At the water tower was the source of the crowd’s interest: a man had climbed the fence and was sitting on top of it, his feet dangling on both sides. He was waving his arms and whooping at the ghouls, luring them away from the van.
“There. Holy Jesus, what the hell is he doing?” Jeff said, his voice coming out in a confused croak.
The man hanging on top of the fence was yelling like a maniac at the plague victims moving slowly toward him.
“He’s trying to save us.” There was wonder in Megan’s voice. She looked over at Jeff, her eyes alight with hope, and saw the stunned expression on his face.
“Jeff? JEFF!” Megan shouted as he continued to stare at the madman on the fence.
Finally, he blinked and looked at her.
“What’re we going to do?” she pleaded.
Jeff looked back at the man who was currently swinging a leg over the chain link fence so he could drop into the enclosure. Once inside, he would be trapped. There was no ladder leading up to the top of the water tower. The fence looked rusty and probably wouldn’t hold up under much pressure. The infected were too clumsy to climb, but it would still collapse under their weight within minutes.
The man dropped down inside the small corral just as the first of the creatures got close enough to grab for him. He was lost from their sight as more of the rotters crowded the fence, blocking the view.
“Jeff?” Megan didn’t shout this time, but she was demanding an answer.
He didn’t have time to respond before something came crashing down in front of them and clobbered two of the pus bags near the van. They were knocked sprawling, one tumbling into the other as something compact slammed into its skull.
Before Jeff could figure out where the missile had come from, something else slammed into the back of a one-armed man dressed in a tattered business suit. Jeff’s gaze followed the object as it went spinning down to the pavement in the church parking lot. It was a book.
A wide circle of infected surrounding the area where the book had landed turned as one and stared up at the second floor of the church.
Megan noticed the attack as well and watched in silence as more books flew from one of the windows of the church and crashed into the group that had suddenly lost all interest in both the van and the man at the water tower.
As they both peered at the church window, an arm popped out. Another man, waving and screaming in the same suicidal fashion as the one at the tower, was climbing out onto the roof of the church. He was African American, but as Jeff looked closer, he realized he was just a kid. He was too thin and gangly to be an adult.
The crowd had splintered entirely, with a large portion starting to assault the church.
“How many of these people are there?” Megan asked. Her tone was awestruck but laced with excitement.
“I have no idea, but they’re fucking nuts.” Jeff couldn’t keep the admiration out of his voice.
“We have to help them,” Megan said, distracted, as she watched the kid on the roof send more of the books piled in his arms sailing into the crowd. He flipped the ghouls off and laughed as he sent another tome smashing into a police officer’s chest.
Megan turned to Jeff and tugged at his shirt sleeve.
She waited until he could tear his eyes away from the boy on the roof before speaking. “I don’t have any clue who they are or why they chose to risk their lives for us, but we can’t leave them here to die.” She shook her head for emphasis. “We just can’t!”
“I know, I know.” Jeff nodded and smiled gravely. He gave another quick glance out the windshield at the situation unfolding in front of them, and his expression began to change. Megan could see the determined look on his face. There were still a few fiends bashing away at the van, but that was just background noise. Most had wandered off to deal with the man at the water tower or the boy taunting them.
“I have an idea.”
Chapter 19
The van was doing about forty when it plowed through the fence and smashed into five ghouls attached to it. The man standing behind the chain link dove out of the way as the fence collapsed and wrapped around the front of the van. The infected were pinned to the grill, prisoners of the rusty metal pressing against their bodies. The bar running along the top of the fence popped up and collapsed on the Odyssey. As the van skidded to a halt under the water tower, the five hitchhikers on the hood collapsed to the ground in a tangle.
The newly discovered survivor was already getting back to his feet when Jeff rolled down his window.
“Get in!”
The cargo door began its gradual process of opening. Megan stood ready behind it with the.357 in hand and saw that the man looked a little dazed and scratched from his dive to the pavement, but otherwise fine.
The crowd of infected seemed slightly off their game from the fierce assault, but were already starting to discover the giant, gaping hole in the fence. Megan waved her hand furiously, urging the man on. He stumbled and then dove headlong through the doorway, collapsing to the floor.
“Go! Go! Go!” she yelled at Jeff as the door began to shut. Jeff flipped the van in reverse and hit the gas. There were several heavy thuds, and their new passenger grabbed hold of the back of a seat and slid his hand up to the arm rest, wrapping his fingers around it tightly as they continued to fly backwards onto the street.
They skidded to a halt in the middle of the road. Jeff gave a quick look back at the man who had risked his life for him and Megan. He had gotten to his knees and was trying to slide into one of the chairs. He was tall and muscular, and he looked middle aged. His blond hair was going gray at the temples, and there were careworn lines on his face.
“Sorry about that. I didn’t know how else to get to you.”
The newcomer looked up at Jeff as he plopped into the chair and then looked over at Megan, who tried to give him a reassuring smile. He made an attempt at returning it but looked out of breath.
“How many of you are over at that church? Is there anyone besides the kid on the roof?” The blond man raised his hand to hold off more questions until he was able to take a deep breath.
“Just the boy,” he replied. The words were shaky but spoken in a rich baritone.
“Okay.” Jeff nodded and turned back to the wheel. “I hope he sees us coming.” The new passenger reached forward and gripped the handle on the back of Jeff’s chair tightly.
The van took off like a shot. After doing a one-eighty, sending any bodies that got in the way flying in every direction, they sped toward the church parking lot.
Jeff avoided a large group of infected but bumped several more singles as they sped across the road. The windshield had several hairline cracks in it but had survived the assault on the fence. Pulling into the driveway, he glanced up toward the group of windows from which he had seen the books being flung. The kid was still there, waving frantically at them.
“I hope he figures out what we’re doing,” Jeff said through gritted teeth.
He drove close to the building, turning the wheel and maneuvering so they were right next to the wall, just below the windows. The roof was flat, so the boy could safely run right over to the van. Jeff adjusted the vehicle until it was flush with the wall. His own door was too close to the building to open, so he jumped from his seat and grabbed his gore-stained bat.
His two passengers watched as Jeff moved to the side door and glanced out the window. He reached for the handle.
“Excuse me,” he said, and the other man, stunned, got out of his way. The door slid open, and Jeff gripped the bloody weapon in both hands. “Shut the door behind me please.”
Megan watched Jeff jump out as several infected closed on him. She could not swear to it, but thought she heard him say “Batter up!” when his feet touched the ground. Even though the man they had just saved looked stunned, he reached for the handle to shut the heavy automatic door as requested.