Outbreak Chapter 30

Wiggins' Apartment
Saturday March 12 2:17 P.M.
Day 1


Brendon peaked out of the blinds and saw that the number of undead outside had thinned significantly since they had last showed themselves. There was still a fair amount of gunfire and other noises coming from the surrounding area so there must have been enough other living people in the area to draw attention away from his group. “Things are looking alright out there, last chance to speak up if any of you have any questions on anything.”
He looked back at the rest of the group but was met only by silence. “Looks like we’re all good, go ahead and head out guys,” Griffin said from farther back in the room.
Brendon pulled open the blinds and slid open the balcony door allowing Wiggins, James and Aidan to head out onto the balcony before he followed them out. As soon as they set foot outside a chorus of wails and moans filled the air as the ghouls in the area spotted them and started coming towards the building. Weapons fire erupted from the balcony as the first four of them out set up firing sectors and began firing on any zombies in their assigned directions.
The plan to get out of the apartment called for a number of them to lay down fire from the balcony to keep the undead at bay while one by one the rest climbed down the rope ladder and set up firing positions by the vehicles below. The members of the group with shotguns had been instructed not to fire from the balcony and would be some of the first to go down to ground level. Megan, Leslie and Rebecca all either had rifles with shorter range or weren’t quite as good of shots as the others with rifles so they had been instructed to pick up any slack made by the four assigned riflemen on the balcony if any of them had too many zeds in their sector to deal with and they started to get close.
Griffin had volunteered to be the first to go down the ladder and Brendon hadn’t argued knowing that his friend was more than capable of handling himself down there and was the best candidate for the job. There were too many people in the group that Brendon didn’t think were ready for a combat situation. Most of the group had absolutely no combat training and a couple of them had little experience with guns making Brendon secretly wish that he had armor like Griffin since the chances of friendly fire were high.
Brendon had set up next to the ladder firing straight out from the building across the parking lot and open space across the street. Griffin patted him on the shoulder as he came by and Brendon shouted a “Good luck” over the gunfire as Griffin started down the ladder. As he continued to fire on advancing zombies Brendon was able to see Griffin descend the ladder at the edge of his vision. When Griffin was halfway down the ladder he stopped and drew his pistol. There had been a number of zombies that had seen them earlier in the day and had been standing directly beneath the balcony reaching straight up and snarling, unable to figure out how to get to the meal above. The zeds noticed Griffin climbing down the ladder and had moved directly below him, grabbing onto the ladder trying to pull him down to them. The ladder held strong but Griffin was shaken around a bit. He had clear shots at all of the zombies with his pistol though but Brendon saw that he was only able to fire one handed while his left hand held onto the ladder. Brendon heard nine shots ring out and glanced down to see four bodies laying motionless at the bottom of the ladder.
Brendon kept an eye on Griffin as he climbed the rest of the way down to the ground wanting to be able to offer his friend quick support of the situation warranted. Once Griffin hit the ground he rushed to his nearby black Grand Cherokee and climbed up the hood and onto the roof. “Ethan go,” Brendon yelled as Griffin took a knee on the top of his vehicle and started laying down fire. Ethan didn’t have any combat training but he was an experienced hunter and had shot trap with Brendon for years in junior high and highs school. Brendon knew that Ethan would have no trouble hitting zombies in the head since he had ample experience firing on small moving targets with his shotgun.
Ethan set up on the roof of Wiggins’ red Tacoma pickup after throwing his pack in the box of the truck. Brendon sent down Brian and Tom next wanting to get their shotguns down to ground level. Brian had shot trap with Brendon as well and was doing pretty good down there even though Brendon could tell he was extremely nervous. Tom however was a mess. He was jumping at the sound of every gunshot and Brendon would have been surprised if even a quarter of his shots were hitting their mark. None of them were perfect but at Brendon was at least dropping two zeds for every three shots at this point.
Brendon wanted to get another rifle down there so he sent Rebecca down next. She had proved on the trip here that she could keep a level head and she was a pretty good shot with her krink even though it was such a short rifle. She headed over to Tom’s location and offered him some help since he wasn’t doing a very good job holding his area.
Megan and Leslie were the next to head down the ladder. They both had almost no weapons experience and weren’t very good shots but they were still helpful at shorter ranges.
With seven people the ground team was doing a good job of keeping the zombies at bay on their own. They were going to have to move fast though since there looked to be almost twice as many drawn to the noise of the gunfire than there had been when they fought their way into the apartment hours earlier. James reloaded his AK-47 and was the next to head down followed shortly by Aidan and Wiggins.
Before long Brendon was the only person left on the balcony. It had only been about five minutes since they had left the apartment but he had already finished off almost two thirty round magazines of ammunition. He fired off the last few rounds and dropped the empty mag in his dump pouch before rocking a new magazine into place and chambering the first round. Great, here’s the part where I break a leg, Brendon thought to himself. They had decided that since they planned on sealing up the stairwells leading to the upper levels of the dorms, assuming they could even get there, they were going to need the rope ladder if they ever wanted to escape. Brendon unhooked the rope ladder from the balcony and began rolling the ladder up. Once he had the entire ladder rolled into surprisingly compact coil he strapped it to the outside of his ruck. Getting to the ground level was going to prove to be busy. For as long as he had lived in apartments he had always joked that if he ever needed to make a getaway he would be able to climb down to ground level using the balconies below. Now it was time to test that theory, although he had never thought about trying it with a slung weapon, vest, and heavy ruck.
He pushed any thoughts of falling aside and carefully swung his legs over the railing. Once he had the tips of his feet securely on the outer edge of the balcony he gripped the vertical bars on the railing as hard as he could and brought himself into a crouching position so his hands slid down as close to his feet as he could get them. He let his feet slip off of the edge of the balcony and his hands slipped down the rest of the way catching at the bottom of the rails. He could feel the strain on his shoulders from holding up both his body weight and the weight of all of his gear.
He swung his legs forward and was relieved when his feet hit the railing of the next balcony down. He had been concerned that he wouldn't be tall enough to reach the railing below which would have made getting down to ground level a lot more difficult. With his feet securely on the railing below he moved his hands to the underside of Wiggins' balcony.