“John, are there any other ways up here?” I asked, shouting; not daring to turn around and see what he was up to.
“Why you shouting?” he asked in my ear. If I’d eaten anything more substantial than a Phrito in the last seventy-two hours, it would have magically produced itself in an instant.
“You about scared the shit out of me.”
“Nothing else up here except a hatch that leads into the tank.”
“This is about my least favorite place in the world, John,” I told him in all seriousness, perched on a structure three hundred-plus feet in the air, sitting on a cold metal ladder not much more than twelve inches wide.
“Worse than a Thai prison?”
“Well…that’s not a fair comparison. I’ve never been to one.”
“I have…this is better.”
“I’m going to ask you about that when we get off this thing.”
“Ask about what?” John asked.
“Never mind. You hear them?”
John’s head shook back and forth. I know this, because his long beard dragged across the top of my head as he tried to peer over me.
“It’d be nice if they gave up,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s in their nature.”
“Look out!” John screamed in my ear.
He had startled me to my core, so much so that I started firing before I had even acquired a target, and good thing too. Two of the things had jumped up, one was twisting to the right and the other to the left. I caught the large man in the chest. He skittered on the roof, clawing to seek purchase, leaving a wide swath of blood as gravity won its war. The woman that had twisted to the left was now descending on me. I knew it was a hopeless venture, thinking I could get the muzzle around in time. I swung the butt of my rifle, catching her in her jaw. She rocked from the impact. Her hand tried to dig into my pants so I slammed her again in her mouth before she could bite down on me. Two of her fingernails were embedded in my pants as she fell away screaming.
“That was too close, John. I’m going to need to lean over the edge. We can’t let them get that close again.”
I started shuffling back down; that Thai prison was looking better. As I approached the lip, I had no clue how I was going to do this and remain somewhat safe. John solved that problem; he came down with me.
“I’ll hold onto your back,” he told me. “It’ll be like riding bitch on my wife’s Harley.”
“Your wife makes you ride bitch?”
“It’s her bike.”
“Okay…and thank you. Don’t forget you’re holding on,” I told him.
“She told you about that? It was only once, and we were leaving a Dead show in St. Louis.”
“I meant me, John, don’t forget that you’re holding me in place.”
“Why would I do that?”
“That’ll have to do.” I leaned over. The stuff of horrific nightmares was coming up that ladder. There had to have been about ten of them, and they were determined. “Got something for you!” I shouted as I leaned further and began to shoot.
The lead howlers screamed in rage as I emptied my magazine into their ranks. Some got hung up on the ladder, but most swirled away to die. Others on the parapet looked up at me and yelled before moving out of sight from my rifle.
“That’ll give them something to think about!” I whooped, hopped up on the heat of the battle.
Don’t let anyone ever fool you, fighting for your life makes your body create one of the most exhilarating cocktail of drugs. There’s a reason there are career military men and mercenaries. The problem with the production of these opiates and the high they produce is the resultant low as your body tries to recuperate from working at such a high level. A half hour had passed, and the howlers hadn’t shown themselves again. I knew there were dozens of them right around the curve of the tank, and I could do nothing about it except sit, wait, and try to stay awake.
It was another ten minutes, my head was beginning to nod. I was spooked awake from John’s air-splitting snores. My head popped up, my heart was pumping, I was pleased to realize that, even in sleep, John hadn’t forgotten his promise. If possible, he had an even tighter grip on my belt.
The snoring did not go unnoticed by those below us. I guess I could add, super hearing to their list of qualities. They were quickly and quietly moving back to the ladder. I said a small prayer to the gods of cloudless nights and bright moons. They were quiet, but not unseen. I would wait until a decent force of them was headed up. I wanted to warn John about the shots, but I was afraid that it would give warning to the attackers. As long as John didn’t push me away, we should be fine.
I couldn’t tell exactly how many of them had gotten on the ladder, but when they reached the halfway point, I figured that to be as close as I wanted them.
“Hope you’re hungry,” I told the lead one.
His head swiveled up quickly, a snarl corroded into his features. I blew him away in a spindrift of facial parts. My shoulder rocked as I sent round after round into them. At first they tried to rush my position, and actually made some decent progress as I changed out magazines, but my withering fire had them once again rethink their frontal assault strategy. I took a breath as they moved away, the void of silence was immediately filled in by John’s snores. He hadn’t even awoken.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said as laid my rifle in my lap.
I switched out my half-used mag for a full one and once again waited. Unlike traditional zombies, these ones cared about losses. Maybe not about their fallen comrade, but they were definitely concerned about their own well-being. That showed a whole different level of willingness to survive. I had my doubts that these were zombies at all. Runners were fast, but only as fast as they could run when they were alive. Obviously the stamina aspect of being able to run virtually forever made them a formidable enemy, but they weren’t enhanced in any other way that I knew of. Besides some flashes of thought process, they were generally stupid, mindless eating and shitting machines. Kind of like cats, I suppose.
But these new things in this place. They were different; they thought, they strategized, and they were also on the zombie diet. That, above everything, proved my point. Zombies, the most disgustingly wretched plague to ever walk my planet or this one, weren’t cannibalistic, go figure.
I started to hear some morning birds chattering early. It was then that I thought we might make it through the night; that was the first inkling of true hope I’d had in hours. An hour or so later, without any signs of an attack, the finger rays of sunlight were peeking over the tree line, and I realized we’d lived to see another day. To what end, I don’t know. Even this high up, I could smell the stench of zombies, so they didn’t really care about my new outlook.
“Gonna let go now, Ponch, you alright?” John asked.
“I’m good, man.” I felt his hand unhook from my belt, he stood and stretched. Now that I could actually see where I was, I really wished I could weld myself to the roof.
“I’m going to get some water, want to come with me?” John asked. He was heading back up to the very top.
I stayed low and turned my head to watch. He looked like a mountain goat on a cliff’s ledge without a care in the world. I really wanted to go back down to the relative safety of the parapet in all honesty, but I would wait up on the top to make sure John was safe.