I want to thank glocap for the review. Don't worry I have plenty of story left to go. Here's chapter three for all your viewing enjoyment. .
Chapter 3: living on the edge.
His eyes darted back and forth carefully into the moon-lit area below the window. It was a full moon night. The kind of night that would be a blessing as well as a curse. He wasn't sure what perverse sense inside him convinced him that leaving tonight was absolutely necessary. It had been the same niggling feeling that had helped him overcome his growing horror to make his plans.
The escape plan was simple, if absurdly dangerous. It would require a great deal of stealth, discipline, and personal courage. On some level he was fairly certain that he was utterly doomed. The rest of him simply shrugged and checked the window again. He had been moving back and forth for the last hour. The indiglow night-light on his watch flashing into existence to tell him the time at his discretion. He had a feeling of utter certainty that he had to leave no later than the time he'd chosen. He couldn't explain it, but it was an omnipresent buzzing inside his mind. Similar in its way to a telemarketer who would not stop calling.
He counted the numbers outside the window one more time, noting the count had not changed. They hadn't gone around back yet, unless one of them suddenly learned how to climb a fence. With the time for departure fast approaching Scott wandered over to the hallway and entered the room across the hall. "It's time to make the doughnuts..I guess.. or something...heh, man this sucks."
Scott made sure the head of his axe was well wrapped in cloth, and nothing had come loose. The last thing he needed at this juncture was something to rattle and bang out his presence for all the would be tax auditor's below. Ravenous hungry beasts indeed.
He slowly climbed out the window to stand on the smallish ledge beyond. He stayed perfectly still. His breathing slow and light. Not a sound, not a whisper escaped him as he waited to see if they'd heard his first steps into this brave new hell hole.
The tiny little fence blocking off his alley way would only last seconds, if they felt the need to come get him. Not that it would be hard to catch him, if he actually managed to land on the ground. The fall would most likely kill him anyway.
The plan only had a chance of success because of one simple factor. The power was off.
Scott glanced over at the power lines trailing across the alley way. The building he lived in, and the one next door used to be part of some kind of storage company. The building he lived in was a small warehouse, thus the lack of windows on the ground floor and the better than average strength doors. A fact that had kept him alive till now.
Next door was the management building, the office. This warehouse he called home was not exactly what you'd call up to code. The owner had rent it out to him and he'd quickly made it inhabitable. They had to keep his actually living there an 'open secret'. There were very few people who lived in the neighboring area. In fact Scott was fairly certain almost all of them were hanging out in front of his yard.
He glanced at the power-lines connecting the buildings. This was the most critical part. He'd done it in basic training but then he'd been unencumbered and wearing only his uniform. To get across to the neighboring building would require Scott to clamber onto the lines and use them as a two rope bridge and walk across. He had repeatedly fallen off the single rope in basic before crossing, but he hadn't fallen off the two rope. It was his abject hope that such things could occur again.
He'd have to be swift about it as well. The lines weren't perfectly taut and would sway while making noises the lurking corpses might hear.
With a deep slow breath Scott began inching his way over to the lines. It took him several agonizing minutes to do so silently. He wanted to make absolutely certain that he kept his noise to a minimum before this started. He covered his watch and checked the time carefully. fourty-five minutes before his distraction would go off. He was running out of time. If he wasn't across the alley and nearing the other side of the third building over when it started, he might end up trapped on a roof.
Scott gripped the top line praying all the while that it would bear his weight. He was obviously bigger than a pigeon or those little crows that sat around squawking all day. Mentally he recited a little mantra about how he must trust the plan, the plan was good, the plan was all. Then, he placed one foot on the slowly swaying bottom rope and winced as he fell backwards slightly.
His muscles trembling and nerves shot, Scott gritted his teeth and leaned away while pulling. Slowly allowing the line to balance out an he began the slow slide across. A crackling of rubber and metal greeted his every move. The sound of the rusty hookups holding the lines against the wall beginning to strain reached his ears when he was at the halfway point.
The sound he liked the least though was the increasingly loud moaning he heard. The zombies around front might have heard him, or might simply be getting restless. Eitherway if one of them got smart enough to knock over the little fence he'd be in for it. High above them he might be safe. However, he didn't know if the office next door was cleared of them. He assumed all the buildings were death traps. Still the office was his first stop due to how the manager kept a stocked fridge and a few cans of 'treet meat' on hand. His stomach would whine and whimper, but eventually concede to the need to devour this noxious confectionary delight.
The building had been broken into a few times so old James the manager had put in steel bars and reinforced the door with an iron grated screen. When Scott got inside he'd secure the area, and then snatch all the food he could in the brief few minutes he could alot himself. The distraction would draw every undead within a quarter mile to his house easily, but at the same time if they were all there and he was not then it was alright with him.
The moans grew in intensity and he could hear some light rattling against the fence. They weren't sure yet but some suspected food was right around the corner obviously.
Scott moved quicker, his pace at the limit his stability and endurance would safely allow. To get anxious and go faster would be a deadly mistake. He had less than five feet left to go anyway.
The rattling at the fence grew louder, more purposeful by the moment and then just as he was stepping onto the neighboring ledge, the zombies began shrieking. The fence rattling soon gave way to metallic ripping sounds as Scott raised the window. He could hear them begin to run down the concrete alleyway as he slipped inside. He'd know soon if any of them saw him.
Before he could worry about that though, he had to move swiftly away from the window. He needed to secure every room up on this floor, and then head down-stairs to make sure the lower level was secure. He had just over half an hour to do all this and be in the supply tunnel under the building.
Starting with the closest room, the actual office, Scott noticed with a sense of alarm that there was a little blood splatter on the floor in front of the office. The kind of splatter one gets from dragging something bloody along the floor.
He unwrapped his axe and tied the cloth around his left arm to keep it secured for future use. His weapon in hand and his heart racing Scott gently pushed the door open. Immediately he noticed two things. A low mumbling static and a large-ish form sprawled in a corner behind the desk.
Noting no movement as yet, Scott gently closed the door and risked turning on the flashlight he'd taped to the side of his helmet. Careful in how he moved his head lest a casual flicker of light alert anything outside the room, Scott inspected the little area. Old James was quit dead, The blood congealed and dried around him combined with the obvious eruption on the top of his head, had shown that he'd spent at least one round of his precious .45 on himself. Poor old fart had a thing for the gun ever since he'd seen dirty hairy. Often he'd joke with Scott about how the young man might find the ladies, but he was the one with the big gun.
Now old James was just another story without a happy ending. From what Scott could discern James had listened to news reports and simply given up.
Scott spent several precious seconds staring at the gun. It would be a gamble to take it. Beyond even the immediate disturbing nature of using a weapon someone had committed suicide with was the very real nature of such weapons. They were loud and needed fresh ammo.
He took it of course, but made sure it was cleaned off, and unloaded the last three rounds. While he was doing this he noticed a telltale bite on James' left shoulder. He had raised his estimation of the man slightly then. He had already died long before he committed suicide and the man had realized that. He fished around briefly in James' desk drawer and found his ammo box. He had twelve rounds total. Scott would save them for a special occasion.
He left the room as quietly as he had entered after turning his flashlight off. The red lens he'd been using took only a minute or two off his night vision, but it would still be a problem if he had to keep doing that.
He checked the closet Finding nothing of interest except another box of matches. A box he collected before locking the door. The last room on the second floor had proven to be equally empty.
Scott headed towards the door to the stairwell, his watch telling him a horrible truth. He was running out of time.
Downstairs had proven to be dead zombie central as Scott came to a halt at the sight of at least twelve dead bodies. The front door was closed and the metal shutters drawn over the windows. The lack of an appropriate light source made it difficult to check but most of these bodies were neighboring people with minimal wounds besides the massive head trauma. Old James had probably been working on something early and saw what happened. He'd of tried to help people and the end result was probably several of them turning and attacking the uninjured. Eventually he'd made it up stairs, but not before his life had effectively ended.
Scott new he had only a hand full of minutes left to do what he had to before his block would be crawling with the undead. So he finished checking the bodies to make sure they were more than deadish and entered the main lounge room to check on provisions and cannibal corpses.
He was fairly certain that he wouldn't find more than one or two zombies at most, considering how old James hadn't even locked his door. Any zombies would have been all over him otherwise.
As he suspected the lounge was clear. The fridge, thankfully, was not. Scott snapped up two packs of bologna, another soda, some chips and a wedge of cheese. No bread though. James hadn't liked bread considering how he had troubles with regularity. It had always seemed strange to the young man that the old fella would have cheese in his fridge with the excuse he used for not having bread.
To his surprise, however, he didn't find a single can of treet meat in the cabinets. This was quite possibly even stranger than the dead rising up to eat the living.
He glanced down at his watch and noted eight minutes left. He quickly cleared the bathroom, finding only one dead body with a crushed skull. It had been propped up on the toilet as pretty as you please.
He left the bathroom and locked the door. Everything in the building was secure. Except the entrance to the service tunnel. About eight of the buildings here on this little slice of town were all interconnected due to the storage company also being a shipment corporation. Often they'd have to move stuff from one location to another, and private tunnels were easier to deal with than the traffic on the main road nearby.
The tunnel lead a quarter mile away to the main warehouse. There should be no problem making noise down there, but he would have to move as swift and silently as possible before time ran out. The tunnel had a few street level entrances, and the last thing he needed was to be trapped in a small tunnel with creatures that can run at olympic athlete speeds, maybe faster.
Scott entered the tunnel, and turned on his light. Side streets be damned, he wasn't wandering down a perfectly dark tunnel blindly. About four minutes into his light jog into darkness up above him on the streets a blaring wail of utter most horror echoed shrilly into the neighboring area. A sound so vile and disturbing that no sane creature would be able to withstand it's terrors and nightmarish qualities. The zombies of course, having no taste for music any long did not care and began streaming to the origin of the sound in all their rotting hordes. Though someone who saw a few of the more heavy metal looking of the dead would imagine an actual emotion etching itself on their rotting faces.
Inside Scott's former home anyone who cared to look could see a stereo system hooked up to a car battery. Had this imaginary person known that the owner had no car and rode a bike, he might have asked why he had one in his house. No one did know or see of course but that is beside the point. As Scott made his escape underground The words 'I don't wanna wait..! For our lives to be ooooover.." Were blaring over and over as the Dawson's Creek sound track kept looping repeatedly until the old battery finally died hours later. Should the imaginary person who might have viewed all this have ever ran into Scott and asked him about his musical interests, the young man would of informed them that he had found it when he moved in. He obviously was too hardcore for such things.
--------
End of chapter three. Reviews are always appreciated! In the next installment we'll have a few combat scenarioes so never fear... excessive violence is here!