Ksenia has twisted her ankle.”
“How bad is it?”
Ramses turned to Ksenia. “How’s your leg?”
Ksenia tried to stand and grimaced with pain.
“Her leg hurts real bad,” Ramses said into the mike. “She can’t walk.”
“That’s not good,” Andy said. “Here’s what you’re going to do. Drive your vehicle up to the windows. We’ll lower you a stepladder, you climb up and get inside.”
“Sounds too easy,” Ramses said and frowned. “But okay. We’ll try.”
“It should work,” Andy said.
“Copy that.”
Ramses started the engine. The truck moved a couple of meters and stopped.
Ksenia looked at the fuel indicator, which had sat at the zero.
“Damn!” Ksenia said. “We’re out of gas.”
Ramses picked up the walkie-talkie and told about it to Andrew Thomas.
“Roger that,” Andy said with a sigh.
Now the heater stopped functioning, it was going to be cold in the cab soon. A crazy thought crept into his mind – of them freezing and starving to death in this tomb of a truck. Thank God he would have a concubine to accompany him in his life after death. Like a pharaoh. For a brief moment, he could not think straight.
“Just hold on there, Ramses,” Andy said. “We’ll get you out of there. Stand by. Andrew Thomas out.”
In five minutes, a window opened on the first floor, and a young man wearing a business suit looked out. He waved to Ramses, holding his walkie-talkie in his hand. He and another man put a stepladder through the window and placed it on the ground below. Ramses fished out the scope out of the backpack and took a closer look at the windows.
At the other end of the building, another window opened. Right above the crowd of the flesh-eating things. Two men looked out the window.
The Englishman lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth.
“Hi there! We’ve come up with a rescue plan here,” Ramses heard him say. “Courtesy of Ivan and Goran.” He pointed at the guy with a shortcut and an Italian-looking man.
“When I give you a signal,” Andy went on, “get out of the van and run to this window. You’ll hear a series of explosions. Be not afraid. That’ll be the pyrotechnics. For distraction. We’ve put the stepladder down for you. You’ll use the ladder to climb inside through this window. Our guys will distract the crazy bastards over there.”
About thirty yards between the truck and the windows. We gonna make it, Ramses pondered and pocketed the scope.
“Okay,” he said over the radio. “Let’s give it a try.”
“Just let us know when you’re ready,” Andy said.
“Yeah, I will,” Ramses said.
He turned to Ksenia. “Firecrackers, huh? Can you believe it? They’re gonna use firecrackers to save our asses.” He shook his head. “I like this guy.”
Their preparations did not take much time. They zipped up the backpack, and Ksenia slipped her arms through its shoulder straps to put it on. Ramses gave Ksenia both pistols.
“I’ll give you a piggyback,” he said.
Ksenia smiled. “Nice – never done it since school.”
He looked through the windshield and confirmed that the horizon was clear. Ksenia glanced at the hotel and saw people looking at them through the windows on the second and third floors.
“We got an audience,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, looking up. “I was worried nobody’s gonna see me in action in this town.” He turned to her. “We gonna make it.”
She cocked the guns and nodded. “Then let’s do it.”
He pressed the button on the walkie-talkie. “Okay. Flying in.”
The radio crackled. “Go! Go! Go!”
Ramses put the radio in his pocket, thrust the door open and jumped out of the truck.
Cold wind pierced his body. He leaned down, and Ksenia climbed his back. Once he started running, he heard the crack of the firecrackers coming from the hotel building. With his peripheral vision, he saw a rocket dancing a wild dance on the snow-covered ground, hissing and sending white and blue sparks everywhere. It finally hit the nearest walking dead and set its clothes on fire. Some zombies took the bite and went toward this strange fest. But some of them headed toward Ramses and Ksenia.
Ksenia chose not to wait until they would come close to them and started shooting.
A female undead, a former paramedic, stood in their way. Ksenia pointed both guns at her and knocked her off her feet with two powerful blasts. The gunshots were louder than the pops of the firecrackers, and in a moment more zombies turned the corner of the building staggering on their feet and raising their arms.
Ksenia’s father’s Makarov started giving dry clicks, and Ramses had to make a big arc around a group of six ghouls.
The people in the building understood their distraction strategy had turned out not too successful, and they started using firearms on the undead monsters, too.
Ramses was close to the ladder now. There were half a dozen of the living dead blocking the way to it. Ksenia’s second gun fell silent now.
“I’m out!” she said.
“Don’t scream into my ear,” he said, panting. “I can hear you loud and clear.” He kept carrying her, though her weight was putting him down, and the thirty yards seemed like a hundred now. He remembered his firefighter years again.
A couple of shots from the friendly side sent two zombies falling down on the crispy snow. A dead man approached Ramses and Ksenia with a drunken gait. He lifted his gnarly hands and walked to them. Ramses put Ksenia on the ground and delivered a kick to the creature’s face. The deadhead fell and stayed down, his spinal bones shattered.
Ksenia was reloading her guns with trembling hands.
Two more creatures stood between them and the stepladder. Ramses heard two pops and both the zombies sprawled on the ground.
Ramses looked up and saw Andrew Thomas, standing at the window, a curl of smoke rising from his gun.
Ksenia jumped on one leg toward the ladder. Ramses grabbed the backpack and threw it at the window.
Damn, Ramses thought belatedly. There’s still a hand grenade there.
“Watch out!” he shouted.
Ivan caught the backpack and started to help Ksenia climb in.
