Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,79
said . . . I was the one who said we should keep moving, we should go up. It’s my fault, it’s my fault he got bitten, it’s my fault he died. It’s all my fault.
A tightness grips my shoulders and a wash of nausea sloshes in my stomach. I’m ashamed, suddenly.
“All right.” Cuellar flexes his shoulders and rolls his neck. “Just so we’re all on the same page.”
22
We take the steps down, stopping at the second-floor landing. I lean over the railing and look down. The woman zombie that Cuellar killed is one level down, lying crumpled against the wall.
I stand back up and cross to the second-floor stairwell door. I finally can see what is blocking it, what I couldn’t see when we couldn’t open this door from the other side.
A thin rubber doorstop has been wedged into the base of the door.
I glance through the window, looking into the long white hallway behind the ballroom.
It’s still clear. No zombies have managed to get through. Yet.
I hang back and gesture for Siggy to wait. Imani stops and so does Blair.
“We need to get you both weapons,” I tell Siggy and Blair. “There’s an open dressing room on this hall. We can grab something.”
Janet and the others have stopped only a few steps down the next staircase. Janet climbs back up.
“Good idea,” she says.
“I should grab something, too,” Mia says, following Janet.
I guess after Linus, being armed only with mace and confidence doesn’t feel like enough anymore.
Cuellar plants a hand on the wall and flips his broken bottle around. “Wouldn’t mind getting something a bit more substantial myself.”
Great.
“The rest of you can all wait here,” I tell them. “Rest. Besides, the fewer of us who go, the quicker, and probably quieter, we’ll be,” I say.
Mia sits on another step and pops her feet out of her stilettos. She flexes them, rotating the ankles and putting her feet flat on the landing.
“I don’t suppose you’d grab something for me? Anything would be fine.”
“Sure, Mia,” I reply.
Janet sits on another step. “You think it’s safe for us to wait here?”
“As safe as anything else. There’re no zombies in the hallway yet. If we’re quiet we can come back lickety-split.”
Simon sinks down to the step next to Janet.
“Annie, do you want a new weapon?” Imani asks.
Annie shakes her head, hugging her defibrillator case tighter.
“Maybe this one is good luck,” she says.
“Okay, here, share these.” I pull two water bottles out of my backpack. I reposition the two backpacks on me so their weight is evenly distributed again.
I hand the water to Rosa.
“Be careful,” she tells me.
I bend and wiggle the rubber doorstop out of the narrow gap.
Imani puts a hand on the stairwell door handle and pushes it slowly, silently, down. She pulls the door inward.
“Let’s go,” Siggy whispers.
Cuellar pushes to the front. He walks, cat-quiet, into the white hallway.
“Blair, Siggy, let me and Imani go first,” I whisper.
Blair nods and takes the door. Imani and I creep into the hall with our microphone stands raised, ready to swing or jab.
Janet takes the door and holds it open a crack. She watches as the five of us tiptoe-rush down the hall to the dressing room door.
It’s déjà vu all over again, as we reach not only the dressing room door, but the double doors that lead into the back of the ballroom.
The noise coming from the ballroom beyond the doors is both unmistakable and unmistakably louder.
Zombies. Groaning, shuffling, knocking against the doors, making them shudder in their frames.
“Shit,” Imani whispers, glancing at the doors, which are moving and knocking.
“Keep going,” I hiss.
Cuellar is already standing at the closed dressing room door. He points at it with his thumb, eyebrows raised.