“Josh,” Carly said, standing next to him.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him up. Josh felt tired and heavy, but somehow she managed to get him up anyway. Carly led him away from the door as Will and Danny carried the heavy bookcase over, grunting with the effort. Lara hurried over to help, flinching noticeably with pain, and they slammed it down against the door, even as the pounding increased in volume and urgency.
“Second floor,” Will said calmly. “Go go go.”
They hurried up the flight of stairs, moving in a train. Squeezed in between Carly behind him and Sienna in front of him, Josh felt his feet moving on automatic pilot. Sienna was crying, tears flooding down her cheeks, though he couldn’t hear her over the pounding noise from below and the loud roaring in his ears.
“Keep moving, Josh,” Carly said behind him.
Farther up the staircase, he glanced down and saw Danny crouched next to the open basement door, reaching down and pulling out weapons and boxes of ammo that Will was passing up to him from somewhere inside the opening. The beam of a flashlight flickered back and forth from inside the basement.
“Hurry,” a voice said above them. Josh looked up and saw Gaby leaning through the open second-floor door.
The others were waiting, with Elise and Vera peering down from the third-floor door above them. Sienna had found the cot and was sitting on it, crying quietly to herself. Lara walked over and put her arms around the other woman and Sienna broke down, tears splashing across Lara’s already sweat-stained shirt.
“Where’re Danny and Will?” Gaby asked.
“They’re coming,” Carly said. “Where’s Sarah?”
“Third floor. That’s where we should all be.”
“Go. I’ll wait for them.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, go,” Carly said.
Lara took Sienna up first, the other woman stumbling, shell-shocked, every step of the way.
Gaby was also on her way up when she realized Josh hadn’t moved and looked back. “Josh, come on.”
“I’ll be right up,” he said.
“Hurry,” she said, and climbed the stairs.
Josh stayed behind. He wasn’t sure why, but the idea of abandoning Carly now didn’t seem right. So he didn’t move and waited alongside her.
The pounding from below them went on and on. Relentless.
“Can they climb?” he asked nervously.
“Yes,” she said, “but not if there’s nothing to hang onto. Is there anything to hang onto out there?”
He shook his head. The Tower was a smooth conical structure that got smaller as it got taller. And it went pretty tall. But he didn’t recall anything that could be used as handholds.
Carly smiled at him. “You did good out there.”
“Thanks.”
“For a kid.”
He managed a decent grin back at her.
Will and Danny finally arrived, climbing through the door in the floor. They were carrying duffel bags that looked heavy.
Josh’s eyes went to the front door. It was still closed, and the bookcase was still pressed against it, but he could see the thick oak shelves trembling each time the ghouls smashed into the door. It had begun to slide half an inch at a time with each impact, moving back a little every time…
Will slammed the floor door shut, so loudly Josh jumped a bit. Will and Danny picked up the bookcase and moved it over, then laid it on top of the door. They took a step back and exchanged a look.
“That’s not going to hold,” Danny said.
“Probably not,” Will nodded. “What else we got?”
“The computers on the third floor,” Josh said quickly.
“What else?”
Danny looked over at Josh and grinned through the mask of dripping black ghoul blood and flesh. “Hey, kid, how much do you weigh?”
The first-floor door gave way ten minutes later, but by then they had reinforced the second-floor door with the bookcase and about twenty pounds of computer equipment from the third floor, including the desk. Everything else that wasn’t nailed down went on top of the door, including paintings, pieces of the cot, and all the hardcover books.
While they were stacking books on top of the door, Danny said, “We should have kept Tom around. He’s what, a good 250?”
“About that,” Will said.
“Definitely should have kept him around. Make the big lug useful for once.”
The ghouls began pounding on the second-floor door almost immediately, but there was no leverage for them to break the deadbolt. Still, they continued at it, banging away, pouring an unrelenting torrent of force that did little good. Even though the door held, and didn’t look to be in danger of giving any time soon, Josh couldn’t shake the disconcerting feeling of so many of the creatures below them, salivating at the thought of coming through.
The island isn’t safe. It was all a lie…
Josh crouched next to the open third-floor door and looked down through the opening at Will and Danny, sitting calmly on top of the bookcase. They had wiped the black clumps of dead ghoul flesh and blood off their faces and gotten as much out of their clothes and hair as they could manage. They still looked like homeless soldiers wearing camouflage face paint that refused to wash off. They had transferred most of the weapons they had taken out of the basement up to the third floor, leaving just enough on the second floor. They were loading a couple of shotguns with shells that didn’t have an “X” on them.
We’re out of silver bullets.
The third floor was crowded, but they made do. The girls, Elise and Vera, sat in a corner together, holding hands, and eventually dozed off. Lara sat with Sienna, doing her best to calm the other woman. Josh didn’t have to ask what had happened to Jake, Sienna’s boyfriend. Or Al. Or Debra and her son. At least Sarah and her daughter, Jenny, had made it, and mother and daughter sat on their own side of the wall, the girl asleep in her mother’s lap. Sarah stroked Jenny’s hair, staring off at nothing in particular.
Gaby and Carly had shotguns, and the two women guarded the windows around them. He was feeling pretty useless sitting next to the open door in case Will or Danny needed anything. The continuous banging against the door below didn’t help.
“Hey, kid,” Danny said below him. “Nice throw for a computer nerd. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Josh gave him an embarrassed grin. “I’m not a computer nerd.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of. Nerds rule the world. Well, used to, anyway. We all know who rules the world now, don’t we?”
“Ghouls?”
“No, guys with shotguns.”
There was a thunderous boom behind Josh that made him jump. He looked back at Carly, who was leaning out one of the windows. She racked her shotgun and fired down the side of the Tower a second time.
“What’s going on?” Will asked from below.
“I don’t know,” Josh said.
“They’re trying to climb the walls,” Carly shouted.
Will stood up and walked to one of the second-floor windows. He glanced out, then Josh saw him fire two shots down the side of the Tower.
“They’re climbing the walls?” Danny asked.
“Yeah, they’re climbing the walls,” Will said.
“How the hell they doing that?”
“They’re standing on top of one another. Like pyramids.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“I gotta see this.” Danny walked over to another window and looked down. “Wow. They’re climbing the walls.”
Danny fired down the side of the Tower with his shotgun. He paused, then racked and fired a second time.
“Did that stop them?” Josh asked. He couldn’t see anything from his position.
“No, but it’s slowing them down,” Danny said. “Hard to climb with a face full of buckshot, silver or no.” He stuck his shotgun out the window and fired two more times. “Come on, I got all day.”