The sound of bodies hitting, of wind thumping out of lungs, was audible. Painful.
Aaron had somehow jumped down and over. Putting himself in the path of Maggie’s fall. She collided with him, her legs smashing into his shoulders, then rolling over him in a strangely balletic move before continuing down.
Like Dorcas, Aaron had only one hand. He had already done the impossible, moving like that. But even he couldn’t grab onto the woman and her child.
Maggie kept falling.
25
Down. Down. Maggie tumbled over Aaron’s body, over him. Past him.
Ken’s vision telescoped. There were still easily a hundred thousand of the zombies at the base of the Wells Fargo Center, clustered so closely together that they looked like an oil slick. But more terrifying were the tens of thousands that were scaling the sides of the building, crawling impossibly upward, somehow sticking to the sheer walls, pulling themselves toward the survivors.
And worst of all were the shrieking monsters that were crawling up the crane itself. Smoke billowing from below them, fire coming off their clothing and their very skin. It was a view of Hell worse than any biblical vision from Revelation.
Most of the things were still fairly far away. But one of them had broken away from the horde. It was a huge creature, at least six-foot-six and broad to match. Pure muscle, from what Ken could see, dressed in what had once probably been jeans and a tank top.
The thing was a terrifying mixture of light and dark. The zombie’s skin was utterly white to the point of being pink. Ken suspected that the thing must have been an albino before the world ended – unless this was one more symptom of the change.
But the white, unblemished skin was only on the thing’s left half. Beyond that, a line bisected the thing neatly down the middle, separating it into right and left halves.
On the right half, there was no white skin, no trace of once-humanity. All was black and crimson. Charred by the fire the zombie had willingly gone through to get at its prey. Its skin sloughed off in ragged sheets, exposing bone and muscle that were just as dark and burnt as the skin above them.
Maggie screamed. Not just terror, but pain. So did Aaron, and Ken’s vision snapped back to his wife and the heroic older man.
The cowboy had down his work well. He hadn’t stopped Maggie’s tumbling fall, but had slowed it enough that she could reach up and grab something.
Aaron’s leg.
Maggie dangled, her back to the structure of the crane’s tower. Liz’s head slumped forward and down, as though the toddler were curious to see what lay below them.
The black/white monster growled, a noise louder than the others’ shouts. It sounded almost triumphant.
It was only perhaps fifteen feet below Maggie’s dangling tennis shoes. Close to her, and coming fast.
26
Aaron was screaming. It was the first time that Ken could remember the cowboy making a sound like that. He realized the older man was holding onto the bars of the crane with his good hand and had somehow wrapped the mangled fingers of his right hand around a bar as well. Trying to hold onto Maggie’s weight.
“I’ll get her,” Ken shouted. But there was no way that was going to happen.
Christopher started moving down. Grappling with the still-writhing Hope, but clearly game to try and help Maggie.
Dorcas had no chance. Her arm was too shattered for her to do anything but hang on; try to climb.
And the black/white monster was now within ten feet of Maggie.
Ken had survived all this. He had kept himself alive, had saved others.
I’ll think of a way.
Zombies on the walls.
What can I do?
Zombies under us.
I’ve got to think of something.
My wife. My baby.
Nothing was coming.
He had nothing.
He realized that his only options were to climb down and die, or climb up and save himself and his son, but live with the fact that he had abandoned his wife and baby.
He couldn’t make either choice.
But even the refusal to make a decision, he knew, was essentially a default to the latter alternative.
Maggie screamed.
The huge zombie grabbed her foot.
27
No one knew what to do. Everyone was frozen.
Everyone but one.
Derek.
The nine-year-old moved. Too fast for Ken to react, too fast for Christopher to catch.
“Mommy!” he screamed, and suddenly his weight was gone from Ken’s shoulders. The boy flung himself off Ken’s back, jumping from his father’s flesh to the steel of the crane and then climbing down so fast he was a blur.
“Stop him!” shouted Ken.
Christopher and then Dorcas each reached for the boy in turn. He danced out of range of both, agile as a monkey.
The creature, the black/white beast, had pulled itself up to Maggie’s legs. One bite was all it would take. One bite, and she would be gone in a matter of seconds.
The zombie opened its mouth.
“Not…,” screamed Derek, rushing down headfirst past Aaron…
… the zombie reared back…