Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,50

standing on the chair she can’t see that we’re not there. The back of the hall and now the aisles are a churning mass of panicking people, shoving each other out of the way, rushing toward the exits.

Which, except for the one funneling more zombies into the ballroom, are all locked.

The scientist meant to protect us, but of course no one believed him.

And now only one set of doors is open, and the zombies are erupting in, like ants streaming out of an anthill, angry, hungry, attacking us.

Making this entire ballroom a trap. We’re trapped.

“She can’t see us!” Imani yells over the screams around us. “She doesn’t know where we are!”

Siggy climbs onto the back of her chair, perching there almost impossibly, like a cat—then she takes a few steps, walking along the tops of the chairs like a high-wire artist.

“No!” I shriek. “Siggy! No!”

“She’s trying to get to us,” Imani moans. “June, she can’t go there!”

Meaning back into the aisle. Back where the zombies surge forward, attacking.

Blair jumps onto a seat and grabs Siggy’s arm, pulling her back.

The camera platform sways.

I look down. A sea of shoving bodies buffet our spindly scaffold.

“She’s got her!” Imani says, relief layering over the fear in her voice. “Good job, Blair!”

I glance back at Blair, pulling Siggy. They’re not heading to the aisle anymore. In fact, they’re heading in the opposite direction. Instead of rushing toward the aisle, toward the doors, they’re clamoring over a row, heading to the stage.

Which means they’re facing the screen again.

Imani thinks of it first, moving like lightning. She grabs the camera and swivels it a full one-eighty degrees, to our faces.

It blurs and tightens, blurs and tightens.

“Here.” The camerawoman messes with something, and on the screen at the front of the hall, Imani’s face comes into perfect focus, selfie-close.

Blair sees it first, pointing up.

Siggy turns and sees us standing on the swaying platform.

Imani turns, putting her back to the camera so she can face our friends.

“We’re okay!” she yells, even though there’s no way that Blair and Siggy can hear her.

And even though the platform sways so violently we stumble, gripping each other’s arms for balance.

I push my hand at the stage in a shooing motion.

“Go!” I yell.

Imani points at Siggy, then at Blair. Then she makes running fingers and runs her hand to the right, offstage. She pumps her fist in the air twice.

Gestures we know from the show. From James’s army ranger character, who’s now reaching down to the audience, pulling people onto the stage and out of harm’s way.

Blair nods and give a thumbs-up. Siggy frowns, worry stamped on her face.

The platform lurches, and I stumble so hard I nearly totter off into the sea of bodies below us.

The camerawoman grabs my arm, pulling me steady. “We can’t stay here!”

All around us, hundreds of people panic, pushing and shoving each other out of the way, a stampede, headed to the exits, the sets of double doors placed at intervals along the back of the ballroom.

From the platform, the panicking people look like a flock of birds, scattering in different directions from a gunshot.

“We need to get to the stage,” I tell Imani and the camerawoman. “There are no zombies that way.”

“And there’s a stairwell back that way,” the camerawoman agrees. “We can get out.”

“Okay, let’s go.” Imani nods.

The only problem is getting down without getting trampled. But then the buffeting crowd thins, suddenly, and rows of empty seats are in front of us.

Screams punctuate the air.

I glance behind us, at the center doors. The infected have stopped pushing in, and the doors hang open, empty.

With a mass of swaying zombies between us and them.

The screams cut off suddenly, and I don’t want to follow the sound. I don’t want to see why they stopped.