Page 14 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
I don’t hesitate. I’m closest. I shift onto my feet, keeping in a low crouch, and move away from the others once I’m sure its eyes are on me. The zombie snarls, showing blunt teeth that I know will tear flesh from bone all the same.
I swing once it’s within my reach, sending the zombie—still snarling, still trying to claw at me—skidding off the roof. It doesn’t hit the ground. More groans erupt from below.
Otto is at my back, hands on my pack. “You’re going to fall.”
“I need to get to the dormer.”
He nods. Another is trying to drag itself out the window when we get there, but that’s not the only thing that strikes me as strange.
It’s moving the way we did. I knock it away, stamping on one ruined hand when it won’t let go of the roof, then see how the next zombie climbs into the frame, turns, and clambers up.
Sweat rolls down my spine, arms aching with each precise strike. Otto is at my back, and whenever I hesitate, his hammer comes down with absolute finality. The others spread out over the roof, but aside from one zombie making a failed attempt to scale the drainpipe, the window seems to be their only way out.
Eventually, light begins to creep across the horizon. Yesterday’s clouds are gone, and sunlight spreads in a slow golden wave, casting long shadows and finally revealing the zombies I know have been watching us all night. Their eyes are as milky and unseeing as the others’, but somehow…
Theyseeus. I know they do.
The zombies have stopped coming out the window. Otto makes a move to climb back up onto the roof proper, but then he notices the zombies. He makes a high, panicked sound in the back of his throat. “What the fuck?” He loses his balance, slipping down the roof a little way, and I grab him on instinct, seizing hold of the back of his jacket.
The movement jolts me, too, but he’s caught himself already. He climbs back up, then lets out a sigh. “Thanks.”
“They’ve been there all night,” I say.
Dane grunts in agreement.
“They look…” Rae trails off.
“Look like what?” Blake asks.
“Organised,” Autumn whispers, and the horror in her voice echoes what I’m feeling, though none of the rest of us would sound quite so raw.
A beat too late, Dane says, “That’s impossible.”
“It is,” Rae agrees.
I say nothing. The zombies are still angry. Still hungry. But as the sun peeks above the horizon, they move, shuffling away to wherever they emerged from. No more try to climb out of the butcher’s, either. I hear them moving across the flat and we all watch them emerge and move away.
“What thefuck?” Blake whispers.
No one replies to that. I can’t guess what the others are thinking, but perhaps it’s the same as me. Autumn’s not wrong. Zombies can’t organise. Their brains don’twork.
We don’t seem inclined to move, either. The sun rises, and the zombies are gone, but what if we go back inside and they aren’t?
“What’s that?” Rae points.
Three figures are walking down from the church. Dane gets to his feet as though that will help him to see, but like the rest of us, he doesn’t climb down from the roof.
We wait as the figures descend the hill and walk into the square. They come to a stop some distance from the butcher’s, one heavyset white man, one tall white woman, and a shorter Indian woman who steps forward, away from the other two. Her dark hair is pulled back from her face, and she looks to be maybe a little younger than Rae.
Unerringly, her eyes seek mine. “You might want to come down here. We need to have a chat.”
Chapter Six
Islideforwardontheroof, but Dane grabs my arm. “Don’t.”
“We need to do something. We can’t stay up here all day.”
Zombies are clearly an issue here. I just think they may not be the main one.
