Free Web NovelChapter 22: Descent
The first lesson the grappling hook taught me was that whatever I had imagined this’d be like was just wishful thinking.
I was dangling outside a third-floor window, rotating slowly to the left, then reversing back to the right, then reversing again, while the hook sat buried in the concrete rain shed above.
"Stop moving," Kara hissed from the window frame.
"I am dangling in open air," I hissed back. "I have absolutely no control over this."
Tikki sat on the windowsill beside her with his tail wrapped around his feet, watching me rotate, and if a cat could look professionally disappointed, that was exactly what he looked like.
Then from somewhere inside the building, deep through the concrete and the walls came another-
-BOOM-!
[Shit, that was the second charge...] ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
The infected were already inside the building, already by the stairs, having detonated the second set of charges I placed by the stairs.
"Hurry up and get on!"
"This is insane." Kara grabbed the front of my vest with both hands and pulled.
"The window for better plans has closed..."
-GHRRRRAAAA-!
The screech came from right behind the room door, loud enough that Kara flinched back from the window and I nearly lost my grip.
"Shit!" Kara, without any warning whatsoever, jumped out the window.
"What the fu-!"
Her arms went around my neck and her legs locked around my waist, and we swung outward in a violent arc that took us nearly into the building face before the pendulum pulled us back.
"Warn me!"
"That was your plan!"
"I meant emotionally!"
Another screech answered us from behind the door, and the banging started.
And the very next second, Tikki finally moved, launching himself from the windowsill and landing on my shoulder with effortless grace before sliding neatly into his designated pocket.
[Show-off...]
The door above us shook in its frame.
Tightening my grip around the grappling gun, I thought about going down. The system heard the intent and the cable spool started feeding.
-zzzzz-!
And gravity did the rest.
Open air rushed past us while Kara’s grip around my neck tightened, and her eyes snapped shut; even Tikki’s claws went through my jacket and into the shoulder beneath.
The ground came up faster than I expected it to and slower than it felt like, while my brain kept waiting for something to snap.
The building climbed upward around us.
Floor three.
Floor two.
Floor one.
Then...
-THUD-!
My knees took the full combined weight of me, my equipment, and Kara, sending it upward through every part of me that had already been having a bad day.
The wounds on my chest and stomach both screamed at the same moment, and what came out of my mouth was a very controlled and very quiet, "Fuck."
After all, there were infected within earshot, and I was not going to be the noise that brought them on us.
Kara immediately hit the ground beside me from the impact while Tikki landed cleanly on all fours with the infuriating competence of a cat.
I curled over my ribs for a few seconds and waited for the pain to stop spiking.
"I am never doing that again," Kara said immediately, scrambling to her feet.
"That makes two of us," I winced, straightening up slowly.
She was already beside me, hands checking, looking at my chest and then my side. "Where? Are you okay? Where does it hurt?"
"Chest and side. I’ve already done the first aid..."
She gave me one more long look, decided to believe me on the basis that I was standing, and nodded.
Then she looked toward the front gate, where the infected had spotted us and renewed their effort against the metal bars with significant enthusiasm.
"Now what?"
"I secured a safe house." I started moving. "You remember Bella’s birthday party? The penthouse?"
"The one where you stood in a corner with one beer the entire night while Bella practically slithered over Alex?"
"You didn’t have to be that specific." I gave a side eye, "But yes. That one. I secured that penthouse... I’m taking you there first and then going back for Leo and Nora."
Kara grabbed my sleeve instantly.
"Nora. Where is Nora?"
"They’re hiding in the university janitor’s room." I replied, handing her my phone, "They’re fine... call her. Poor Leo..."
Ignoring the last part, she took the phone with both hands, shaking, and called her while falling into step behind me.
I drew the 1301 from the inventory, M110 hanging across my chest on the sling, and got moving while the phone rang on her end. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
"Nora?" Her voice cracked clean in half on the first syllable. "Nora. I know. I know. It’s okay. We’re coming. I know."
She sounded steadier than any reasonable person had any right to sound, while two infected around the turn at the end of the building snapped my attention.
-Dich-! -Dich-!
One shot each; I didn’t even break a stride. Neither did Tikki.
Kara kept talking to Nora behind me, her voice doing the work of holding her sister together across whatever distance separated them.
The boundary wall came up ahead. Eight feet of concrete topped with barbed wire, and beyond it a road exactly in the direction of the penthouse.
"She’s okay." Kara lowered the phone.
"Good." I pulled out the miscellaneous chest and held out the Milwaukee bolt cutters inside it. "Now, hop on my shoulder and cut the wire."
She looked at the cutters, then at the wall, then at the crouched me, back already against the wall. "Can’t you use telekinesis?"
"If I could, do you think I would volunteer my knees for this?"
"Are you calling me overweight?"
"I’m telling you gravity’s got a crush on you... don’t tell it I told you."
"Hmph."
She stepped onto my shoulder with all the gentleness of an angry goat.
I nearly lost my balance.
"Easy!"
"You started it."
Straightening my legs, I lifted her high enough to reach the wire.
She struggled with the cutters more than the job required, because she had never done this before, but she worked at it without stopping, and eventually the wire parted, and she pushed the ends aside carefully before she climbed up onto the top of the wall.
"Your turn." Kara reached out a hand, and before I could even open my mouth, Tikki dashed, stepping over my shoulder as though I was a launch pad, and straight into her arms.
And I was left staring at the booger, feeling the sting of his hind claws on my shoulder.
[Know what, not the time...] I shook my head and took one step at the base of the wall, pushed off, got one hand on the top, and pulled myself up beside her in a single motion.
Kara stared at me with Tikki in her arms. "You have done that before."
"Yep."
The road below was lined with empty houses, and when neither movement nor snarls drifted from the dark windows, I muttered a quiet,
"Perfect." I dropped first, and Tikki landed beside me the very next second.
Looking down at him, I said, "Fresh turns don’t stay without prey. Too adrenalized to stay put."
"You need me to catch you?" I looked up at Kara with a small smile.
Kara jumped without answering, landing significantly less gracefully than she would have preferred, before straightening up, giving me another offended huff.
While I couldn’t help the chuckle as I walked to the center of the road and reached into the inventory.
The 27North Ascender appeared in front of us, all matte graphite and towering suspension and off-road tires coming up to my hip.
"Whoa." Kara stopped walking.
"It’ll be our home after the first two weeks." I grinned before I could help it. "Now get in."
And then my eyes landed on the bonnet that’d be sitting between us, and however many infected were going to throw themselves at it between here and the penthouse.
[Wait... don’t I have a crafting menu?]
