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Walker had built five separa
te generations of body armor so far. The two of them could stroll through a sea of zoms without getting bitten. Walker was always looking for improvements. Better mobility, lighter weight.
Below them the dead moaned. Keaton could swear he could hear the high, reedy sound of Smithwick’s voice. Sad.
Suddenly the zombies stopped moaning.
They froze for a moment, and then they began turning toward the east, raising their heads, staring with dead eyes at the empty sky. Keaton and Walker stared too.
“What the—” began Walker, but his voice trailed off.
“It’s coming back,” gasped Keaton.
They looked at each other for a moment; then both of them burst into huge grins. They jumped up from their chairs and ran across the roof, laughing with excitement.
They’d prepared for this.
Researched it.
Done everything by the book. Step by step.
Keaton dug a pack of all-weather matches from his pocket and thrust the flame into a small pile of rags soaked in combustible chemicals. The rags caught at once, and bright fire raced along the lines they’d laid out in fireproof troughs of crushed stone. Walker crouched behind an old dry-erase board mounted on a hinged frame and tilted the board upward so that the row upon row of old cell phones were angled just so. Sunlight flashed from the metallic mirrorlike material that had once been hidden behind each tiny screen.
The lines of fire and the reflective screens each spelled out words.
ALIVE INSIDE was written in fiery letters.
UNINFECTED shone with mirror brightness.
Keaton grabbed a pair of bright-orange signal flags and tossed them to Walker. Then he jogged over to the corner of the wall, where they’d mounted a heavy hand-crank alarm they’d scavenged from a fire station. Keaton began cranking the handle, and a wail burst from the bell-shaped mouth of the siren, louder than any sound in their quiet world.
Walker began flapping the signal flags. Spelling out words.
S.O.S.
ALIVE INSIDE.
LAND HERE.
Dewey barked and barked.
The noise in the air changed.
Instead of a drone that crossed their horizon line, it suddenly changed. Became louder.
Came closer.
Below, the dead moaned louder, agitated by the siren and the thrum of the thing in the air. They reached for it.
They tried in vain to grab for the big helicopter.
Keaton cranked the siren; Walker signaled and signaled.
The helicopter came closer and closer until the rotor wash whipped away the smoke from their fire and blew out the flames.
Keaton stopped cranking.
Walker lowered his flags.
