been eating well.
“Da… Don’t shoot me.” She managed finally.
He fumbled with the lock on the door for a few seconds and then opened it and came out.
He kept the shotgun pointed in her general direction.
“What do you want?”
“I… I just was…” she realized that her voice was muffled with the mask on and she quickly took it off without thinking.
The man raised the shotgun defensively at her sudden movement and she thought that he was going to pull the trigger for sure. She tried not to think of the blood she’d just smeared across the side of her face while taking off the mask and raised her hands to show that she wasn’t a threat.
“I was trying to get through to the front of the building from the fire escape.” Something seemed to change in him when he saw her face. She knew she was a mess, covered with infected blood, beaten and bloody herself from the ordeal on the roof.
“And those?” he asked, pointing the gun at the swords, but his defenses seemed to be down a bit. He almost looked sorry for having pointed the gun at her. Men, she thought; see a pretty face and they turn to mush.
“I didn’t think anyone was…” she started, but found quickly that she didn’t quite know how to finish that.
“Alive?”
“I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t think anyone would be.”
“Where did you come from?” he asked a little more forcefully than she liked, but he did have the gun, after all.
“I lived two buildings down.”
“Bullshit!”
“No, really, I lived there with my husband.”
“And where is he?”
“He…” she started, but again couldn’t finish. He was dead, her Alex, gone; maybe he’d even become one of those things in the streets outside.
“They got him.” He offered.
Vicky just nodded and put her head down to hide the tears. She didn’t want to appear weak to a total stranger, especially in these times.
She and Alex hadn’t seen other living people in too long. The city was so overrun. They had known that the likelihood that there would be other survivors holed up in some of the adjacent buildings was moderately high, but Alex didn’t want to look beyond where they were staying. He said that it was too risky. He told her that in situations like these people sometimes took what they wanted and killed whoever got in their way. He didn’t want to have to defend her from the infected and crazed, starving survivors as well.
“Look, you can have your stuff back. I’ll just go.”
“Relax.” He said finally, and he seemed at least a little relieved. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I’ll just go then.” She said and started to back toward the window. The confined space between a kitchen counter and a table that stuck out of the wall above a radiator was a bit tight for her liking at that moment. She hadn’t even noticed it coming in, but now it would make escape difficult if things went badly. She felt claustrophobic and close to panic, but also tired and half willing to see what it was he was offering. She needed to clean up and rest, but could she trust him?
“Wait.” He said, seeming afraid suddenly – perhaps to be alone again so soon after finding another living human. “Where are you going to go?”
“The gun shop.”
“On the corner?”
Vicki nodded.
“Understandable.” He remained silent for a few seconds, and then said, “Look, I’ve got the run of four apartments here. I knocked out some walls. The exits are heavily fortified.”
“And you just want me to stay here?”
“Well it’s a bit less crazy than going out there.”
Vicky hated him suddenly and she put her head down before it had time to show on her face. He was standing in her way, even if he didn’t try and force her to stay. He was an obstacle. She didn’t know exactly what her plans had been, but it involved getting to the gun shop, arming up as heavily as she could and going out in the streets and killing as many of the damned infected as she could. And it probably ended in her death eventually. She didn’t want to go on without Alex. She was used up. There was just no hope.
But here hope was, staring her in the face, daring her to go through with her little suicide mission. If she went anyway, he might want to tag along, and then she wouldn’t just be committing suicide anymore. Would it be murder then? Could she live with that?
“Before you say no, at least stay the night.”
“But the street is clear now out front.”
“I can clear the street any time I want.” He said and crooked smile lit him up with pride just then.
“How?” she asked, doubtful.
“Come with me.”
II
Randal stood on the bottom landing of the fire escape to the building he’d just raided for supplies. Though he was being quite honest with himself, and the reason behind this little excursion had not been to get supplies. He had plenty.
The real reason had been murder, and boredom.
It was something he’d always needed to hide before.
You couldn’t go on living in this world of sheep if they knew you were a wolf. One or two sheep could find out, sure. They were sheep, after all. But if more than you could quickly silence figured it out, well then you were dealing with too many and they could silence you.
When the outbreak got out of control, he honestly thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Not that he believed in that place. And if it existed it was surely just for the sheep of the world.
He decided suddenly that he’d reached the perfect moment and dropped down on to the unsuspecting zombie below. There were five in the alley.
He could actually hear bones break as his feet connected with the walking rotted corpse and it stumbled forward and fell to its knees.
Two of them lunged at him immediately, and damn they were fast when they wanted to be.
The one on the ground didn’t get up right away. He’d broken something important to it’s being able to stand upright apparently and this made him smile.
He swung hard with the combat knife he’d stolen from a local army/navy store and shoved the blade right into the creature’s brain. Then he turned and reared back with his right leg and stomped the second offender right in the chest. It went sprawling backward.
The other two in the alley didn’t close in on him like he’d expected and he was more than disappointed. Perhaps they were too far gone. He’d noticed that some of them didn’t retain their ability to move quickly. Those ones were usually eaten by the others. These two had somehow avoided that fate.
During the brief moment while he gawked at the two zombies who seemed to care less that he was not only in the alley with them, still alive and breathing, but had just killed two of their comrades, one of the other three informed him that he had only killed one with a groan.
He turned to see one crawling towards him and the other, standing once again, close enough to bite him.
He pushed the closest away and leapt upon the crawling one, stabbing over and over until a couple of hits had severed bits of the spinal column and it could no longer use its arms or legs. Apparently some things in the body still worked like living parts.
The other closed in quickly and he stabbed it in the chest. It didn’t really do much. The heart didn’t seem to matter in these things.
He pulled it out and smashed the thing in the face with the butt of the knife.
This got a very human reaction from the creature.
A stoned look of dumb shock crossed its face and he felt something within him stir. This was something he had been missing. It was, in fact, probably the closest thing to fear that he was going to encounter coming from those things.
He lunged with renewed ferocity and stabbed at the creature with a surge of energy, the likes of which he had not felt in weeks.
The other two did take notice now and began to shuffle his way.
He took them out with as much spe
ed and accuracy as he could manage. He shocked himself and marveled all the while at how fast and efficient he was. He wondered though, if he would be so efficient any longer at taking out humans. It had been a while, and these things barely fought back half the time.
As he stood there, he realized that things had just taken a turn for the worse for him and he sighed.
He had been fooling himself, but no more.
All this time since the outbreak he had considered this his world. He’d told himself that he was happy to be able to kill without having to dispose of the body. He could leave it in the middle of the street if he chose. There were no longer things to worry about like DNA evidence or crimes scenes investigated, no detectives to search for clues or police to arrest him when and if any were found. He didn’t have to worry about being seen either. Even if there were still people alive out there, they wouldn’t judge him for taking out a few of the undead.
Living people: He could no longer hide from himself that they were what he had been missing.
Then a nearby building collapsed. He’d been aware of its burning for the last few hours, because he had set the fire. The thought of the zombies burning up in there had excited him. He hadn’t expected it to go down like that though. He’d set fires in buildings all over the city.
It was the woman on the roof that got him moving again.
He only saw her for a brief couple of moments as she came back to the edge to observe the building she’d just escaped.
Had he almost killed a living person just then and not realized it?
The excitement he felt right then was like nothing he’d felt since the outbreak had begun.
He could feel what he once had again, this person was the key. Maybe he would start by trying to gain her trust, making her see him as a fellow survivor and friend. He didn’t know if he was strong enough after so much time for the slow tormenting buildup of anticipation to drag it out for too long, but he could still have fun with it for sure.
He quickly ran toward the building. Undead were starting to surround the place, but he took a few out here and there as he ran through them. They were still in large groups, not yet coming at him in full force, and as long as he could keep that a steady fact, he might just be alright.
The result was that most of the zombies were beginning to follow him to the back side of the buildings. They began to congregate, forming one big group, which was not the best outcome.
Once he reached the far side he saw her for just a couple of seconds before she disappeared through a window of the next building down. It was definitely a woman. Women had been his favorite. And this one was resourceful. She’d be a challenge.
The zombies were closing in now and there were far too many to handle.
The fire escape on this particular building was up and the bottom was too far away to get to. But the building next to it was still accessible through a ground level door that looked to have been kicked in some time ago.
It took Randal fifteen minutes to get to the roof. The building was now crawling with undead as well. How it had managed to stay empty this long was beyond him anyway, and it didn’t matter. If that woman had made it to the other building, he could too. And he’d hopefully leave the undead behind while doing it.
The roof access didn’t close behind him in time, however, and they poured through after him.
He was forced to make the leap over to the nearby building without any forethought and he almost didn’t make it.
Standing there, on the edge of the building a few seconds later, he didn’t think that the zombies would be able to follow him across. He doubted that they lacked the coordination or intelligence to make the leap.
There were loud booming stomping sounds from the other building and he watched the door over there, fearful of what may have followed him that could make that much noise just climbing stairs.
And then the door flew open and several zombies were thrown aside.
He watched in horror as a large muscle-bound freak of a zombie tore through five or six others, just a few yards away from him and threw them in different directions. In blind rage it grabbed one and ripped it in half with minimal effort.
Drenched in blood, it roared and its eyes locked with his.
There was intelligence in that stare, and this thing was obviously very fast and strong.
Randal backed up and waited for the beast to come at him.
***
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