The Plague Unto The End (20 page)

Tracey took a close look at Sid’s arm and shook her head.  “I don’t think I can save the arm,” she said, holding his hand.

“What do you mean save the arm?  Where...is my arm going?” asked Sid.

“It’ll have to be amputated, but the good news is, I don’t think whatever it is made it through.  I think he’s suffering from shock and that’s why he looks so awful,” said Tracey.

“But I don’t want you to chop off my arm,” whimpered Sid, looking at everyone else.

“I can’t do it here.  I’ll need some more supplies.  What about her,” said Tracey as she walked over to Frannie. 

“She was scratched yesterday,” said Beth.

“Interesting.  Every case I’ve seen with bites haven’t taken that long to create the end result.  Usually it takes about six hours, or so depending on the location of the bite,” said Tracey.

“So what does that mean?” I asked.

“I don’t think she has it.  She would have changed already,” Tracey said.

“Well, I cleaned and bandaged it yesterday after it happened,” said Beth.

“That was good, but I’ve seen people treated in the hospital when all of this started.  It doesn’t help.  Once it gets into the bloodstream there isn’t much you can do.  They never treated it with a tourniquet though.  I’m curious to see if it does work for him,” said Tracey.

“I’m happy to be your guinea pig...ahh,” said Sid, trying to look smooth.

“I think the girl might just need some antibiotics,” said Tracey.  “She may not have the virus or chemical or whatever it is, but she probably has something.  There are all kinds of infectious diseases that thrive on dead tissue.”

“Where’s Matt and Curtis?  Did they get, um...?” asked Jim.

“No, they’re actually out waiting for us to tell them what to do next,” I said.

“Okay, so how are we getting off of this roof?” asked Jim.

“Well, about that...Sid can’t really climb down that ladder now.  Frannie doesn’t look like she’s up for a ladder climb either,” I said.

Suddenly I heard more glass breaking down on the ground level.  I walked over to the edge and looked down to the front of the store.  It looked like the noise from smashing my truck into the front of the store had caused some of them to turn around and come back to the store.  The sales floor looked like it was slowly beginning to fill with corpses again.  The truck was not going to be an option.  I had to come to grips with that.  Then suddenly it came to me.  We could use the rope from the body we had pulled up onto the roof.  We could lower Frannie and Sid down to the ground.  I walked to one side of the building and looked down to see if the carriers were as thick on that side.  It didn’t look like sending them that way would work.  There were too many of the carriers to concentrate on fighting them off and getting Sid and Frannie out.

I walked back over to the edge of the roof facing the front parking lot.  Again, once they figured out where we were coming down from the roof, we would be surrounded and whoever was last would either be stuck or have to make a break for it through the store.

“What are you thinking?” Jim asked.

I sighed, “I’m not sure yet, but I’m working on it,” I said.

“If we all can’t leave, then that’s just how it is,” said Jim.

“No, we’re all going to get off of this roof.  We found a great place to go, with good people.  It’s pretty safe and we could wait this thing out there,” I replied.

“Until what?  The military comes to the exact building that we are hiding in and rescues us?  What if they just decide to bomb the whole area to get rid of all of it?” said Jim, his normal playful demeanor was nowhere to be seen.

“Look, we have made it this long and we can keep going.  We just have to figure this out,” I said, looking around the roof again.

PFFFF
, “So what’s the word?  I can’t keep driving in circles all day.  They are starting to clump up pretty bad,” said Matt.

CLICK
, “This is going to sound really weird but I’ve got an idea how to get everyone out,” I said.

PFFFF
, “Well, what is it?” said Matt.

CLICK
, “I need you and Curtis to stand by, close to the area.  You are going to drive the van up to the back of the store and I am going to have to lower everyone down to you one at a time,” I said.

PFFFF
, “Okay, well, I hope the rotters feel like cooperating,” said Matt.

CLICK
, “I’ll hit you on the radio when we’re ready for the first one.  It’s going to be Frannie,” I said.

I found the rope on the roof where we had left it.  Sid had been a boy scout and learned how to tie knots and how to make a harness using rope, but he was in no condition to tie a knot.  He explained how, to Jim and me, and we set it up like Sid explained.  We sat Frannie in the harness and Jim and I lifted her off of the ground.  It seemed to be holding. 

CLICK
, “Okay, bring it on in,” I said to Matt on the radio.

PFFFF
, “Here we come,” replied Matt.

I saw the van quickly pull into the parking lot and drive toward the back of the building.  The vehicle immediately caught the attention of the carriers in the parking lot.  They started to hobble after it as fast as they could.  We loaded Frannie into the harness and sat her up on the ledge on the roof.  Frannie looked over the edge and looked back at Beth.

“I’m scared.  I don’t want to fall,” said Frannie.

“Don’t worry.  These big strong guys are going to hold onto the rope.  They won’t let you fall,” said Beth, trying to calm Frannie.

Jim leaned close to me, “So, she thinks I’m a big strong guy, huh?”

“What, let’s just do this and get out of here,” I replied.

I laid down with my feet up against the small wall surrounding the roof.  Jim sat behind me and put his feet on my shoulders.  We both firmly gripped the rope and I gave to nod to Tracey and Beth.  They slowly lowered Frannie over the side of the roof and I felt the rope tighten.

“Beth, you and Tracey are going to have to tell us how fast to lower her,” I said.

“The van is next to the wall.  I can see Matt poking his head out of the sliding door,” said Beth.

We started to lower Frannie slowly, but I could hear that Matt and Curtis weren’t alone down below.

PFFFF
, “Can you guys go any faster?  In a minute here I’m going to be fighting over her with some of them,” said Matt.

Jim and I quickened our pace and suddenly the rope went slack.  I felt the rope starting to tug and jerk.  The rope went slack again and I heard the van starting to pull off from below.

“They’ve got her!” said Beth.

“The carriers got her?” I asked.

PFFFF
, “We’ve got her,” said Matt.

I started to pull the rope up as fast as my hands would go until the rope became tight again.  Jim and I looked at each other and slowly began to pull the rope back up. 

“You’ve got one on the line.  You’ve snagged a corpse,” said Tracey.

Jim let go of the rope and I felt the full dead weight of the corpse on the rope.  The rope began to slide through my hands and started to burn.  I loosened my grip and let the carrier plummet to the asphalt below.  I grabbed back onto the rope just before it slipped through my fingers to stop it from falling over the edge.

“Okay, it looks like they let go.  Hurry and get it back up here,” said Tracey.

Jim and I hoisted the rope back up onto the roof to set up for another person.  We decided that Sid would be the next to go.  If somehow we lost the rope or it just became impossible to lower anyone else, we needed to get anyone that couldn’t fight for themselves off of the roof first.

CLICK
, “Matt, you guys ready for another one?” I asked over the radio.

PFFFF
, “Yeah, but we are going to have to make this quick.  Curtis is pretty worried about Frannie and it’s hard to keep him concentrated on getting the rest of you,” replied Matt.

CLICK
, “Sid is coming down next,” I said.

We tied Sid into the harness and tested the weight.  Sid was substantially heavier than Frannie.  He looked almost as uneasy as Frannie was, though, about going over the side of the building.

“You sure about this bud?  You fellas better hold onto that rope tight, OK.  I, um, never told you, but I’m kinda afraid of heights.  I think I would rather be eaten than be dropped from this building,” said Sid, trying not to look over the side.

“Hey, this is Jim you’re talking about.  Just a minute ago, I was a big, strong guy.  We got this.  You just make sure you’re ready to get yourself out of that harness down there,” said Jim.

The van pulled up below the rope again, crushing a few of the carriers against the wall.  Curtis backed the van up to get room between the van and the wall.  Beth and Tracey began to lower Sid over the side of the wall and Jim and I held on as tight as we could.  The rope burn on my palms was making it very painful to grip the rope, but I held on anyway.  We lowered Sid as slowly as we could, but the weight difference between Frannie and him made it very hard to carry the load.

We heard the commotion down below again, but this time it was different.  It sounded like there were many more of them this time.  I could hear the crowd below, thumping against the side of the van.

PFFFF
, “Hold the rope!  Hold the rope!  There’s too many of them!”  Matt yelled.

BOOM! BOOM!
  I could hear Matt’s shotgun down below.

Jim and I grabbed the rope tightly and tried to stop lowering Sid to the ground.

BOOM!
  I heard Matt’s shotgun report again.  Then I heard something that made my heart drop.

“AHHHH!  AHHHHH!  Get them off of me!” Sid was screaming below.

“Pull him back up!” yelled Jim.

But when we started pulling, there was no weight at the other end of the rope.

Beth turned and looked at Jim and me. “Matt got him inside the van, but I think they bit him.  It looked like they got him a few times.”

I pulled the rope back up to the roof and rolled over to get the radio.
CLICK
, “Matt, did they get him?  How bad is it?”

PFFFF
, “Well, they took a pretty good chunk out of his arm.  He passed out while I was pulling him into the van.  At least I think he passed out.  That wouldn’t have killed him,” Matt said.

“What, does that mean?  I mean for him.  What are we going to do?” asked Beth.

“I’ve seen enough of these and you’ve all seen the end results.  There is only one way to stop him from changing and you all know what that is,” said Tracey.

“Wait, Matt said he was bitten on the arm,” I said.  “Matt, where on the arm was Sid bitten?  Which arm was it?”

PFFFF
, “Um, looks like his forearm.  They took about a handful of his arm,” said Matt.

CLICK
, “Okay, but which arm was it?” I asked again.

PFFFF
, “Left,” answered Matt.

I looked at everyone else on the roof and cracked a smile.

PFFFF
, “Look, I think I should go ahead and put one in his head and save us and him the trouble,” said Matt.

CLICK
, “No, no, no.  He already had a bite on his left hand and they had tied his arm off with a...um, what did she call it...”