In the Lone and Level Sands (58 page)

Layne drew and fired, missing the closest
zombie the first time, then hitting it right in the head. It fell
to the ground. He took a few steps, and Kyle followed closely
behind. The two fired at the oncoming zombies, moving down the hall
slowly.

Kara started to cry. Jessi tried to calm her
down, but it wasn’t working.

“Hey guys, we might want to get a move on!”
Keely said from the back of the line. She and Katie cleared some of
the zombies from the hole, but not nearly enough.

“We’re going as fast as we can!” Kyle
said.

“Hey, where’s the bag of weapons?” Dex said.
“I’ll make one of those Molotovs and see if we can get the zombies
distracted!”

“We’re too close to each other,” Layne
said.

“We’ll be fine, I’ll throw it down the hall!
It’ll give Garrett a better chance!”

Warren dug through the bag and grabbed a
bottle, which had been partially emptied, and a rag. He handed them
to Dex.

“Toss it here!” Garrett said. Layne couldn’t
see where he was, but he sounded closer than the bathroom.

“Garrett, get out of there!” Lacie said.

Garrett was at the back of the middle room.
Zombies poured in through the hole in the bathroom, despite Katie
and Keely trying their hardest to take them out from the hall.

Dex wrapped the rag around the bottle and
tied a small knot, then threw it over the zombies. Garrett caught
it. He quickly opened the bottle and stuffed the rag inside.

“I need a light!” he said. Dex tossed him a
lighter.

Layne wished he could tell what was
happening, but the zombies up ahead commanded his attention. He
kept firing and inching the group forward.

“Try to throw it into the room next to you!”
Dex said. “That’ll clear you a path!”

“Sorry, Dex,” Garrett said. “That won’t
work.”

“What are you talking about?”

Garrett shot a nearby zombie. “That’ll get
them off of me, but not you guys.” He shot another zombie, then
climbed onto the bed. The zombies reached for him from all sides.
Garrett lit the rag, then threw the Molotov straight at the ground
in front of the bed.

“No!” Lacie screamed. The hotel room burst
into flames.

“What’s happening?” Layne said.

The fire spread through the room quickly,
running along the carpet and toward the wooden shelf that housed
the TV. It started to creep up the bedsheets and window shades.

The zombies stopped reaching for Garrett.
Most of them reached down, toward the fire, and several of them
were already beginning to catch. They groaned and growled, and
seemed to be in pain, but they couldn’t help themselves. The
zombies in the hall could see the glow emanating from the room, and
rushed toward it. Most of them completely ignored the survivors
they passed.

“Garrett!” Layne said. As soon as the
hallway ahead was clear of zombies, he headed for the hotel room.
The fire was beginning to spread into the hall. Layne looked inside
the room as zombies passed him up. Garrett was standing on the bed,
the fire was slowly climbing it.

“Get out of here, Layne,” Garrett said.

“We’re going to get you out of there.
Garrett, God damn it! You didn’t have to do this!”

“It was the only way to get their attention,
Layne. Now get our friends out of here.”

Layne turned to the others. “Head straight
out through the front door and get into the cars. We’ll be out
soon.” Katie led them away. Layne turned back to Garrett. “Can you
get out through one of the other rooms?”

“We blocked the doors,” Garrett said.
“Besides, there’s too much fire, now.”

Layne had an idea.

“All right, Garrett, I’m going to get you
out of there, but I need you to just trust me, and do exactly what
I say, okay?”

“Whatever plan you got is better than mine.
I didn’t wake up this morning and decide I wanted to be toast.”

“You’re going to have to go through that
fire. But you’ll be all right, I promise, okay?”

“Time’s ticking, what’s the plan?”

“I want you to wait about thirty seconds,
then I want you to jump down and head for the bathroom. Just head
for the hole in the wall. That’s all you need to do, okay?”

“Got it,” Garrett said.

“Good,” Layne replied. Then he was gone.

****

Even with the zombies distracted by the
fire, Layne wasn’t sure thirty seconds would be enough. Then again,
with the fire spreading into the hall, maybe it was too long.

Some zombies were still trying to climb
through the hole in the bathroom wall, though now they wanted to
get to the fire. They were plugging it up, preventing any of them
from moving. They pushed and squirmed, but no one got anywhere.

Fish in a barrel.

Layne quickly took them out, then moved
their bodies out of the way. He didn’t know how much time had
passed.

Layne worked his torso through the hole in
the wall and into the shower on the other side. He looked at the
door and saw the fire was spreading into the bathroom. Garrett
would have a harder time than Layne originally thought, but that’s
what he was there for.

Layne turned and reached for the faucet
handle. He couldn’t quite make it.

Come on. Garrett needs you.

Layne reached again. He had no idea if there
were any zombies in the hall near him, or if his thirty seconds
were up. He only knew that he had one shot.

Layne reached again, letting his feet leave
the ground in the hallway. The broken tile pressed into his side,
but he ignored the pain and reached. He grabbed the faucet handle
and pulled. Water spouted out of the shower head, soaking his
entire top half.

A few seconds later, Garrett shouted. He
rushed into the bathroom, his clothes catching fire. Then he
understood what Layne had done.

Garrett dove for the bath, nearly falling
over, and into the stream of water. He climbed into the tub, lay
down in it for a moment, tried to get as much water on himself as
possible. He patted out the parts of his clothes that were still
burning, and soon was free of flame.

“Come on,” Layne said. “Get your ass out
here!”

Layne carefully but quickly backed out
through the hole. Garrett crawled through head-first. As he moved
forward, the broken corner of a tile latched onto one of the holes
that had been burned into his shirt, tearing it, stopping him.
Garrett couldn’t free his shirt, so he pulled harder until it tore
mostly off, then he climbed through the hole. Layne helped him, and
the two piled into the hallway and lay on the ground for a
moment.

“You all right?” Layne asked.

“Yeah,” Garrett said. “Thanks.”

“Good. Let’s get out before we get smoked to
death.”

They got up and rushed down the hall, which
was going up in flames. They made their way past uninterested
zombies and into the lobby, and then out through the main door.

The sun looked especially beautiful to the
two men who, moments before, hadn’t known whether they’d ever see
it again. The cars were ahead of them, full of the other
survivors.

“Thanks again, man,” Garrett said. He headed
for the smaller car.

“Don’t mention it. Let’s head down the road
and find a clear spot, and we can regroup and gather our
thoughts.”

“Good plan.” Garrett tapped on the
passenger-side window. Warren rolled it down. Garrett handed him
the keys. “Do you mind driving on this one?”

“Son, I didn’t expect you to even leave that
building,” Warren said. “No problem at all.” He moved over to the
driver’s seat, and Garrett got into the passenger seat.

“See you on the other side,” Layne said. He
headed for the minivan and got in.

“Good job, Layne!” Dex said. “For a minute,
I thought Uncle Garrett was a goner.”

“We aren’t out of the woods yet.”

Some zombies were crossing the parking lot
and heading for the cars.

“Well, let’s hit the road, then,” Katie
said.

“That’s a damn good plan.” Layne started the
car and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. As the
adrenaline started to fade along with the hotel in the rearview
mirror, Layne’s thoughts turned once again from near death to the
near future, and what exactly the survivors might be headed
for.

54

On the Roof of the Cardigan

“What are we painting up here?” Mal asked.
She rubbed the rough cement with the toe of her shoe.

“Well honey, we want to get the attention of
one of those helicopters, so there’s a special word we can paint,”
Evan said. “And we need to make it real big: SOS.”

“‘SOS?’ What does that mean?” Mal looked at
Jason, who had set the bucket on the roof and was prying the lid
off. The roller lay next to the bucket, and he picked it up, ready
to get the job done.

“It means ‘save our ship’, or in this case,
‘save our souls’,” Evan said. “It’ll just let them know there are
people living here who need help. No monsters. You know?”

“Yeah,” Mal said with a smile. “So, can I
help?”

Jason poured some of the paint out of the
bucket into the roller tray. The copper-colored paint made a soft
glurping sound as it flowed out of the bucket.

“We’ll let Jason get most of it done, and
then you can help him finish. It’s important we get this going.
Okay?”

“Okay,” Mal said. She watched Jason begin
rolling out a fifteen-foot-tall “S”. It took him about ten minutes
before he began working on the “O”.

The others stood around, breathing in the
Chicago air. The wind had picked up and felt good running over
everyone’s skin, through their hair. Eugene leaned against the
door, looking up into the sky. As he watched the clouds, squinting
here and there, he breathed more smoothly than usual.

“What do you see?” Stephanie asked.

“A dove,” Eugene said. “They’re a sign of
hope, did you know?”

“I did,” Stephanie said, smiling. “Your
stutter, it seems completely gone.”

“I tend to relax when I let myself get lost
in the clouds.” Eugene’s gaze remained on the sea of blue and white
as he took in a slow, relaxed breath. “I don’t know why, but I can
focus more easily.”

“We all need something,” Stephanie said.
“It’s good that you have that, Eugene.”

“What calms you, Stephanie?”

She thought for a moment. “Music. Music
keeps me cool and collected, though I’ve trained myself to just
breathe, too. I’ve seen some things on the job. Some horrible
things.” She looked out at the cityscape. “But
this
, this is
different. I’ve never seen anything like this.” Stephanie blinked a
few times, as if ridding herself of a particularly bad thought.
“Damn, what I wouldn’t give for my close friends, Barry White and
Johnny Cash.”

Eugene looked at her for a moment, and then
back at the sky. The dove he’d seen had begun to dissipate.

“Hey, look!” Stephanie said. “It’s Moby
Dick!”

Eugene looked where she pointed. The whale
leapt out of the white sea, flipping its tail. It was soon rendered
little more than an ambiguous blob.

“My father called the cloudscape ‘the
kaleidoscope of the sky’,” Eugene said.

“That’s as good a thing to call it as any,”
Stephanie replied. “You know, I don’t remember the last time I
looked at the clouds. It’s nice.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Mal,” Evan said. “You can paint now, if you
want.” Evan picked up the roller and dabbed it in the paint tray,
then handed it to her. “You just roll the brush over the letters,
make them darker and easier to see. Sound fun?”

“Yeah!” Mal crouched and began rolling the
brush over the first “S”. She smiled. “Is this good?”

Evan smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.

When Mal was finished, she set the roller
inside the bucket and sat beside the sign. Her big blue eyes began
searching the clouds for helicopters. “How long will it be?” she
asked after a few minutes.

“Not long,” Cynthia said. She jumped when
she heard Vanessa utter a strange noise.

Vanessa stood on the lip of the building. It
seemed like the slightest breeze would send her over the edge.

“Vanessa?”

Vanessa only stood there, swaying in the
wind. The tattered dress writhed against her legs, her hair whipped
around her face. Cynthia’s heart rate picked up as she took a
couple steps toward Vanessa.

“Vanessa, what are you doing?” Cynthia said.
The others watched Vanessa. Mal didn’t look for long, but turned to
Evan and buried her face in his shirt.

“Don’t let her fall, Daddy!”

“I won’t, Mal. We won’t let her fall.” Evan
looked at Cynthia. “Why don’t you take her somewhere?” Cynthia
nodded, and gently took Mal’s hand.

“Come on, honey. Let’s go over there.” She
pointed and said, “I think I saw a bird’s nest.” Mal reluctantly
took the bait, and they went off as Evan edged closer to
Vanessa.

“Please, Vanessa. This is terrible for you,
I know, but think about what you have! You’ve got friends here. We
care about you, and we’re here for you. You know that, right?”

Vanessa almost turned her head, but instead
shook it slightly and remained facing the edge. Evan and the others
saw that she was crying.

“Vanessa,” Daisy said, “I was way out of
line the way I acted earlier, and I’m sorry. But what you’re
thinking about doing, it’s not worth it. Believe me, those dark
thoughts have passed my mind more than once in the last few days,
but it’s just not worth it.” Vanessa cringed.

“You know,” Evan said, “I don’t think you’ll
do it. If you were going to do it, you would have already,
right?”

“Fucking try me, Evan.” Vanessa inched
closer to her doom.

“Evan,” Stephanie said, “that’s not
helping!”

“Just trust me, I know what I’m doing.” Evan
took a deep breath. “You won’t. You aren’t that selfish.”

“It’s too late,” Vanessa said. “I just can’t
do this anymore.” She turned to look and slipped a little. She let
out a small yelp, but quickly caught her balance. Evan moved a
little closer. “Please, just let me do this.”