Untitled Zombie Novel Excerpt: SHAFT

(Fridays will be random excepts from a novel I have never written. It's mainly an excuse for me to write cool zombies scenes without ever having to write the boring parts.)

Jeremy and Catherine finished blocking the doors to the stairwell. Desks, filing cabinets, a broom handle through the handles. The three zoms continued to bang against the doors, moans in hunger but the barricade would hold.

Wiping the sweat from her forehead Catherine said, “We need to find a way down, Jeremy. It's only a mater of time before a swarm forms. If they surround the building–”

“I know, damn it!” Jeremy checked his revolver. Only four rounds. “How many shotgun shells do you have left.

Catherine didn't even bother checking. “Two loaded. Two here, “ she said tapping her pants pocket.

They had wasted way too much ammo in getting down from the top floor. They'd been careless and stupid, thinking they could get up to the penthouse and back down without attracting the dead. But they had wasted to much time and the zoms had caught their scent and flanked them. They gotten to the stairs and down to the 8th floor before getting routed. They had more ammo back at Haven but that did them crap all good now.

“The elevator shaft,” he said.

Catherine didn't wait and quickly moved down the hallway to the elevator doors. She pulled out her small pry bar and jammed into between the doors. “Jer, we're going to need something to jam them open. He nodded and moved back into the offices and scavenged, eventually finding a tall metal trash can Catherine was bracing the doors open with her arms and legs when he got back. He placed the can between the doors on the floor.

Stretching and cracking her joints, Catherine peered down the shaft. The only light came from the doors they stood in and that was becoming dimmer by the moment. Twilight had hit. Soon it would be night and they'd be down the flashlights. If they didn't get to street level before too long into night they would have a whole other host of issue to deal with. Neither of them were priests (or shamans or whatever). They'd be open targets for the shadow beasties.

Catherine turned slipped on her headlamp, a small LED flashlight on an elastic band. She scanned the shaft, but even though the headlamp was surprisingly bright, it didn't cast it down more than a couple of floor. Jeremy squeezed his torso over her. It was tight, the doors only open by about 3 feet. He silently pointed to the metal ladder that ran next to the shaft. Catherine nodded.

The wet moan was loud and right behind Jeremy. He spun around to come face to face as the decayed zom in a ratty business suit fell upon him, pushing Jeremy back into Catherine. She had been quicker to respond then him and had already spun around and pulled up the shotgun. But she was trapped between Jeremy and the shaft. When he fell into her, she stumble backwards over the trash can She dropped the shotgun free, which luckily was still on it's shoulder strap, and shot her hands out to the edges of the elevator doors barely stopping her fall.

Jeremy had to use both hands to hold the zom back. He regained his balance, braced against the door and shoved hard. The zom stumbled back a few feet. Jeremy reached for his machete at his waste, but it the time it took him to pull it out, the zom had begun to lunge for. Jeremy dodge to the side, swinging the blade wildly. He caught the zom in the stomach with a great horizontal gash, spinning the zom slightly.

Catherine had just begun to pul herself forward when the zoms plowed into her, sending the both in the shaft. Jeremy dropped the machete, dove forward and trust his arm through the doors. He made contact and grasped.

Everything had happened so quickly and Catherine's headlamp was blinding him at first so it took him a second to process the situation. Jeremy was leaning forward, his stomach laying across the trash can. His left hand was braced against the elevator door and his right hand held a wrist. The wrist of the zom. The zom's hand gripped at his wrist, but was tried to claw at his skin. Catherine had her arms wrapped around the zom's waist. Jeremy could see that she was slipping on the lose clothes and loose decaying skin.

The zom was trying to pull itself up to Jeremy, its mouth biting in desire. Jeremy's arm strained against the weight of two bodies and felt the rotting flesh of the wrist slide in his hand. He tightened his grip, digging into the bone. The zom didn't care. It just want to eat and kept trying to pull closer to him while clawing with the other arm. If Jeremy tried to pull the zom and Catherine up, he'd just pull the zom into his own face. Not that he was sure he could lift both their weight. The zom might weigh a lot less than a normal adult but she was trying to lift Catherine's 150lbs plus the zom's probably 100lbs with one arm.

“You have to climb up,” he yelled, knowing this meant she's have to climb over the zom's head.

“I'm trying! Shoot it!”

“I go for my gun, I drop you both!”

Catherine threw up one hand and grabbed the zom's shoulder tight by the neck so it wouldn't be able to bite at her fingers. It seemed totally unaware of her, fixated as it was on Jeremy. She dug her fingers deep in the zom's flesh, getting a firm grip on the collar bone. Taking a deep breath, she let her other arm go from the zom's waist and tried to pull her self up with a quick jerk.

At that moment moment the zom pulled sharply against Jeremy's arm. The shock load of all the weigh shift caused the joints and tendons in the zom's elbow to popped and begin to separate. Jeremy had just enough time to let go of the elevator door with his left hand and force his toro deeper down the shaft, grasping madly. He grabbed the zom's other (and now only remaining arm) with his left hand. The zom jerked out of free fall and against Catherine's weight. Quickly he dropped the now unconnected forearm in his right hand and grasped it around the zom's arm.

The the split second of falling and the jerk to a stop, Catherine had struggle to keep hold on the zom. She fumble down and around the zom, desperate for a hand hold. When everything came to a rest, she realized she had one hand deep inside the zom's abdomen, in the gash Jeremy had sliced. Her hand has wrapped around a piece of intestine.

And it began to unravel.

(to be continued)