The crane shuddered. Hope screamed, almost barking in her fear.
“It’s okay!” he shouted. But he didn’t believe it. Not now. He could feel the thrum-thrum-thrum of feet and hands pounding up the crane. Could feel the horde pressing up the walls of the Wells Fargo Center. Could feel the very air thickening with the presence of the things coming ever closer.
Then he was at the end of his climb. He flipped over the edge of the tower, and onto the jib. The jib, the projecting arm of the crane that was used to move large pieces of equipment and material, extended in both directions, forward and back. The counter jib stuck into the air high overhead, giving a final defiant middle finger to the forces that were bringing it down.
The other end of the jib, the working jib, thrust downward at a steep incline. There was a catwalk-like sheet of metal that Ken thought he could walk on, but even so the angle of it scared him. One misstep and he would just go screaming forward until he either hit the end of the line or slipped off sideways, plummeting into one hundred fifty feet of empty space, to die or be caught by the zombie mob pressed into the streets below.
Hope must have seen the same thing he did. He felt her arms tighten around his neck and chest. “Daddy,” she whimpered.
And now he did look back. He saw Aaron and Dorcas, clinging to each other as though signed up for the world’s strangest three-legged race. Only they were running a two-handed race up a steep incline of steel bars and crosspieces. And no awards for second place.
Beyond them, Christopher was with Maggie, the young man seeming to push Ken’s wife upward half by physical force, half by sheer charisma.
Ken couldn’t see Liz’s face. He had to trust the toddler was still attached to her mother, and still alive.
Beyond them… darkness. A thick black clot of bleeding, burning, smoking zombies. Climbing closer. Gaining.
“Hurry!” shouted Ken.
The others seemed to step faster.
Ken turned to the gangplank.
He stepped forward. One hand encircling Hope tightly, the other reaching blindly for a handhold. As soon as he found one he took another step and repeated the process.
Step by agonizing step. Moving far too slowly. Knowing that to move faster would be inevitably to fall and to die. Knowing also that the zombies would hurl themselves forward without fear of death, single-minded in their attempts to reach their prey.
Step by step.
Clanks behind him. He looked over his shoulder. Dorcas and Aaron had made it. Then Christopher and Maggie. Liz still limp in the carrier on his wife’s chest.
Maggie locked eyes with him. She was crying, the tears marking white paths through soot-stained cheeks. She reached out, her fingers extended toward him.
Ken didn’t know exactly what she was reaching for. The memory of their family, perhaps. The world and life they once had. His protection. Maybe even… just him.
Christopher said something, grinning that infectious grin of his as he urged her forward, onward.
Downward.
Ken turned back around. He kept moving.
The end of the working jib looked like it had slammed into the side of the building across 9th Street. If so, they might be able to get from one building to another via this strange bridge.
But it was impossible to really tell. The jib could go right through the building’s walls. It could also end twenty feet away. Perspective was a funny thing. And when you added panic, smoke, and a few hundred thousand building-scaling zombies into the mix, it got even weirder.
Clank, cla-cla-cla-clank. The sound of the group slamming over the catwalk suspended high above concrete and a horde of monsters did nothing to help Ken’s peace of mind.
Then something popped. A loud ping as of a steel tether letting go.
The entire crane shifted. Laterally, this time. It pitched forward. Stopped. Again.
A hard lurch.
Ken lost his grip.
30
Ken went down on his back. Hard. A fraction of a second later he heard matching thumps and thuds that told him the rest of the group fared no better. He had only the barest moment in which to wrap both arms around Hope’s body before he began to slide down the catwalk.
The horde below them surged and screamed, the zombies climbing over one another as though aware that they were only moments from seeing their enemies plummet to their midst.
The metal of the catwalk was far from smooth. It was pocked by bolts, rippled by the forces that had sheered the crane off at its base. Still, Ken flew along it with the speed of a bobsledder. Screaming, holding to Hope.
The end coming close. Closer.
Closer.