The Most Uncommon Cold I - Life in the Time of Zombies (16 page)

     He yanked the pipe to free it from the cop-thing’s head and got back in position to push.  The scraping seemed louder as we finished moving the metal box off of the door.  Just as the box came off, there was a slapping sound. 

     It was the slap of flesh against cement, and it made both of us
twist to look in that direction.  We watched as the bloody sleeve of a light blue dress shirt appeared at the edge of the roof and wriggled around like some angry boa.  Seconds later, another light blue sleeve appeared next to the first.  The wriggling stopped, and both sleeves began to push together.  We waited anxiously to see what happened next. 

     Suddenly, a loud voice within my head screamed, “Get moving!”  It was enough to
break my paralysis, and it wasn’t until I looked over at Glen’s terrified face that I realized the voice had not been simply within my head.

     The door was actually two doors, one of those
sturdy old metal deals with rings on each side of the gap in the middle.  I grabbed one ring and pulled with all my strength.  Nothing budged.  Glen moved in next to me and slipped the pipe through the ring to give us more area to grip. Thankfully, the end of the pipe with the bloody hammerhead was not near me.  Together we tried to raise the pipe and the door. But even with both of us pulling, the door would not move.

     A
horrible idea suddenly occurred to me.  “The door isn’t locked on the inside, is it?”

     Glen shook his head as if shaking
away the idea and said, “No!  There is absolutely no reason for it to be locked on the inside!”

     His
big form was suddenly hovering over the other ring, and he was pulling up.  I saw the door move slightly and ran over to slide the crowbar into the gap.  With Glen pulling and me prying, the door came open with a loud, squeaky whine.  We stood and looked into the dark space. 

Chapter 12 

     “I need to get the light out of the shed,” Glen said even as he was moving off. 

     I started after him and then glanced toward the roof edge.  Curly black hair peaked up over the edge of the roof.  This was followed by the shell of a short, middle-aged man in a light blue dress shirt with a dark blue tie.  He crawled over the
edge and lay on his stomach without moving.  I looked at the shed as Glen went inside.  When I looked back to the roof, there was nothing there.

     Panic grabbed me as I ran to the shed.  I saw no sign of the thing in the light blue dress shirt. When I was a couple of yards away from the
shed’s entrance, Glen appeared in the doorway holding the lantern.  He was puzzled to see me rushing towards him.  An instant later he was rushing back into the shed. 

     I stopped and turned to look around the rooftop.  My thought was that the thing must be behind me which was why Glen ran away.  But I saw nothing behind me except the empty rooftop.  I walked slowly into the shed. 

     “Glen, one of the shells made it onto the roof,” I said.  “And I don’t know where it is.” 

     He was standing near the back of the shed with the pipe raised.  He stared blankly at me as if he had not heard what I said.  Then with the pipe held above his head, the young pastor charged toward me.  For an instant, I thought he was messing around, but then I saw the determined look on his face.  I was about to
raise the crowbar in defense when I heard a sound beside me. I glanced over to see the blue-shirted shell moving close.  At the same time, Glen brushed me aside to sink the hammer into the shell’s skull. 

     Now it was my turn to look on with amazement as he pulled the hammer free and wiped it with a hand towel from his pocket. 
He appeared to have been doing this sort of thing all his life.

     I was still feeling a little
shaky as I said, “You know, for a minute there I thought you were coming to whack me.”  I managed a weak smile.

     The
weak smile was returned.  “To tell you the truth, for a minute there I thought I was going to have to whack you.”  He chuckled and said, “Think about it.  You came running toward me like that.  You weren’t saying anything.  You were acting like one of those shells.  Even when you started talking, I wasn’t altogether sure about you.  Seems like some of them can talk.” 

     “Well, thanks for saving me for the second time today,” I said.
             

     “It
’s certainly not the kind of saving I usually do, but you’re welcome.  Now, let’s get off this roof.”  He grabbed the lantern and headed outside.

     The roof appeared to be
empty as I hurried after Glen to the door. He was standing in front of it staring into the darkness of the doorway as I caught up with him. 

     “Ready?”  I asked.

     “I don’t think we have a choice,” he answered as he nodded toward the roof’s edge. 

      I looked over to see another pair of arms stretching onto the roof. 

     Glen led the way with the lantern stretched out before him. I followed closely behind with the crowbar at the ready. 

     “Wait, don
’t you think we ought to close the doors?” He asked.

     I nodded embarrassed that I had not thought of that.  I looked back to the roof
edge and saw that the arms were gone.  I wondered if that was good or incredibly bad.  But I did not wonder for long. 

     “C
’mon,” Glen hissed and nudged me toward the door.

     With some effort, we managed to
swing them closed with two loud bangs. 

     We listened for any sound from the other side but hear nothing. 

     “Those things look pretty weak, and those doors are pretty heavy.  Think it’s okay?”  Glen asked.

     “Yeah, I
’m sure it is,” I answered not sure about anything.    

    We moved slowly down a narrow, dusty staircase.  Other than the light thrown by the lantern the place was pitch black. At the bottom of the stairs, old
furniture like beds and dressers were piled.  Glen swung the lantern to the right revealing a door. 

     We stood still there for a few seconds straining to hear any sound.  Satisfied that nothing was moving near by, we walked slowly out the door into a hallway. 
Clearly, no one had been in the hall for a long time.  The lantern light on the floor showed only undisturbed dust.  There was a series of doors along the long hall.

     As we started slowly down the hall past those doors, one of the doors, a dark green door, was yanked
open just to the right of us.  Standing in the doorway was an extremely thin, bald old man in just an old gray pair of boxers and a dirty white undershirt.   His head was down as though he was staring at his bare feet, and he was trembling like he was cold or maybe just too weak to stand. Before I had time to react, Glen pushed past me closer to the old man.

     “Barney, are you okay?”  He asked as he reached out to
touch the old guy’s shoulder.

     At the instant that
Glen’s fingers made contact, Barney’s head shot up to look at us.  The pale, dead eyes sent a chill through me, and Glen seemed frozen with shock.

     “I can
’t remember where I put my slippers,” Barney said quietly with that confused tone that old people get.

     A second later, his hand shot out to grab
Glen’s arm.  Apparently, the old man wasn’t as weak as he looked because Glen winced and could not pull away from Barney. 

     “I can
’t remember where I put my slippers!” He repeated, but this time much more loudly as if he held Glen responsible for the missing slippers.

     I brought the crowbar down hard on Barney
’s forearm.  The crack was clear.  The hand loosened.  The arm dangled grotesquely.  Glen stood still just staring at the old man.

     “Glen, let
’s go!”  I yelled as I pulled him away.         

     He stumbled along for a few steps before appearing
to realize the danger he was in and running to the end of the hallway.  Passing through the door into a small room landing area at the top of stairs, we found that we were surrounded by shells. 

     I looked back to see Barney, his arm swinging limply in front as he slowly shuffled toward us.  I quickly turned to see the shells moving toward us in the dark area.  This time it was
Glen’s turn to get me moving.

     “C
’mon, there’s a way out over here!”  He yelled as led the way to the back of the room. 

     The lantern Glen
held swung wildly and cast a glow rather than a strong beam of light.  The result was that ashen faces were revealed for just a moment before disappearing back into the darkness. 

     Fortunately, the shells did not react quickly, and we managed to
hurry past them.

     In the corner of the room, behind a bunch of crates that blocked us from the shel
ls, there was a door. Glen twisted a small silver handle that was barely visible in the dim light.  The door that he opened was not terribly wide, but it offered a way out of the room.   He stood to the right of the opening as if waiting for me to go ahead.  As I moved past him, I saw that the young man was staring intently at the door. 

     “C
’mon!  We gotta get out of here!”  I called as I pushed through the door. 

     On the other side, the room was
extremely dark and smelled like kerosene or maybe some sort of paint thinner.  I waited for Glen to arrive with the lantern and then realized he was not behind me. 

    
I walked slowly back to the door.  I could see the glow from the lantern coming through the narrow opening.  Dreading what was waiting on the other side of the door, I stopped for a moment to gather up the strength to look. 

    
What I found made me laugh out loud.

     Glen was sitting on the edge of a
table contentedly eating a candy bar. 

     “
Well, I hate to interrupt your snack break, Glen.  But we need to get the hell out of here.”  The words came out a bit more sarcastically than I had intended, but Glen did not appear to notice.

    I moved closer, and he looked at me for a second before
quietly answering, “I can’t go with you.”

     I thought he was joking and so that is how I answered, “Oh, so you
’ve gotten attached to these things and can’t tear yourself away.”  I chuckled and said, “C’mon, we don’t have time for this.”

     Even in the dim light, I could see the
dejected expression on his face as he said flatly, “I can’t go with you.  I… uh…I can’t fit through that door.”

     I glanced at the narrow doorway and then back at
Glen’s large frame.  It was definitely going to be a tight squeeze.  I started to make some stupid comment, but it was cut off by the sound of the shells scratching the wall on the other side of the room.

     “We have to try,” I sort of hissed at him.

     He sat there without moving for a few seconds before finally pushing himself to his feet with a heavy sigh.  At that moment, he reminded me of nothing more that some spoiled teenager who was being made to do chores.  Glen shuffled over to the door and paused as he waited for me.  

     “Okay, let
’s give it a try,” I said trying to sound upbeat.

     Glen looked at me with a little shake of his head.  “You
need to go first. When I get stuck in that doorway, I don’t want you to be trapped behind me,” he said in a tired-sounding tone like this was something I should have realized.

     “No, it
’s better if I am on this side pushing instead of the other side pulling,” I answered him in a simple matter-of-fact manner leaving no room for discussion.

      Glen did not
discuss anything.  Instead, he just stared at the narrow doorway. 

     “Come on.  We don
’t have time to stand around here,” I urged him, and my words were stressed by the sound of the shells pushing on the crates behind us.

     Glen looked at me again and gave a final appeal, “If I get stuck in that door, I
’m killing both of us.” 

    
“And if we keep standing around here talking, those things are going to get in here…”  I looked at him to see if he understood the irony of the situation.

     Before I could see anything, he threw himself into the doorway.  The
space was instantly stuffed with Glen.  He squirmed and managed to get half his body through the doorframe.  From my viewpoint, I saw his left side. 

     He continued to grunt and squirm for a moment before saying, “Okay, Kevin, you got your wish.  I
’m stuck in the door, and you’re stuck behind me.”

     “Well, we
’re going to have to get you unstuck,” I answered.  “I’m going to start pushing.  It might help if you take a deep breath and hold it for a bit.”

     He did as I asked, and I began pushing with both of my hands on shoulder.  At first, I pushed fairly gently but then increased my
force until I was pushing as hard as possible.  The results were the same.  Glen’s body barely moved any further through the door.