Page 12 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
No more than a second. Silence rings out for no more than a second, but that second stretches out strangely because we all jump when the knocks start up again.
No. There isn’t just one person out there. What sounds like a hundred fists pound against the door, shaking it in its frame. Terror rises in my throat, thick and fast. Why would survivors do this?
A groan sounds, the drawn-out rattle of the once-dead, and the spell is broken. Not survivors. Zombies. “Everyone upstairs! Now!” Dane yells, and when I linger by the door, still staring at the shaking wood, he grabs the back of my jacket and drags me along with him. I turn and stumble on my way up the stairs, but I don’t fall, and in the second before we slam the door to the flat shut, I hear the splinter of wood breaking below us.
Chapter Five
“Fuck,”Blakecries.“We’refucking fucked!”
My head is mostly back on straight now, though it’s hard to ignore the commotion below. Dane seems much more unmoved. He orders everyone to grab their bags because, emergency or not, we’re going to need those supplies.
More wood splinters, and Autumn flinches when there’s an almighty crash from below. I eye the door to the flat. It has just as many locks on it as the one downstairs, but it’s not nearly as sturdy.
Fuck. I stride over to the window and shove it open. If we can get onto the roof… I lean out to take a look. It’ll mean swinging ourselves around the dormer, but if we can do that, then we’ll be safe. Once the sun rises, we can work out a better way down.
“Isaac?” Dane’s holding a lighter in his hand and I shake my head.
“We need to get onto the roof.”
“We can get down—” Blake begins, but I shake my head.
“We can’t see down there.” The streetlights don’t work, obviously. “The place could be crawling with them. They can’t get onto the roof.”
Autumn is shaking, standing by the bedroom door. She looks ready to bolt.
Rae nods. “Roof’s the best bet. Once the sun’s up, we can work out our next steps.”
Blake shoves me aside and sticks his head out. “And how do we get up there?”
“Gonna have to hold on to the window and climb up,” I say. “It’ll be hardest for the first person, but after that, we can help in here and up there.”
Blake swears again. “Fuck. All right.” He shrugs off his pack and shoves it into my arms. “I’ll go first.”
A powerful blow shakes the door to the flat. Autumn lets out a little scream and Otto backs away from it, eyes wide. At least the stairs have bottlenecked them—it’s blow after blow instead of many all at once.
Blake clambers up into the window frame. Dane and I are standing close in case he falls, but he just lets out a grunt as he lifts himself up onto the dormer.
“Okay,” Dane says. He looks at Autumn, then Rae. “You two next.”
Makes sense. They’re smaller, slighter, and if the zombies break through in the meantime, I don’t think Autumn’s going tobe much help. She gives me her full pack, too, and I place it next to Blake’s.
Fuck… “I’m going to have to pass these up before I come out.”
Dane frowns at me, half of his attention on Autumn as she clings to the window frame. “You’re not going last.”
“I’m lighter than you and Otto. I can chuck those up and follow you out.”
Out of the three of us, I’m most likely to make it up on my own, too. I can’t rely on them to help me. Those zombies are going to get through, and they may well do it before we all get out of this room.
“Shit,” Otto mutters but doesn’t argue.
Autumn gets up on the roof, then Rae, and while Dane is positioning himself in the window frame, Otto and I shove a chest of drawers from the bedroom in front of the flat door.
A panel of the door bursts open as we push it into place. A splinter of wood scrapes my cheek, and I flinch away.
It’s a zombie, all right. Milky eyes roll sightlessly as it shoves its face into the hole it has just made, nostrils flaring. Sight goes quickly, but they have a stellar sense of smell.
Otto grabs my arm. Dane is gone from the window. “Come on!”
