Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,100

Tilted at about a forty-degree angle, the hatch acts like it’s one-part shield, one-part bowling ball, aimed at the ankles of the zombies trying to reach us.

It rolls smoothly, knocking over zombies, until the rounded edge becomes the flat side. But we just hoist it and set it rolling again.

Speed is more important than taking out the zombies behind us; the ones we’ve set spinning and falling over our shield. So, I don’t turn to stab them, or face them, just glance over my shoulder once as we keep going.

“Hey! What do we do?” Cuellar yells as we keep barreling forward, knocking zombies ass-over-ears behind and over us.

“Take them out!” I yell back.

And then we are there, pushing into the hallway, where more zombies turn to see us, our rolling shield, and the meat of our arms, legs, and faces. They come, running, stumbling, or shuffling.

“Fall back! There!” I yell, and let go to point straight ahead. We rotate and drag the hatch backward with us, putting our backs to the wall directly across from the hamster tube. The same place Imani, Siggy, and I stood earlier today, watching the hazmat suits close the hatch.

The wall by the bathrooms. Where the fire-safety station is.

Missing an ax, but with a fire hose behind a glass cabinet door.

Imani doesn’t hesitate. She lets go of her side of the handle, and spins, all in one movement, like a dancer; she keeps spinning, grabbing the handle and pulling the cabinet door open. The move would make me dizzy, but Imani stops on a dime and yanks the hose out, popping it out of its zigzag stow pattern, pulling it arm over arm like a cadet in basic training, or like a magician with a really heavy scarf coming out of their sleeve.

When she gets enough of the hose out, she turns on the fat faucet on the top of the case. Then she plants her feet wide, and puts a hand on the lever running along the top of the hose nozzle.

“Drop now!” she yells, and so Hunter, Siggy, and I shove forward, letting the hatch door push out. Then we fall back, ducking.

A wide jet of water pounds into the zombies, pushing them away.

Hunter and Siggy and I scurry on our heels, back behind Imani and the jet of water. We crouch against the wall.

A loud clanging draws my eyes, and I glance up in time to see the remaining loops of the stowed hose flapping and expanding with the water pressure, popping free from the brackets holding it.

“Watch out!” I yelp to Hunter and Siggy, but it’s too late.

A falling, flapping loop of wide canvas hose clocks Siggy in the back of the head. Siggy falls forward, dazed.

I haul her back and shield us, pulling the rest of the hose out before it can pop loose again.

Imani steps forward, sweeping the zombies with the increased water pressure. She’s aiming at their chests, not sweeping their ankles. I want to tell her to take them down, then we can run out and stab them or something. Then I realize what she’s doing.

She’s pushing them back in a row, like the hose is a leaf blower and the zombies are the leaves, nudging them toward the interior bannister. Toward the one-story drop to the hard tiles below.

They start toppling, first one, then another, over the rail. Imani steps forward and sweeps again, keeps sweeping as the zombies spill over like bowling pins.

Hunter lets out a whoop beside me, and Siggy joins in with a wobbly-sounding yippee, and I’m screaming with them and at the zombies, screaming at all of it, and then they’re all gone, literally washed overboard, propelled by a jet of water.

I grab Imani’s arm and we rush the few steps forward to the hamster tube, Siggy and Hunter right behind us, helping to drag the heavy hose.

“Get down!” Imani yells, and Blair puts out a hand, tugging Simon down beside her as the others also duck. Then Imani washes the zombies in the tube back, back against the opposite, ax-scarred, locked hatch.