Falling from the roof of the parking garage, Dillion struck the cable one floor down. It impacted hard against his chest, causing a yell of pain before it slid across his arm. The cable tore Dillion's sleeve and scraped raw the flesh underneath. His right hand slipped and missed the cable as he continued to fall, but his left hand manage to secure a hold. Dillion screamed as pain ripped through his fingers and shoulder, leaving flaming anguish in the muscles over his ribs as well. He felt as if he'd be hit with a fiery whip.

His right hand took hold of his injured left shoulder, trying to ease the pain. Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself up and managed to hook one leg over the cable; switching hands, Dillion held on with his right while cradling his injured left against his chest.

Bruce watched helplessly from his office window. He wanted to assist his friend, but Dillion was beyond his reach. Bruce glanced toward the parking garage. The undead had filled every level and spread out across the roof.

Those along the edges had halted when Dillion moved out of range, but those in the rear continued forward until the front ranks were pushed off. The undead plummeted to the ground below, and most were killed by the impact, but as more and more were shoved off by the newcomers, the pile of fully dead increased until it proved sufficient to break their fall, and they got up and shuffled away.

Returning his gaze toward Dillion, Bruce found the injured man nearly back at their primary sanctuary. When he reached the office building, Dillion let go of the cable and collapsed hard onto the roof. He was out of Bruce's line of sight, but Bruce knew Dillion would be safe for the time being. His own prospects weren't looking too good as his distraction had been removed. If the undead detected him now, the entire horde would be focused only on him.

Bruce headed downstairs, being doubly quiet. Because he was trying to be silent, every little noise seemed amplified in intensity. By the time he was in position to set the explosives, Bruce was completely paranoid. He looked around every few seconds to be sure nothing was creeping up on him and paused now and then to listen for signs of movement. He expected at every moment to be attacked.

Finishing in twice the time it should have taken him, Bruce headed back upstairs for the final time, or so he thought until he noticed an evacuation plan on the wall. The diagram chilled him to his soul because the picture showed the building had a skyway. The covered hallway connected the building where he stood with another.

Bruce moved as quickly as he dared, heading for the skyway. When he stood before it on the fourth floor, his heart sank, making him want to scream in frustration. Even if he blew the stairways in his own building, the zombies could simply come up the stairs on the opposing side and walk across the skyway. He considered destroying the bridging passageway, but after seeing what had happened at the parking garage, he knew he couldn't. The undead had piled up after falling from the building, and if they fell from here, the resulting heap of bodies might grow to the degree where they could simply walk across the top of the pile.

Bruce knew he had to secure the other building too, but it made him extremely uncomfortable. Dillion had been his only decoy, and he was unable to help Bruce any longer. Additionally, the cable Bruce had used to travel from his sanctuary was attached here. If he went across the skyway, it was highly probable he could be surrounded and unable to get back; he'd be outnumbered and cornered.

Feeling like he had just passed the Grim Reaper's welcome mat, Bruce headed across the skyway and into the twin building next door.

***

The corridors and offices were quiet and empty. Although grateful for the lack of undead, Bruce wasn't calmed in the slightest. He found the first stairwell and rigged it to explode, doing the same on the second. He'd planted shaped charges from the lobby to the second floor landing, making sure if the first floor were breached, they'd be unable to climb or pile up to reach past the gap.

Bruce paused at the fourth floor stairwell door. A red handprint had been smeared across the white exit sign mounted in the center of the door. Until now, there'd been no sign of violence or any of the infected having been inside the building. Bruce really didn't want to go down the stairs.

He unconsciously took a step back. His breathing increased to the point of near hyperventilation. His muscles shivered, making him shake uncontrollably. Fighting a walking corpse in the open was one thing, but creeping through narrow stairways while waiting for some flesh eating thing to lunge out of the darkness at him was another. Despite his having done numerous crazy and dangerous things since the zombies had arrived, a person could only handle so much terror, and Bruce was near his limit.

Thoughts of his family filled his mind, and he took a shuddering breath. Hefting the mostly empty demolition bag, Bruce disconnected a phone on a nearby desk and used the cable to loop around the lever style door handle. Pulling on the phone cable to keep from touching the handle, Bruce opened the door.

The stairway was empty, but some of the lights were out, leaving large areas of blackness. It didn't help to see smears of red occasionally on the white paint of the stairwell walls. Someone had staggered down the steps while leaning on the walls for support, and Bruce couldn't help wondering if the person were still here, waiting in the darkness below.

Eyes and ears alert for everything, Bruce headed down. A scraping sound caught his attention, and he halted immediately, listening hard. Silence surrounded him, and Bruce had to fight the urge to run back the way he had come. Forcing himself to keep moving, he descended to the lowest floor and began his task.

Bruce's demolition training allowed him to focus his mind on something other the possibilities of imminent death, smashing the plastic explosives into the proper shapes to take out the stairs without bringing down the surrounding parts of the structure.

As he finished rigging the stairs, Bruce stood up and noticed a narrow window in the stairwell door leading into the lobby. Staring through the window was a zombie. The lifeless white orbs of its dead eyes turned in his direction. Inhaling sharply, causing a shrill wailing sound, the zombie began pounding on the door with its decayed fists in an attempt to break through the barrier between them.

Bruce didn't need any further incentive, bolting up the stairs and making a mad dash toward the skyway connecting the two buildings. While he ran, Bruce pulled out a remote detonator and armed the explosives. He required the right moment to set them off because if he detonated the charges too soon, it would attract even more undead and possibly cut off his escape route, but if he waited too long, one of the zombies might get into the stairwell and pull out the wiring as it shuffled up the stairs after him.

When he saw the suspended corridor of the skyway, Bruce pressed the buttons and touched off all the explosives he'd planted. The building shook, throwing him sideways against the glass windows of the skyway, but he pushed off and kept running.

He reached the stairs and climbed up, trying to reach the office where the cable was connected before the zombies reached him. When he burst into the stairway, he found it occupied by the undead. They were climbing the steps from below and coming down from the upper floors as well. Trapped between the two groups of zombies, Bruce had no choice but to go through them.

Lifting the bag of explosives in front of him, Bruce used it to shove a zombie over the railing and out of his way when it got too close. One of the undead blocked his path to the office floor where Bruce was headed, so he stabbed at it with his hand shovel. Despite successfully killing the horrid thing, his shovel became stuck. Bruce left the improvised weapon behind rather than waste precious seconds attempting to retrieve it.

Leaning over as he ran through the doorway, Bruce snatched the fire extinguisher he'd used earlier to prop the door open. He spun around while bringing the fire extinguisher up, connecting with a zombie under its chin and sending it flying backwards into the undead ranks behind it. Bruce ran for the executive office, tossing aside the extinguisher when he neared his destination.

A swift kick knocked the potted plant away from the door where he'd put it earlier, spilling dirt across the carpet. Bruce knew he didn't have long before the undead caught up with him, and he lacked the time for neatness. He slammed the door behind him, but the partition of wood was strictly cosmetic, designed for looks more than substance; it wasn't made to withstand the pressure a dozen zombies or more would put upon it to reach him.

Knowing he'd bought himself a minute, perhaps less, Bruce hurried out to the balcony. Taking a firm hold of the cable in both hands, he swung his legs up and hooked them over the top, suspending himself underneath the strong line.

The door broke down, and zombies spilled into the office. Bruce was already on his way and didn't waste time looking back. He focused his attention on the safety of the building across the street, pulling himself toward it hand over hand. Thoughts of his family bolstered his dwindling energy reserves and strengthened him. The undead clawed at the air in a futile attempt to reach him, but Bruce was already out of range and headed home.

When Bruce let go of the cable and dropped to the roof, he found Zora kneeling beside Dillion and tending her husband's injuries.

"I suppose you saw what happened," Bruce stated rhetorically. Considering the office building where they had established their sanctuary had walls made primarily of windows, it would have been nearly impossible for Zora to have missed Dillion's dive off the parking garage.

"I grabbed the first aid kit and hurried up here when I saw him coming back," Zora explained, brushing a stray lock of her black hair away from her face. "Fortunately, he only suffered severe muscle strain and some abrasions, nothing broken or dislocated."

"Thank goodness," Bruce said in relief. "How are the kids handling all of this?"

"Selene is keeping them distracted with an inventory of everything in the building so we can know what we have to work with," Zora answered.

"Smart," Bruce said in admiration of his wife's cunning plan to keep the kids from realizing the dangerous mission their parents were undertaking. "The building had a skyway, so I had to secure the twin building behind it as well. The upper levels are cut off from the hordes in the street, so once we clean out the ones remaining, we'll have two more buildings we can move into and start setting up. The only real problem will be removing the undead after we dispatch them, we can't leave them lying around, and we don't want to create a pile outside either."

"The reconstruction going on over here left a few painter's drop cloths we could use as stretchers," Dillion suggested through gritted teeth while lying on his back and cradling the injured arm Zora had bandaged. "Drag the remains over and dump them down the elevator shaft."

"It might work," Bruce agreed. "This is a good start. From these islands, floating above a sea of undead, we have a chance to salvage what is left of humanity. We'll find other survivors and bring them to our sanctuary. Perhaps when we grow our trees on the rooftops, we can harvest some of the timber and make a few arrows for thinning the zombie ranks."

Bruce leaned on the edge of the building and looked out over the city.

"Our progress may be slow," he told Dillion and Zora without turning around. "But, the zombies were slow, and they overwhelmed the world. Our efforts will make a difference, and we'll bring humanity back from the brink."

Bruce sighed as he sat down on the roof beside Dillion, leaning his back against a large air conditioner.

"However," Bruce said, closing his eyes as exhaustion caught up with him. "Those things will wait until tomorrow. Today, we can rest."