Decision time

The zombies have been bashing against this door for what seems like forever, and I don't know how much longer I can hold them back. Besides, it's getting dark and I'm not sure if the Coast Guard would even be able to find me up here on the library rooftop once the sun goes down.

I take a look at the skylight where my cell phone disappeared and wonder what my chances would be of surviving a fall from that height should I slide down it myself and jump off the side of the building. There are trees adjacent to this side of the building, I remember suddenly. If I can use them to break my fall...

The moaning is getting louder. The ghouls are trying now - I shouldn't say "try" because there's no conscious effort here, just unremitting, unrelenting bottomless insatiable hunger - to use sheer volume to force open the door. It's only a matter of time, I realize, and that's when I make my decision.

When I stop pushing back against the door it flies open, disgorging a clutch ravenous moaning zombies onto the roof. I only have this one opportunity before they surround me and devour me right there on the spot. Taking a deep breath, I fling myself onto the skylight closest to me and slide down the roof, hoping that the glass panes will support my weight as I do so. The ghouls do their best to follow but the physics of this convex slick surface confound their animal instinct and they veer off far to the right and the left of where I come to rest against the rooftop's edge.

The trees are close but not that close, and it's a long way down even from their lowest branches. I curse the groundskeepers of Harvard Yard and leap into the evening gloom...

CRASH! I land smack in the middle of a tangle of branches that give under my hurtling mass, snapping around me and tearing my flesh as I fall through the leaves and shoots. Vainly I reach out for something to break my fall but there is only air for a sickening full second before I hit the grassy loam with enough velocity that it feels like pavement. Pain arcs through my left leg as I jam it upon impact. Please let me be able to walk on it, I think to myself, but in truth that wasn't really a concern. As long as I hadn't snapped the damned thing in half, I would not only walk on my hobbled leg but run... as fast as I could.

For a moment I thought of looking for my cell phone, but thought better of wasting those few precious moments on such a silly notion. This wasn't some cliched B movie I had found myself in the middle of, after all!