Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

and dragging herself up to lie horizontally across the top of it like I had done.
    “Thanks, Jason,” I whispered, before getting myself into a sitting position. “Come on, Winky. Let’s get up in that friggin tree.”
    She went up on her hands and knees, breathing heavily, and crawled across the top of the wall behind me. It was too narrow for me to feel comfortable doing that, but Winky was smaller than me, so she did it well and with excellent balance. It was impressive as hell, but I didn’t have time to comment or fully appreciate the skill it took. I was too worried we were going to be seen.
    As soon as we got to one of the huge tree branches that overhung the wall, I grabbed it and stood up, using the branch to keep myself steady as I moved towards the tree’s trunk.
    “You first,” I whispered once we were there, leaning back a bit to give Winky more room to climb. She stepped up on the first branch, using the others just above as ladder rungs.
    “How high?” she whispered.
    “High enough that they won’t see you but so that you can still spy on them,” I said. I silently urged her to hurry up, fluttering my hands, sure the dogs would be back soon.
    As soon as her legs were out of my way, I started climbing too. I was three branches into my ascent when I heard one of the sliding glass doors at the back of the house opening.
    I froze in place except to grab Winky’s ankle to keep her from moving. She looked down at me, her eyes as big as saucers, nodding slightly.
    The next thing we heard was a large, juicy burp. It made my lip curl in distaste, reminding me of the canners I’d had close encounters with before. They were all disgusting pigs as far as I was concerned. The next sound we heard was a loud fart and a groan of relief, followed by a voice.
    “Jesus, Dave, that was fucking disgusting. Warn me next time, asshole, so I don’t have to walk through your goddamn fart smoke.”
    Another fart came, this time followed by the laughter of someone else - presumably the guy with the gas problems.
    “Fuck you, Dave,” said the original voice. His expletives disappeared behind the sound of the sliding door opening and closing again.
    Then we heard a knocking on the glass and the growling second voice. “Open the door, dickweed.” After a pause we heard the voice again, only this time it sounded angry. Really angry. “Open it, faggot , or I’ll smash it in and slice your throat open with the glass.”
    The door slid open and closed again, leaving the backyard in silence. Just before the door closed, though, I heard some yelling and furniture being shoved around.
    Winky looked down at me as if she were going to say something, but I shook my head, motioning upwards with my finger. We were too low right now. I was afraid they were going to see us. This guy Dave was definitely not someone I wanted to tangle with. I had a feeling he was the famous Loco that Celia had warned me about.
    Once we were high enough up that I felt shielded from the view of anyone below, I got up close to Winky. There were still no dogs in sight, but Buster had gone quiet. Please, please, let Buster and Peter and Bodo be okay .
    Winky leaned in to my ear. “That was close.”
    “Yeah. Tell me about it,” I whispered back. “Can you see anything from up here?” I looked through the leaves, but much of my view was blocked by the thick foliage. I caught glimpses of the sliding glass door and an area around the pool. I could even see part of the building next to the pool, but that was it.
    “Not much,” she said. “If I can get over there, it would be better.” She gestured to an area out on a limb. The thought of her being way out there made me too nervous.
    “If someone sees you up there you’ll have nowhere to hide or escape to in time. Stay by the trunk so you can hide behind it and jump over the wall if you need to.”
    “What about there?” she asked, pointing to another limb, this one closer to the edge of the wall.
    I thought about it for a second and then nodded. “Go for it. But if you think anyone sees you, drop over the wall and run. Don’t break an ankle and don’t wait for me. Go a few houses down and hide behind some bushes for at least fifteen minutes before coming back. If you see any canners out, signal the others.”
    We’d practiced hand signals as part of our workouts, and everyone but Peter, Bodo, and I was really good at birdcalls. They already had rudimentary communication figured out