Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,53
its side, legs jutting out. Two burly men stand on either side, protecting the small cluster of people behind it.
As I watch, one of the men swings a huge canister at a zombie. It connects to the zombie’s head with a resounding clang.
A fire extinguisher. He’s armed himself with a fire extinguisher.
The zombie goes down, skull misshapen by the impact.
Past that small huddle of fighters is another group of humans. It’s the group of six UGA cheerleaders from this morning, still dressed in their zombified bright-red uniforms. They stand under the curved edge of the balcony. The boy cheerleaders, the stuntmen, are helping the girl cheerleaders up to safety.
Which is impressive, since there aren’t any stairs and given that the balcony is at least twelve feet above their heads.
One cheerleader girl is already up on the balcony, running sideways, looking for something, while two of the three stuntmen on the ballroom floor have lifted two other girls expertly, heels in their hands as they carefully launch first one, then the other into the air and at the balcony railing.
It’s not pretty, but both cheerleaders manage to make it onto the balcony, although one appears injured, her thighs slamming into the railing as she lands.
The third stuntman spots the other two, guarding them from zombies, but so far none have made it past the group with the fire extinguishers.
For a split second I’m mesmerized, wondering how the stuntmen are going to get up to the balcony.
Two of the stuntmen form a base for the third, the smallest one, to climb up. He puts a foot in the crease of a thigh and hip, then steps on shoulders, then his feet are in their nested hands as the two stuntmen left on the ground send him up.
“We have to go!” Imani says urgently, grabbing my arm.
More zombies are now standing at the foot of the stage, mindlessly reaching for us.
If I look at them too long, at the sickly gray mottling, the disturbing muscle undulations that ripple under their skin, the red-threaded eyes . . .
The gaping wound in one neck . . .
My heart judders, and air is hard to draw, suddenly. Paralyzed, I’m paralyzed with fear. All my life I’ve heard that expression, and now I know what it means.
I can’t move. I can’t even breathe.
“Don’t look at them! Look at me!” Imani says. Her hands are hot on my face as she turns my head physically away from the zombies.
Behind Imani, one of the two stuntmen left on the ballroom floor is now boosting the other one up from his shoulders. The effort makes his face a series of creases and jutting tendon tracks.
He does one of those really loud, usually obnoxious weight-lifter yells.
But it works, he boosts the other man up, up, up. And now the stuntman he’s lifting grasps the balcony rail, pulling himself over.
Every zombie in the hall has turned to look at the last stuntman, even our group bumping against the stage.
How is he going to get up to the balcony?
Then I look at his face, grim and determined as he surveys the mass of zombies coming for him.
He knows. He always knew.
He wasn’t getting out.
He feints a lunge in one direction, and the closest zombie to him falls for it, creating a hole in the line of approaching zombies.
He slips through, no longer looking like a stuntman, but a linebacker in sudden possession of the ball.
He’s so brave.
I want to yell and clap. I want to cheer him on.
I also don’t want to do any of those things, because the zombies will head for us next if I do.
Me, I’m not so brave.
Imani grabs my hand and tugs, and I follow her, rushing the rest of the way across the back of the stage, past the burned out car chassis set décor, to the curtain at the side, where there will hopefully be stairs down beyond it.