Free Generation Dead (Book 3): Beyond The Gates by Joseph Talluto

other two Jake had tossed down the stairs.
    “Quick moves, brother,” Jake said, taking a two handed grip on his pick.
    “Got a better one for the rest,” I said, circling the stairs and laying hold of the banister that kept people from falling down the stairs.
     

Chapter 15
     
     
    Jake looked at me quizzically for a second, then got what I was going to do.
    “Nice.” He went to the other side and took hold of the banister there.  A couple of hard wrenches, and we were able to rip the old wooden railings away from the edge of the stairs.  Below us the zombies from the outside were becoming the zombies on the inside and were working their way up the flight of stairs.  I wiped my blades and axe off on the clothes of the dead zombies and pulled out my falchion for this next bit of work. I’d need the extra reach.  Jake was fine with the long handle of his pick, and we had nothing to do but wait for targets.
    Luckily, these targets came to us.  The first one Jake took, smacking it on the head as soon as it cleared the level of the floor. I took the next one, cracking its skull underneath my heavy blade.
    This went on for a bit, with Jake whistling to keep the zombies from getting interested in anything else.  He picked some nonsensical tune and seemed to always hit a high note when he killed another zombie.  I tried to keep up, but the zombies weren’t exactly accommodating.  I always seem to hit them on the low notes.
    The stairs were becoming crowded, but that was okay, since we were running out of zombies.  Jake took the second to last one, and I killed the last, a short man with tight black hair streaked with dried blood. He had made a supreme effort to climb over the dead corpses of his dead friends and joined them in the afterlife as a reward.
    The building was silent as Jake and I listened intently for any movement downstairs. I went so far as to throw a few chairs down the stairs to see if anything was interested in coming up to the second floor for a chat.  Nothing.
    “Well, that takes care of that.  Any others outside?” I asked Jake.
    Jake went over to three of the offices and looked out the windows.  He came back to the stairs and shook his head. 
    “All clear. But there’s another problem,” Jake said.
    “What’s that?”
    “How are we getting out of here?”
    I looked at the pile of corpses and chairs that were in some places five feet deep.  The doorway at the bottom was nearly blocked completely with bodies.
    “Window, I guess,” I said, heading over to the front of the building.  I looked out, and the scene was rather calm.  No one would have known there were twenty or so zombies out there a little while ago.  I opened the window and looked out, hoping to see something I could climb out to.  Luckily, the front door had a bit of a roof extending out a ways, and I was able to jump over onto that. Using the beard of my tomahawk, I hooked the edge and swung over.  Using my other hand, I freed my axe and dropped to the ground.
    Jake took a different route.  He jumped out of the window and caught the edge of the awning with both hands.  In a few seconds he was standing beside me, rubbing his hands together.
    “That seemed like a better idea in theory,” he said, pulling a bottle of spray out of his pack and burning the virus off of his weapons.
    “They usually are,” I said, sanitizing my own.
    We had just packed up the spray and put away our weapons when we heard the sound of an engine.  Up the street our van was rounding a corner, and it came quickly to our side.  Julia was driving, and she threw me a huge grin.
    “You guys look bored!” she said, laughing with Kayla at the joke of leaving us by ourselves.
    I climbed inside the van. Jake gave me a knowing look, and we decided silently not to mention the episode at the office.  I pulled out the maps I had taken from the place. 
    “Not yet, and I think we won’t be for a while,” I said.
    “What do you mean?”