ZWD: King of an Empty City by Thomas Kroepfl Read Free Book Online

whatever we find.”
                  “No, they’re trapped in here with us. Good luck to them.” She ran another strip of tape down along the seam of the door. “If this is broken, we’ll know we’re not alone.”
    She tugged my sleeve and we moved behind the checkout desk and cleared the little room just off to the side of it where people return books and they sort them out later to go back on the shelves. Coming back to the desk, I asked, “How you want to do this, pick a wall and work around?”
    She was looking at the papers and sticky notes all over the desk when her finger pointed to a number that was written down on a sheet that had been taped to the desk. “Let’s make some noise,” she replied and picked up the phone, then punched in the number. “Attention library patrons, the library is now closed indefinitely. Would you be so kind as to take your selections and move to the checkout desk, where we may assist you.” She hung up the phone and sat down. “Now we wait.”
    We sat there at the desk for twenty minutes before we heard the sound of something trying to open the fire escape door. It kept crashing into it, so we knew we had at least one in there with us. Somewhere up there on the second floor, it sounded like. My heart sank. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to do this, but I knew we did.
    It had taken us five hours to get to the library. A trip that used to take us perhaps ten minutes was now five hours. It was still raining outside and foggy, and it was getting dark and I felt trapped in here, no matter what she said. I don’t like to hunt zombies in the dark.
    It took us a few minutes to circle the first floor’s walls and check all the exits. She ran a strip of tape over each one when we were finished. Back at the desk we went down each row of books, one of us on either end, making sure nothing was there. On the second level of the first floor it was a little more difficult. More floor space to cover. We moved to a corner by the fire escape on the southeast side and split up. She stayed at the end of the aisle and I moved down them, shovel ready. At the other end we moved to the next aisle and I backed my way to her, then over to the next aisle. At each aisle she ran a strip of tape across it and taped a book from either side to the ends. Something to make some noise as the books fell to let us know something was there. It took us three hours to clear the floor. The whole time we heard that chuck, chuck, chuck from some fire door above us. Next we moved upstairs.
    To get to the second floor you can either take the elevator, the fire escape stairs, or the grand marble and wooden staircase that ascends over the help desk. That was our path. We moved up it quickly, basically charging whatever we might meet. We didn’t meet anything. We took our time and cleared this floor the same way. It took longer because there were several rooms and offices in the back that we had to clear. After each one she ran a line of duct tape along the seam of the door. Despite the chunk, chunk, chunk coming from somewhere, I was starting to feel pretty good about this place. We had the second floor done in about three hours. We probably were a little too cautious, but I would rather err on the side of caution than not.
    Only two ways to get to the third floor, fire escape stairs or the elevators. Our plan was to open the elevators on the top floor and then lock them open. I didn’t want to do the stairs yet. Clearing the fire wells, and I counted six of them, was going to take a lot of planning or a foolish act, and I was getting tired. I didn’t want to do either. We hit the button for the elevator.
    In a moment the light stopped on our floor and the door slid open. Inside with his back to us stood a huge man swaying back and forth. Before he could start turning around she pressed him to the back wall of the elevator, pinning him there with the Ice Pike. He started to push away and I could see his