and I was falling. My brain sped up and wasted a blink of time thinking it was either termites or dry rot that had weakened the board, then my feet and legs were thrashing at the infecteds’ eye level. The rafter that had snapped had a couple of exposed nail heads and my rifle’s sling had caught on one of them, arresting my fall as the sling tightened around my chest and left shoulder and pinned the rifle tight to my body. Hands immediately started grabbing at my feet and legs, pulling hard. I started kicking, swinging from the single point where I was hanging from the nail and I must have looked like a big, delicious piñata to the infected. I grabbed an adjacent rafter and tried to pull myself back into the attic but every time I gained a few inches one of the infected got a good purchase on one of my boots and pulled me back down. Rifle uselessly stuck against my body, I drew my pistol and started firing into the faces looking up at me. I burned through 16 quick rounds and the bodies were piling up, but that just gave a boost to the infected that were flooding into the room and climbing on top of the ones I had killed. Hands were now up to mid-thigh and I could feel hungry mouths biting into my heavy combat boots. The thought of hands reaching higher and finding my balls caused a shiver to start at the base of my spine and go all the way up. Still kicking and trying to swap magazines in my pistol one handed I almost freaked out when hands grabbed me under my arms and started pulling.
