Chapter 13: Overhead

Jess had followed me, of course. Not all the way up into the attic since she was well aware of the spider population of such spaces and had no qualms about letting me take the traditional male role when dealing with them, but standing on top of the dresser with her head and chest through the ceiling.

"They've got my leg," I said, a little panicked as I yanked my foot away from the zombies again. "Little help please."

And Jess actually hesitated. Mind you, it was because she looked at the insane collection of spiderwebs and (I'm pretty sure) had to stop her brain from just noping out right there, but still. Hesitation. I catch exactly no fucking breaks at all.

To her credit, she hauled ass once the mental tug of war was over, not even bothering to duck around the spiderwebs. Look, I know I'm harping on this pretty hard, but both of us were severely afraid of spiders. Stop laughing, you assholes.

"Count of three," she said when she grabbed onto my wrists. "Kick hard."

She counted it out and I lashed out with my foot just before she yanked me upright. Pushing with my scrunched-up leg was super not fun, but we managed it. Thank god I was able to free my right leg, or the assist wouldn't have accomplished anything. As it was, I sort of bobbed up and fell over, sprawling across the beams as Jess let go. Hard to blame her for that. I would've done the same to save my balance, too.

"Looks like you lost a boot, there," Jess said, nodding at my right leg.

On my back, staring at the dusty ceiling through silvery threads of webbing, I grunted. It was a general ungh of assent. Yes, I hear you. Yes, dear, you're right. Lost that damn boot. Can you please just give me a second to suffer in peace?

While I tried to recover, the deep pulses of nausea-inducing agony thrumming through my body slowly losing power, Jess deftly stepped over my body and looked down through the hole. "Ugh. Goddammit. It's always something. What do you want to do?"

I lay there for another thirty seconds without answering. My brain was starting to settle down but still had a bit of pain-fuzz to shake off. I pursed my lips as I thought about it. "Did you see whether this place had a garage?"

Jess cocked her head. "I...think so? Pretty sure it's on that end." She pointed toward the side of the house opposite the master bedroom. "But we have weapons. What are you thinking?"

"That if we use a gun, we're gonna draw every zombie for a mile around us," I said.

Jess nodded. "Yeah. There are a lot more than there should be. And it's going to be a lot of work to knife all of them without making a mistake and getting overwhelmed. Should we just go out the window? Knock a hole in the ceiling over Adam and pull him up, then leave together?"

I pondered the idea. "We can always do that if we want, but I'm a little worried they'll chase us if we just try to leave. Wouldn't hurt to see if we can't find something better than a knife that doesn't grab the attention of a gun." I left unsaid the fact that I'd left our other weapons just outside the room, thinking like an idiot that it was better to spread them out in case one of us got trapped in another part of the house. Being prepared is good, but stupidly over-preparing has pitfalls.

I sighed and rose to my feet. "I'll check it out if you want to try waking sleeping beauty again."

Part of me was hoping the garage would be infested, too. Just so we could call it a day and take our chances outrunning the zombies. It was less work, and I was out of practice dealing with the constant stress of being in the wild.

Jess, however, seemed to be coping with it just fine.