Whump.
Ken looked over and saw that Aaron had grabbed one end of the coffee table, Dorcas the other. They battered it into the face of the zombie that was pushing itself through the door like a hideous mockery of birth. The thing screamed and coughed again. The coffee table fell in half almost instantly, the soft wood succumbing to the acid. But underneath the zombie was now writhing and shrieking as the acid it had expelled ate into its own flesh as well.
Smoke filled the room.
The things outside the office were still screaming their mad, enraged scream.
And a shudder rocked the building. It felt like an earthquake.
Only there were no earthquakes in Idaho.
18
“What was that?” shouted Dorcas.
“Hell if I know,” said Aaron. Soft-spoken as usual, though his words seemed a bit more clipped right now. He picked up one of the pieces of the broken coffee table with his good hand. Dipped it in the fizzling pool of acid that was eating a hole in the web-coated floor nearby, then slammed it through the widening slit in the door.
The wood punched right through the chest of the half-melted zombie on the other side of the door. The thing shrieked, but other than that didn’t even seem to register the attack. It kept thrashing wildly, madly, pushing ever farther through the door, ever farther into the room.
Ken looked at his son. Derek was staring at him with that look that was reserved for superheroes and daddies: that look that said, “You’ll save us. I know it.”
Ken tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. Tried to ignore the knowledge that they were doomed.
He ran to the only possible way out. The window. He, Aaron, Dorcas, and Christopher had climbed outside another building to escape zombies.
Of course, that was before they added six more people to their group. Several of them drugged. Three of them children.
Shut up, Ken. Just look.
He looked. Rushed to the window and pressed his face against the glass. He couldn’t see anything but the reflections of the gray woman and her gray son, standing there and staring at him like they were irritated he hadn’t come better equipped to handle the situation. There wasn’t a good angle to see anything on the outside face of the building.
The building shuddered again. More violently this time, fairly rocking on its foundation. Maggie had to lean on the web-covered desk, Derek and Hope fell into their mother for support. Christopher and Dorcas weaved on their feet. The gray mother and son pair went down in a pile, both complaining about the weight of the other on legs and arms.
Only Aaron didn’t seem to notice the impossible tremor, simply stabbing another piece of wood through the disintegrating door as though hoping to pin the reaching zombies in place.
Ken spun. Picked up a chair. He swung it as hard as he could. It went through the office window and kept going, careening through with the pealing crash of glass shearing apart. The window sailed away.
“What the hell are you doing?” shouted the gray man, still writhing under his mother on the floor. “You got glass all over me!” He was a big man, tall and broad and solidly-built, but he sounded like a spoiled child who had just been told his party was over early.
A sound came through the now-open space. Deep. Thrumming.
The building rolled again.
Ken leaned out. Looked to his right. His heart sank.
There was no way to get out. Nothing to cling to. No footholds, no handholds. Just sheer concrete and glass.
Behind him, the door to the office sounded like it was about to fall apart completely.
“We gotta do something!” shouted Dorcas.
Ken looked left. His heart caught in his throat.
He looked down. And his heart stopped.
19
“You’re kidding.”
Maggie didn’t scream the words. Ken almost would have preferred it if she had. Instead, they came as a whisper when he explained what they were going to do – what they all had to do.
Boise had been undergoing “improvements” to its downtown area for the last few years – between five and fifty, depending on whether you asked someone who was paying attention, or one of the old-timers who just liked to bitch about things. Traffic that had once been sparse at all times of the day and night, even in the most crowded parts of the downtown area, had grown congested as it was rerouted to avoid construction areas. Scaffolding had sprouted like skeletal fungus, protecting construction workers from traffic, and vice versa.