Chapter 18: Isolated

Hanging on the steel ladder in the main elevator shaft, I pointed my flashlight around. Bare metal scaffolding, industrial spray-foam over the bolts and joints, dust caked on every surface, black, sound proofed walls. It felt like we’d gone from a horror movie to a dystopian prison.

I flinched, nearly dropping my flashlight, as something started banging on the elevator doors. “Jesus!” It was a rhythmic pounding, not a desperate one. It was difficult, holding onto the ladder while securing the flashlight strap around my wrist, but I managed.

“Hey,” I asked Marci, “where do you think the others will go, to the lobby or up?”

Above me, her voice came down quiet, “I don’t know.”

“Did you see where those things were coming from?”

“The stairwell, I think.”

“In that case, they’ll go up. Or into a restaurant and try to barricade it. The lobby would be too dangerous. It’s too open. Marci, we need to help them. Maybe go up a floor, see if it’s clear, then attack those things from behind.”

“That one was really hard to kill.”

“We can’t leave them.”

“Yeah, sorry,” she began to climb, “I didn’t mean it that way. What are we going to do? We need a strategy.”

“Guns didn’t work on these guys. We’ll have to use our swords.”

“My electricity fizzled out, too. I don’t really know why. Either they’re immune or it’s this place, being underground.” She stopped climbing and said, “They really look like the zombies out of horror videos.”

“The one we fought. It sure looked like a rotting corpse.” My hand slipped on some grease, forcing me to hold on even tighter with my left, and find a new place to grab with my right. Pausing for a moment, and taking a breath, I said, “Hard to believe that zombies exist, though.”

“And swords. Who would have thought a sword would be more effective than a gun?”

“You’re right about that. Marci, can you . . .?” She began moving up again and so did I. It felt like we were climbing longer than a single story, but this hotel had high ceilings. Finally, we got to the next sset of elevator doors.

“How do you want to do this?”

“Let me check. Can you pull the door while remaining on the ladder?”

Marci climbed up a bit higher than the floor to let me get to the door. A metal crossbeam ran under where the doors opened and I could just slide my feet along it, holding onto metal braces that secured the sliding doors. This was going to be tricky.

I said under my breath, “I hope I don’t fall.”

“You better not leave me alone!”

“I won’t. I won’t. Ok, open.” While holding onto the doors for support, I awkwardly pushed them to slide open, Marci helping by pulling on the one nearest the ladder. They opened a little, then a little more.

It was like breathing in near a dirty toilet, the stench of rotting flesh hit hard. I reeled back but held tightly. Someone, something was standing there. Brown, torn pants. It turned around at the noise, made a sound that sounded more like a moan than a growl, and reached for me.

“Shit! Shut the doors!”

She did, I did, then struggled to hold on. The thing started banging on them and pretty soon, the banging multiplied. More fists had joined in.

“Holy crap, that smelled awful.” I made my way back to the ladder. “Damn. I think there’s a bunch of them there.”

“You could use your rope to secure yourself. Or your whip. Then we could open the doors and fight them.”

“I don’t think I can get enough leverage to swing my sword effectively. Maybe we could pull them into the shaft so they fall?”

“That’s what I was thinking. But we don’t know if that’ll kill them.”

“The one you killed, you chopped off its head.”

Marci shuddered, “It’s mouth was still moving.”

“Damn. That’s not good.”

“Not good, nope, nope, nope.”

In the dark, I couldn’t quite see her blue eyes but looking up, I gave Marci my most reassuring smile, saying, “No football with the bitey heads, then.”

“Not even a little! Listen,” she looked down at me, “I’m not sure we can fight three. Just that one nearly bit you and who knows what pathogens are in their rotting mouths. And if one of us falls here . . .”

The banging continued and I had to talk over it, “Right. But the others. We have to try. Going up one more floor won’t help, since we’d have to come down these stairs and run into these guys.”

“Head back down! God, why didn’t I think of this sooner. We’ll bang on the doors and try to draw more zombies to the shaft and away from the others.”

I started going down as fast as I could, calling up, “Good thinking, Marci!” The ones who’d chased us into the shaft were still pounding away on the level we’d started from. I started banging right back. Their hits intensified. Additional hands joined in. Then scraping, over and over, one of those things running its nails or maybe even bare bones on the doors. Just the thought made me feel sick – yuck!

My ears recoiled and my face scrunched up, but I kept hitting the door. It was the best we could do to give our guys a chance.

***

After a time, I stopped. The things on the other side of the doors did not, though they’d long since shaken the dust free. Little specks floated around, illuminated by our flashlight beams.

“Marci, I think that’s enough. We need to get ourselves safely out of this shaft. If the team survived the attack, they’ve left the area by now. Or they’d have come here and put these guys down.”

“I think you’re right. With Fred, Ave, and Dylan, they should be able to take these things down. I really hope so, I hope they made it out.”

“Let’s try going up two floors. Crack the doors open, see if it’s safe.”

Marci looked down, her golden hair falling down her shoulders, “Just two floors? Will that be enough?” Even without quite seeing her, I could hear the worry. “They seem to congregate together and if they came from above, then there’s probably more of them waiting up there.”

“You might be right. I don’t want to get too far away from our group, though. We have to see if we can find a way back to them.”

“Assuming you’re correct and they are holed up in one of the rooms or restaurants.” The belt from Marci’s submachine gun slid down her shoulder, and she hugged the ladder all the tighter with her left arm for stability. “You, ah, you think the zombies will follow us up? I wonder if they understand how elevator shafts work.”

“I don’t think so, but who knows? I can’t see them as thinking beings. If they’re really dead . . . none of this makes sense. And they don’t seem to communicate so much as mutually congregate toward noise.” I pulled on my own strap, stable. Then checked my whip, sword, and belt, all secured.

“I guess we will find out if they follow us.”

“We’ll have to be careful.”

“Agreed. Cautious and careful, that’s my new motto.” Marci shifted her gun strap back up, “You know, this thing is heavy. Given how useless it was, I wonder if I should just leave it behind.”

“I think we should hang on to the guns for now. We don’t know what or who we’re going to face in here. I can carry it if it’s too much for you. Or we could leave it in the shaft.”

“It’s ok, I got it. Like you said, we don’t know enough yet. Better to be armed, just in case there are monsters the gun works on.” The elf looked up the shaft, shifting to face the ladder instead of me.

“Right. Let’s get going. We’ll go up to the fourth floor, try to find a safe room and then figure out what to do.”

“Up I go.”

Climbing the iron ladder was better than hanging off of it, talking. As we climbed up, boots hitting metal with a dull thudding sound, I worried about the others. They would have been ambushed like us, but with no quick escape. But they had the heavies with them. Fred and Ave could bash those things, Dylan too.

Marci and I, well, we were the weakest of the group.