Better off Undead

Chapter 44: Aftermath

Eli slowly lowered himself from the gap in the ceiling, and as quietly as he could set his feet down on the tiled floor. He crouched low and took small steps to keep his shoes from squeaking or his footsteps echoing too loudly in the large, open room. He rounded a corner and found himself staring down the hallway from the night before. Far away, quite some distance down, he could still see a few of the creatures milling about.

They mostly stood around an open doorway, which Eli figured to be the classroom they had used the night before to escape. The rest of the creatures would be inside the classroom. Or, at least, so Eli hoped.

He stepped over to the wall on the far side of the hall, which was lined floor to ceiling with metal lockers. He took a deep breath and let it out, wondering to himself how many times a person could let themselves end up in pretty much exactly this situation.

Raising one hand, he began banging it rhythmically against the nearest locker. For some reason, the only thing he could think to shout to the beat was a commercial jingle he remember from another life time.

"Hey! Hey! Señor Buffett! Come and eat! Come and feast!"

It was definitely working. The creatures outside the room began turning to face him, and others were already stepping out of the classroom in search of the noise's source. He kept singing and banging on the locker until the group started running for him, and then he turned and set off at top speed back in the direction he had come.

He rounded the corner and headed down the hall straight for the first open doorway. He didn't need to turn around to know the creatures were following them. He could hear the rumble of their footsteps and their inhuman moaning and growling as they barreled down the hall after him.

Eli entered the room and kept on running, down through the outer office to the room on the far wall. The furniture in this last office was already perfectly stacked to allow Eli to keep running while climbing up onto the furniture. They had spent quite a bit of time that morning stacking and restacking the furniture while Eli attempted various runs from the outer office to the inner office, until he was fully confident in his ability to catch the furniture mid-run and use it to propel himself towards the ceiling.

With one foot, he caught a turned over chair and used it to push himself up to the seat of a standing chair. Still running, he reached the top of the desk, went up onto a chair standing on the desk, and then leaped off that as hard as he could. He reached out, stretching as much as he could manage, and his right hand just barely caught onto Mac's waiting arms.

Mac had been waiting for Eli up in the ceiling behind an opened tile square. He grabbed onto Eli's reaching arm and immediately began hauling the young man up with him. Eli kicked his feet up against the wall as he tried to use it to help push himself upwards. The first of the zombies was already entering the room. The furniture was confusing them, and in their haste they were tripping over it and spilling around the room. As they piled up, it became increasingly easy for others to push past the fallen and the furniture and reach out for Eli. He could feel them grabbing for his legs and shoes as they toppled to the ground, but a moment later he was up in the ceiling space next to Mac.

They quickly shoved the tile back into its place, covering up the hole they had made and cutting off the zombies' view of them. On the far side of the offices, the others would be letting themselves down from the hall Eli had exited moments earlier, and quietly shutting and barricading the door to the outer office, trapping all the zombies inside.

At least, so Eli hoped.

They made their way carefully through the tiny crawlspace in the ceiling. The slightest misstep and they could break open another ceiling tile, or, worse, send themselves falling into the frenetic mosh pit of undead waiting for them in the office below.