Free Run (Book 2): The Crossing by Rich Restucci

creatures as they knelt and reached over each other to get to the man. The screaming didn’t last long. The creatures piled into the room until they were packed tightly. Those who couldn’t get to Usher’s more tasty bits reached toward the hole in the ceiling and the three terrified humans.
    Anna fired a few rounds until Dallas put his hand on her arm. “Won’t do no good kid, there’s too many.”
    “Bullshit! I’ve got fifty rounds, and so do you and him,” she thumbed at Martinez. “We can blast them as they come in the room, one at a damn time ‘til there are none left! If there are more than that then we’ll use your rebar if we have to.” Her words were underscored by muffled gunfire from outside.
    “We won’t have to do either,” Martinez interjected. “We have two armored vehicles outside remember? Boone, come in, this is Martinez.”
    “Wait one, Martinez, we’ve got issues.”
    “So do we,” he replied, but not into the radio.
    The gunfire slowed to sporadic shots, and Boone came back on the comms two minutes later, “Usher, SITREP!”
    “He’s gone, sir. We were surprised and got swarmed. Anna, Dallas, and me are in the attic above the diner. We can’t get out, but they can’t reach us.”
    “Dammit, how many? Are you sure Usher’s dead?”
    “Yes, sir, and there are dozens, maybe a hundred or more, I can’t tell from this vantage point.”
    “Okay, sit tight, we’ll figure something out. For what it’s worth, there were quite a few out here as well, they came from your area.”
    “Roger that sir, we’ll wait.” Martinez looked around and saw a trapdoor to the floor below about twenty feet away. Stepping on the joists so as not to put his foot through the sheetrock, he arrived at the folded ladder and noticed the knotted end of a string that was used to pull the unit down. He pulled it up and cut it off with his knife. “Dallas, can I borrow your club?”
    The big man pulled out his rebar and held it out to the sniper as the man gingerly stepped his way back. “Anna, could you hold this please?” He handed his SR25 to her and let his MP5SD3 dangle on its single point sling. He walked to the inside of the peaked roof, and using the end of the rebar, he began to chisel away at the plywood in the roof. He started at a roof rafter and began to break his way through the plywood joint. It was slow going, but he eventually moved the plywood away from the rafter enough that he could see the underside of roofing shingles. Prying the plywood up, he used his knife to poke through the tar shingles and could see sky.
    “This is our way out if they can’t get to us,” he spoke into his tactical radio. “Boone, can you get to us if we can get to the roof?”
    “Affirmative. Can you make the roof?”
    “I think so, we have to do some cutting and breaking, but we can get out.”
    “Be careful. If you can’t access to the roof, I’m going to use the bushmaster to blow a hole in the fucking wall, and I’m going to drive an LAV up their asses.”
    Anna smiled and looked at Dallas. “Hardcore SOB huh?”
    “Can you two help me push this plywood?”
    Dallas and Anna joist-stepped to where he was prying the roof. “I’ll use this, you two push.” Martinez used the rebar against the rafter to pry the plywood. It was extremely difficult as the roofing shingles were nailed to each other, and acted as a spring, pushing the wood back as they pushed it forward. In addition, the roofing nails were poking through the wood, the pointy ends toward them, so they had to find a safe place to carefully position their hands to avoid being stabbed.
    They heaved hard, and the wood moved outward perhaps eight inches. Martinez pushed as well, and as all three pushed with all their might, Dallas slipped and fell backward on the joists. The plywood slid in Anna’s hands, and she was raked across the palms by the roofing nails. She howled and pulled her hands back, and the plywood snapped backwards