“Shit, what are we going to do now?” I wailed.
Smith nodded down below us. “Get that fucking ladder up here for a start.”
I dumped down my spear gun and spares then gripped the ladder’s sides, pulling it up towards the mezzanine floor. The grimacing female zombie clawed at the ladder rungs and tried to get a hand hold. I twisted the wooden sides and pulled upwards, causing the ghoul to release her grip. Smith hurried beside me and helped me steady the ladder and pull it over the edge and rest it on the floor.
“You think they can climb up ladders now?” I asked.
Smith shrugged. “I don’t have a clue but it is better having it up here than taking the risk of leaving it down there with those freaks.”
The undead crowd had followed the direction of the ladder. Their milky white eyes recognizing the living flesh above them. The wailing and hollering increased in volume and they reached up, clawing the air at the sight of Smith and I. They pressed together in a mass, filling the living room and their stench wafted upwards to attack my senses. The undead looked like an audience at some bizarre rock concert, all reaching up with expressions of eagerness. Smith and I were playing the part of the appreciated performing act, although any encores were going to be strictly limited.
I glanced at Smith for inspiration. We were stuck on the raised floor. The undead couldn’t get us but we couldn’t get down and I knew they wouldn’t simply quit their pursuit and go away. We had two unpleasant choices. Try and make a break through their ranks and probably get mauled to pieces or stay on the mezzanine and slowly starve to death. Nothing ever seemed to work out right.
Smith flapped open his silky green bathrobe and shuffled to the edge of the floor. He began pissing over the undead crowd below, who didn’t seem to mind their golden shower.
“What the hell are we going to do now, Smith?” I groaned.
Smith finished up his morning call of nature and looked me straight in the eye.
“We’re going to get out of here,” he said calmly.
“How the fuck are we going to do that?” I spat, scowling at his composure.
Smith pointed up at the circular skylight in the ceiling. “We’re going that way.”
Chapter Nineteen
I gazed down at my feet and growled in frustration. I’d heard and taken part in many of Smith’s silly-assed plans throughout the time I’d known him but this proposed arrangement seemed utterly ludicrous, even by his standards.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I sighed. “We can’t possibly reach that skylight from down here.”
Smith pointed at the floor beside the guard rail. “We can if we use the ladder.”
I looked down at the ladder then up at the skylight. The ladder was more than long enough to reach. It still seemed a stupid plan but I couldn’t think of any alternatives.
“We’ll ram the ladder up as far as it’ll go, bust it through the glass and wedge it on the safety rail at this end and against the skylight frame at the top,” Smith explained.
“Yeah, right,” I snorted. “What can possibly go wrong?”
“Well, if you have any better plans, I’m listening,” Smith huffed, bending down to pick up the ladder. He grunted with exertion as he raised the heavy wooden frame and flashed me a grimace. “Just stand there watching, why don’t you?”
I sighed and moved forward to give Smith a hand with the ladder. We struggled but maneuvered it level and resting on top of the safety rail.
“Okay, push down,” Smith ordered.
We pressed down on the lower rungs so the top rose to the ceiling in a see-saw motion.
“Right, on the count of three, haul it upward as hard as you can.”
I nodded and waited for Smith to count down. We shoved the ladder skyward when Smith said “go.” The tops of the side rails met the circular skylight with a powerful impact, breaking through the glass with force. Razor sharp shards and small glass chips rained down on the zombie horde below. We continued pushing upward until the top of the ladder slid through the open gap and rested against the frame surrounding the skylight.
Smith gripped the ladder’s rungs at waist height and tested the stability by pressing down and shaking the side rails left and right. The ladder shifted a couple of inches but seemed pretty solidly held in place.
“Looking good,” I said.
Smith shrugged. “We’ll see when we get up there.”
I glanced him up and down. “Are you going to get changed? You look weird dressed in that silly-assed robe.”
Smith raised his hands defensively. “Who the fuck is around here to see us? Besides, it’s cool. Not cool as in
hey, fucking cool, man!
But cool as in not hot.”
“Fair point,” I muttered. “Your choice. But if you come back as a zombie, you’ll be wearing that woman’s robe for all eternity.”
“Fuck you, Wilde Man,” Smith snorted. “Just get your skinny ass up that damn ladder.” He jutted his chin at the skylight.
“You want me to go first?” I suddenly felt apprehensive. I hadn’t been good with heights since the Julia situation in Manhattan.
“You got a problem with that?” Smith huffed. “Okay, I’ll go up first if you want. I really don’t give a fuck but all the time we stand around here yakking, the more of those undead bastards are flocking to this damn house, which by my reckoning makes our chances of getting out of here that little bit more difficult.”
“All right, all right,” I sighed. “I’m ready, let’s go.”
Smith lifted the two sacks containing the spare spears and handed them to me. “You take these up with you. Put the straps over your shoulders on opposite sides and don’t let them catch on the window frame at the top.”
“Yes, sir,” I barked, imitating a military stooge.
Smith glared and shook his head. “I’ll take care of both the weapons and I’ll follow you right up onto the roof.”
I did as he suggested, slipping the two quivers over my shoulders so the straps crisscrossed my chest. The containers felt heavy at my sides and I hoped they wouldn’t hinder my ascent to the skylight. I looked at the ladder and then over the edge of the guard rail at the sea of rotten, sneering, snarling faces below. I felt a pang of panic rising in the pit of my stomach. What if I fell from the ladder? I couldn’t begin to imagine what being ripped to pieces by an avalanche of teeth and fingernails could possibly feel like. Even though I’d seen plenty of people succumb to that nasty fate.
Smith slapped me around the face. Not hard, just enough to grab my attention.
“Hey, kid, you okay? You look like you kind of zoned out for a second there.”
I nodded.
He looked me straight in the eyes. “Come on, Wilde Man, we can do this. We got no other way out of here.”
I took a few deep breaths. “I’m okay.”
“Atta-boy,” Smith said.
I shuffled in line with the ladder’s bottom rung and glanced up at the elevated frame. Blue sky and a few wispy white clouds were visible through the broken window. I gritted my teeth and began to slowly climb.
The wailing and screaming below me grew more frantic but I didn’t dare take a look downwards. I didn’t want to see all those decomposing faces leering up at me. The rotting stench of the undead corpses was bad enough to contend with. Instead, I tried to stay focused on moving up the ladder, one rung at a time.
I kept going and soon breathed in fresh morning air and felt the warmth of the sun on my face. I reached the skylight but faced a problem.
Chapter Twenty
The gap between the broken glass and the skylight frame wasn’t big enough to fit through. The window had only partially shattered and a semi circular rim of glass with a fine but sharp edge remained in the frame.
I made the mistake of looking back down the ladder and took a wobble. I saw Smith’s face turn from enthusiastic to deeply concerned in a split second. I gripped the side rail and steadied myself, forcing away the queasiness creeping through me. The image of Julia’s terrified face as she plummeted down from that Manhattan building flashed through my mind for an instant. I stayed motionless for a few seconds, gathering my breath and allowing my heart rate to slow down.
“Take it easy, kid,” Smith called above the moans and yelps booming from the floor below. “Hang on in there.”
I clung to the sides of the ladder but turned my head to look back at Smith. “There’s still a big old chunk of glass inside the frame. I can’t fit through,” I yelled.
Smith shook his head and screwed up his face. “Just punch out the glass or something. Come on, Wilde Man. Quit fucking around.”
Hitting the remains of the window with an unprotected fist was a bad move in my view. Glass shards could easily tear an artery in my arm or wrist.
I knew the longer I took, the worse our situation would become. Time was limited. More undead would flock to the house, following the original horde like farm animals and restricting our chances of escape. I thought about taking off one of my new found deck shoes to try and batter away the glass but the soles were made of rubber and not really tough enough for the job.
I needed a solid object with enough weight and strength to break the remains of the window. The only possible items I could use were the spare spears in the elongated sacks positioned at the back of my shoulders. Reaching them was going to be awkward as I’d have to twist while on the ladder.
I tried stretching my right hand over my left shoulder. I could reach the cover flap on top of the spear holder but the angle was all wrong to withdraw one of the metal shafts.
I was busy trying to figure out a way of retrieving one of the spears, when I heard a whooshing sound a fraction of a second before the window above erupted around me. Glass chips scattered over me and fell onto the zombie crowd below.
I glanced upward. The remaining glass in the skylight had totally gone. I glanced behind me and saw Smith brandishing one of the spear guns with a sheepish grin on his face. The bastard had shot the glass out of the window, the spear passing inches above my head. I gritted my teeth, rage rising within me.
“You could have killed me, you fucking maniac!” I yelled.
“Hey, just lending a hand is all,” Smith shouted back. He raised his arms out wide, still holding the spear gun in his right. “You looked like you were in a little trouble so I resolved the problem. No need to thank me, Wilde.”
I opened my mouth to holler some additional abuse but gave up before I uttered a sound. What was the point? No matter how much ranting and raving I did would change Smith or curb his psychotic behavior. He probably thought it was pretty funny to scare the shit out of like that. But that was Smith all over and I guessed if he’d been slightly meeker we wouldn’t have survived for so long.
I shook my head and continued my ascent with a pissed off grimace.
The welcome fresh breeze ruffled my hair when I clambered through the circular skylight. The roof was finished in rough white stucco and curved away from the window on all sides. I perched myself in a sitting position beside the skylight, taking in the surrounding view.
Directly in front of me, the castle stood on the rocky hillside with the blue ocean beyond. The early morning sun turned the castle’s turrets and battlements a hazy shade of pink. To the right, the road continued onward through the village and out into an overgrown wilderness. The large forest we’d trudged through the previous day stood to the left.
I shuffled myself around in a circle and gazed beyond the domed rooftops of the small houses on the opposite side of the road. Another larger, dome shaped building stood behind the smaller dwellings, set back away from the road and a distance between the other houses, as if it was separate from the rest of the village.
My interest in the bigger house increased. I saw a long driveway that lay on the opposite side of a tall wire mesh fence. The driveway sat beyond a pair of high metal gates and between a large graveled area. Two huge, white statues of lions stood either side of a large wooden front door. The fence line seemed to run around the whole of the property boundary and an overgrown grassed lawn combined with a yellow tiled patio covered the grounds at the rear. I thought I saw the edge of a swimming pool incorporated into the patio section, directly at the rear of the property but the structure masked most of the area. I couldn’t see any zombies roaming around inside the compound or any other signs of life.