Remains of the Dead (22 page)

He doubted it. Instead he had resigned himself to a lengthy wait on the rooftop.

He dragged out a set of drawers from Frank’s bedroom and pulled it onto the balcony. The breeze wasn’t that strong, but hoisting himself onto the railing of the penthouse it felt like a hurricane. With the wind whistling in his ears, Ali used the guttering as a handhold to steady his balance before easing himself up. His breaths were short and shallow as he stood looking at the sloping red tiles of the roof.

He glanced down at the mobbed street below and immediately regretted it. He was only a few feet higher up, but the lack of a railing caused his heart to flutter.

He closed his eyes and mouthed a prayer before continuing.

He reached out and placed his hand flat on the cold tiles, searching for some purchase. A tile sheared and slid free, clattering as it trundled over the lower tiles. For a split second Ali considered moving out of its path before he froze, kept in place by the fear of falling. The tile slid into the moss-choked gutter and stopped.

Slowly Ali set free his captive breath. With measured, deliberate moves he lowered himself back to the security of the balcony.

He stood there for a moment trembling. He turned back and looked up at the gutter. It wasn’t that hard a climb, but bereft of the adrenaline he’d had this morning it was an impossible ascent.

He marched back into the apartment and shut the doors to the balcony behind him. He pulled out the coffee jar, unpacked the camping stove, and set about making a fresh cup.

* * *

His nerves stilled, Ali decided on a new tact. He slipped the good strap of the rucksack over his arm and picked up the makeshift hook he’d used to snag the zombie hiker.

There was no roof access in this modern building, but there would be access to the roof space. Ali had decided to get into the crawl space and smash his way out onto the roof. All he needed to do was find the entrance hatch.

He opened the door to Frank’s apartment and looked up at the ceiling. Exactly where he’d expected it was, he saw the half-metre square entry hatch. He picked up a kitchen chair by the wooden slatted back, set it under the access point, and stepped up onto it.

He pushed the wooden hatchway. It didn’t budge.

Readjusting his position, Ali braced himself and pushed again. Still the hatch didn’t move.

He dropped his arms a few inches and then slammed the palms of his hands into the wood. In its neglected frame, the hatch squeaked and lifted up by the tiniest of margins. Ali battered the hatch again and again in quick succession. The cover separated further from the frame with each heavy pound. Then with a groan it was free. He pushed it clear and slid it out of the way.

There was another groan but this time it came from bellow. Ali slowly turned and looked down. Two landings below the lone zombie was looking up at him. The expression on its vacant face could have been mistaken for disbelief. Its head craned up on its stiff neck and its mouth opened. A foul, flat-keyed wail bellowed from its dead lungs.

The droning horde on the first floor, which up until now had been intently concentrating on the door Ali had disappeared behind, turned their heads up in unison. Their dull monotonous chant raised a pitch with excitement.

“Ah, bollocks,” Ali said.

He tossed the rucksack and the hook into the loft space. He placed a foot on the stairwell’s railing and stretched upwards. The chair beneath slipped and clattered to the floor. With his right foot precariously on the handrail, Ali pushed himself up.

The slapping footfalls of the undead horde on the stairs mingled with the alarming chorus and Ali’s own strenuous grunts. He wriggled up and wedged his elbows into the hatch frame. He spread his forearms out, feeling for something solid to gain a grip of. Finding the flat surface of wooden beams, he heaved himself up. He writhed and twisted trying to haul himself up, but he wasn’t a fit man. The years of confinement in their warehouse sanctuary and starvation diet had robbed him of his strength.

The encroaching zombie saw Ali’s head and shoulders disappear through the access hatch. But like a worm on a hook his torso and legs wriggled and squirmed.

The sweat dripped off Ali’s brow and he panted with the exertion. He just didn’t have the muscle to lever himself up and with every moment of struggle the strength drained from him.

Then his foot caught something.

The panic coursed through him. It could be only one thing. A hand grasped at Ali’s ankle. Instinctively he lashed out, kicking in all directions. The hands grabbed his foot and drew it in for the inevitable bite.

Ali stomped his foot down, trying to kick the creature away. Miraculously his stamp found the zombie’s shoulder. With his shove he knocked the zombie back and at the same time propelled himself those vital few inches further up. His blood saturated with fresh adrenaline, it was enough for him to scramble through the opening.

Ali paused for a moment to snatch a breath before turning and looking back through the hatch. The cadaver was directly underneath, its arms stretching up in a futile attempt to catch its prey.

Ali showed the zombie his middle finger.

“Fuck you, you fucking dead fuck!” he screamed at the corpse. It wasn’t the most eloquent of taunts, but the rant felt cathartic.

Ali sat back for a minute to catch his breath. His shoulder ached; undoubtedly he’d strained muscles in the adrenaline-charged tussle. The stairwell below was becoming quite crowded. More and more zombies had found their way up the stairs and were stretching their arms up for him in what looked like some kind of supplicant salute.

“You are not eating me today, so go fuck off.”

Ali made a shooing motion with his hand. It had no effect.

Then Ali’s eyes were drawn to someone familiar. In the gathering crowd below stood Ray. He had lost his signature glasses and his skin was painted in his own fresh blood.

The corpse of his friend shuffled his way up the stairs, head cocked arms outstretched. It was a painful sight to see a friend consumed by the infection, to see them mindlessly searching for anyone to contaminate.

Ali picked up the hatch and put it back in place, blocking out the sight below.

The roof space went black. He sat for a moment letting his eyes adjust to the lack of light and listened to the muffled moans. Under the insidious call of the dead there was a soft cooing coming from somewhere in the loft. With a flutter of wings, a plump bird hopped out of the eaves, bobbing its head like it was dancing to a powerful beat.

Ali recalled people’s distain towards pigeons. ‘Rats with wings’ he’d heard on numerous occasions. Sure they were opportunists, but so was he now.

His mind wandered back to a forlorn-looking bird that had been brought into the animal shelter where he’d worked. The underweight bird had hobbled, unable to stand, its right claw tangled in a mess of fishing line. He’d gently snipped the line free, but the claw had been too badly injured to be saved. It was a stark equation for an animal charity. Treat the wound and then release the bird knowing its chances of survival were low, or put it down and spend the money on a creature with a better chance. The cash-strapped centre had made the economical choice.

The sad fact is
, Ali thought,
there are now more pigeons than people
.

As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, the small chinks of light breaking in through the gap between the roof and the building fabric were just enough to work by. He could open the hatch and let light in from the hallway below, but he preferred the psychological comfort of the closed hatch.

A barrier between him and his dead friend.

Crouching down in this tomb of rock, wool, and plaster sheeting, Ali got to work. He prized the insulating boards down from the eaves and then started smashing through to the tiles. It wasn’t long before the first beam of daylight streamed through the punctured roof.

Spurred on by the daylight, Ali hacked at the roof with renewed strength. Within minutes there was a hole big enough for him to climb through. He stuck his head out of the fissure like a bizarre parody of a prairie dog. He looked around and got his bearings.

The pitch of the roof was quite steep and he didn’t fancy his chances if he had to scramble up it. Across the street the fire had finally leapt to the adjacent buildings and pillars of smoke billowed skyward. Ali was thankful the wind was blowing the clouds away from him. But that same wind was foreboding. A sharp gust or misplaced foot and Ali feared he would slip from the roof and fall into the mob of zombies filling the street.

No, he would not simply sit astride the roof waiting for his rescue, he decided.

Ali picked up the metal rod again and started remodelling.

Within a few hours Ali had dislodged a good portion of the roof, producing a rubble-hewn veranda. He pitched the tent he’d retrieved from the zombie backpacker and set up the camp stove. He brewed himself another coffee, and half in the sleeping back sat back sipping the beverage, waiting for his rescue.

“Hold your fire!” Cahz cried. “Hold fire!” he called again, this time forcing Ryan’s arm down. “Cease fire!”

The railway line fell silent.

Ryan’s daughter was screaming, shocked by the crescendo of gunfire.

“Calm down,” Cahz said. “We don’t have much ammo left.”

“I shat myself,” Ryan protested, his gun still aimed at the undergrowth.

“It was just a fucking rabbit.”

“Yeah.” Ryan waved the gun in the general direction. “Well, when it came crashing through that bush, I didn’t know that, did I?”

“You shouldn’t have shot at it, let alone blast away like Yosemite Sam!” Cahz barked. “How many shots did you waste?”

“You didn’t even hit the fucking thing,” Cannon chipped in.

“Look, don’t come down on me like that,” Ryan protested. “It fuckin’ jumped out at me. Okay, I bricked myself, but can you blame me?”

“All right,” Cahz said in a more conciliatory tone. “All right, point taken. It’s done now, anyway. We’re running low on ammo, so in future you back off and let me or Cannon handle it.”

“Look, I just reacted, man.”

Cannon snorted, “You’re reactions are shit.”

“You’re not helping, Cannon.” Cahz shot his subordinate an angry look. He turned back to Ryan. “You use that as a last resort. I don’t want any more fuck ups.” He looked at both men. “From anyone. Now let’s keep moving.”

Ryan nodded and turned his attention to his daughter. He slipped a pinkie into her mouth and the child instantly started sucking.

Cahz turned to start walking when he saw Cannon scoop something up from the track.

“Spotted something?” Cahz asked.

Cannon flicked a small grey object across the track. “It’s nothing, boss.”

With that Cannon marched on.

Curiosity tugged at Cahz. He stepped a little way off the track to see what had caught his friend’s attention. Almost lost among the gravel there lay a small hunk of grey plastic. Cahz picked it up and examined it as he walked. At first it looked cracked but when he took a closer look he could see what looked like crazy paving etched on it. He turned it over to see the familiar web of struts that formed the female part where the building bricks connected together.

Cahz held in his hand the patio to some child’s diorama. Some time ago, before all the madness and carnage, this lump of moulded and coloured toy would have been lovingly assembled in to a house or garage or some other plastic-bricked representation of the world.

A smile came across Cahz’s face as he considered how many children had played with this innocuous construction toy; how many hours of simple pleasure it had provided? Then, just as suddenly, he wondered how it had ended up on a railway track and where those little children were now.

As the smile fell from his lips, Cahz tossed the rubbish aside.

Ryan trotted up to him. “I only fired five shots,” he said. He had the magazine in one hand the gun in the other and he was trying to show Cahz the remaining bullets. “We’ve still got plenty of ammo left. Right?”

“There isn’t enough ammo left in the world,” Cahz said in a dry voice and picked up his pace.

Up ahead Cannon was negotiating a tree that had fallen across the line. He could see the big soldier scanning left and right for any hidden danger. Satisfied there were no surprises he hopped over the trunk to the other side.

Cahz hopped over the obstruction, leaving Ryan a good distance behind.

“How you doing?” Cahz asked as he caught up with Cannon.

“Saw a horse once,” Cannon said, looking back at Ryan negotiating the fallen tree. “Didn’t try to shoot it though.”

“When was that?” Cahz asked.

“A few years back now. We were on a tagging run. Remember them?”

“Sure do. Fucking waste of time, those,” Cahz huffed.

He turned back to Ryan as he jumped down from the obstruction.

“You wouldn’t believe the shit we’ve had to do,” Cahz boasted. “At one point we were capturing W.D.s and collaring them with GPS trackers. They wanted to see where the fuckers went, how far they travelled what behaviour they would exhibit.”

“Oh yeah?” Ryan asked. “Do any good?”

Cahz shrugged. “What do you think?” He turned back to Cannon. “You saw a horse?”

“Yeah, big brown thing with a white patch down its nose. We were flying over it in the chopper. I didn’t see it until the noise of the engine spooked it. It threw its head up and ran away across a field.”

“You never mentioned that,” Cahz said.

“No point. It was gone before I could say anything.” Cannon took a deep breath. “For a while I took it as a sign. I mean if a horse could survive on its own, then there was still hope.”

“I suppose,” Cahz said, not really sure where this was going.

There was a long pause before he realised Cannon had finished.

Cahz marched along the railway line, the gravel crunching under foot. A rotund black bird looked up at the party from its spot on the rusting track. Its black beady eyes focused on the trio and it cocked its head in the same way the zombies sometimes did. As they drew closer it opened its beak and cawed at them, angry at being disturbed. It hopped off its low perch, and too lazy or too cocky to fly away, it skipped off to the side of the track.