pushed the little girl around at the apartment building?”

“Too risky.” Chris responded. “With only a few zombies, that could work, but we could be overwhelmed. With the brandy in our systems, we won’t turn. All the same, a few bad bites and you bleed out, all the same.”

“What if we jump?” Scott offered, and Justin rolled his eyes in response. “No, like. We could go down to the second story and jump.” Justin stopped rolling his eyes and shrugged in response, acknowledging that it was better than any idea he could think of.

             
“Well, if it’s not too far of a drop. And if those things aren’t on the second floor too, then it could work.” Chris conceded.

             
With that, the group made their way back to the stairwell, and crept down as silently as they could to the door with a large number “2” painted on it. Chris went in front, and cracked the door open so he could peer through.

             
“Coast looks clear.” Chris whispered, pulling the door open further. The four friends walked into the second floor hallway and made their way through what looked like a gift shop area for tourists and toward the North end of the building. They reached a wall of glass and looked out.

             
The coast wasn’t completely clear, but there were only a dozen or so zombies visible in the two closest blocks.

             
“So...now what?” Scott asked. It was at least a fifteen foot drop to the ground from where they stood, not to mention, there was probably a pane of bullet proof glass holding them in. He wasn’t sure on the proofing of the glass, but he had to assume that it was thick. Tyler stood between Scott and Justin, all three looking out the thick window at the street below.

             
“Now we break out, climb down the rope, and meet back up with the girls.” Chris said from behind them. Justin started to ask the question that they all were thinking.

             
“What ro…” But before he could finish, he turned to see Chris waving a thick bundle of nylon rope. Tyler had seen the rope before at camping stores. He was pretty sure it was the type that rock climbers used. Chris zipped up the backpack he had been carrying, Tyler was surprised that one of them thought ahead enough for this kind of escape. Although if anyone was going to think of it, Chris would have actually been his last guess.

             
“This rope.” Chris said as he began looping the rope around a large support pillar that was fifteen feet from the window. Once he had tied a knot in the rope, he pulled on it to test the strength.

             
“That answers half of the puzzle. But how are we going to get through this window? It’s huge, and I think this might be the thickest pane of glass I’ve ever seen.” Justin said, gesturing at the window that towered at least ten feet tall.

             
“Well, I was thinking if we put a bullet through each corner and then hit it with something big and heavy, that might do the trick.” Chris offered. “But if anyone has better ideas, I’m all ears.”

             
“I don’t think that will work. But I honestly have no idea what would.” Scott conceded. “You don’t happen to have a baseball bat hidden in that magic bag of yours as well, would you?”

             
“Nah, I was just thinking we could push one of those display tables through it.” Chris gestured behind him, back toward the gift shop area. Tyler saw what he was gesturing at. There were a number of large, heavy tables which were completely covered with memorabilia tee shirts and sweatshirts. The tables certainly looked like they would weigh a ton, and they had wheels on the table legs, to make them easier for staff to move around.

             
Nobody had any better ideas, so they decided to give Chris’s a try. They weren’t sure how long the zombies would continue to mingle in the lobby before getting curious and exploring  the second story. That, and they also didn’t know how long until the entire base of the building was surrounded, instead of just one side. Once that happened, escape would become much more difficult.

             
Justin and Scott stood at the two ends of the huge pane of glass, ready to shoot out the corners, per Chris’s instruction. Chris and Tyler cleared off one of the large rolling tables and lined it up with the window. They planned to both push to help the table gain momentum, and then hopefully it would crash through, opening up their exit. They would quickly climb down the rope that Chris had prepared, and then would be on their way.

             
They knew they would have to move quickly, as the sound of breaking glass would likely draw attention from both the zombies in the street as well as those who were near the exits in the lobby. Just in case, they each took a pull from the bottle of vintage bourbon that Chris still had in his backpack, finishing the bottle off. If they did get into any kind of a scrap, they wanted to make sure that they had their protection.

             
“Okay, now on my count.” Chris and Tyler lined up behind the table, ready to heave their weight into it. “One. Two. Three.” On the count of three, Tyler’s ears were assaulted by the crack of gunfire in the small space. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Justin and Scott firing low first, and then high, each putting a couple bullets into the corners of the glass. The bullet holes were so tiny that Tyler couldn’t even make them out.

How could such small holes do any good? Does this even have a chance of working?

Tyler felt himself doubting the chances of Chris’s plan working out, when he heard a grunting battle cry coming from right beside him.

“FREEEEDOM!” Tyler thought that the Braveheart quote was a little unrelated to the moment, but it still signalled him to start pushing, even if he was still almost positive that this plan wouldn’t work.

The table continued to build up speed, as Tyler estimated the distance until the table would bounce off the window like a bird.

Ten feet.

Five feet.

He felt himself slowing down, letting the momentum of the table take it into the glass. From the periphery of his vision, Chris flew forward, pushing until the moment that the table made contact with the glass.

Tyler heard a noise, it was somewhere between the sound of a wave crashing against surf, and a jet engine. Chris tried to spin around, but his momentum and the slick tile floor made it difficult to change directions quickly. Tyler saw Justin and Scott back up quickly as the window came crashing down. Half of it fell outside, but half of the large pane of glass fell on the edge of the floor, shattering into golf ball sized shards. Chris scrambled on his knees, crawling away from the wave of broken glass that fell around him.

Just as the sound exploded through the room, it was over. Following the shattered window, a gust of wind forced it’s way through the new opening. Tyler looked down and saw Chris, pushing himself back to his feet. His hands were red with blood. Looking up, he saw the concern in his friends’ faces.

“I’ll be okay, it’s just a few scrapes. Grab the rope!” Chris pointed in the direction of the rope, and Justin and Scott began running toward it. Tyler found himself momentarily hypnotized by the pointing motion, and the blood slowly dripping from Chris’s pointer finger.

“Ty...wake up...we’ve gotta go. Now!” Chris was shouting, and Tyler realized that he had been standing still, staring at his friend for what must have been at least ten seconds.

They really knew how to make their booze back in the day.

Tyler turned and saw Scott standing at the edge of the broken out window, looking down. Justin was already on the rope.

Thirty seconds, or more?

Chris grabbed Tyler by the shoulders and pushed him toward the edge. Tyler felt his nerves fraying, he had never been a big fan of heights.

“We’ve gotta go now, buddy. No time to spare.” Tyler saw Scott pick up the rope and lean out with his feet against the edge of the building, rappelling down. Scott made his way down, and Chris slapped Tyler on the shoulder again. “Your turn now buddy. Just like Scott did it. All you have to do is ease your way down, one hand over the other.”

At first Tyler was unsure why Chris was coaching him so much, why he seemed so rushed. Then he looked down and saw a mob of zombies moving up the street toward the base of the building where Justin and Scott waited below.

Why are they coming so fast? Are they really that attracted to sound?

Although he felt like they were shaking with fear, Tyler forced his hands to grab the rope and begin moving down, just as his friends before him had done. It was a little harder than it looked, and he had to keep his hips up in order to keep his feet against the building. When he felt Scott and Justin’s hands touching his legs, he let himself look down and then dropped the remaining five feet.

             
Tyler looked up just in time to see a zombie sink it’s teeth into Justin’s forearm.

“Fuck.”

Justin shouted, before quickly pulling out his gun and putting a bullet through a zombie’s forehead. Scott already had his weapon out and was putting rounds into several other zombies that were within ten feet. One by one, parts of their skulls evaporated into purple and gray sprays, a fine mist of blood and bone and skin. But when they fell they were soon replaced by the next wave.

Once on his feet, Tyler joined his two friends, firing his gun into the wall of death that moved toward them. He was firing North, into the street that they were hoping to escape through. Justin and Scott had each taken up a flank, preventing them from being surrounded. Later, Tyler would reflect that they looked so harmless from above, only a couple dozen zombies. How bad could that be? Down here, on the same level, his confidence was shaking.

Tyler had squeezed off five rounds, when he heard Scott shout that he was reloading. They had all played enough video games together to work as a decent team in this situation. Tyler turned to face the direction that Scott had been firing, carefully aiming at each zombie that moved in close enough for an easy kill.

“Reloaded,” he heard Scott shout, and turned his direction back to the North. From behind him, Tyler heard another shout from above.

“Coming down hot, when I hit the ground, focus all fire to the North so we can escape.” Not five seconds later, Tyler heard the scuff of Chris’s shoes hitting the pavement. “Go! Go! Go!”

Scott and Justin turned slightly and began firing in the same direction as Tyler. Quickly, a small path was cleared and the four friends began running North, away from the tower that almost took their lives in exchange for a memorable piss.

****

Father O’Connell watched the daring escape from the second floor of a bank across the street. He was at first impressed with the advanced planning that the young men had shown. He never would have guessed that they would carry a rope with them, just in case.

Then he was a little worried, when they began firing at the crowd of empty vessels. In all the people he had delivered to God since the rapture began, he had only encountered one or two who had been so brash as to destroy one of God’s creations, even if it was only a vessel. These young men seemed to pay no mind to the human beings they were slaughtering.

It was unsettling.

Then, Father O’Connell felt relief. The skinny one was saved. He saw the boy get the kiss of the Lord. Right on the arm, he would soon be with God. And the best part was that the others were still with him. When he left this earth, his vessel just might bring the whole lot of them into heaven. Father O’Connell said a silent prayer of thanks, for the opportunity to do God’s will.

While he finished his prayer, he felt a tickle at the back of his mind. Something told him that he should follow them. He wasn’t sure what it was at first. Their bloodthirsty nature? Maybe the fact that they didn’t panic, that they seemed to have an organized plan to get out of the building.

No. That wasn’t it.

It was how the group reacted to the man getting bit. Surely they had to know by now that the kiss was the way God freed his people. But the man almost hadn’t noticed. And his friends, they saw him get bit, and they simply ran off with him, this man who was only a few moments away from heaven.

Father O’Connell felt a little jealous for him, for the entire group, really. Their ticket was punched, they were on their way to see God.

Still, something made him uneasy...so he followed them.

After getting some distance from the tower, the four friends made their way South West toward the iconic Gateway Arch, to meet Amy and Jessica.

When they arrived, they found something unexpected.

Instead of two girls, there were three.

The three girls were sitting around the famous reflective bean shaped installation. Amy was in rough shape. Her hair was matted to her head, and her clothes were stained with what looked like blood. She was leaning against the arch, with a big smile on her face.

As the men approached, Jessica was holding a large and unfamiliar rifle up to her shoulder. She was looking down it’s scope into Millenial Park. A tall, beautiful woman was reaching around her, whispering into her ear and pointing to parts on the rifle. She stepped back and a loud crack rang out as the stock of the rifle bumped back into Jessica’s unprepared shoulder.

“Nice! Did you get him?” The tall woman said, excitement in her voice. Jessica looked through the scope, wincing a little as she had the hold the rifle tight against her shoulder again.

“I think so? Yeah, I can’t see him anymore, I think he’s down!” Jessica looked up and smiled, noticing the guys for the first time. “Hey boys. How was the piss?”

The question caught Tyler off guard. He could smell the booze on Jessica’s breath, but even when she had been drunk in the past, she had never been this...cheerful.

“Best moment of my life.” Scott said without sarcasm before his voice turned to concern. “Everyone okay?” Scott motioned toward Amy with the question.

“Oh, yeah. We had a bit of a run-in with some unsavory types.”

“Shit, is she okay?” Chris’s voice was thick with concern.

“Oh, yeah, that’s mostly from the booze,” Jessica continued. “The looking like hell, that is. The blood isn’t hers. It’s from Mr. Fedora.” Jessica saw that her statement confused all four of her new friends, so she ended with the best part. “But look, we made a new friend!”

“Hi. The name’s Brooke.” The tall redhead had a devilish smile. “Pissin’ off towers is a little more dangerous than I imagined?” Brooke said, looking at Chris’s bandaged hands. Before the guys could introduce or explain themselves, Amy spoke up from the ground.

“She saved my life. By the ancient code of the samurai, my life is hers!” Still leaning against the Arch, Amy threw her arms around wildly.

Wow. We have drank almost every night since we met her, and I have never seen her this drunk, Tyler thought to himself.

“Hi, Brooke. My name is Justin.” Justin reached out and shook Brooke’s hand, and then gestured around the semi-circle that had formed around this new, beautiful woman. “This is Chris, and Scott, and Tyler.” Each gave a little wave or nod as their name was called.

Jessica had handed the rifle back to Brooke, and spent the next few minutes explaining the story of how they met their new friend. The four men listened in silence, enraptured with the story. “...and then she came with us to wait for you guys,” Jessica finished.

“Well if you’d like, you’re more than welcome to come with us.” Justin said, the generosity of his voice giving away just a little bit of his true intentions. The tone was not lost on Brooke, who gave off a wry smile before responding.

“Exactly where are you planning to go next? Assuming you make it out of the city alive.”

“We were going...well...ummm...” Justin’s voice trailed off, unsure of how to actually answer this question, when Chris spoke up.

“We like to put it up to the group as a whole. So far, Tyler and Scott have gotten to knock something off of their bucket lists. When we were on our way back down the tower we decided that one of the girls should be the one to pick our next activity. After all, based on our previous ratio...two guys got theirs, it’s due time for a girl to get a chance.”

“I have to pick what we do next?” The excitement and energy that Jessica had been displaying suddenly fell away. She clearly wasn’t comfortable with this responsibility.

“Not necessarily you, just one of the girls. And you don’t have to decide right away. We’ve got all the time in the world.” Justin suggested, his glance still falling on the new girl and her bewitching blue eyes.

As the semi-circle was chatting, Amy continued leaning against the Gateway Arch, her back beginning to ache from the cold surface. She sat in a half daze, unsure of when or how she should jump into this conversation. She knew that she had ideas that the group would be interested in. She didn’t want to be left out from this decision. The last decision the group had made almost killed her, by making her come to Chicago. In the back of her mind she knew that the city wasn’t all that dangerous yet, but that every day it would get a little worse, with more and more zombies moving out from their apartments and into the streets.

The light fog of wine was slowing down her thoughts. She wanted to contribute, but the wine was keeping her brain from moving fast enough. Just as Amy was about to call out in frustration, demanding that they slow down their talking for her, she noticed subtle movement coming from the shadows to her right. The sun stood high in the sky, and it cast a deep shadow on that side of the Gateway Arch. Something was creeping forward, and it was only a few feet from where her friends were standing. Amy knew that there was only one thing left on the planet that thought it could prey on a group of seven well armed humans.

Fuckin’ zombies.

Without another thought, Amy leapt to her feet, shouting wildly. She was certain she had yelled “Look out everyone! We have walkers at three o’clock. Brooke, my newest and dearest friend, please lend me your rifle so I may pay you in-kind by saving your life.”

While Amy was certain this is what she had said, what everyone else actually heard was “Loook...Walkers on the clockers! De-friend, payyyyyyyyy!” And as she screamed this final word, she grabbed at the rifle that was slung over Brooke’s shoulder. Brooke, being only slightly less inebriated than the shorter but spunkier Amy, wasn’t able to avoid the grasp. The rifle began falling from her shoulder and she grabbed the strap. Amy held the barrel of the gun and was wrenching hard, watching as three zombies emerged from the shadows.

In all the commotion that Amy was causing, the entire party was distracted and looking away from the shadow only a few feet behind them. Amy, who was still facing that direction, began to panic. Why wasn’t Brooke giving her the gun? The two girls were struggling back and forth, everyone else was slowly stepping back, aware of how dangerous it was to stand close to two people fighting over a rifle. Amy watched in horror as Chris and Justin were backing right into the edge of the shadow. Small hands reached out to grab them.

With a final scream of fury, Amy kicked Brooke hard in the chest, forcing the wind from her and and finally breaking her grip on the rifle’s strap. Everyone was a little on edge, but Justin wasn’t even able to duck or dodge to the side as Amy, still grasping the barrel of the rifle, swung the entire gun like a baseball bat. Based on the trajectory, it was going to collide with his midsection. Based on the velocity, she was going to do some damage. Scott winced as he watched Amy’s hard swing get closer and closer, wondering what the recommended emergency medical care was for broken ribs.

Amy felt the butt of the rifle connect with a sickening crunch.  Her aim had been good, she connected with and broke the skull of the first zombie who was about to bite into Justin’s right love handle.

For a moment it reminded her of the shockwave she felt when she was a nine year old girl, and got to practice hitting a baseball with her older brothers. She used a wooden bat, just like them, even though the percussion that travelled into her hands always made her feel jittery. That was the same jitter she felt with the crack of a zombie skull. Just like when she was nine years old, she knew the feeling meant she had a solid hit.

Everyone else heard the crack and expected to see Justin double over in pain, instead he only had a look of surprise on his face. Amy reached out, grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her, out of the way of danger. Justin, already in a bit of shock by everything that had already happened, fell past her and rolled on the pavement. Amy spun the rifle around, placing the butt of the gun, now covered in purple gooey blood, against her shoulder, further ruining her new clothes.

Two small zombies came at her, faster than Tyler had ever seen one of the zombies move.

No, that wasn’t true, he had seen one move faster before...but when was it?

Despite the zombies’ apparent speed, they were still slow enough for Amy’s drunken reflexes to handle. One was a little girl of about nine years old, wearing hello kitty pajama pants and an oversized white tee shirt that hung almost to her knees, likely something her father had given her. Her accomplice was her younger brother, judging from the similar facial features. He looked to be around four or five years old, wrapped in a blue onesie with monster trucks on it.

Amy looked back and forth between the two, and then glanced down on the ground, seeing a third little boy, possibly the twin of the little boy, purple blood pooling from his head, around his body and turning his green onesie a strange shade of brownish red.

Three kids. Amy wasn’t able to hold back the smile that had snuck out earlier. Her face began beaming as the two children began charging her, snarls of rage and hunger across their faces. Amy’s friends stood back in awe of how fast and coordinated the children zombies were. Nobody else was able to react, leaving Amy standing alone against her enemies. In the time it took the two child zombies to cross the eight feet of open space, she was able to level the rifle and fire one shot. The bullet crashed into and shattered the snarling teeth of the little boy, the bullet continuing until it ripped a hole out of the back of his throat. The quick operation of adding a new cavity only delayed the hungry boy by a couple of steps. The nine year old girl reached her target first, however Amy was ready for her.