Day 16

Dani stepped toward the gate, gun drawn and peered through a gap in the metal. There was some motion from something but it wasn’t quite clear how many somethings it was. She took a step back, looked over the gate, and turned her attention to Jimmy and Edgar, both looking slightly panicked. They certainly weren’t lying about being followed, that was clear.

“Guys, get in the car,” Dani said.

The three darted over to the Cadillac. Dani throwing herself behind Edgar, the driver. The car smelled heavily of weed.

“Gotcha,” Edgar said. He turned the ignition. She winced at how loud the Cadillac was.

Dani tapped on the back of Edgar’s seat and pointed behind them. “You need to come along the side here. We can’t let these things see us through the fence.”

The Cadillac reversed and made a three-point turn down the outermost alley of the Family Storage. In moments they approached the office and saw that Bob had laid a ladder against the unit. He waved them over.

The trio stepped out of the car. Bob pulled a wrinkled finger to his lips and Edgar cut the ignition.

“Dani,” Bob gestured with a thumb over his shoulder, “take a look. Just don’t step into the open.”

Dani made her way toward the door of the office that opened into the storage unit and peeked around the corner. She could see several of the undead who were now reaching through the fencing.

“How many?” Jimmy asked.

Bob leaned against the concrete frame of one of the units. “Sandy counted twelve. Got her watching upstairs.”

Dani approached the ladder and looked it over. “What is the plan, Bob?”

“Well, we can get a couple of us up on that roof to make some noise and be in view of those things.”

Dani nodded, “we can then pull them around the corner.”

Edgar chimed in, “that’d pull them off that front gate. These things are really fucking dumb, we can just send them walking.”

“Since I need her here with me to coordinate, you two guys, I want you up on that roof.”

Jimmy took a step back. “Why us?”

Dani crossed her arms. “Because you brought them here.”

“Fair enough,” Jimmy replied.

Bob and Dani held the ladder steady for Jimmy and Edgar. Once the pair were on the roof, Bob gave them a thumbs up. The two men began to shout and wave their arms on the roof of the row of units. Dani edged toward the fence and watched as a pair of ghouls took notice and moved toward the noise.

“This is fucked, man” Jimmy whined. He had a bad feeling about this whole thing. There weren’t supposed to be people here.

“Just do it, we’ll get our shit later and we’ll go,” Edgar said, flapping his arms.

“Dude, they have this place locked down, what if they found it?”

“It’s my unit, they can’t take my stuff. That’s against the law.”

Edgar continued shouting and stomping, pulling the undead along the side of the facility, his arms flapping awkwardly all the while. Jimmy did the same. He felt ridiculous.

“I don’t think those rules apply anymore” Jimmy muttered to nobody in particular.

Bob looked up toward the kitchen window and saw the whiteboard. Sandy has scrawled a large number three. He could work with that. The guys up top looked like idiots, but they were smart enough to duck away from the ledge so that ghouls lost track of them when they reached the corner of the property. The crisis had been averted. Well, one crisis. They were still trespassing. He had some questions for them.

“Danielle, help me move this ladder,” he asked.

“Why?”

“We don’t know what these guys want. We can keep them up there until we are sure they’re not here to fuck around with our safety.”

Dani grabbed one side of the ladder. She looked at her old friend. “You think this has to do with the drugs we found.”

Bob glanced at her and said nothing. He simply grabbed the other side of the ladder, pulling it from the unit.

Next Installment

Thank you for reading the ninth installment of the Haunted MTL original series, The Dead Life. Please share your thoughts about the story with us.