The Dead Life #9 – Rooftop

This is the ninth chapter of the zombie serial The Dead Life. You can learn more about the story over at the project hub. This series originally ran on Haunted MTL but is being edited and updated in the lead-up to new installments to continue the story.

You can read the prior chapter here.

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Day 16

Dani stepped toward the gate, gun drawn and peering through a gap in the sheet metal. There was some motion from something, but it wasn’t quite clear how many instances of something it actually was. She took a step back, looked over the gate, and turned her attention to Jimmy and Edgar, both looking slightly winded and panicked. Edgar puffed. Jimmy rubbed the top of his head, fingers rustling through his curly red hair. He had been wearing a Dodger blue cap which now was clutched in his other hand.

“Guys, get in the car.” 

The three darted over to the Cadillac. Dani threw herself behind Edgar, the driver. The car smelled heavily of hash and body odor. The air within felt oppressively stale.

“Gotcha,” Edgar said. He turned the ignition. She winced at how loud the Cadillac was.

Dani tapped on the back of Edgar’s seat a little forcefully and pointed behind them as he glanced at her from the rearview mirror. “

You need to come along the side here. We can’t let these things see us through the fence near the office.”

The Cadillac reversed and made a three-point turn down the outermost alley of the Family Storage. After a few moments they approached the office, out of view from ghouls thanks to the solid concrete of the storage units on the northern side of the yard. She saw that Bob had laid a ladder against the unit. He waved them over.

The trio stepped out of the car. Bob pulled a wrinkled finger to his lips and Edgar cut the ignition.

“Dani,” Bob gestured with a thumb over his shoulder, his voice cracked in a hoarse whisper, “take a look. Just don’t step into the open.”

Dani made her way toward the door of the office that opened into the storage yard and peeked around the corner. She could see several of the undead who were now reaching through the fencing. Their groans echoed loudly and she wondered how they could project as much as they did. She watched one ghoul’s arm begin to deglove as it got caught on an angled piece of the fencing. Shredded chunks of skin hung from the arm and others plopped onto the concrete. It reminded her of loose chicken skin. She felt sick to her stomach. The ghoul continued to wave his arm, not noticing the skin sluicing off their forearm at the elbow.

“How many?” Jimmy asked.

Bob leaned against the concrete frame of one of the units. “Sandy counted twelve. Got her watching upstairs.”

“Three at the gate right now,” Dani added.

Dani turned back to the men. She approached the ladder and looked it over. “What is the plan, Bob?”

“Well, we can get a couple of us up on that roof to make some noise and be in view of those things.”

Dani nodded. “We can then pull them around the corner.”

Edgar chimed in, nodding; “That’d pull them off that front gate. These things are really fucking dumb, we can just send them walking.”

The small man, Jimmy, said nothing. He appeared rattled and glanced nervously. He kept looking toward the units to the south.

Bob continued, “since I need her here with me to coordinate, you two guys… I want you up on that roof.”

Jimmy took a step back as his attention shifted to Bob. “Why us?”

Dani crossed her arms. “Because this is your goddamn fault.”

Edgar held the flat of his hand toward Jimmy in a calming gesture. Jimmy glanced down and nodded. “Fair enough,” he said.

Bob and Dani held the ladder steady for Jimmy and Edgar. Once the pair were on the roof, Bob gave them a thumbs up. “Be nice and loud.”

The two men began to shout and wave their arms on the roof of the row of units. Dani edged toward the fence and watched as a pair of ghouls took notice and moved toward the noise.

The ghoul with the shredded arm turned from the gate. She watched as chunks of skin and muscles tore away and dark, rancid blood poured out. The arm, or what was left of it, hung limply, seemingly dislocated from the sudden turning and yanking from between the bars. Blood trailed as it wandered from the gate toward the side of the building where Jimmy and Edgar had been making noise.

…

“This is fucked, man” Jimmy whined. He had a bad feeling about this whole thing. There weren’t supposed to be people here. How was it that the only people alive they’d seen in a week would be in a storage facility, of all places.

“Just do it, we’ll get our shit later and we’ll go,” Edgar said, flapping his arms. He came off as a harried, overfed chicken in panic.

Jimmy shouted a couple times and waved his arms above his head. He saw glassy, dead eyes pointed up at them. Then a moan erupted from one with a knife that was stuck in its chest. A splatter of dark blood ringing the wound. He shuddered and turned his attention back to Edgar.

“Dude, they have this place locked down.” Jimmy glanced back behind him, not seeing the old man or the Asian chick. “What if they found it?” 

“It’s my unit, they can’t take my stuff. That’s against the law.”

Edgar continued shouting and stomping, pulling the undead along the side of the facility. He punctuated these moments with a periodic “Pendejos!”

Jimmy did the same. 

“I don’t think those rules apply anymore” he muttered to nobody in particular. Edgar continued to insult the ghouls in Spanish.

…

Bob looked up toward the kitchen window on the upstairs apartment and saw the whiteboard. Sandy has scrawled a large number three.

The remaining three had passed beneath the window facing the street.

He could work with that.

“Danielle, help me move this ladder.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know what these guys want. We can isolate them and get to why they were trying to break down the gate.”

Dani grabbed one side of the ladder.

“You think this has to do with the drugs we found. Their car smelled like my old dealer’s place.”

Bob glanced at her and said nothing.

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