Buck looked at the others. “I guess I’m the guinea pig.”
Ken expected the man to resist. But he stepped through the crack between the doors. Went over to Christopher and Aaron. The two talked to him for a moment, then Christopher lowered him into empty space. Buck disappeared from Ken’s sight.
Ken expected to hear a scream. Long, fading. Then nothing.
Instead, he only heard the continuing sound of the things coming closer. He couldn’t tell where they were: the open shaft bounced their growls and groans around and made it impossible to pinpoint a location.
Maggie grabbed his arm.
“Dorcas?”
The older woman shook her head. “Take the kids first,” she said.
“Dorcas….” Aaron’s voice carried a warning tone. Not of threat, but the sound Ken associated with a long-married man warning his wife he didn’t want to get into an old argument again.
Dorcas’ voice came back with the same tone. “I’m not going until they do.”
Aaron sighed. “Fine.”
“Who do you want?” said Ken.
“Dealer’s choice.”
Ken kissed Maggie, and pushed her through the doors.
38
Maggie disappeared, and Ken felt like he was losing himself again. He heard her voice, saw pie-slices of her face through the crack in the doors. She didn’t sound happy, and she gave a little cry when Christopher grabbed her and helped her drop down.
Then she was gone from view.
“Where is Mommy going?” said Hope.
“She’s going down where it’s safe,” said Ken. He hoped he wasn’t lying.
“Is Lizzy going to be okay?”
“Sure she is,” he said. He tightened his grip on his daughter. Sometimes he worried that he might hold her too tight, sometimes he feared he would hug her so close that he would crack her ribs – wouldn’t that be something fun to explain at the emergency room?
But there were no more emergency rooms.
No more hospitals.
He didn’t know if there’d even be a tomorrow.
So he held her as tightly as he could. Held her until she groaned.
“Ken,” whispered Christopher. “Your turn.”
He loosened his grip on Hope, then made sure her arms were securely around his neck. After a moment, he took the belt off his pants. He slung it around his chest, and it just went around her narrow torso as well. He cinched it through the last hole on the belt. Not much as far as safety harnesses went, but it was better than nothing.
“Hold on, okay,” he whispered.
She nodded. “I’m scared.”
“Me too. But if you hold on tight, maybe I’ll be less scared, okay?”
She looked at him. Serious eyes that shone in the darkness. She nodded. “I’ll hold you.” Her arms tightened.
Ken thought of Derek. His children were good. Genuinely good people.
Please, God, let me save her. Let me save Liz. Let me save what’s left of my family.
He stepped through the elevator doors. Onto a ledge, six inches wide and nothing below.
Please, God.
39
He only stepped in a few inches before Christopher grabbed him. The young man seemed unaware of the fact that he was dangling only inches away from a dark nothing that extended probably over a hundred feet below them. Ken remembered the way they had met, only maybe an hour – and what seemed like a hundred years – before. Christopher had saved them all from a small horde, blowing up a floor of a building, and showing them how to scale the outside of it to escape. He seemed equally at ease hanging onto a vertical surface as he did on terra firma.
“Where’d you learn to do this?” Ken asked.
Christopher laughed. “Parents kept shipping me off to taller and taller boarding schools.” His smile widened. “New York was the highest.”
“Come on,” said Aaron. “No time for jabbering.”
“Shouldn’t there be a ladder?” said Ken.
Christopher pointed. There was a ladder. It ended about ten feet above their heads, sheared off mid-rung. Above that was a pile of rubble that didn’t look very stable. Probably the remains of whatever motor room had housed the elevator equipment.
“Come on,” said Christopher. He helped maneuver Ken into position, then he and Aaron dropped Ken below the greave.
Beneath the spool that held the elevator cables, things got dark in a hurry. Dark, and torn up. What Ken had assumed was a normal elevator shaft proved to be marred by tears and gaps, the cylinder obviously crooked even in the small area that he could see before darkness claimed the tunnel.
Ken felt around with his feet. The side of the shaft was crumbling nearby, and he was able to stand on some partially-pulverized concrete that formed a foothold. He didn’t know how stable it was, but it was all he had.
Better than nothing.
A ghostly wail came from the darkness. The zombies in the building, searching for them.
“Now what you’re going to do is rappel down,” said Aaron. The cowboy was leaning down, whispering only a few inches away from Ken’s face.
“I don’t have any gear,” said Ken.
“You ever rappelled before?” asked Aaron.