The Dream World Collective

43. On the Brink

Otto hummed contentedly as he burrowed a space for himself among the heaps and precarious piles that loomed in the weak sunlight of the basement. Exploring this place would be a wonderful side project once the electricity came on. But not yet.

"To business!" he declared to Gizmo, whom he'd sent back downstairs in the dumbwaiter as an advance scout. "First we need a base of operations. Hmm..."

The basement warren of old furniture, tools, sacks, and miscellaneous hoards was centered on an old furnace. Duct-work and pipes spidered through the half-finished ceiling. Otto looked around, a hand to his chin as he drifted in deep thought.

"Proximity to the dumbwaiter is a must," he concluded. "Plus then I could use one of those sacky things as a beanbag." His head turned up sharply to look at Gizmo. "What do you mean, what sacky things? The sacks, of course. Silly rabbit."

He forced his way through the hoe, the waxy thing, and the tickly ceiling-hanging object toward the sacks and dumbwaiter. As he went he shoved blindly at the obstacles in an attempt to widen the gap. The hoe fell and hit him in the shoulder.

"Ow! The heat of a thousand suns blacken you!"

He grappled with it, taking a few more blows in the process, and hurled it over something into a pile of something else farther back in the shadows. Something fell over, but it sounded like the hoe. The waxy obstacle had barely budged, and it was the main choke point on the way to the future site of the base of operations. It was at least four feet tall and two feet wide, smooth and cylindrical.

"What do you think, Gizmo?" asked Otto. "Obviously it's a bother, but it would sure slow down a zombie horde." He paused, then responded. "Not necessarily. Certain zombies move very quickly. It all depends on what sort of zombifying agent or pathogen you're dealing with." He paused again. Then, "Good point. This place would be the worst for a last stand. Plus the tower has better sight lines, and we could always take out the spiral stairs as a last resort. I say we get rid of this thing. We can put up traps later, just in case."

Otto did his best to grab hold of the huge waxen object, but there was no good handhold and the waxy surface was slippery and, for some reason, just a touch disturbing. The only alternative, though, was to disentangle and move an interlocked structure of old dining room chairs behind him, and they were brushing the ceiling. Definitely a non-starter. Otto steeled himself, took a deep breath, and charged into the huge waxy object, yelling, "By Grabthar's Hammer!"

He hurled his full weight into it. It budged. Armed with new hope, Otto grabbed the top edge and pulled hard. It almost budged.

"I felt it!" he cried. "It almost moved. Hmph," With a grunt of effort, he yanked it again. "Hrrgh!" He leaned back, hanging his weight off the object. It tipped about an inch off the floor. Then brilliance struck. Otto let it fall and hurled his body weight against it to tip it backwards under its own momentum. It worked.

"Yes! I'm a genius! Didn't I tell you I'm a genius? No?" Gizmo remained unresponsive, at least as far as he could tell. "Well, I am. Watch this."

He leaned back again, letting the huge item fall further toward himself, then continued rocking it forward and back and forward, shoving it with all his weight to build momentum. Within moments it reached the tipping point.

"Victory! I am the—oh noes! Reflex save, reflex save!"

The huge round waxy weight began falling onto him. He stumbled back against the wall of dining room chairs.

"Gah! It got me! Gizmo," he gasped. "Tell my wife...there is another...Sky...walk...er."

It was crushing him. The chairs began creaking under the combined weight of Otto and his wax nemesis. Thinking quickly, he tipped slowly sideways. The huge cylinder tipped with him, then rolled off his belly and fell toward the pile of sacks. With a final surge of adrenaline, Otto rammed into the near end. Grunting as his feet slipped and scrabbled on the floor, he managed to slide the object clear by sheer brute force.

He stepped into the relatively open space in front of the sacks to examine it. Now that he could see it properly, it only took a moment to figure out what the object was, though it took him a little longer to believe it.

"Wax paper?" he exclaimed. "Gizmo! It's a roll—no, a huge bale of wax paper!" He clapped a hand to his forehead. "Great Scott! I have to find out what something like this is worth. And where it's from. I don't think they've made rolls this big since...Atlantis!" Reflexively he slipped into a surprisingly good Indiana Jones voice. "It belongs in a museum."

He sat down at his control center to search out the mystery of the wax paper bale and to start putting together a 3D model of his basement, and order the necessary imaging and surveillance components from a cheap online supplier he knew.

Then it hit him.

He had no computers.

There was no electricity.

He was sitting on a sack of—he glanced down—spelt.

In front of him, where he should have had three widescreens and processing power equal to, say, Sweden, was a huge bale of wax paper.

His eyes grew very, very wide.