Chapter 5: Rooftop

The petite lady and her daughter were missing

My eyes widened. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was seeing that right. It was true, their corpses were gone.

Where are they? I thought to myself.

After hesitating for a moment, I continued to climb down. It's better if I don't encounter them I thought to myself while running down the many flights of stairs.

Luckily for me, I managed to make it to the bottom without any zombies noticing me. I immediately started looking for something I knew was around that could help me get to safety that I could also use to get pretty much everywhere I needed to be.

After turning 2 corners of my red apartment building, I saw it. I immediately ran to the ladders that were intended to be used in case of fires This is a good enough excuse to use it, right? I thought to myself while jumping to reach the first bar

I proudly smiled as I finally reached the rooftop. "Aah, I can see everything from here" I said out loud while readjusting my bag.

I started walking across rooftop to rooftop, the rooftop tiles klacing with each step I took.

Looking from side to side, I was noting where I walked and leaving marks to indicate my way back in case I got lost, I used rocks, loose rooftop files and everything I could.

In the distance, while on the way to the first of my destinations, I saw a two-story police station. I had been debating back at the apartment whether I should go there or not. I had decided not to go to it, but I was having second thoughts.

I stopped and thought for a moment, I sighed and started heading to the police station.

After a minute of walking, I got as close as I couldbefore the rooftops got too far away to jump to. I started looking for the emergency ladder to get down, I would have to run for about 2 blocks to get there.

"Where the fuck is it?!" I said getting more and more agitated of not being able to find them.

After an embarrassing amount of time, I finally managed to find them, they were at the end of the rooftop closest to the police station.

Before I began to descend, I scouted the nearby area for zombies and which possible routes I could take to encounter the least amount of zombies.

After a few moments, I counted 21 zombies and no routes that were zombie-free, there were routes with less and more but none without any.

I began to descend with my bag hitting the guardrails on the other side. Which path should I take..? I pondered while climbing. There were 2 main paths that I could use to get to the police station now.

The first was the original path I had planned to use, if I ended up deciding to go to the police station, it had 2 zombies but was a very long and zigzagged path. The other path was the one I noticed while scouting for zombies, it was a straight dash that was about 400 meters long if I had to guess but it had 1 big problem, it was seeping with zombies everywhere, in those 400 meters, I saw a total of 8 zombies. 4 towards the end, 3 in the middle and 1 at the start.

Thump

I had reached the bottom and had made my decision. I started lightly jogging towards the long and zigzagged route, I was almost certain the zombies would unintentionally trap me with sheer numbers, while I could outmanouver just 2.

To my surprise, I got noticed much quicker than I thought. The zombie that noticed me instantly began running to me. A drop of sweat formed on my forehead as I began to pick up my pace. The zombie was coming right at me from the left while I was running straight and slightly to the right.

As the first zombie ran closer and closer to me, the other zombies also noticed me and began charging at me from the right, my breath becoming more shallow with each step they took.

They were closing in on me from both sides, I had to run fast enough to run right through them, but was I fast enough? A few uninvited tears ran down my cheeks. Maybe it was just the speed. Maybe it was the thought of what they'd do to me if I tripped or slowed down.

The first zombie's graze came just short of my left arm as I dodged with all of my force to the right, the second zombie took advantage of my position and lunged at me.

I used my right arm and pushed the zombie as much as I could whilst still running, additionally getting a bit of extra speed. The effect was much smaller than I had anticipated and the zombie quickly regained its balance and both of the creatures unrelenting ran after me.

I quickly noticed I was a bit faster than the zombies and wiped my face from the remaining tears and grinned because my survival was all but assured.

My heart pounding and sweat dripping, I was cursing at the seemingly unending road to the police station.

Step by step, my breathing became shallower, each step heavier and my vision began to narrow. I looked back and the zombies which I had gotten a fair amount of distance away were beginning to catch up.

I considered throwing away my bag so I would be lighter and more agile but went against the idea since it had all of my supplies… was THIS the end?

From the corner of my eye, at long last, I saw my ticket out of this mess, I saw the road's end. My face lit up and it felt like I could actually survive, my vision had become clearer after hope came to me.

As I emerged from the zigzagged road, I saw something that made me want to drop to my knees. While yes, the road I came from did lead me to the police station, it looked a lot closer on a map than it really was. I was about 100 meters away and all the zombies that I had purposefully avoided by going down the zigzagged road had all noticed me.

With everything that was happening, I managed to squeeze out a little "fuck" before gritting my teeth and continuing the remaining road.

Wait, does it seem that these zombies were faster than those before?