up it, my footsteps ringing. The Stiffs piled in after me, falling upon themselves as the first’s foot met a step and tripped. They fell upon each other in a great heap, extending their arms forward and desperately trying to reach out toward us. I stopped as I reached the top of the staircase. Dozens of Stiffs were gathered at the base of the stairs. Some were starting to crawl over the bodies of the others. They would find a way up. They would crawl up the stairs if they had to. Nothing will separate a Stiff from its feed. That fact is the genesis of zombie education.
I hurried down the metal walkway, my feet clanging sharply under me as I went. The girl was rushing down it some yards ahead of me, trailing blood behind. But she had nowhere to go. The walkway ended at the wall, and any opening only led to cells. She was trapped. So was I. In all likelihood we were both dead.
I was catching up to the girl quickly. I was a lot faster than her. She was racing ahead, glancing at each cell as she passed. Then she stopped, spun ninety degrees to face the wall, and charged into one of the cells. She was cornered. I dashed ahead and turned into the cell after her, ready to grab her.
It was empty.
A hole was broken through the wall. I hadn’t noticed it before. I guess no one thought to try to repair it since Stiffs never went upstairs anyway, and if they did, they still couldn’t escape the gate surrounding the compound. I went to the opening and stuck my head out. The girl was sidling outside along an edge.
“What the hell are you doing?” I called to her against the frantically whipping wind. We were on the second floor, but it seemed a lot higher to me.
“Getting out of here!” she cried without looking back.
The Stiffs that were still outside the prison were now starting to move toward the human. They could smell her now that she was in the open. Their heads turned upward and their jaws began snapping rhythmically.
“Wait!” I called to her.
She continued to move along the edge. She stopped when she came to the end of the building. What was she thinking? Stiffs were all over the place.
Then she jumped. She landed on top of a metal wire cage, sprawling forward. She lay there for a moment, putting her hand to her leg to try to stop the bleeding without any result. The Stiffs surrounded her all around and began shaking the cage violently. She stood unsteadily, frozen in place where she was. I sighed. She was trapped. Humans could be so stupid sometimes, jumping right into the worst possible situation without even thinking.
I stepped through the hole and began edging out toward her. As I came to the end of the building she snapped her head up to look up at me. The wind was raging at me as I stood above her, gazing down, wailing in my ears.
“Stay where you are!” she cried over the driving wind. “Or I’ll jump!”
I grimaced at her. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that this human girl had a death wish. For whatever reason, she felt like death at the hands of a horde of Stiffs was a suitable alternative to going with me. Just like the woman at the farm. Maybe she wasn’t as smart as I thought.
I took in a deep breath. Then I threw myself over the ledge and landed on the gate behind her. The metal wire vibrated beneath us as I struck. I reached out to grab her arm but the human had started running the moment I had jumped. She came to the edge of the gate and without hesitation threw herself over.
I hurried over to the edge of the gate and peered down into the darkness. She rolled off ahead of the Stiffs. As she stumbled to her feet, the Stiffs about-faced in unison and fell on her. I groaned.
Then I launched myself over the gate and landed on the ground just before the horde. I threw myself into them and grabbed at the human. I dragged myself backward, pulling her out with me, pale, undead hands splaying in every direction. Her clothes were ripped, her jacket shredded and her shirt torn from the collar past the sleeve, revealing her stomach and bra-covered chest. She was scratched all across her arms and she was covered in blood on her right side.
“Run,” I told her, and shoved her forward. She darted toward the gate surrounding the compound, dragging her injured leg behind her.
I spun and began walking backward quickly. I dug into my backpack and drew out the pouch I had taken from the basement of my mentor’s house. It was filled with rotting, bloody Stiff remains – Stiff bait. I tore open the bag, releasing the smell, and flung the pieces of dead flesh at the horde. Instantly they began to gravitate toward it. Most at the front kneeled over at once and started picking at the ground at the pieces that had fallen at their feet. This slowed up all the other Stiffs behind, causing them to lose their footing and making them unable to advance.
I spun and dashed toward the gate. That would keep them occupied for a few minutes. I made it just after the girl had started to clamber up it, the way she had when she first escaped into the Stockade. I followed, pulling myself up after her. A moment later, the Stiffs banged into the gate below me, smashing into it. Their arms reached up to grab my leg, but I managed to pull myself up away from them before they could get a good grasp on it.
The Stiffs were shaking the gate with all their strength. I had to keep focused and pay attention to what I was doing so I didn’t let them shake me free. The girl slipped once, and skidded down the gate, but I managed to reach out with my free arm and push her against the gate long enough for her to regain her footing and continue on. The girl managed to make it to the top of the gate ahead of me and began struggling to pull herself over. The barbed wire scraped against her skin and she cried out with pain as it dug into her. I climbed to her opposite side and quickly helped her get over the top, lifting her body away from the barbed wire and positioning her over the other side of the gate. She tried to climb down on the other side, but she was in too much of a hurry and she fumbled, her fingers too wet with blood to hold on. She fell onto the street outside the Stockade, landing on her legs and falling onto her backside. I hurried to move myself over the top of the gate as she endeavored to draw herself up off the pavement.
I scattered down that gate as she began running with labored steps down the street, panting as she went. I didn’t have a chance to catch up to her. Trevor darted out from the front of the van and wrapped her up in his arms. She struggled futilely to break free, crying wildly. He dragged her to the back of the van.
“What the hell happened in there?” he cried as he lifted her, legs flailing in every direction, and tried to dump her in the van.
I waved my hand at him, discarding his question. The sound of a Stiff throwing itself against the gate jarred me. I whipped my head in the direction of the noise. A thin, bony Stiff was pressed against the gate, its eyes glaring into mine as it widened its mouth and pushed its tongue through an opening in the mesh. It tried gnawing on the metal unsuccessfully, grinding its teeth. Its body was blood-covered, its long, stringy hair red with blood, and its long, thin, blood-died fingers curled around the metal links as the creature pressed its naked, skeletal body against the metal barrier. It was the woman from the farm, the one I had infected. She stared at me with her cold, lifeless eyes and I stared back. It clawed at the gate, its hands limply moving upward as if mimicking the way we had climbed it. She was empty now, as good as dead, and I felt a sudden urge to reach out and drive one of the blades I had brought with me into her skull and end her meaningless death. My hand blindly reached into my pack to clench the blade. The Stiff’s blank, merciless face gazed back at me, and it felt only right that I put an end to its mindless existence.
“Zell! Hey, come on!” The sound of Trevor’s cries drew me away from the Stiff. I turned my gaze from it and hurried to the van, leaving the blade in my pack. Trevor was holding the girl as she struggled, trying to lift her and throw her into the van. I helped, pinning her arms and helping him toss her inside. The human immediately attempted to jump out of the van, but I rushed at her, pushing her back in and climbing in after her. I reached out for the doors.
“Drive,” I told Trevor. “Get us back to zone A. Fast. She’s bleeding pretty bad. She migh
t not last the trip.”
Then I drew the doors of the van closed behind me, shutting myself and the human together inside.
23. COLD HANDS
I sat back against the wall of the van near the doors. The human curled up on the opposite side, near the front. After a few minutes the van’s engine groaned lazily to life and we were bumping along, away from the Stockade. The sounds of grunting, rabid Stiffs fell away quickly. A thin line of blood trickled from where I sat to the human, who had her injured leg pulled up to her, hands pressed tightly to the area where she had been bitten.
I began undressing from my safety gear, tossing aside the rubber suit, gloves, and boots. Taking my backpack, I crouched with my knees bent and moved forward. “Here, let me look.”
“Stay away!” she hissed, pushing against the wall of the van.
“I just want to help.”
“I don’t want your help, you monster.”
I rolled my eyes and I sidled across from her and dropped my backpack in front of me to pull out some gauze Trevor and I had packed in it before we left. “We have to put pressure on it or you’ll just bleed out and die before we get there.”
“Good,” she shot back. “I want to die.”
“Is that why you hid in the Stockade for a week, eating