Out of the Shadows (9 page)

“Bear!” Deb yelled, panicked, looking over the edge at the throng of madness below. “What do we do?!”

The first sliver of golden sunlight rose from its nighttime slumber and peeked out its groggy head from under the covers of the horizon.

We were out of time, and we were trapped.

Sunrise.

The dawning of a new day.

The promise of rescue taunted us from the roof of Police Headquarters two buildings away. I listened intently, blocking out the moans of yearning from the mob below, the screaming old woman behind me, and the dying little girl in my arms. I listened for the sounds of helicopter blades beginning to spin, hoping that real humans were protected on that roof and on their way to safety, and yet at the same time, I hoped that they were running behind schedule just long enough for the three of us to get on board.

“Bear!” Deb hollered at me.

I looked at Mary, who was pale and clammy, her eyes filled with terror, looking up at me. Her mouth moved frantically, but my ears heard no sound. My heart pounded fiercely in my head, drowning out the chaos around me. In the alley below us, hundreds of people reached up, begging to tear into our bodies and let their masters inside. My chest heaved with ragged breaths, the weight of my past draped over my already-weak shoulders. The burden was immense, and I had so little energy left with which to carry it.

Again, Deb cried out to me from behind. “They’ll be here any second!” she panicked, pointing at the stairwell door.

With my mind racing, I had nearly forgotten that creatures were flooding into the department store’s front door and dashing up the stairwell toward us. Softly, I placed Mary down, leaning her against the raised brick that lined the entirety of the rooftop.

My eyes rested on the long two-by-fours buried within the construction materials lying about. I picked up one to examine it; it was about ten feet long, maybe twelve.

I ran over to the roof’s edge, placing the thin wood across the gap between buildings. It just barely fit! I dashed back to the lumber pile and retrieved one more board, making a small bridge to cross the chasm.

“Is this safe?” Deb wondered.

“No,” I admitted as I picked up the little girl from the ground, stepping up onto the edge and carefully placing my weight on the wooden walkway.

“Oh, my god! Be careful, Bear!” came Deb’s motherly warning from behind me.

I ignored her, seeing no other way to move toward our goal. I shuffled slowly across the long boards, feeling them bend under my weight. I clutched tightly to Mary as her arms firmly locked around my neck.

“Don’t look down, Sweetie,” I said to her quietly, my hand against her back for support. “Just close your eyes.”

Halfway across now, I dared not glance at the howling mob five stories below. With every step forward, the wood bowed and bounced slightly, quiet crackles resounding as it began to weaken.

Deb made no sound from the roof behind me, so I imagined her standing still, eyes wide, hands clasped over her mouth, feeling as though one small breath would be enough to snap the precarious bridge leading us to safety.

A few more steps. Slowly. Surely. Shuffling. I felt the board under my feet suddenly hold solid and knew that I had reached the end where it was resting on the adjacent building. I glanced down and lowered myself to the roof, exhaling deeply.

“Oh, my
god!”
I heard Deb exclaim with relief from across the way.

I placed Mary on the ground again so I could help Deb across. When I stepped back, I noticed the little girl was crying, so I knelt next to her and wiped streams of moisture from her face. “Hey,” I did my best to sound soothing. “We’re going to be fine.”

“I don’t want to die,” she whimpered up at me.

“I won’t let that happen.”

“I feel funny. Dizzy.”

I felt my eyes moisten, but I clenched my jaw, determined to remain strong for her. The truth was that she didn’t look well. And unless there was a medical team that came along with that chopper, I didn’t think there would be much hope for her.

I stood and held my arms out toward Deb. “Come on, Mama,” I said, coaxing her up onto the rickety makeshift bridge.

“I don’t know if I can, Bear,” she yelled to me, shaking her head back and forth, looking down at the five-story drop.

“You can. You have to. Just don’t look down.”

“Well, I already done looked down!” she snapped angrily, her southern accent thick, as it always was when she grew agitated.

“Just…” I didn’t know what to say to get her to come along. We didn’t have time for this hesitation. “Get on the damn bridge!”

“Don’t rush me!” she glared. “I’m a dyin’ woman, and I don’t like heights!”

She pulled herself up onto the brick lip of the rooftop and slowly stepped out onto the wooden boards. She held her head high to reduce the urge to look down, but I still saw her eyes dart toward the alley every few seconds. Gently she stepped, the wood bending under her weight, continuing to crack in protest as it had for me.

“Ooooh, god,” she mumbled to herself.

“You’re doing great, Mama! Halfway there!”

“Only halfway?!”

I watched the lumber curve and heard it creak, and I silently prayed to whatever god would listen that we would make it to the helicopter atop the headquarters building.

The rooftop door to the department store building burst open, and waves of people crashed onto the rooftop, looking around frantically for their escapees.

“Mama! Hurry!”

Deb gasped and shuffled much quicker, glancing back over her shoulder. “Oh, shit!” Faster she stepped, and farther the wood warped, crackling fiercely now.

Suddenly, with a resounding
snap-crack
, one of the wooden boards splintered in half, falling toward the alley below. Deb’s arms flailed wildly as she attempted to keep her balance on the one remaining piece of wood under her feet.

She slipped.

Deb shrieked as the two-by-four wobbled under her, and she fell forward toward the building.

“No!”
I yelled, reaching out, barely grasping her arms within my hands. She smacked against the side of the brick building with a thud as the excitement from the mob below built in intensity, hoping they were about to receive their next victim.

She dangled, legs flailing, screaming incoherently, her life in my hands. “Deb, stop struggling!”

“Oh, shit! Bear!
Holy shit!”
she panicked, many more expletives pouring from her mouth.

My hands grew sweatier with every passing second. “Deb, stop moving!”

Finally, she calmed a bit, looking up at me. “Pull me up, Bear! Pull me up!”

I gritted my teeth and began pulling upward as hard as I could. I was in an awkward position and couldn’t get much leverage. My arm muscles were exhausted from having carried Mary for miles. But I lifted, waiting for the moment that my muscles would snap in half from the strain, like a rubber band stretched too far.

A group of human husks from across the roof stepped up on the single two-by-four and began crossing toward us. They advanced with such inhuman ease, their balance never faltering. I was forced to release my grip on Deb with one of my hands, and I forcefully pushed the piece of wood off the edge of the roof. The group tumbled to the alley below, colliding with the sea of monsters.

I reached my free hand down once more. “Take my other hand, Mama.” She clumsily reached into the air, trying desperately to take hold of my offering, but both of our hands were slick with sweat.

“Bear, over there!” she called out, looking at the other end of the building.

The mob from the roof had begun laying out their own bridge of lumber, far from my grasp so I could not send them down to their deaths again.

I panicked. With one hand grasping a hold of Deb, I lifted as hard as I could, my other hand reaching into the back of my jeans and retrieving my gun. I gritted my teeth, my arm in terrible pain, my shoulder soon to pop from its socket.

I aimed the firearm at the group crossing the new bridge and released shot after shot into each of their bodies, sending them soaring down to their friends below. I lifted with one arm, fired with the other. I didn’t have the strength to get Deb up onto the roof without my other hand, but their numbers were massive, and they continued across the planks endlessly.

I pulled the trigger again and again, but there was no stopping them. In a matter of seconds, they would be across their walkway, quick to turn us into emotionless worshippers of a twisted arachnid deity. I began to cry, because I had failed; I couldn’t save Deb and Mary. Another shot into the mob. Another tug on Deb. Another body into the alley, my vision blurring from tears.

“Bear!” Deb called to me.

I kept firing, picking them off one by one as they replaced themselves with even more, as if I were attempting to decapitate a twisted spider hydra.

“Bear!”
she screamed again, more forcefully.

I stopped firing for just a moment and looked down at the woman. She gazed up at me with sadness in her eyes and a bittersweet smile across her lips. “You’re one of the good ones, Bear.”

My brow furrowed in confusion.

Her grin broadened, and a tear escaped the corner of her eye as she regarded me with love. Overcome by a sense of calm, she said to me, “Save the girl.”

And she let go of my hand.

I watched as the woman who had saved me fell gracefully, her eyes locked on mine, her smile remaining. In those three torturous seconds of her flight, everything that ever needed to be said between us was made known by our eyes. I looked away as the throng below engulfed her body.

I caught a lump of air in my throat before it could escape, loathe to allow my emotions release, but this loss was the final brick that brought the whole house crumbling to the ground. Now, nothing remained of my former life. I fell forward onto the brick ledge of the rooftop as great heaving sobs wracked through my body.

“Bear?! What happened?” Mary mumbled weakly, but I ignored her.

My strength gave out, and I collapsed to the ground next to the wounded girl, bellowing my anguished cries into the air. I tugged clumsily on the front of my clothing, feeling the need to do
something
physical with my hands to expend this overabundance of grief. The shoulder seams of the shirt stretched and began to snap, but I stopped when I heard Mary’s cry of terror pierce the morning air.

Through blurred vision, I saw them jump down onto the rooftop from their bridge and head toward us. My emotional damn exploded, spilling forth a deluge of burning, unstoppable fury. I leapt to my feet and ran to the other end of the building, charging like a raging bull targeting its tormenter. I blasted into the first guy I encountered, sending him over the edge. As more streamed down from the walkway, I annihilated them with my bare hands, elbowing and punching and kicking, snapping necks and breaking cartilage.

My wrath consumed me as I tore through the predators, now the unfortunate prey at the receiving end of my anger. I’d warned their leader in the street below, and now I yearned for the chance to tear her torched head from her shoulders.

I sent another guy over the ledge as I approached their bridge, sabotaging it with a spiteful shove, and it collapsed into the alley, buying us only a minute more before they would rebuild it, or worse – find a way up from within the building below.

I didn’t know how many bullets remained in my gun. I estimated around ten, so I needed to make them count. I jogged back to little Mary, lifting her into my arms and crossing the rooftop toward the towering police station next door.

“Where’s Mama?” she whimpered.

As she rested her head on my shoulder, I said quietly to her, “She decided to stay behind.”

She attempted to cry, but her body had no energy left. She had lost so much blood, and she was severely dehydrated. With her body so entwined with my own, I felt the heat from her raging fever.
Save the girl
, Mama had said. No pressure.

I approached the next rooftop ledge, now facing the ten-story police headquarters building. The sun inched higher into the sky from beneath the horizon. There was a metal fire escape stairwell attached to the side of HQ, but still, with the gap between buildings, I would need to build another bridge. And there was no lumber on this rooftop.

I glanced into the alley below, again filled to capacity with walking corpses. The ladder down at the second floor that led from the escape stairs to the pavement was raised, stopping them from climbing toward us. If I could just find a way to make it over, I would have a clear stretch up the escape stairs to the helipad on the roof.

I glanced around frantically but saw nothing useful with which to cross. And then I heard it:

The escalating, rhythmic
whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
of a helicopter’s blades revving up.

“No!”
I screamed, panic taking hold within me.

Rescue was so close to our grasp, and we were about to miss it.

“Nick Barren, you have nowhere to run!” came dozens of synched voices from behind.

I quickly spun to see that a large group had successfully crossed the chasm and made it to my roof. The helicopter’s engine grew in intensity, its blades circling faster and faster. Now, there was nothing to lose.