Ascended

The pen was built into the city wall.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of people in this section. The city had been alive just a few blocks back, but this part of town was deserted. Buildings had boarded-up windows, and the grass was poking through the cobblestone. The whole block felt as hungry as it was empty. Anyone foolish enough to wander down the streets would vanish before they could leave. It made the ghost town I had visited earlier seem like a vacation spot. I would be glad when I could get away from it.

Our destination was a scaffold built onto the wall. The structure looked dangerous, but it was obvious that it was the newest thing built in this section. Just because it was newer didn’t mean that I trusted it. It looked like someone had made the stairs from old wooden shingles. The posts were tied together in some places. Overall, I estimated that a good gust of wind could knock the whole thing over.

“We’re climbing up that?” I scanned the top of the wall. The scaffolding led to the walkway that the guards used to patrol the wall. “Is this how the guards get up there?”

“No,” Val shook her head. She pointed to turrets at the corners of the city, “They have their own access through those.”

“Why aren’t we using one of those?” I eyed the structure. One of the crossbeams was sagging in such a way that it looked like a smile. Like it was happy to have two more victims.

“There are gates we have to go through and guards we have to talk to.” Val stepped onto the first step, “This is the fastest way to get to the pen.”

Safety beat speed every time. That was the first thing that apprentices were taught on the island. Going too fast meant more mistakes. All it took was one mistake to get infected while dealing with zombies, and that meant death. The lesson had been drilled into us, risks weren’t worth saving a little extra time. I was about to tell Val that when I noticed she was halfway up the scaffold.

“You coming?” She paused to watch me.

“I was waiting for you to get up first.” I said, “It doesn’t look like it will hold both of us.”

She grabbed the post closest to her and shook it. The whole structure banged against the wall, but it stayed together. “It’s fine.” She smiled, “I built it myself.”

That explained the death trap look. Val watched me from her perch as I looked it over again. The wall was only about twenty feet high. Even if I fell off the top of the wall, I wouldn’t be too hurt. I decided that this was an exception to the rule. The faster I finished the faster I could get back on track.

The whole thing shook as I put my weight on the first step. It shook again as Val started climbing. I grabbed the sidebar for me to move with her. The moment she stepped off I slipped, expecting the scaffold to move more than it did. I grabbed the nearest post with both hands to steady myself.

“You okay?” Val asked.

I looked up at her, “I’m fine.”

“Hurry up,” Val said, “You still have to get down the other side.”

I couldn’t imagine that there were stairs on the other side that the zombies could use to climb over the wall. I didn’t want to think about what half-built structure she had waiting for me once I finished with this death trap.

Her scream became the singular point of my focus. Without thinking about it, I took the stairs two at a time, bounding up to the top of the wall.

Val was on her knees with tears streaming down her face as she leaned against the railing.

“What’s wrong?” I knelt down next to her. I couldn’t see any injuries.

She pointed into the cage below. Held captive by a ten-foot high fence were not two zombies like I was expecting, but four. The one she was pointing at had blonde hair.