TWENTY-TWO

The zombies are in a frenzy, howling and hammering on the wall. I know why they’re so excited. They can smell fresh-spilled blood. It wafts across to us like a heavenly scent that would set my mouth watering if those glands worked. In the world of the living dead, where there’s fresh blood, there’s fresh brains. They know they’re missing out on a feast and they want in.

The walls and gate stand as firmly as they did before. I thought the KKK might have had to batter their way in, but they were evidently admitted without a struggle. Maybe they had spies working on the inside, or else the locals let them in because they were alive and apparently seeking refuge—perhaps they hid the hoods when they pulled up outside.

‘You said earlier that you could jump this baby,’ I remind Carl.

‘If I had a clear run at it,’ he growls, nodding at the zombies packed tight around us.

‘There’s space further along,’ Pearse says, pointing to our left. ‘The wall is extra-thick there. The reviveds don’t normally mass around that section, as they can tell it’s their least likely point of entry.’

‘Lead on, Macduff,’ Carl grunts.

We push through the ranks of the screeching undead and come to the relatively deserted spot that Pearse told us about. It’s not a complete zombie-free zone, but there are less here than in most areas.

‘How are we going to work this?’ Carl asks, eyeing the wall and measuring his angles. ‘I can get up there but what then? Do I search for a rope?’

‘No,’ Rage says. ‘The reviveds would swamp us if they saw us climbing a rope. They’d want up too.’ He thinks for a moment, then cracks his knuckles and grins. ‘Let’s do it like they do in the circus. You do your leaping trick and clear the barbed wire out of the way. I’ll give this lot a leg-up, one by one—I reckon I can throw each of them several metres into the air. You catch them as they come within range. Shane waits till last. He can climb the wall and give me a piggyback ride.’

‘Sounds good,’ Carl nods. ‘Shane? Still think your bones are up to the task?’

Shane cocks an eyebrow at Carl, then drives the fingerbones of his right hand through the steel plate covering the wall, deep into the concrete beneath. ‘Child’s play,’ he boasts.

Carl starts to back up. ‘Form a guard of honour,’ he tells us. ‘Keep any stray zombies out of my way.’

He stops, studies the wall, backs up another couple of metres, then propels himself forward without a word. He runs fast, head down. A few zombies crowd around us, but we push them away.

Carl races past me in a blur. For a second I think he’s going to forget to jump, that he’ll run smack into the wall and knock himself out. But then he hurls himself into the air like an arrow, tucking his arms in tight by his side, legs together, head angled back. He soars high above the rest of us, then slows and hangs in the air like a bird. I expect him to grab for the spikes above him, but instead he drops and lands gracefully in the middle of us.

‘Too high for you?’ I ask.

Carl withers me with a look. ‘That was a trial jump. Now watch me do it for real.’

He backs up, waits for a zombie to get out of his way, then races towards the wall again. This time he jumps a step earlier than before and thrusts into the air more like a bullet than an arrow. He sails way overhead, past the top of the wall. I thought he was going to have to land on the wire or spikes and endure the stabs, but Carl has a different idea. He arcs over both obstacles and lands on the platform on the inside.

‘Bloody hell!’ Shane gasps.

‘He should have been a gymnast,’ Ashtat smiles.

Nobody challenges Carl, so I guess the guards who are usually on duty have been drawn away by events in the heart of New Kirkham. He has the wall to himself.

Carl quickly unhooks a length of barbed wire and slips between two of the spikes. He lies down and slithers forward. I think he’s going to fall off, but he wraps his legs round the spikes at the last second, catching them with the backs of his knees, so he can hang with both arms free, lower than any of us anticipated.

‘Never mind being a gymnast,’ Rage chuckles. ‘He should have been in a freak show. Right. Who’s first?’

Pearse steps forward. Rage crouches and locks his hands together. Pearse puts a foot on them and the pair count to three. Pearse pushes off with his other foot and Rage jerks himself to full attention, hurling Pearse high into the air.

It works like a dream. Carl catches Pearse and lets him swing for a moment. Then Pearse pulls himself up the length of Carl’s body and clambers on to the platform.

Conall is next, then Ashtat, then Jakob. As I step forward, I squint at Rage. ‘Make sure you don’t misaim and throw me at the barbed wire,’ I growl.

‘It must be a terrible thing to spend your whole life expecting the worst of people,’ Rage smiles. ‘Don’t worry. There’s no time for fun and games. I’ll throw you true.’

He’s good to his word and seconds later I’m on the platform with the others. As I’m steadying myself, I spot a group of zombies below. They’re trying to copy us. A large guy in overalls puts his hands together and gives a leg-up to a woman in a nurse’s uniform. She falls short of the top of the wall – the guy isn’t as strong as Rage, and the woman lacks our sense of coordination – but seeing them try makes me pause.

‘Look,’ I tell Rage and Shane.

They glance round. Rage laughs when he sees the zombies try again and fail. ‘Monkey see, monkey don’t. Now let’s leave them to their failures and –’

‘No!’ I bark as Shane steps forward to drive his fingerbones into the wall.

‘What’s up with you?’ Rage snaps.

‘They’re following our example.’

‘So what? That guy throws like a girl. They won’t make it.’

‘Not that way,’ I agree. ‘But when they see you two climbing the wall, they’ll try that too.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Shane says. ‘They won’t be able to drive their fingers in like I can.’

‘Sure,’ I sneer. ‘But they will be able to dig them into the holes that you’ve left behind.’

Shane’s face falls. So does Rage’s. ‘I never thought of that,’ he mutters.

‘Well, think of it now,’ I tell him. ‘You guys can’t come up that way.’

‘So what’s the alternative?’ he asks.

I look to the others for suggestions.

‘We could make a daisy chain,’ Ashtat says. ‘Pearse could hang from Carl’s hands, Conall could hang from Pearse’s …’

‘I’m not that strong,’ Carl protests.

‘And getting back up would be tricky,’ Pearse agrees.

I wait for more ideas. When nobody proposes any, I tell Rage to throw Shane up to us. ‘You’ll have to sit this one out.’

‘Trying to get rid of me?’ Rage scowls.

‘For once, no,’ I say truthfully. ‘We could do with a bruiser like you in here. But our hands are tied.’

‘Damn it!’ Rage kicks the wall in anger. Then he sighs, locks his fingers together and gives Shane a boost up. ‘B,’ he calls before I disappear from sight. ‘Kill a few of those bastards for me.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ I promise, then we swarm forward into the belly of New Kirkham to lock horns with the white-hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan.