Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,85

my arms, and throws him sideways into the woman zombie.

They fall and I leap into the fountain, splashing with huge steps until I reach the base of the volcanic rock, actually poured and stained concrete.

I shove the microphone arm through the loops of the backpack I’m wearing on the front and I grab the rock, seeking a foothold alongside the smaller waterfall on the side of the feature.

My feet squish in my Converse and my fingers fumble at the rock, but I find a foothold, and push myself up, jutting my other foot out to find another rock ledge.

It’s there, almost where it would be if it were a step and the entire water feature had a built-in ladder.

I climb and climb; by the time I’m halfway up I realize I am on a ladder or stairwell, of sorts, because the entire water feature is man-made, and therefore allows for easy, if mostly hidden from the casual eye, maintenance paths.

Behind me the zombies I felled are growling and roaring again. I glance back. They’re straining against the bench-like ledge of the water feature, as if they don’t understand how I got where I am.

Just like on the stage.

Then the woman zombie with the floppy foot falls into the water, thrashing around in hectic spasms as she tries to stand, bashing her head and arms against the rock, the ledge, the next zombie that falls into the water.

It’s only a matter of time before they manage to get to their feet and come at the rock wall. Hopefully they won’t be able to find the steps I used to climb.

I’m actually counting on it.

That, and the fact that so far the noise of other zombies doesn’t seem near as entrancing as the sounds and sight of regular humans.

Which means, even as I strain to listen over my own labored breathing and the rushing fall and gurgle of the waterfalls around me, that I don’t think the other pod . . . group . . . whatever of zombies has seen me, or even knows I’m here.

They turned like a flock of confused birds when they reached the atrium, moving almost as one, the scream and the flutter of movement drawing the entire pod back the way they came, focused on the rest of my group. But they hopefully had enough of a lead and are safe back in the stairwell.

Except for whoever screamed.

Please, please, please don’t be Imani or Siggy or Blair.

I reach the top of the water feature, just short of being able to see into the second-floor ballroom lobby, but I can see down all around the atrium and entryway.

I was right, the larger group of zombies hasn’t looked my way at all, even as the trio in pursuit of me moan and gurgle their frustration at the rock or the ledge.

Movement catches my eye. I crouch and lean, craning my neck to see down. Reaching out from behind the security booth’s door, there’s a frantic pale hand and dark-sleeved arm waving at me. I can’t see the rest of the body that belongs to the hand, but it keeps pulling, urgent and somehow curt come here gestures.

Behind me all the zombies are now in the fountain, Mr. 305 thrashing in the water, the others on their feet, straining and reaching up to where I sit perched on the top of the concrete rock.

A central pump feeds all the waterfalls from the top—a cauldron of water in the middle with four spillways, one in each direction. I hook my leg over the cauldron edge, praying I won’t get electrocuted somehow if I dislodge a light or something, and I splash-fall across the knee-deep water, and lunge over the opposite edge, clinging where I think the hidden access steps would be, if I were a maintenance worker.

Sure enough, I find a toehold and I slip down, out of sight of the zombies trying to learn how to rock climb.

The acid test. Are they like zombies on the show? Or in movies? In other words, are they inexorable and terrifying, but also completely mindless?