The First 30 Days (PUBLISHED)

Thirteen -Day 7

Shawn's significantly wider frame was giving him problems squeezing through the hole in the wall. Feet dangling toward the floor, he had to work to get his shoulders through. Just when I was starting to worry that he would be stuck, he broke free and dropped to the ground.

He immediately looked to the door where zombies beat on the safety glass. When he took the first step toward it, I stopped him.

"Don't go over there." My voice shook a little. "I already locked it." There was no need for both of us to have nightmares about that shoe rolling around in the puddle of blood.

"Alright. Let's get our stuff and try to figure out how we're getting out of here."

The stairwell was creepy without Jack's flashlight to chase back the darkness. The only light came from the small windows in the door at each new level. We didn't waste time and bounded up the stairs to our floor.

Back in our office safe room, I couldn't resist pulling apart the blinds to look outside. Overlooking the same side of the building as the cafeteria, the street below was full of zombies. Attracted by the noise and confusion, more rounded corners and darted up the street on their way to the broken window. "We need to get out of here."

"Come on." While I had been looking outside, Shawn threw the last of the supplies we had left piled on the desk into a gym bag. He roughly pulled the zipper and jogged to the door.

As I turned to follow him, Jack's original clothes, washed in the bathroom sink and hung over a chair to dry, caught my eye. I faltered. First Evie, then Austin, and now Jack. Everyone I knew was dying.

"Bri!" The yell from the next room got my feet moving again. I wasn't dead yet, neither was Shawn. But if we didn't find a way to escape the building and it was overrun, we would be next. I caught up with him by the exit to the stairs. "We need to get a good look around. Can we get back onto the roof?"

"Yeah. The door locks from the inside."

"Stay close."

He didn't have to tell me twice as we wound our way back to the heavy door that led to the roof. At the last second, I remembered to jam the cigarette pack back into the lock. Getting trapped on the roof during a zombie apocalypse wasn't high on my to do list.

A peek over the edge of the roof reminded me that I wasn't all that fond of heights. More than fifty feet below, the zombies crowded the street.

"Don't let them see you," the amount of noise coming up from the street made me have to yell to be heard.

Nodding his understanding, Shawn ducked down as he worked his way around the edge of the roof. By the time we made it to the opposite side, I could tell from the drop in the noise level that there was significantly less zombies down this way.

A look over the wall confirmed my guess. A few of them darted through the narrow alley, but it was nothing compared to the swarm on the other side of the building.

Even so, it didn't really matter. A dozen zombies or a hundred, either way, it was too many. If we climbed down the ladder, the few zombies in the alley would be waiting for us at the bottom. I eyed my abandoned car just up the alley wishfully. I had been hoping that we could somehow make it to the car and drive out of there, but I couldn't see that happening any more.

Shawn had continued his circuit of the roof while I stared forlornly at my abandoned car. Making his way back to where I stood, he looked at me with worried eyes. "I have an idea. But I don't think either of us is going to like it."

That sounded ominous. When I didn't say anything, he continued. "I think this alley is narrow enough that we could lay something across to use as a bridge."

"What? No way!" I started shaking my head, but he cut me off.

"Do you have a better idea?"

I didn't. "What do you have in mind?"

"While Jack," he grimaced slightly at that name, "while we were searching for food we found a janitor's closet. There was a long ladder in there. I think it will reach."

I looked across the open space to the roof of the next building over, a full story down. "Is that even possible?" The idea of falling five stories was almost as terrifying as the zombies.

"I think it's the only way we are getting off of this roof."

In the end, he was right. Our best bet for escaping the building was to make it to the next building over. The horde of zombies below was steadily growing. It was only a matter of time before they started finding their way upstairs. When that happened, we really would be confined just to the roof. It was better to get out of there before it came to that.

The janitorial closet that Shawn had mentioned turned out to be on the fourth floor, the floor I worked on. It was funny, I'd sat at a desk for nearly two years, just yards from the closet that held the ladder that may save my butt from becoming zombie chow. I'd had no idea that closet was even there.

Handing me a bundled up extension cord, Shawn hefted the ladder and started back up to the roof. I decided against asking what the orange cord was for. I probably didn't want to know.

We made a lot of noise going back up. The ladder banged off of the stairs and railing in the dark. Each bang made me cringe as I imagined the zombies on the first floor breaking through the door and following the noise straight to us.

The quality of the light outside had started to change subtly by the time we clanged our way back to the roof. I silently cursed the failing light. We didn't have a lot of time before we were going to be fumbling around in the dark.

The ladder made a loud sound as Shawn extended it nearly as far as it would go. I wasn't sure how happy I was to see that it did look long enough to reach between the two buildings. A small part of me was still rebelling at the idea that I was about to trust that ladder with my life.

"They've noticed us."

I moved closer to the edge and looked down to where a couple of zombies looked up. Bloody, ragged clothing, and beginning to decompose, they were more frightening than before every time I got a clear look at them. The zombies were doing that creepy, completely motionless stare that they tended to do when they were thinking. I shuddered and turned my attention to Shawn.

He had the ladder across the gap and was tying the world's biggest knot in the end of the extension cord he had wrapped around a rung of the ladder. Moving to a nearby pipe sticking up out of the roof, he tied the cord around that as tightly as it could go.

"That's as good as it's going to get."

We both stared at the ladder for a second. The lightweight metal seemed far to flimsy to hold either one of us.

"Maybe you should go first." Before I had a chance to get offended, he clarified, "I weigh more than you. If I go first and the ladder breaks, you will be trapped up here."

In a kind of twisted sense, his logic was sweet. Dying a slow death trapped on the roof wouldn't be a fun time. At least, if the ladder gave out, the fall would probably kill me.

"Ok." My voice squeaked. Heart pounding in my chest, I reached for the ladder.

"I'll hold on to this end."

Refusing to look down, I fumbled with trying to figure out how best to cross. The downward angle made it awkward. Finally settling for semi crawling, feet first, I started across.