Chapter 24

The lights were on one second, then suddenly the stairwell went black. Omar took out his flashlight and shinned it in Krista and Holden's face.

Their simple plan worked nearly perfectly.

Krista ran up the stairs, Omar chasing her, but careful not to catch up. Holden waited behind the door and as Krista began banging on it, screaming for help (she had always been remarkably good at fake tears), a guard opened the door and Holden grabbed him, yanking him out of the doorway.

Unfortunately for Holden Omar hadn't caught up to them before the guard managed to bash Holden's head into the wall, sending him to the ground unconscious - but at least he was a good distraction. The guard didn't expect Krista to take out her nail file and stab in in the throat and Omar came up from behind and secured the guard's arms as Holden managed to get backed to his feet, dazed and unable to remember the last 15 minutes of his life.

"Did it work?" Holden asked groggily.

"Does it look like we're finished here?" Omar motioned to the struggling guard.

"Oh shit! Where'd he come from?" Holden pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the guard.

"What do you idiots want?" The guard spat at them.

"We want you to calm the fuck down!" Omar ordered.

"Calm down? Fuck you! She stabbed me in the fucking neck!"

"Next time it will be your eye!" Krista screamed.

The three men looked at Krista with surprised expressions. No one had ever seen her try to be angry before, it was like hearing a cat recite the alphabet. They didn't know if they should laugh or be terrified.

"Are there any more guards patrolling here?" Omar asked.

"I said: Fuck you!" The guard hissed.

"Throw him down the stairs," Krista nodded.

"Okay," Omar began dragging him towards the rail.

"Wait! Wait! Correy's up on the electrical floor!"

"Correy?" Krista's eyes went wide and became glossy. "My Correy."

"Krista, there's only one Correy who works here," Omar rolled his eyes.

"Who's Correy?" Holden asked, his head injury now just a dull throb.

"He's my-" Krista began, but Omar immediately cut her off.

"He's the enemy! If they're not with us, they're against us!"

Krista sniffed and looked down, her anger all melted away. "This is so wrong," she muttered to herself.

"Correy's the only other one?" Omar asked, just to be certain.

"Only two guards are patrolling at a time. We switch over every six hours."

"And when the hell does your shift end?"

He didn't answer at first, and Omar started dragging him towards the rail again.

"Okay! Wait! Half an hour! Maybe less. We change over on the hour.

Holden looked at his watch. "That gives us 27 minutes."

"My watch says 25," Krista said.

"Oh fuck. Let's just go with 20," Omar said. "Now knock this bitch out and let's get on with the operation."

Chapter 23

Meagan pulled over a few tables from the cafe and rounded up everybody who had defected – but there weren’t many. Of the fifteen survivors who stayed in the Tower – or survived – only a few had escaped the guards.

There was Omar, the long-time disgruntled employee and stealth killer extraordinaire; Geoff, their former boss who looked like Wolverine in high school (but was really 35 years old); Krista, Elise’s bubbly baby sister; Matt, an overly eager drama student who even Holden described as “way too emo”; and a quiet older Asian man named Tyrol.

“Who the hell is that guy?” Elise nudged Meagan when they spotted him. Tyrol was sitting cross legged on the windowsill when they arrived, staring straight out over the lake. He hadn’t moved since.

“That’s Tyrol. He had a lot of interesting stories when I worked here. I think he worked for the Chinese government before defecting. That’s not even his real name.”

“He looks like he should be selling me a Gremlin.”

“Trust me, he’s useful.”

They gathered their little band of seven now (except for Tyrol, who opted to listen from his windowsill) and stood around a single table, staring at crudely drawn blueprints of the restaurant.

“The power supply is one floor above the restaurant. If the guards aren’t completely stupid they’ll have somebody doing regular patrols of their stairwell to look out for giraffes. Omar, you take Holden and some weapons and hide out in the stairwell. We’ll take out this guard first, then head to the Electrical floor. We’ll cut off their power before we attack.”

Matt raised a gangly arm. “What’s that thing?” He pointed to a stick figure with a dress.

“Oh that’s Krista.”

“What’s my job?” she said.
“I’m glad you asked,” Meagan beamed at her. “You’re our bait.”

“Whoa whoa!” Elise stepped in front of her sister. “Nobody’s using Krista as bait. No way.”

“Sorry Norma Rae but it has to be her,” Geoff said. “Those guards are shallow douchebags; they won’t be able to resist helping Krista.”

Elise shook her head. “No way, I’ll do it.”

“No offense, but look at you. You look like a Serbian refugee.” Geoff turned around and gestured at Krista. “Now look at Krista. She looks like Apocalypse Barbie.”

“Don’t worry Elise, I’ll stuff a bunch of guns under my skirt, it’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” Elise said, shoving her pistol at Krista. “Just how exactly is she going to bait the guards?”

Meagan smiled. “She’s going to be a damsel – or, Barbie, I guess – in distress. Omar’s going to scream at her in the stairwell, and she’s going to wait outside the guard’s door. One of them is bound to hear it, and they won’t resist your sister. And, since it’s Omar yelling at her they won’t be afraid of her getting bitten. They’ll open the door, check out the scene, and BOOM, you grab him.”

Omar and Holden exchanged a glance. “Um, how exactly are we going to do this without everybody hearing the guard’s scream on the way down?”

“Oh you’re not gonna throw them down the stairs. You’re just going to wound them and send them back upstairs with a gash. The other guards will take care of the rest, I presume.” Meagan leaned back and looked around. “Any questions?”

“Yes I have one,” Steve raised his hand. “Why did you spend ten minutes drawing a Juno award on a napkin before you told us this really simple plan?”


Ten minutes later Omar, Holden, and Krista were ready to take their places when Elise pulled Holden aside.

“Look, if anything should happen to—“

“Aww, that’s sweet of you.”

“--To my SISTER, you idiot, I will kill you and feed you to the security guards in a delicious soufflé. Understood?”

Holden playfully shoved her arm. “Yes, I get it. And I knew you weren’t really worried about me. You know how tough I am.”

“I could take you with one arm tied behind my back.”

“Any time you want.”

She glared, but had to smile. Hell, he was probably about to die in the stairwell, she thought. Let him have one.

“Oh and by the way,” he whispered, “Geoff’s wrong. You totally make better bait.”

With that he sauntered away, and took with him all the feeling in Elise’s knees.

Chapter 22

"Who's in charge here? Omar or this Geoff guy?" Elise asked her little sister as they started following Omar towards Geoff. "Geoff's more senior, but I guess that doesn't matter anymore," Krista shrugged. "I dunno, we're listening to both of them." "Well, so I guess as long as no arguments start. The last thing we need is another power struggle." "I can't believe you came all the way to the Tower to rescue me," Krista smiled. "I can't believe you did your makeup during the apocalypse - Wait, no, sorry. Actually I can believe that. That is the first thing that's made sense in the last 24 hours." They walked through the floor, getting odd glances from everyone who hadn't run for their lives. They all looked dirty and annoyed, like refuges, and seemed to spite the newcomers simply because they weren't a proper rescue operation. Many of them had blood on them, from fighting with the security guard. "Shit, you're the only person who doesn't have blood on them. Even Milo has blood on him." "I can't believe you brought your cat," Krista sighed. "He followed me! What happened here anyway?" "The giraffes got in downstairs, it happened so fast... They shut down the elevators right away, but a couple got in." "There are giraffes in here?" "No, they were all killed, and then the guards said we weren't allowed to leave.There was no way in hell I was going to walk down those stairs." "Are you sure they were all killed?" "Well, we're still alive. Anyway, who's the cute guy?" Krista lowered her voice, looking at Holden. "What cute guy? Where?" "The one you came with?" Elise narrowed her eyes, not understanding. "... Steve?" "Oh my god! Do you even see the opposite sex! The tall cute guy! The only other guy you showed up with!" Krista pointed at Holden, who looked at the two sisters in confusion. "Are you two talking about me?" "No." Elise and Krista both answered. "Steve, I don't understand girls," Holden muttered. "Here," Omar led them up onto the raised seating in the cafe, where a tall man with wild black hair sat at a table, looking over some blueprints as a couple hosts were yelling and pointing, clearing trying to get some pressing matter solved. "Geoff, we have company." "He looks like Wolverine," Elise mumbled to Meagan. Geoff looked up at the newcomers in confusion, then saw Meagan. "Good god in heaven. I never thought I'd see you here again," he smiled and got up, then paused. "Why the hell are you here? You don't still think this would make a good hideout in a zombie apocalypse do you?" "We're not dealing with zombies this time." "No, if possible we've been plagued by the one thing even weirder than the dead reanimating." "It wasn't my decision to come here anyway - this one brought me," she pointed at Elise. "Well, sorry we're not exactly a safe haven." "Who cares about safe? I want to destroy those security guards - and I know just how to do it."

Chapter 21

“So the guards just took over?” Meagan said as she wiped off Omar’s forehead. She noticed the blood was well dry – clearly not from the security guard they had just seen. How many people had Omar killed...?

“At first it seemed like a good idea. They had weapons, keys, radios that reached actual police stations. And they were organized. But then, we ran out of food on the lookout level...”

“You RAN OUT of food? It’s only been two days! How many people were up there?” Holden asked.

“In total, we started with forty. Six guards, five staff members,” he looked at Elise then, “including Krista, whose fine, and about twenty or so tourists. Couple tour leaders too. They were the first to go.”

“To go...?” Steve said between gulps of Meagan’s water bottle. She took it back and hissed something about smoking, but he ignored her.

“They tried to escape. Tried to go down the stairs. They were the first, then slowly a couple tourists followed. I don’t know what happened to them, but if you didn’t see them on your way up then just maybe...”

"So where's Krista?” Elise asked impatiently.

“She’s on the lookout level. The guards took everyone that was left, about fifteen, and abandoned it for the restaurant upstairs last night when we ran out of food in the cafe.” Omar looked at Holden then. “There wasn’t that much food to begin with. None that anybody knew how to prepare, anyway.”

“Wait...” Steve said, rubbing his face. “You’re telling me that there’s still food, but nobody knows how to cook it?”

“I’m from Guatemala, I can cook YOU if I need to,” Omar snapped. “But not without any electricity.”

“But the Tower has its own generators...” Meagan began. Her eyes were darting across the floor as if she were reading something nobody else could see. “We just need to reroute the electricity to this grid only. Each floor has a different grid to prevent surges in case of power outages. All we’d need to do it cut off the power to level four and turn our level’s power back on!”

“Okay this is all great but I REALLY need to see Krista now.” Elise stood up from her perch, knocking a nearly-asleep Holden backwards. “You guys coming or not?”

Steve rose slowly, his mind preoccupied with just how they were going to steal a bunch of crazy mall cops’ power supply without them noticing, or him getting killed. But one thing was for certain – he was gonna be as nice as possible to this Omar kid.

Omar led them all up the glass floor stairwell, and ignored the collective groans when he announced “just one more floor”. “So,” he said to Meagan, “what the hell’s going on down there?”

“The best way to explain it is, tiny giraffes that eat you, and then when you die, you turn into more tiny giraffes.”

“That’s pretty much the ONLY way to explain it,” Elise said.

Omar sighed, and considered asking for more details, but the tiny religious part of him was too afraid to know any more details. At the moment it seemed like a freak accident at a lab gone extremely bad; but just the right details could make it sound like an apocalyptic plague, and he wasn’t sure he could deal with that.

He knocked on the door of Level 3 four times. The door flew open and out jumped a bubbly girl with brown hair, blue eye shadow, and not a single scratch on her.

“Elise!!!” she shrieked. Elise shoved forward and grabbed her sister, then held her at arms’ length.

“Why aren’t you a little more, you know, worse for wear?” She almost sounded disappointed.

Krista shrugged. “Oh I dunno, I didn’t really have to do much, at first we had guards who did the heavy lifting, now we just have Geoff.”

“Wait...” Meagan said as they all piled onto the lookout level. She watched Omar latch the door by renailing a wooden door across the handle, and smiled. “Did you say you have Geoff?”

“Yep. He took the stairs up when it all started to make sure we were okay, then refused to leave us here.”

Meagan let out the first sigh since they’d entered the stairwell. “Where is he now?”

Krista bit her lip and started playing with her rings. “He’s, um, doing some plumbing, I think...”

“He’s trying to break the plumbing on their floor so they can’t use the bathroom anymore,” Omar interjected. “He’s in the men’s room on the other side of the lookout if you want to talk to him. In fact, I’m going to head in and wash up, and tell him about our additions.” He pulled Meagan in for a great big hug. “So glad you made it.”

“So,” Holden said, clapping his hands, “how do we get rid of those guards?”

“And maybe this Geoff person...” Steve grumbled to himself.

Chapter 20

"Omar?" Elise gasped, still trying to catch her breath. They were all sweaty and boiling from the inside out. Elise was almost too exhausted to really acknowledge the fact that she had just witnessed Omar, a man she mostly remembered for that one Christmas party she was invited to where every time she saw him he was holding at least three beers, throw a man to his death. "What the fuck?"

She slumped onto the floor, unable to stand anymore, and Holden joined her, leaning slightly against her, but she barely noticed.

"What been going on here? Where are the security guards?" Meagan asked. Her breathing was just as ragged as everyone else's, but she seemed too concerned to take a break.

"Things got real bad last night," Omar began. "They took over the restaurant and those not wanting to put up with their shit joined me and moved down here."

"Jesus Christ Omar, you start a revolution or something?" Elise asked.

"Wait, no more talk. Water, for the love of god," Steve finally managed.

"We do have a limited supply..."

"We brought guns," Elise held up her pistol.

"And granola!" Meagan offered.

"All right, follow me," Omar held the door open for them and the four weary travellers entered the Tower. "Holy shit. Did you guys bring a cat?"

***

Yesterday:

Krista was working a late shift that day. She started work about the same time Elise was going home, before the outbreak has garnered real attention, before the dead outnumbered the living. When she arrived they were having an oddly slow day seeing it was so sunny outside. That was the first and last warning she would get that something wasn't right.

An hour later she was on the glass floor level, trying to mind her own business and avoid tourists who looked like they needed someone to take their picture. She was terrible with a camera, always had been. She felt like she was doing them a disservice whenever she took a picture for them.

"What's going on out there?" One of the tourists asked, staring down through the glass floor.

Krista peered over the edge and saw a large crowd of people standing around at the base of the Tower. She couldn't tell if they were coming or going, but they all seemed to be moving, buzzing around each other like they were having a rave. Her first thought was that it was a flash mob, but for the life of her couldn't figure out what they were doing.

"Code 99. Code 99, please be advised-" came over her radio, and then it suddenly flared feedback as a good five people started speaking into it at once. She could barely make out anything being said, except for a snippet here and there:

"... banging on the doors..."

"... glass is break..."

"... what are those..."

Mostly it was just jumbled swearing and, she thought, someone started screaming giraffes over and over again. Suddenly she noticed that tourists were looking at her with worry and she turned off her radio, looking around nervously for a captain or a security guard.

"What's happening down there?"

"I, uh, I'm going to find out."

She saw another red shirt wearing host by the elevator and ran over. "Are you listening to the radio? What's going on?"

"Stop that elevator!" A security guard came around the corner and pointed at one of the hosts loading people onto an elevator to go back down.

"Hey, we've been waiting 5 minutes for this elevator," a tourist protested.

"Elevators aren't moving until we figure out what's happening-"

All their radios suddenly transmitted a final, frantic scream, and then white noise droned on until they turned them off.

The silence only lasted a second, before a tourist screamed in panic. The word "terrorist" was screamed more than once.

Krista was too stunned to move, until someone grabbed her shoulders and started violently shaking her. She felt her neck snap back and then one of the security guards grabbed the tourist and punched them in the face. The security guard had a glint of joy as his fist impacted with the man's face and an all out riot was suddenly in motion. Tourists frantic to escape and security guards happily beating them into submission.

All the hosts ran to the next floor up, just in time to see an elevator open, three security guards standing ready as three pigmy giraffes ran out, some sort of gelatinous goo still glazing their bodies. The guards only looked shocked for a brief second before they stomped on the tiny things, crushing them under their great black boots, grinning at each other as they ground blood and fur into the carpet.

When they were finished, the guards turned around at the shocked people.

"Everyone listen up! We're in charge now!"

Chapter 19

“One thousand, seven hundred and seventy-six steps. To the second floor.”

“I’m sorry...” Holden rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “How many floors are there?”

Meagan pulled a metal rod out from her bag. She looked at it mournfully before shoving it through the handle to keep the door locked from inside, and turned back to the group to explain. “The main pod of the Tower has three public floors and four mechanical and service levels. The first floor is the radome, that big balloon looking thing, where we store our Christmas decorations. The second floor is the Glass Floor level but I doubt anybody is there. The doors are too easy to bar and most importantly, there’s no food. The third floor is the main Lookout level. There’s a bar and a tiny cafe and a kitchen, so they might be holed up there. Above that is another restaurant with an even bigger kitchen, but hopefully the survivors preserved whatever food they could and kept it up there, since that kitchen has a massive padlock. Above that--”


“Right. There are windows and there’s food. Okay, upwards then?” Steve said, urging the girls forward. “I think I should go first, Meagan should be behind me to direct. Elise, you stay behind Meagan and keep a look out, and Holden should bring up the rear.” He took the first step and Meagan grabbed his arm.

“You don’t even know where you’re going. I have to be in front.”

“I know where I’m going, I’m going UP, for the next two hours.”

Meagan shook her head. “If those losers from the United Way can do it in half an hour, we can do it in twenty.”

Just beyond the door came a single giraffe wail, a signal call. Steve began pounding up the stairs. “No time to discuss; let’s get the hell out of here!”

Annoyed, Meagan followed, leaving Elise and Holden to stare at the door and listen to the giraffe. “He’s still alone...” Elise muttered, pressing her ear to the door.

“Come on!” Holden said, tugging her sleeve. But she waved him off and hissed, “Hold on a second!”

From the other side, she could hear the single giraffe, but where there should have been several others in unison to join him, there was silence. Just one lonely giraffe, with no response.

“Why do you think they’re not listening to him?” Elise said.

“Maybe he’s the Holden of the giraffe world.”

She glared at him, but he had a point. “Okay, let’s go.”


They started up the stairs, catching up to Meagan and Steve with no problem. They climbed together silently, listening for any sign of struggle or entry from the many doorways they passed. Holden wondered where the doors led to, but he knew Meagan would explain in great detail, and he was just too tired. And besides, being below Elise in the line had its advantages that he wasn’t willing to risk just to have a chat.

Soon the space became more narrow and Meagan signalled they were approaching the first floor. The door was air locked, nothing would be getting in or out. So they carried on above to the glass floor. Elise stopped when she noticed a tiny blue sign marked “L2”

“This is the sign for the glass floor?” she pointed. “How the hell do people see this and NOT keep going up all the way during those charity things?”

“Usually somebody holds this door open. It’s on a magnetic lock but that all fails without power, and it didn’t look like there was any power downstairs.” Meagan tried the handle – it was unlocked.

“Wait!” Holden said, climbing up past Elise. “At least let the guys go first. You girls stay about a floor down; that way if we need to bolt back, we won’t knock you over.”

Too tired to argue, Elise nodded and took a few steps back. Never tired enough to fight, Meagan opened her mouth, but Elise smacked her arm. “Just get down here.”

“I wasn’t going to—“

Suddenly there was a massive bang against the door. It scratched and clawed, and they all knew this was no giraffe.

“What the fuck...?” Elise raised her gun and stepped up towards the guys. Holden held out his hand, then put a finger to his lips.

From beyond the door came shouting. Two men arguing about guns, security. Then another bang against the door. Then silence.

The door opened and Steve stepped aside just in time for the flying body to miss him on its way down the stairwell. The group stared at the dead body, then slowly up to the blood-soaked man holding the door open.

“What the hell was that??” Steve demanded, grabbing the tan skinned guy by his red collar. “You just KILLED that guy!”

“He killed somebody upstairs over food. And get off me!” The accent was slight, almost imperceptible, but it was there. Even with his face caked in sweat and grim and blood, his expression of complete distain for everything still shone through, and Meagan recognized him instantly. She pushed forward through the group and wrapped her arms around the bloody stranger’s neck.

“Omar! Thank God!”

They're here...

Meagan (not that Meg) found this picture. The girocalypse has begun!