8/4 p4

11:40pm- continued.

The world tilted insanely, and I knew that this could be the end. The weight of the huge pack pulled my left side up. My left hand, slick with sweat, gave way, slipping completely loose of the rung. At that same time, the goner tipped sideways, it’s legs caught in a rung, sending the whole ladder onto it’s side. My body twisted along with it, and the world flipped a one-eighty.

I could feel, even as this happened, that my right hand wouldn’t hold. Really, couldn’t hold. The pack added a third to my body weight, and the sweat was like teflon on my hand, keeping any good grip from staying solid.

I knew it then. In my heart, even as I screamed, even as the ladder dumped me off it’s side, that I was going to die. That this whole insane half baked plan would kill me. I flailed my left arm trying to get a balance, trying to assert control over my twisting body.

Oddly, my flailing fingers connected with something. Something solid.

That’s when James, screaming just as loud as me, broke his way into my panicked thoughts.

“Grab the axe! Goddamnit, Grab the bloody axe!”

And there it was, suddenly. My left hand mere inches from an axe. From James’ axe, in fact, shaft down.

I grabbed it, pulling myself forward on it, even as the ladder began to twist again, falling away from the motel behind me. unexpectedly, my feet touched down onto solid stone as I pulled forward. The ledge! Keedy, and Lee Law had a damn ledge!

While James kept his grip on me, steadying me as I stood, I realized I might get out of this.

My feet steadied down onto the ledge, and I found myself blessedly, insanely, against all odds, still alive. Not a mangled heap on the sidewalk. Not dead.

Dave lowered his shotgun, sling hanging loose from one end. “tie your pack into the sling and let me pull it up, boy! Do it fast, ‘fore you lose your balance!” A precarious, desperate minute later, I struggled out of the over stuffed pack and saw it slowly, painfully rise over the lip of the building.

Dave lowered the sling again and I tightened a loop against my right arm. The ax disappeared, and with much heaving and effort, James and the grizzled vet pulled me up over the edge.

We lay there, panting. We’d done it. We’d lived.

The moaners, suddenly unable to see us and with a gap so wide even their worm ridden brains registered it as impassable, lost interest. They milled around up top, spreading out and eventually losing the cohesion of a hunting mob.

We crawled, exhausted, to the far end of the long, rectangular building. There I lay now, the moans of the undead and brush of wind the only sound. We’ve survived.

Only six more blocks. Six blocks to the treatment plant. Six blocks to ground zero of the outbreak. Six blocks to ride to the rescue. Or die trying.