The Colony: Renegades (The Colony, Vol. 2) by Michaelbrent Collings

Author:Michaelbrent Collings [Collings, Michaelbrent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-10-03T07:00:00+00:00

39

He only stepped in a few inches before Christopher grabbed him. The young man seemed unaware of the fact that he was dangling only inches away from a dark nothing that extended probably over a hundred feet below them. Ken remembered the way they had met, only maybe an hour – and what seemed like a hundred years – before. Christopher had saved them all from a small horde, blowing up a floor of a building, and showing them how to scale the outside of it to escape. He seemed equally at ease hanging onto a vertical surface as he did on terra firma.

“Where’d you learn to do this?” Ken asked.

Christopher laughed. “Parents kept shipping me off to taller and taller boarding schools.” His smile widened. “New York was the highest.”

“Come on,” said Aaron. “No time for jabbering.”

“Shouldn’t there be a ladder?” said Ken.

Christopher pointed. There was a ladder. It ended about ten feet above their heads, sheared off mid-rung. Above that was a pile of rubble that didn’t look very stable. Probably the remains of whatever motor room had housed the elevator equipment.

“Come on,” said Christopher. He helped maneuver Ken into position, then he and Aaron dropped Ken below the greave.

Beneath the spool that held the elevator cables, things got dark in a hurry. Dark, and torn up. What Ken had assumed was a normal elevator shaft proved to be marred by tears and gaps, the cylinder obviously crooked even in the small area that he could see before darkness claimed the tunnel.

Ken felt around with his feet. The side of the shaft was crumbling nearby, and he was able to stand on some partially-pulverized concrete that formed a foothold. He didn’t know how stable it was, but it was all he had.

Better than nothing.

A ghostly wail came from the darkness. The zombies in the building, searching for them.

“Now what you’re going to do is rappel down,” said Aaron. The cowboy was leaning down, whispering only a few inches away from Ken’s face.

“I don’t have any gear,” said Ken.

“You ever rappelled before?” asked Aaron.

“No.”

“Then you wouldn’t know what to do with the gear anyway. So we’re good either way.”

The cowboy grabbed one of the cords and pulled it over to Ken. It didn’t have much give, and when the cowboy pulled it over Ken’s neck the steel cords bit into his skin.

“Ow!” Ken said.

Below him, the groans intensified. And now they sounded like they were even with him, too. Were they on the same floor?

“It’s better tight. It’ll tear your neck up, but better that than falling, right?” said Aaron. Ken nodded. “Now step over the cord. No,” said the cowboy as Ken clumsily complied, “with the other leg.” Ken adjusted. The groaning of the things was getting louder.

“They’re coming,” he said.

“Then move faster.” Aaron instructed him on how to wrap himself up in the cord until he was cinched in a tight curl of the steel cable. There was almost no play in it, and it bit painfully against his crotch and his neck.

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