Eve

Chapter 16

Boss woman, bearded man and wounded-arm all run past us and jump out the back windows. Like a second before the zombies arrive from the back too and start climbing in through the same windows, blocking them as escape routes for me and Levon.

And, if you remember, the front entrance is still packed with an increasing number of zombies oozing into the warehouse, mind you. So that's not a way out either.

Also, we're still tied up.

Wounded-leg's on the floor, screaming as the zombies grow near. "They left me! They left me!"
"Levon!" I say, getting up, hands still tied behind the chair. "Come on!"

The zombies limp closer. Levon gets up too.

I look around. "Up there," I say, looking up at a second-floor platform by the far wall. I drag myself towards it.

"Eve, wait!"

"What!?"

"We can't leave him." Levon says, turning back to Wounded-Leg Man.

Who's now No-Leg-Screaming-Like-Death-Man as the zombies close in around him and begin the process of murdering him with their teeth.

"OOOH GOD THIS HURTS SO FU –"

And he goes quiet.

I shrug. "Now, we can."

Clumsily, we walk towards the platform, our backs arched by the weight of the chair.

"There. The ladder."

Levon goes first. He stops. "How are we going to do this?"

I turn back to the ever-increasing amount of zombies in the warehouse, elbowing themselves trying to get to the man on the floor. They haven't noticed us, yet.

"Eve! How do we climb a ladder with our hands tied behind our backs?"

"Extremely carefully," I reply.

It hurts and it's slow, but we reach the top of platform. It's small and narrow, like the second floor of a barn. Looking around I spot a couple of large cube shapes -- boxes nested under a polyester boat cover. Hearing the grunts and snarls downstairs grow louder, I pull Levon and myself under the cover, crouching into darkness between the cardboard boxes.

"What's that?" Levon asks in a whisper. "Why are there so many of them?"

"Be quiet!"

I peek through the cover at the downstairs level. More and more zombies come in through the windows. The front entrance. Everywhere, like watching a reversed video of water being poured into a cup filled with holes.

Zombie fact number fourteen: I suck with analogies.

Levon's holding on to my arm so tight it might break. "What is going on, Eve?"

Herd... that's the term for it. Those assholes downstairs. Incredibly large packs of zombie roaming around like storms across the country.

I hear the noise of wood cracking, and Levon presses my arm tighter.

"Grrr," I whisper, telling him to be quiet.

Peeking through the cover again, I spot a rotten hand reaching out for the last steps of the ladder.

Levon lets out a high-pitched murmur. The zombie's up on his feet now, looking and sniffing around, and a second pair of hands appears on top of the latter. Soon enough, four fully-grown, gray skinned zombies are roaming around the 10 by 20 square feet second level of the warehouse, searching for the source of Levon's meat smell.