Degeneration (46 page)

             
The rabid infected repeatedly bit Medford as he crawled across the ground and they covered him with projectile vomit, but still he remained focused on the door, shoving his way through.

             
Medford struggled to reach up towards the keypad while the infected scratched into his skin and nipped at him, ripping his white-suit to shreds. He gave a guttural moan and entered ‘4271’ on the keypad.

             
The lock disengaged and the door swung open.

             
Medford was quickly trampled to his death as infected swarmed through the doorway, hurling the ‘US Army’ crates out of their way as they raced towards Mathis and Richard.

             
“Shit!” Richard exclaimed, as he quickly slammed the CCTV office door shut, pressing his body weight against the door.

             
The infected pounded viciously against the wooden door, making it shudder.

             
Richard kept his body tightly pressed against the door, struggling to keep it shut while the infected threw their entire bodyweight against it from the other side.

             
“They’re going to push through! Do something!” Richard exclaimed.

             
Mathis slung the satellite phone over his shoulder and pushed the heavy circular table sitting in the middle of the room, grunting. The wired laptops toppled to the floor as the wooden table slowly screeched across the floor, inch by inch. Sweat soaked through him inside his white-suit as he struggled and pushed with every ounce of strength he could muster.

             
“
Move!
” Mathis ordered between his clenched teeth.

             
Richard leapt out of the way just as Mathis shoved the table against the door.

             
The infected continued to pound against the door, but, with the table against it, the door didn’t budge an inch.

             
Mathis sunk against the floor next to the table, frantically trying to catch his breath, thinking.

             
Richard paced around the room and ran his fingers through his oily sweat-soaked hair. There were no other doors or windows in the room. They were trapped.

             
Even Andy was quiet for once.

             
“What are we going to do now?!” Richard asked, exasperated. “Getting to the roof is out of the question!”

             
Mathis held up a hand to shush Richard and carefully scanned the room, studying the ceiling.

             
The ceiling was a typical dropped ceiling consisting of plaster tiles inside a
grid-work of metal channels
. Fluorescent light fixtures, air vents, and sprinkler heads were visible while all of the ductwork, piping, and wiring were concealed behind the dropped ceiling in the plenum space. There, Mathis figured, would be their best hope of accessing the roof – even if he had to break a hole in the sheetrock of the true ceiling.

             
Mathis stood up and climbed up on the table in front of the door.

             
“We have to go up into the ceiling,” Mathis said.

             
The wooden door started to make a foreboding splintering sound and bulge.

             
Mathis jumped up and knocked one of the large plaster ceiling tiles out of the metal grid-work.

             
The ceiling tile fell to the ground and crumbled, throwing up a plume of white dust.

             
Mathis frantically motioned for Richard to step up as the door continued to bulge and creak and the feral cries of the infected increased.

             
“Come on!” Mathis exclaimed. “I’ll help you up and then you pull me up!”

             
Richard ran and climbed up onto the table.

             
Mathis crouched low and laced his fingers together to make a step for Richard.

             
“Once you get up there, lay flat,” Mathis said. “Try to support yourself on the metal grid-work and not on the plaster tiles or else you’ll collapse right through.”

             
Richard slowly nodded and placed one foot into Mathis’ clasped hands and slowly stepped up.

             
Mathis quickly stood, grunting, and propelled Richard up into the ceiling.

             
Richard caught himself on the edge of the grid-work and pulled himself up into the dark plenum space, coughing in the dusty stale air. Dust-covered electrical conduits and old water pipes took up most of the ceiling space and were covered in cobwebs. The hanging ceiling was suspended by numerous support cables.

             
Richard turned himself around, crawling on his belly. As he moved, the entire suspended grid-work swayed and shook a few ceiling tiles down to the ground below.

             
He coughed and looked down at Mathis.

             
“Give me a hand,” Mathis said, holding up his right hand while holding the satellite phone against his chest with his left arm.

             
The infected pummeled against the door, causing it to buckle out and splinter against the heavy wooden table.

             
Richard stared at Mathis, thinking.

             
Don’t pick him up! Leave him! He just wants to use you! Let those creatures take care of him while we escape from here and get to Butner!

             
“Hurry up!” Mathis shouted, extending his hand, jumping up towards the hole.

             
Don’t you dare, Richie! It’s better this way, since you’re too much of a pussy to kill him yourself.

             
Richard knew that Andy was right; it would be easier to just leave Mathis behind. All that was left to do was to figure out a way to safely escape the infested mall. It was a topic that even Andy avoided.

             
Richard started to crawl backwards away from the exposed hole in the ceiling but quickly froze when he heard the groan of bending metal followed by the snap of one of the nearby support cables that suspended the metallic grid-work of tiles from the ceiling.

             
The ceiling suddenly sagged and sent Richard nearly hurdling out through the exposed hole headfirst.

             
Richard’s right arm flailed down the hole as he grabbed one of the nearby support cables with his left hand, catching himself from falling down out of the suspended ceiling.

             
Mathis immediately latched onto Richard’s dangling arm and hoisted himself up into the ceiling. He crawled away from the exposed hole and hunkered next to a row of three suspended water pipes, clutching the satellite phone and catching his breath as the suspended ceiling swayed violently back-and-forth. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

             
Richard crawled away from the sagged portion of the suspended ceiling mere moments before the entire compromised section collapsed away into the CCTV room. The entire air became inundated by a cloud of thick dust.

             
Richard crawled over and sat next to Mathis, coughing violently.

             
“You pulled my arm out of socket,” Richard said, rubbing his shoulder, glaring at Mathis.

             
“Your arm is fine,” Mathis said. “But we can’t just sit here. We need to find a way to the roof so I can fix the antenna relay.”

             
A few yards away, Mathis spotted a large ventilation shaft that fed through the ceiling up to one of the industrial air conditioning units on the roof. At the base of the shaft, it branched out into smaller rows of ventilation ductwork that ran the expanse of the suspended dropped ceiling.

             
“Come on,” Mathis said. “Follow behind me to that main exhaust shaft. If we can get inside it, we can climb up to the roof.”

             
Richard felt ridiculous taking orders from someone who he was going to kill soon, but he knew that his escape options were limited at best. As much as he hated to admit it, he had no idea how to get out of the mall safely. Even Andy was short on ideas.

             
The door in the CCTV room below finally splintered off its hinges and the horde of infected poured into the room, toppling the circular table out of their way. They crowded into the room and started thrashing equipment, searching for their prey.

             
Mathis tried to ignore the horde of infected below and carefully crawled across the grid-work of hanging tiles towards the exhaust shaft, phone slung over his shoulder.

             
Richard crawled close behind him, terrified.

             
The suspended ceiling shook as they crawled across it. The suspension cables groaned as they tightened. A few cables snapped loose and a few ceiling tiles shook from the grid-work and fell down into the room below.

             
The infected in the room noticed the movement above them and held their arms up towards the ceiling, jumping and down, snarling. They swiped at the swaying ceiling, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.

             
Richard, paying far too much attention to the horde below, accidently veered off of the metallic grid-work and placed his hand in the center of one of the plaster tiles as he crawled forward.

             
The tile broke in half and fell from the grid-work, pelting an infected man below on the head.

The man snarled and stared up at Richard with his arms outstretched.

             
Richard let out a frightened gasp and quickly withdrew his hand, almost tumbling through the hole that he had created. He crawled around the hole and continued after Mathis, paying close attention to hand placement.

             
Mathis reached the exhaust duct and pressed his bulky white-suited head against it, listening intently. He knew that the power was out, but remained cautious nonetheless. He didn’t hear the exhaust fan churning and that meant that they had a clean escape route to the roof.

             
He pressed his gloved hand against the tin structure and realized the next dilemma. There were no bolts or aluminum screws to take off in order to gain access. The entire shaft was welded together.

             
Mathis pounded his fists against the shaft, giving full-force blows. He quickly exhausted himself and collapsed onto his hands and knees, breathing frantically. He stared at the shaft and saw that his efforts had fallen short. The shaft had multiple dents in it, but he hadn’t broken any of the welds.

             
“Damnit!” Mathis shouted, punching the shaft again.

             
“What is it?” Richard asked, crawling over next to him.

             
“I can’t breach into the damn thing with my bare hands,” he said with an aggravated sigh. “We… I don’t know. We may have to go down and find a staircase or something.”

             
He felt stupid saying those words because he knew they would never survive. They would die up there, trapped in the dropped ceiling like two fools.

             
Richard’s body tensed.

             
“Do you hear that?” Richard quickly asked.

             
All that Mathis heard were the infected below, persistently reminding him of his pending fate. His body was sore and felt very heavy. He knew that he had reached the point of exhaustion. He wondered how much longer it would take for the infected to find a way up into the dropped ceiling.

             
He looked over at Richard who had a stunned expression on his face, looking idiotic.

             
Mathis had no intention to spend his last few hours waiting for death. He was done. He was spent. He was finally ready to give it up and jump down into the horde below and dictate death on his own terms, but he quickly froze as he heard a sound reverberating down through the exhaust shaft from the roof, the very same sound Richard noticed earlier.

Mathis heard a helicopter.

DAY 3