by Chris Lowry
She slapped both hands together in a loud clap.
“And I’d be stuck up there. With Ralph.”
They heard a gunshot echo through the glass, bouncing off the concrete walls outside. There were a couple of dull concussions above them, muffled, but loud enough to still make them twitch.
“Looks like he found the gun,” Carrie said in a sad voice.
“Who is Ralph?” asked Rat.
“Her pimp,” Jess sneered.
“My boyfriend,” Carrie corrected. But there wasn’t much conviction behind it.
“Who pimped you out.”
“You’re a hooker?” Rat asked in wonder.
“No,” Carrie ducked her head. She looked on the verge of tears but fought them back.
“He traded her for food,” Jess snapped. “With Henry. Now, no more Henry, no more food.”
“Plus he was looking at Jess,” Carrie added. “She’s only fourteen.”
More gunshots rattled the windows and echoed in the hallway outside their door. Muffled, still one floor up, but closer. Louder.
“So your jealous pimp...”
“Boyfriend.”
“Armed boyfriend is shooting his way through a zombie infested hallway to come after you?”
It was Taylor’s turn to raise an eyebrow. He tried to arch it, but that had never worked for him. Instead of looking skeptical, he looked surprised, which wasn’t as good.
“We have food to trade,” Rat tried not to sound too hopeful. “And we did save your life.”
“Disgusting,” spat Jess.
“Lives,” Rat leered at her.
“How good of a shot is he?” Taylor tried to keep them focused on the rampaging maniac with a gun.
“He’s a cop.”
“Was a police officer,” Carrie corrected her sister.
“Pimp cop? That sounds like a bad 70’s flick. I think we found donuts in the cabinets.”
“What was the plan?” Taylor asked ignoring him.
“Plan?”
“Get away,” Jess sniffed.
“Then what?”
“Get away. From here,” she indicated the window and the city beyond.
Taylor nodded. It’s what a lot of survivors wanted, he thought.
To get the hell out of Dodge, though in this case Dodge was Dallas.
“Our grandparents had a farm,” Carrie started to say.
“Carrie!” Jess cut her off.
“What?”
“We don’t know them.”
“They saved our lives.”
“We saved your lives,” Rat parroted.
“Ut-shay up-ay on the arm-fay.”
“I speak Pig Latin,” Rat flicked his tongue over his chapped lips. “Vou le vou couche avecc moi?”
“Rat.”
“What man, I’m just fooling around?” he turned up the wattage on his leer. “Unless, you know, you want to fool around.”
“I think I’m going to vomit,” Jess gagged. “I just threw up in my mouth.”
“You learn to ignore him.”
“We won’t be around that long. You said the stairs were clear?”
“They were on the way up.”
“Then we’re leaving in the morning.”
Jess crossed her arms over her chest and set her jaw. A muffled gunshot vibrated the ceiling.
“How many zombies were up there?”
Carrie shrugged.
“Maybe twenty.”
“Twenty trades?” Rat snickered. “How much food did you get?”
Taylor concentrated and used the tip of one finger to count on the other.
“Eight shots so far. If he’s good at headshots and he has enough bullets, he could be here before morning.”
Blam. Jess narrowed her eyes.
“How long do you think?”
Bam.
“Ten minutes?”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“He watched me go over,” Jess confessed.
“He didn’t try to stop you?”
“I blocked the door.”
“Smart.”
Taylor used his elbows and heels to push off the wall and tried to gear up. It was difficult with his hands and he almost dropped the rifle.
“What are we doing?” Rat stayed seated but pulled his gear in closer.
“Time to move.”
“Where?”
Rat crawled up the wall as two more gunshots bounced around outside.
“Somewhere not here.”
“You could just give us a gun,” Jess helped Carrie up.
“Yeah, we could trade,” Rat giggled.
Taylor shook his head.
“This is where we part ways. Zombies are enough to deal with.”
“You can’t leave us helpless,” Jess pleaded.
“We can’t leave them helpless,” Rat added.
Taylor tried to grip his rifle, but couldn’t close his fists.
“She’s not helpless,” he nodded toward the young girl with his chin. “She stole your knife.”
Rat patted the empty sheath on his leg.
“When did you?”
Jess held up the eight inch blade by the tip to show it to him.
“That’s not a knife,” she smirked and flicked her wrist.
The knife tumbled end over end and lodged into the plaster next to Rat’s head. He yelped.
“That’s a knife,” Carrie grunted.
She rushed Taylor, slammed into his chest and knocked him back into the wall. She yanked the rifle from his crippled hands and aimed it at the two men.
“Good work,” Jess said.
She grabbed their backpacks and the duffle bag full of SWAT weapons.
“Don’t try to follow us,” Carrie warned.
She and Jess backed toward the front door.
“But? We saved your lives?” Rat whined.
Taylor wasn’t sure which reason made it worse. The loss of food or the opportunity for carnal pleasure.
“Check it,” Jess said.
Carrie opened the door and stuck her head into the hallway and back in fast.
“So far, so good.”
“Go.”
Taylor and Rat watched the women back into the hallway and disappear behind the closed condo door.
Rat yanked his knife out of the wall and wiped the plaster on his pants leg.
“Let’s go get them,” he snarled.
He took a step, grunted and toppled to the floor as his weight hit the injured ankle and collapsed.
“Or we wait,” he whimpered through clenched teeth.
“We have back up,” Taylor said.
He reached behind his back and fumbled a pistol from the waistband.
“And this.”
Another gunshot echoed in the hallway outside the door.
“We might need it.”
Taylor offered a forearm to Rat and helped him up.
He traded the pistol he couldn’t use for an arm over his shoulder. He figured he would make a better crutch with his hands and Rat could handle the shooting.
If it came to that.
Neither man said a word as they hobbled toward the door and listened through the wood.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The door smashed in and slammed the two men to the carpeted floor.
Ralph stepped on top of the wood and crushed them under his size eighteen combat boots.
"Where are they."
Taylor wasn't sure if a person was supposed to growl like that, but the sound of his voice matched the way he looked.
The guy was six six and had to tip the scales at two fifty. None of it flab, or if there had been a layer on top of the muscle, the Z apocalypse burned it off.
His muscles danced under his tattooed skin like giant snakes moving under a taunt tarp.
He held a giant Magnum revolver in one hand, but didn't aim it at the two men.
Taylor thought it must be empty because he counted six shots in the hallway before the door did its be
st imitation of a flying carpet.
That didn't mean the dude couldn't use the oversized butt of the pistol like a hammer and crack open their skulls.
Hell, he didn't even need the pistol. He could use his ham sized fists.
"They went That away!" Rat pointed to the empty doorframe he had just created.
The glazed eyes of the boyfriend pimp sized them up, and Taylor was only slightly disappointed he found them wanting.
The giant glanced over his shoulder. He didn't pass the girls in the hall, and he didn't shoot them since they were zombies.
That could only mean.
"The stairs," he grunted.
Rat nodded, then added a "Yeah," for emphasis.
Taylor watched the wheels turn as the intruder stalker tried to decide his next course of action.
His giant hands raised the pistol, cocked back the hammer with a loud click and pointed it at him.
He pulled the trigger and it slapped home.
Taylor didn't flinch.
It wasn't that he was trying to play it cool.
The whole action took less than a second, so he really didn't have time to assess or react.
The guy lifted a gun, pulled the trigger and it snapped empty.
Then the giant turned the barrel and peered down into it, as if he couldn't understand the offense.
"You lucky mother-" he grunted and turned back out into the hallway.
Rat and Taylor listened to the thump of his bootsteps retreat down the hallway toward the stairwell.
Rat let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.
"Can you believe that?"
Taylor shoved back against the door and realized he felt like pissing. He was surprised it didn't cut loose during the whole aiming a gun at his head thing that went on, but again, it happened so fast, there just wasn't enough time for it.
"Do we stay or do we go now?"
CHAPTER TWELVE
“What now?” Rat whispered.
They had heard Ralph pound down the hallway, but it felt better to stay on the quiet side.
“That farm sounded nice.”
“They didn’t tell us where it was,” Rat reminded him.
“Maybe not that one in particular, but any farm will do. Think about it. We find one with a well so there’s water. I don’t know if cows and pigs are infected, but maybe chickens. We get chickens for eggs and grow some vegetables. It will be little house on the prairie.”
“I don’t know how to grow a garden, and the only chicken I like is original recipe.”
“We learn,” Taylor sighed. “I bet before all this started you didn’t know how to kill zombies, right?”
Rat nodded and licked his lips.
“But you’re still alive. I’m still alive,” he indicated his hands and Rat’s ankle. “Maybe not as whole as we could be, but alive. If we’re breathing, there’s hope. A farm has lots of space to see stuff coming. Maybe there’s a barn.”
“For the cows?”
“To tear down and build a big fence.”
“I like that better.”
Taylor shoved up off the wall.
“Then let’s get moving.”
He thought about offering a forearm to help Rat up, but the other man just pushed off from his knees and wobbled to his feet.
“We grab the back up bag, get more supplies from another condo and make a run for it.”
“Umm,” Rat held out his foot. “No running for me.”
“I meant figuratively. By run, I was talking about finding a car.”
“We should get a truck,” Rat licked his lips. “Farms have trucks.”
“Truck, car, tank, so long as it moves and can get us the hell out of here.”
Taylor shook his head as they looked into the living room and the nest of pillows and blankets. There wasn’t much to gather, so he just turned and led Rat into the hallway as the limping man hummed some violent femmes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Damn it Rat,” he muttered as they descended the stairs and listened for signs of Zombies and the angry giant boyfriend.
“What did I do?” Rat hobbled beside him, relying on the railing and trying to keep most of his weight off of his injured foot.
He mostly succeeded, but every so often let out a gasp as he dropped the toe for balance.
“I’ve got that song stuck in my head now.”
They had the one weak flashlight left, the more powerful Maglite going with the girls when they stole the rest of their stuff.
The meager beam barely cut through the Stygian darkness of the stairwell, and Taylor kept it trained on the few steps in front of them so they could keep their footing certain.
He didn’t want any other thing in the stairs to see the light and come investigate.
“It’s a good song, though, right?” Rat snickered in the darkness. “You’ve just got to let me know.”
He hummed the refrain, and Taylor joined him, both keeping it low and quiet.
It helped.
The darkness, being robbed, accosted by the pistol wielding madman and the ever present threat of zombies kept the tension ratcheted up to eleven.
Taylor tried to let the moment last, to stretch it out so Rat wouldn’t think about his ankle, and he could ignore his hands.
But soon enough they were on the second floor and the condo where they had hidden the cache of weapons.
He felt along the wall until his finger gripped the doorknob.
“You ready for this?”
Rat didn’t answer.
“If you’re nodding your head, I can’t see in the dark. You have to say it.”
“Oh yeah. I’m ready.”
Taylor twisted the knob and jerked the door open, ready for what was on the other side.
It was empty.
The black bag was still on the couch.
“Come to papa,” said Taylor.
They hobbled across the floor and he tossed Rat down next to the bag, then looked at his clawed hands.
“Guess you’re on weapons duty.”
He went into the kitchen, but the cabinets were bare from their first visit, the contents now resting in a backpack currently with the two women they had saved.
Rat racked the slide on a Glock and shoved a freshly loaded magazine into another one. He was planning to keep a back up piece so that if someone took his first one, he could use the other or at least have it in case he needed it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They two men stood on the balcony looking down at the pool deck fifteen feet below.
“We could make it,” Taylor guessed.
“I don’t think I can man.”
The tables were gone, knocked over by the zombie herd that chased their noise into the area.
They could see both of them, one on its side, the other turned upside down next to it.
The chairs were still stacked, and knocked over as well.
“It’s concrete man,” Rat continued. “I won’t make it.”
Taylor grunted.
“You could just leave me here?” Rat suggested.
But he didn’t mean it and Taylor could tell.
“Don’t start trying to be noble now, you perverted bastard.”
Rat grinned and licked his lips.
“Yeah, it didn’t even sound right when I said it in my head.”
“We’ll go through the lobby.”
Taylor led him out of the condo. They still had to adopt the weird shuffle they used going down the first eleven flights of stairs, with Taylor acting as a crutch, and Rat holding the rifle at ready.
