The Wells Fargo Center they were in had been undergoing some kind of construction. A crane that was anchored somewhere in the street far below and extended beyond the top floor had been moving house-sized pieces of steel and concrete for weeks. In the first minutes of the change, the first moments when everything ended, something had blown up at the base of the crane. It tilted, then slammed into the side of the building.
Now it was still hung up against the face of the high-rise, slung at a drunken angle as though even the inanimate objects of the old world were in a state of shock about what had happened around them. The many supports and braces of the tower crawled like a ladder up the side of the building, extending past the top level.
The bottom was engulfed in smoke, a smoldering fire still barely-visible within the billowing clouds of black.
The working jib, the long arm of the crane, extended across 9th Street, hanging like a bridge over toward what was left of a ruined building. Touching, or almost touching….
“You think we can make it?” said Christopher.
“We don’t have a lot of choice.” Dorcas looked at the tower, and Ken knew she was wondering what he was: if the crossbars were close enough to jump to from the window. If someone with one good hand could climb up a good sixty feet, then another hundred feet across the jib, then over to the ruined remains of the One Capital Center. Assuming the jib even extended it that far.
And could they make it with children holding on? Ken knew she was thinking that, too, because her eyes kept flicking over to Derek and Hope. Not Liz: the baby was still knocked out – he hoped – in the sling on Maggie’s chest. But the other kids.
“I… I can’t,” said Maggie. “I can’t go up.”
The zombie at the door had its head all the way through. Its shoulders. The door was seconds away from cracking in half.
Ken sighed. “We have to.”
“Why can’t we climb down?”
No one else had seen it yet. No one else had noticed.
The building shuddered. Dorcas, still looking out the window at the tower, finally looked down.
She gasped.
20
Dorcas turned away from the window. She didn’t say what she had seen. And Ken was grateful for that. “I’ll go first,” she said.
“Like hell,” said a voice. The new guy. The gray-haired man. He was a fairly big guy, maybe six-foot-two and stocky to boot, but he jumped quickly to the window, elbowing Dorcas out of the way.
“Wait for me, Buck!” said the guy’s mother.
Ken thought, Buck? The guy seemed more like a Sherman or a Eugene than a Buck.
Buck grabbed his mother with one hand and a web-covered chair with his other, stepping up onto the chair and then from there to the sill. His eyes widened.
“What’s… what’s…,” he stammered. He was looking down.
Buck’s mother was more direct. She just screamed.
Maggie started toward the window. Ken stopped her. “You don’t need to see what’s there. We just need to get going.” He looked at Buck. “If you’re going, go. If not, get out of the way!”
Buck looked over his shoulder at Ken, terror and irritation warring on his features, then he and his mother jumped out the window. There was a thud a moment later. Clanks.
The building rumbled again. This time the tremor didn’t stop. It just kept moving through the entire building, looping rolls that made it hard to stay standing.
“How are we going to take the kids?” whispered Maggie.
“I’ll take the girl,” said Christopher, stepping forward. “You’ve got the baby.”
Maggie started to protest. Ken cut her off with a gesture. “He’s right. I’ll take Derek, he takes Hope. You take Liz. The others are working with one good hand each, so they can’t do it.”
“Is he…?” Maggie’s voice drifted off.
It didn’t matter. Ken knew what she was trying to say. “You can trust him with Hope,” he said. “You can trust Christopher with her life.” He turned to Derek and said, “Can you hold tight to me, champ?” Derek nodded. “Okay. We’re gonna go climbing. Don’t look down.”
“I won’t.”
The door shattered. Snarls – multiple growls – rammed their way into the room.
“Go!” shouted Aaron. “Go now!”
21
Ken yanked Derek upward, and at the same instant Derek’s arms wrapped around his neck in a death grip, so tightly he would have worried about suffocation if he hadn’t already been holding his breath.
The door fell to pieces. Completely. Utterly. Only the remains of the huge conference table between the beasts and the survivors kept them alive.
Ken propelled Maggie toward the window as Christopher picked up Hope and slung the six-year-old over his shoulder. She started screaming, kicking. Not understanding what was happening, still half-dazed from the effects of whatever had been done to her.
And Ken had to ignore it. He was only one man, there just wasn’t enough him to do more than what he was already doing. He had to trust Christopher to save his daughter.
He shoved his wife out the window. Barely a moment to let her get her grip on the sill, get balanced.