Zombie Outbreak: Chained On A Stadium Roof Above The Dead — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00One hundred and twenty-one days since the dead took the city.
2. 0:04You are on a stadium roof. Every way down, chained.
3. 0:08The dead in the seats below.
4. 0:11And the man who had it chained only has to wait.
5. 0:17You are at the roof door before the padlock stops swinging.
6. 0:21You pull. The chain holds.
7. 0:23Through the gap at its edge, a lamp goes down the stairs. Then nothing.
8. 0:29You could shout. Every shout calls the dead.
9. 0:32You could break the door. It is steel, and the lock is on the other side, behind a window too small for a hand.
10. 0:39You could jump. This roof is higher than a five-story building.
11. 0:43The cap beside you has a radio at his collar. It can talk back. But you have nothing to offer the men who chained you.
12. 0:50One and a half liters. Six portions. A blanket. The wrench. Half a key.
13. 0:56And the drums you carried up for them. Every one of them empty.
14. 1:01The day the stadium fell, the man who runs the caps barred himself in under this stand. Then he waited for the dead to stand still.
15. 1:10Tonight, he doesn't even need to come up.
16. 1:13No water but what you carry. No shade tomorrow. And at first light, his caps come up for the drums, with the steel bar.
17. 1:21He has never needed a gun. He only needs to wait.
18. 1:26The cap turns the radio at his collar down to a hiss. Not off. It is the only way to hear them.
19. 1:32Night comes down. The city has no lights.
20. 1:36Below you, in the seats, something shifts when the wind rattles the chain. Then it is still.
21. 1:43You sit against the drums, a body's length apart. The wrench across your knees.
22. 1:48He doesn't ask about Ines again. So you tell him.
23. 1:52Your friend hid a bite. In the night, she turned.
24. 1:56She went for Ines first.
25. 1:58You stopped her with the wrench. Too late.
26. 2:01You held your scarf to Ines's neck and kept saying her name after she stopped breathing.
27. 2:05Then you took up the wrench once more.
28. 2:08When it was done, you covered her face with her white cap.
29. 2:12Red glasses. White cap.
30. 2:16He asks nothing more.
31. 2:17He takes off the navy cap. He turns it in his hands for a long time.
32. 2:22Navy. The color that sold the water. The color Ines ran from.
33. 2:26He pushes it into his bag.
34. 2:28For the first time, he tells you his name.
35. 2:32Teo.
36. 2:34Far off, over the towers, the sky flashes. Long after it, the sound.
37. 2:41Then another. Closer.
38. 2:43If you can hear thunder, you are close enough to be struck. The rule is to get indoors.
39. 2:49There is no indoors. Only an open roof, and the steel loudspeaker horns.
40. 2:54Teo pulls you away from the horns, down between the drums.
41. 2:58You count from each flash to its thunder. The count gets shorter.
42. 3:02In the next flash, down in the seats, every head is tipped up to the sky.
43. 3:08Then the rain comes, all at once.
44. 3:11Teo is already moving. He pulls the funnels out and lets the first of it run off the sheeting.
45. 3:16The first rain off a roof carries everything that sat on it. Grit. Dirt. Bird droppings. Rain collectors let it run to waste first.
46. 3:26Then the funnels go back in.
47. 3:28You drink from your hands until it hurts. You fill your bottle to the top.
48. 3:33You share one portion. Five left.
49. 3:36The drums you carried up are filling. At first light, the caps will come for them.
50. 3:41You pull the blanket over your head. In a minute it is soaked through.
51. 3:45You are shaking. A chill from rain can bring on hypothermia, even above forty degrees.
52. 3:50The flashes move on, out past the far stand. The count gets longer.
53. 3:55The rain does not stop. And rain covers footsteps.
54. 4:00Teo stands up.
55. 4:03At the far end of the walkway, behind the stairwell, there is a steel hatch in the roof. A chain through its handle.
56. 4:09His crew came up through it to service the horns.
57. 4:12On day twelve, he fixed the breaker that sent the loop through them. He didn't know what for.
58. 4:17The storm can still strike. You wait for its thunder anyway. A flash. You count.
59. 4:24The wrench comes down with the sound.
60. 4:26The chain holds.
61. 4:28Your hands are shaking. The second blow lands after the thunder has gone.
62. 4:35The chain breaks. The sound goes out over the stadium on its own.
63. 4:39Below, in the seats, the dead turn to it.
64. 4:43Teo switches his radio off. Under the hatch, a steel ladder goes down into the dark.
65. 4:48Face the ladder. Keep a hand on it. Carry nothing that can pull you off.
66. 4:53The wrench goes into your bag.
67. 4:55Teo goes first.
68. 4:56The ladder ends at the top row of the stand. The wrench comes back out of your bag.
69. 5:02Below you, in the far flashes, the seats fall away into the rain, row after row. And in the rows, the dead.
70. 5:10Thin. Dried out. Standing. Every face turned toward where the chain broke.
71. 5:17Teo waits for the next thunder, out past the far stand. Every face turns to it, away from you.
72. 5:24Teo reads them, the way he learned to on day thirty-eight. Which way each one faces. Who stands near whom.
73. 5:31He moves only when the rain gusts. You put your feet where his were.
74. 5:35Down behind their backs, one row at a time. Close enough to see the rain run off their shoulders.
75. 5:41No light. Not for a second.
76. 5:44Your eyes have had hours in the dark. They need twenty to thirty minutes to see their best, and a light left on starts that over. A lamp would also turn every face in this stand toward you.
77. 5:55Halfway down the stand, the private boxes. Glass fronts. The only way down runs past them.
78. 6:02On day four, the caps chained the box stairs with people still inside. They are still inside.
79. 6:08Four months on, they stand facing the glass.
80. 6:11In a far flash, one of them sees you move.
81. 6:15It hits the glass. Again.
82. 6:17The glass holds. The sound doesn't.
83. 6:20In the seats around you, heads turn. One moves. The ones near it follow.
84. 6:25They are coming to the glass, and you are beside it. Now you run.
85. 6:30Down the rows. Over the seat backs.
86. 6:34Your feet slip on the wet step. You go down between two rows. The wrench skids away under the seats.
87. 6:40Teo is already ahead of you. Nobody would ever know if he kept going.
88. 6:44On day zero, a door shut on him and Sam, who could barely walk.
89. 6:49He comes back.
90. 6:50He drags you up by your bag. One of them is on you.
91. 6:54He jams his tan bag between its teeth and your arm.
92. 6:57Your hand finds the wrench under the seat.
93. 7:00Once.
94. 7:02Once is enough.
95. 7:03More are coming down the rows.
96. 7:05Teo pulls you flat against the low wall at the front of the stand, and holds you there.
97. 7:10He learned it on day sixteen, from the men he hates. The dead follow a moving sound. Where it stops, they stop.
98. 7:18In steady rain, a footstep is lost. A man standing still is nothing at all.
99. 7:24They come down to the last place they heard you. And they stop.
100. 7:28An arm's length away. Facing nothing. Rain running off their faces.
101. 7:34You do not breathe for a long time.
102. 7:38Then, one step each gust, along the wall to the corner of the stand.
103. 7:42A ramp goes down into the yard. On the nights the caps led them off with sirens, the dead walked out this way.
104. 7:49At the bottom, in the dark, you feel your arm for teeth.
105. 7:53Nothing. He holds out his hands. Nothing there either. His bag took it.
106. 7:58The service road, toward the gate. It runs past the plant room's outside door, steel, barred from inside. Behind it is the man who runs the caps.
107. 8:08Teo still has his old key. It is no use while the bar is in.
108. 8:12The stand was loud. Behind the door, the bar slides.
109. 8:17You get past it, round the corner of a stair tower, and flatten there.
110. 8:21Two caps stay in the doorway, one with the bar. A man in a dark jacket walks out into the rain.
111. 8:28Past you. Close enough to touch. You only see his back.
112. 8:32Thirty steps up the road, to the truck with the mast.
113. 8:35The man who shut Ines out. Who asked about your feet.
114. 8:40The wrench comes up.
115. 8:41Teo's hand closes on your arm.
116. 8:43Two caps. A bar. Thirty steps of open road. One shout, and you both die at his door.
117. 8:51Not tonight, Teo tells you. Not like this.
118. 8:55At the truck, the rear doors open. A lamp. A man sits down at the microphone.
119. 9:00Teo turns his radio on, low, his hand cupped over it.
120. 9:05Bring a yellow beanie to the stadium gate. Whoever brings him comes inside.
121. 9:10He means you.
122. 9:11He is not sending his men.
123. 9:13He is sending everyone else.
124. 9:16He has never needed a gun.
125. 9:18Now he has the whole city.
126. 9:21Beside you, Teo opens his bag. He takes out the navy cap.
127. 9:27And puts it on.