Week 21: The Great Escape Revisited

By the time we finished working on the van there was the population of a small country waiting outside the warehouse. Their pounding on the walls was like constant thunder. We hardly got any sleep last night and we can not afford to stay another night.

The main problem with our escape is the fact that we will have to open one of the roller doors. The doors operate on a pulley chain. Pull the chain down and the door goes up… very slowly. And whoever is pulling the chain will be exposed the whole time.

This was not the only problem facing us. The warehouse is huge and zombies surround it. There are a lot of meat puppets out there but in an effort to cover the entire perimeter they have spread themselves thin. Once we open a door all of those zombies will quickly converge on that one opening and effectively clog the bottleneck that is created. The DeadDozer is new and improved but I’m not so certain it can plow through that kind of barricade.

Luckily the warehouse has more than just one roll-up door. It has eight in fact - four on the south wall and four on the north wall. I just have to figure out how to get them all to open up at once. And without someone standing in the open pulling on a damn chain.

This way the zombies will flood in from all directions. With any luck we will have our pick of exits.

…

It took a lot of work and planning but we did it. We made it out of the warehouse.

There was a large assortment of rope, come-alongs, and heavy auto parts laying around the warehouse. Using a come-along to ratchet it up high, we attached something extremely heavy (engine blocks, wheel axles, etc.) to the highest point of each pulley chain. We used the come-alongs to lift these objects and support their weight. Then we attached ropes to the release levers on each come-along for a total for eight ropes.

We positioned the van in the center of the warehouse and from it we pulled all eight of the ropes (four for me and four for Brenda). The come-alongs released, the heavy objects fell, pulling the chains down and raising the doors. Two of the chains got caught up and those doors didn’t open but the six that did were plenty. We hopped in the DeadDozer and plowed our way to safety. Couldn’t have been easier, right?

Oh yeah, and afterwards Brenda tried to kiss me. Out of instinct I resisted. It was awkward to say the least.