He would hear that scream for the rest of his life if he didn’t try to stop the thing from killing her.
But he quickly discovered that wanting to go to Dorcas’ rescue was not the same as being able to do it. He still had one hand clamped onto the cable, the other arm dedicated to holding his daughter to him.
He thought for a moment that maybe he could let go and then grab the cable a bit higher and kind of… lurch his way up to Dorcas. A bit of wishful thinking that flew in the face of every law of physics.
He actually relaxed his grip for a moment, but the instant his fingers loosened past a certain point, he felt himself start to swing sideways and his hand clenched automatically before he lost his balance and fell away from the cable.
Hope was still laughing. Cackling and clapping as she watched the damaged, maddened zombie pound at Dorcas’ arms, trunk, face.
What’s wrong with her? What’s happening to my daughter?
The other zombies in the shaft were silent again. Crawling around the walls. Skittering almost too quickly to be seen, as though looking for something. Probably searching for a new anchor spot. A new location to begin building another living bridge.
The shaft was nearly silent. Only the suction sounds of the things’ hands…
… Dorcas, weeping and praying to God and Jesus and someone to save her save her please save her…
… the muffled thud-thumps of the thing as it pounded at her flesh with its own seeping fists…
… and the chirping laughter of Ken’s daughter as she watched it all unfold with eyes agleam.
Dorcas gasped and Ken looked up and saw she was about to let go. She couldn’t hang on any longer.
She would fall.
And Ken suddenly realized that when that happened she would fall straight down.
Straight into him.
Straight into Hope.
54
“Jesus dear Jesus sweet Jesus please Jesus.”
The words were a prayer, but the wet thuds between each one stripped them of their sanctity. The thwop of flesh on flesh as the zombie pummeled Dorcas took what should have been a call for heavenly help and converted it to shattered weeping.
The thing hit Dorcas on her already-broken arm.
She screamed.
In Ken’s arms, Hope gasped. She sounded like she was on the verge of ecstasy.
Ken closed his eyes. His fingers curled around the greasy cable, the metal fibers biting into his palms and drawing stinging tears from his eyes.
“Oh Jesus please Jesus please –“
“Get offa her!”
Ken’s eyes jerked open, his chin snapped up.
The thing was still on Dorcas. One wet hand held to the cable, the other was drawn back, pulled into a tight fist and ready to rain a final blow onto her face. Dorcas was weeping, crying, praying through lips that were bloody and split.
And Aaron flew out of the darkness like vengeance made flesh. He was flipped upside down, his legs twined around the cable, holding his .357 Magnum with his left hand. Smoke poured from the barrel and Ken realized belatedly that that was what must have made the explosions. Aaron had finally used his last two bullets. Had blown the heads off the zombies that were crawling on Dorcas.
Ken had to consciously refrain from shuddering. The cowboy had made the shot in near-perfect darkness, and so far away that Ken couldn’t even see him. He had done it hanging upside down, and using his left hand.
And the shots had been perfect. Two head-shots, negating the instant threat, buying Dorcas a few precious seconds.
Ken made a mental note never to get on Aaron’s bad side.
Aaron dropped the last few feet and hit the zombie before it could slam its final punch down on Dorcas. The cowboy’s gun didn’t have any more bullets, but he used it as a combination battering ram/stake, driving the shining barrel into the crater that had once been the monster’s head.
Aaron’s hand disappeared into the thing’s neck. The zombie jerked. Aaron grunted and twisted his arm as it jammed vertically through the zombie’s throat.
The zombie made a strange noise, a kind of hiccupping cough. Then it shuddered and fell away from Dorcas, peeling off her like a grotesque second skin.
It fell past Ken and Hope. So close that some of the blood from the thing’s peeled flesh wiped across Ken’s forearm. It was tacky and surprisingly cool. A breeze followed the thing, and a moment later he heard a thud, then a scream somewhere below him.
“Maggie?” he shouted.
There was no answer.
Dorcas was crying. Shaking so hard that Ken could feel the vibrations in the cable.
He looked back up as Aaron grabbed the cable with his blood-drenched hand and flipped himself over in a move that Ken couldn’t even have described, let alone hoped to duplicate. Then the cowboy’s legs were wrapped around the cable and he was once again right-side-up, his face only inches from Dorcas’.
“It’s okay,” said the stocky older man.