"Alright, where to next?" Max asked as I slung my backpack over my shoulder. It was just a little bit heavier than when I had set it down in the first place. This house was a bust. Two and a half bars of soap, one unopened toothbrush, some travel-size shampoo bottles, and a mostly gone stick of deodorant. All the clothing was worthless or already gone, and the food was absolutely rotten through. I shrugged and started out the front door.
"We'll go wherever our little hearts desire," I replied. The two of us were halfway across the front yard when I noticed we were missing a certain human. "Wait, we forgot Anthony." I hurried back to the front steps and stuck my head through the door. "Yo, Anthony! Come out front!" I hopped off of the porch and waited, Max keeping close to my side.
"You think he'll ever come out of this?" Gonzalez finally murmured. He wasn't referring to the house.
I glanced over at him. "I don't know," I let out a long breath, "He's been the same ever since the Fall." And, as if on cue, Anthony shuffled out of the house. His tired eyes scanned the street and then settled on us. He quietly walked over and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
"We're just going to go next door and look for more junk," I said, turning to go. He nodded and slouched after us. He wasn't unlike a zombie, with his eternally pale face and sunken-in eyes and his unfocused, often empty stare. The Fall had taken a toll on him-well, I guess it took a toll on all of us. It had taken everything from him, though. He seemed to be stuck; living, but not really alive.
Our footsteps crunched in the frosty grass as we walked, Anthony trailing behind us. Max whistled tunelessly and watched the white clouds drift from his lips. It was only a matter of time before another snowstorm hit. The first one had been just after the Fall took place and it had killed more than half of New York's population alone. Which, as horrible as it sounds, had been a blessing. Only half of the population was left to become infected.
I paused as the ground rumbled. We were almost to the next house, standing in the narrow space between the two fences. Max took another couple of steps and then stopped. The rumbling stopped as well, but I could see a dip slowly forming under Anthony's feet.
"Chilled, come to me very slowly." I whispered, as if how much noise I made was important. Anthony just stared at me. "This isn't a joke, man. Come here," I waved my hands, trying to show him how urgently he needed to move. The dip was only getting deeper. "You are standing over something very, very bad," I shuffled closer to him and held out a hand.
He glanced at his feet and then at my hand. He looked like a lost little kid in that moment. A crack rang out and the ground gave way underneath him. I lunged, my fingers catching on the edge of his sleeve. Max yelled something, but a roaring sound filled my ears and suddenly I was falling too. Anthony disappeared from my sight and so did everything else. But there was still a scrap of fabric tangled in my fingers. I felt for his hand and grabbed it, holding on for dear life. If we were buried, I couldn't let go of him.
Speaking of buried, I could hardly breathe. Not only were my nostrils full of dust, but the air reeked of something like a mixture of garbage disposal and maybe Diet Coke. Okay, probably not actual Diet Coke, but it was bad. Oh, and it also smelled like dead bodies.
Anyways, back to me being buried alive. I couldn't see, couldn't breathe, all I could taste was dust, my ears were ringing, and my lower half seemed to be in something wet. I think that covers all my senses. And also, I couldn't move. A wonderful situation if you ask me.
Chilled's fingers suddenly came to life and closed in a vice around my wrist. At least he was awake. I closed my eyes and let the waiting begin. Logically, even if Anthony did escape, he and Max would have a heck of a time digging me out. But, then again, Max's hidden mother bear instinct would kick in and he would probably have me out in no time. Speaking of Max, I could barely hear him shouting at me. The dirt and rocks around me vibrated with his footsteps and his voice almost reached my ears. He was probably telling me how stupid I was. And, for the first time in a long time, Anthony was yelling. His fingers clenched and unclenched around my wrist, digging his nails into my skin and making some pretty nice bruises. He suddenly hauled on my arm and I felt cold air against my fingertips. Apparently Chilled had some grizzly mama in him, too.
"Adam! Adam, please talk to me!" Max's deep voice finally came through. At the same time Anthony's grip slipped and his hand was gone. I tried to respond but nothing came out. I guess that was when I panicked. There wasn't enough air around me or outside or in the entire atmosphere that could supply my lungs and it wasn't sewage water my legs were stuck in, it was blood, and it wasn't dirt I was trapped under, it was a pile of bodies. A strangled cry left my throat and immediately I felt some of the weight being lifted. Fingers found my cheek a moment later and the dirt was scooped away, allowing the frigid air to meet my face. I gasped for air while more junk was pushed away from my neck.
"Oh, thank God," Max breathed. "Chilled, he's alive." Thumbs ran along my eyelids, getting rid of the dust that had caked my eyelashes and clung to my skin. I squinted in the gray light and found a concerned face peering down at me.
"Uh, hi," I rasped. I glanced down to find that I was still half-buried in the rubble; Max and Anthony had only dug out my head and some of my chest. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. Being buried alive was exhausting. And yeah, so was overreacting. I caught a little bit of a rest as Gonzalez and Chilled went back to digging, Max occasionally popping up to ask if I was okay. And, after what felt like an eternity, the two of them were hauling me out of the hole.
"I'm assuming we're not going hunting for more?" Max asked, giving a wry smile. He was looking around nervously, and for good reason. It was getting dark, and as the light faded so did the temperature. And being soaked from the waist down in poop soup didn't help matters either. The cold bit at my toes and numbed my feet. If we had to run from anything, it wasn't going to go well for me.
"No, I don't think we are." I stood up and made a futile attempt at squeezing some of the barf water out of my pants. "We need to go, though. I don't want to be eaten," I muttered as a cry rang out from down the street. Some zombies had most likely found a squirrel or something.
"Yeah, we do. Come on, Anthony. We're heading back home." Gonzalez waved Chilled over and we started in the opposite direction of the zombies. It was a longer route, but none of us really felt like fighting anything. So we trudged down a side street, my shoes and socks squashing and squelching with every step until finally they froze or all the water came out. Probably froze, since my pants got very, very crunchy. I'm sure that I reeked of whatever the hell I had fallen into, but I was too tired and hungry to care. I just wanted to curl up somewhere warm and die. Instead I was stuck walking down a deserted street with only three houses' worth of crap in my bag and dust coating literally everything I had. Eventually the suburbs became more urban and I could see home base looming a few blocks down. Home base being an apartment building we had commandeered.
I stumbled, the toe of my boot catching on a fallen lightpole. I hardly felt it. Now it wasn't Anthony that was the most zombie-like; it was me. I realized I was shambling along, just slapping my dead feet on the ground and forcing myself to keep going.
Max looked over at me, asking: "You good?"
I nodded tiredly and nearly tripped again. I stuffed my numb fingers into my pockets and drew my shoulders in. It was getting really, really cold, but Chilled and Gonzalez hardly seemed bothered by it.
He frowned, his full lips pouting. "You're not. Your lips are blue," he looked me over. "You're literally frozen, Adam! Why didn't you say anything?"
"We're almost there," I retorted, "Don't worry about it. I'll warm up when we get there."
"That's still two and a half blocks away. Come here." Max grabbed my backpack and started to pull it off. I tried to hold it on, clenching my arms at my sides, but he just pulled them away and took the bag and tugged the zipper open. "God, you smell like actual garbage. You're cleaning up when we get back, no questions asked." He dug out my gloves and handed them to me, then worked my blanket out of the bottom, ignoring the toiletries and other small things that fell out with it.
"Wait, we need that stuff," I started to bend to pick it up, but he forced me upright and wrapped the blanket around my shoulders.
"You work on warming up," he ordered as he knelt and started tossing things back into the bag. Shampoo, soap, deodorant, a Rubiks Cube, a pair of socks, a shoe insert, some sunglasses, and a packet of pens all found their way back into my backpack. Today's haul really hadn't been much, and I felt my stomach sink. We had been hoping for, even needing a lot more. My face must have shown it, because Max gave me a long look after he finally zipped up the bag and slung it over his own shoulder.
"You know there's always tomorrow. We'll just grab extra houses," he murmured.
"Yeah," I mumbled, "Yeah." We started to walk again, now trailing behind Anthony, who was nearly a block ahead of us. He actually knew his way around better than a lot of us did, but he didn't show it. He didn't show much of anything any more.
"He honestly scared me a little when we was screaming earlier," Max grinned, "It's been so long since he's spoken up that it was a shocker to hear him raising his voice." I played with the hem of my blanket, happy to be the one listening for once. "He really wasn't very stuck. I think you jumping at him kind of forced something in his brain to work, so he got out of it."
"Yeah, and he didn't end up in the poop soup," I grumbled.
"Poop soup," Max repeated, "I like it."
"You like it when you're not the one soaked in it," I shot back. He just shrugged and looked down the street, starting to whistle like he had earlier. It was almost completely dark at this point. I have to admit, though, I was feeling a little bit warmer. We walked the rest of the way back with only his whistling and my constantly crunching pants to accompany us. It was a good kind of companionship, just walking together. We finally reached the stairs a couple of minutes later.
"You good to get up there?" Gonzalez stopped and leaned against the railing. We had to climb eight flights of stairs to get to the floor that our group had claimed. He looked at me, his eyes glittering from the shadow of his brow. Light drifted down from above, casting an orange rectangle onto the ground around us.
I looked up and could see Chilled's shadow nearly to the top of the stairs. "I don't have a choice, do I?" I started up the steps, already hating the climb. This was going to suck some serious ass. As if my day hadn't sucked enough already.
"Not really," he followed my gaze up, his face illuminated by the yellow light for a moment. The dark circles under his eyes disappeared and it was difficult to see the smudges of dirt and grime across his face. He looked almost like he had before the Fall; young and alive. And then he looked back at me and the illusion was gone. He looked just like I did: tired, hungry, and eons older than before the Fall. But his eyes were still the same. Bright, alert, and warm. He paused and then quickly looked away. "I'm glad you're alive," he murmured, looking at me again.
"I know," my voice came out a lot quieter than I had intended it to. He nodded, chewing his lip. And then, as if on a little burst of courage, he stepped forward and hugged me. Quick, my chin bumping his collarbone and his arms wrapping around my shoulders, his cheek against my hair and my hands wriggled under his two bags. And then we were apart again, both a little bit more red in the cheeks.
I blinked and took another step up. "We gotta go, because Chilled may not tell them that we're down here." I blurted. Max nodded, taking the excuse eagerly. We both forced ourselves to take each step, finally getting to the eighth floor and shuffling into the main apartment. "Main apartment" being the place where we met, ate, and stored basically everything.
Eight faces stared at us when we walked in. Nogla and Sark were in the kitchen, Tyler was sitting at the dining room table, Chilled was leaning against the wall next to the door, Marcel and Craig were sitting on the floor holding sheets of music and Nogla's guitar, and Evan was sitting on the couch with his arm around Jonathan's waist. My stomach let out a loud growl when I smelled whatever it was that Nogla and Sark were making.
"Christ, what is that smell?" Delirious exclaimed. He sniffed a couple of times and his eyes zeroed in on me. "The fuck did you fall into? A goddamn toilet?"
Max took a breath to speak, but I beat him to it. "Yeah, actually, I did fall into a toilet. Took a nice swim because I felt like it, and then decided to keep all the same clothes on so that you guys could enjoy the perfume," I retorted, "I think I'm going to call this scent the 'Poop Soup No. 4,' but I'm not sure about the number, because this is only the first time I've fallen into a toilet. I'm surprised I didn't see you there, since you're such a piece of shit."
The shock in the room was almost palpable. Delirious looked ready to kill, his blue eyes shining and his dark lips pressed into a narrow line. Max moved a hand to rest in the middle of my back as Sark and Tyler exchanged a glance and burst into laughter.
"That is the best thing I've heard in a long time!" Tyler wheezed, "Way to go, Nanners!" The rest of the room broke into nervous laughter. I watched Nogla snap his mouth shut from its previously gaping position, then Marcel and Craig packed up Nogla's guitar and music and quietly stood up to leave. Evan was studying his nails intently to hide the smile threatening the corners of his mouth and Jonathan was still staring daggers at me.
"Sorry, it's been a bad day. Chilled can tell you what happened, if he hasn't already." Max spoke, ignoring the look that Anthony shot him, "We're going to go ahead and go now that you know we're alive," he guided me out the door and down the hall. The last thing I saw was a set of blue eyes digging into mine.
I must have fallen asleep on my feet because the next thing I knew I was opening my eyes to sunlight streaming onto my face. But what had woken me up was definitely not the sun on my face. Someone was banging on the front door to the apartment. I swung my legs out of bed and pulled one of the blankets off of the bed, wrapping it around my shoulders while I made my way to the living room. There was a lot of junk on my floor that normally wasn't there, I noticed. I opened the front door to Sark nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"Hi, Adam, sorry, sorry, sorry for waking you up, but it's kind of an emergency. Nogla's super sick. Like, maybe dying sick. So, uh, could I ask you to go look for medicine today? I know you're really sore and tired and you look like it but this is really urgent. You dig?" He rushed through the words, stumbling and stuttering and just trying to get it out.
"Yeah, yeah, it's good. I was going to go scavenging today anyways," I leaned against the doorframe and yawned. "What kind of sick?"
"He can't keep anything down. Not even water," Sark scratched the back of his neck. "It's like what Hutch had," he mumbled. And the rest of Sark's family, was what he left out. His wife and poor Atlas were both lying in shallow graves.
I changed the subject. "Have you searched everything we have?" I waved him inside and started to look for my backpack. "We may have picked something up yesterday," I paused when I saw that my bed was still made from the day before.
"Yeah," Sark agreed. I turned to see a shit-eating grin on his face. He motioned at me, saying: "Any reason why you're in Gassy's blanket? Is there something going on that I need to know about?"
"Uh, I actually don't know," I glanced down and the blanket actually was Max's Mexican flag blanket. Red and green covered my shoulders. "I'm pretty sure I passed out last night, so... Yeah," I shrugged. "Anyways, medicine." I stuck my head into Max's room and saw my backpack on the floor next to his bed. I snagged it and hurried back to Sark. All the items from the night before clattered onto the table. A bottle of Ibuprofen rattled out and rolled towards the edge. Sark snatched it up and stuffed it into his pocket. Nothing else was worth anything to Nogla.
"Thanks, man." Sark started for the door. I hurried after him, pausing to shove my feet into a pair of Reeboks next to the threshold.
"I'm coming with you," I quietly shut the door behind us and followed him down the hallway. Wind whipped past us, pressing Max's blanket to the backs of my legs and nearly stealing my breath.
I should probably explain our living situation. Pretty soon after the Fall we claimed a couple of floors of this apartment building. Back then we had so many more survivors and needed more than one six-apartment floor. But, now that people have died and/or left us, we only need this one floor. And, for a bunch of dudes stuck in the zombie apocalypse, we're actually living pretty well. Anyways, we have one apartment for storage and meetings. It's the first apartment by the stairs. Next door, in apartment 802, are Sark, Nogla, and Marcel. These are pretty nice apartments, so almost everyone gets his own room. They're closest to the storage because they do most of the food prep and organization for us, mainly because Marcel has asthma, Nogla trashed his ankle and can't get around well, and Sark is just old. (Sorry, Sark.) So they stay close and handle the "housework." Across the hall is 803. Evan and Delirious stay there. They claim to "renovate" a lot, which is their explanation for the headboard hitting the wall. Oops, did I say that out loud? Those two are the nastiest couple you'll ever come across. And, sadly, 804 is la casa de Nanners. My bedroom shares a wall with Evan's, making for some wonderful blackmail material. When I want blackmail. The rest of the time it's just gross listening to what goes on. And the other two bedrooms in mi casa belong to Anthony and Max, though basically the only time we spend in our place is sleeping time. We're out scavenging most days. And finally, all the way at the other end of the hall (two doors down), is 806. Craig and Tyler share that apartment mainly because Evan knows that Tyler's a threat to his leadership and wants him as far away as possible. Craig stays with Tyler because the two are, like, bromance supreme. Maybe a little more than bros, but nothing has been confirmed yet.
Thankfully the gangs that took over NYC were smart and didn't trash everything, so we still have running water and electricity. (Why are we, a bunch of Californians, in NYC? Simple: a gaming conference.) New York's power grid can actually take care of itself! (Until something breaks.) So we sometimes have access to the luxuries that we had before the Fall. "Sometimes" being when Evan is in a good mood/not around/busy with Jonathan. Evan thinks it's smart to keep us from those things because "We'll become too dependent" or "It'll attract attention." So we act like children and use those luxuries whenever the teacher isn't paying attention. If we have it, why not use it? Using the heat is so much better than sitting inside freezing. Besides, the dead of winter in New York isn't fun. One of us is probably going to die at some point.
"Can you go check the storage for more medicine? Ibuprofen will help, but we need more." Sark pointed down the hall. I nodded and jogged the rest of the way, my Reeboks squeaking and my joints creaking. (I'm no poet, but that was good. I'm really sore.) A burst of warmth met my face as I opened the door to 801. Evan, in all of his wise leadership, kept the heat on in 801 at all times. I breezed through the living room, ignoring Jonathan's glare and Craig's snicker.
I started in the bathroom, digging through the medicine cabinet and under the sink. Nothing. The first bedroom was used for clothing, which I dug through; emptying pockets and shaking out jackets and checking empty backpacks. Nothing. Second bedroom: canned goods. I opened boxes and shook empty tins and searched the dresser drawers. Nothing. The third bedroom was just junk we had found and wanted to keep. A few picture frames clattered to the floor, Nogla's guitar stuff gave a promising rattle that was only picks, and nothing else was worth searching. Nothing. The master bathroom had a first aid kit hidden under the sink. Bandages, gauze, tape, ace wraps, ice packs, a heating pad, Neosporin, a candy bar (it's mine now), and a bunch of other junk. But no dice.
I shut the box and shoved it back under the sink, then pulled Max's blanket tighter around my shoulders. We didn't have anywhere else that the medicine could be. I quietly left the room and, when I walked back into the living room, had an idea. Or, I guess, a suspicion. I hurried out the door and straight into someone's chest. Well, that someone was one of two people, and one of them was currently dying.
"Why are you in such a hurry?" Max looked me over and picked at the hem of his blanket. "So that's where this thing went," he gave me a look that I couldn't decipher.
"I'm checking on a whim," I tried to brush past him but he grabbed both of my shoulders and held me there.
"A whim?" He frowned. "What kind of a whim?"
"A dangerous one," I reached up and moved his fingers from where they were pressing on a bruise. He pulled me closer as a gust of wind whipped around us.
God, the sexual tension had to be high enough that everyone else could feel it too. Problem is, this homedog don't roll like that. He don't roll at all. I've never really felt sexual attraction to a person (probably why I'm so oblivious to, like, nothing), but I still feel romantic attraction. I'm literally a hopeless romantic because there ain't no sex to be had here. Sorry, TMI, anyways, Max pulled me practically into his chest because he feels for me but I don't feel the same and we both know that he knows I don't feel that but he still feels it because he's Max and Max doesn't take care of himself or his feelings when I'm around.
"Dangerous how?" He lowered his voice.
"Uh, if I told you then you'd know what I'm doing before I even do," I stepped away from him. "Because I just have a little idea, that's all."
"Then I'll come with you," he murmured. His tone didn't leave any room for argument.
"Okay, but we have to be quick. If this turns out to be worthless, then we have to get out and scavenge as soon as possible," I started towards 803.
"Is this about Nogla?" Max hissed. I shrugged and cracked the door open. The first thing I noticed was the heat that streamed out. The second thing was the sound of running water. The third thing was the scent of cigarettes. I hurried through the door, Max on my heels. I looked around the apartment while he shut the door.
Despite his type-A personality, Evan was obviously not a clean person. Or maybe it was entirely Delirious. Either way, the apartment was a dump. Cigarette butts and ash covered one of the end tables and the floor around it, the couch had various stains that I'm not going to identify, beer bottles littered the room, and more than one empty pill bottle was lying around. Filthy plates and other dishes were all around the kitchen, along with several piles of broken ceramic. To top it all off, Evan was loudly singing along with the music he had playing.
We both just stood there.
"So," I finally spoke up, "You want to tell me why I was in your bed?" I started to pick my way over to the kitchen.
"Uh," Gonzalez followed me.
"Uh? Are we Neanderthals again? What does 'uh' mean?" I glanced back at him. Despite his darker skin tone, he was bright red. Colorado would be the Spanish term. (I think) ((Sorry, I have to throw in some good old Español. This is the Gassy Mexican I'm talking about. Even though he's from Chicago.))
"Your room is particularly drafty," he mumbled, "and you were particularly cold," he scratched the back of his neck. "And my room is the quietest and farthest, so I had the heater on. And it's the master, so I had a lot less time spent moving you places."
I nodded, turning again to look at him. "Thanks," I fished the candy bar out of my pocket because I'm stupid and don't know how to properly thank someone. This was middle school all over again.
He took the candy and I quickly turned to start digging through cabinets. I found: junk, moldy food, stashed gold (literally), more junk, rat crap, at least seven condoms just lying around, an entire cabinet (not just a shelf; a cabinet) devoted to cigarettes, tons of random antidepressants, an economy sized bottle of Tums, even more junk, trash wrappers, a box of Twix bars, more pill bottles, and last but not least, a gigantic bag of weed. I grabbed the Tums and tried not to rattle them around as I started for the bathroom that wasn't currently in use.
My Reeboks immediately crunched as I stepped into the dark bathroom. I froze. The lights (these bums had, like, every light but this one on) revealed that the mirror was shattered all over the floor. I took one more noisy step and then opened the medicine cabinet. Several bottles of antibiotics and other various prescription drugs stared me in the face. I took all of them, handing a few to Max. Then I gingerly stepped out of the bathroom, only to freeze again when the shower shut off. We both rushed to the farthest unused bedroom and squeezed into the closet. Evan turned his music off as we jostled for room.
"Move your fat ass," I hissed, pushing Max away. He grunted and shoved me against the wall. We both winced as some of the pill bottles we were carrying rattled around.
"There isn't enough room, asshole," he shot back. I kicked his shin but didn't say anything else. We fell silent and listened. Evan was still singing and still in the master bedroom. We waited like that, tense and quiet and still. It seemed like hours passed until finally finally finally Evan left, slamming the front door behind him. We tumbled out of the closet and hurried for the door, listening for another slam down the hall before we rushed out of the apartment and straight for 802.
"Hi," I gasped as we burst into 802. Marcel stared at us, both carrying various different drugs that had hopefully some kind of usefulness. "We come bearing gifts," I dropped all of my stuff on the table and Marcel immediately came over to start taking inventory.
"Where did you two find this?" He asked as he turned a bottle of Zoloft over in his hand to find the label.
"We searched the supply rooms," I blurted before Max could speak. He scowled at me but didn't say anything.
"Strange," Marcel started organizing the bottles. We watched eagerly. He eventually sorted them all and shook his head. "Some of this will help symptoms, but he needs specific antibiotics. You found some, but they're not the right kind. We're afraid he has cholera, so you need to search drugstores and pharmacies." He pulled out a pen and pulled a napkin from the counter. He wrote three medicine names that I'm not going to repeat because I have no idea what any of them do or how to pronounce them. "Any of these three will work," he pressed the napkin into my hand. "We need these or Nogla might not make it."
"Okay, yeah, got it. We'll be back by sundown." I quickly turned and rushed to my apartment. I was changing (of course) when Max appeared in the doorway.
"No houses today?" He gave me a funny look while I wriggled into a pair of sports leggings and then layered two pairs of sweats on over them. He was already dressed and ready to go. I stuffed my triple-socked feet into a pair of boots and then tugged my coat on.
"Just pharmacies and maybe the hospital if we make it that far."
"We're not going near the hospital. You know how infested it is there."
"We'll be fine," I muttered as I dug into the bottom of my drawer. My fingers closed around cold metal. I pulled a Glock out of the drawer and then fished out two extra clips for it. "We can handle at least," I counted the clips, "a hundred," I pocketed the clips and tucked the pistol into my waistband. Max just shook his head.
"Why didn't you have this out before?" He asked as we left the apartment and started for the stairs.
"Didn't need it and didn't want Jonathan to know about it." We hurried down the stairs and broke into a jog down the street. "Besides, if this is cholera, the hospital is probably the only place that has these drugs."
Gonzalez sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll go to the damn hospital."
It took us an hour to get there. We quietly made our way inside, bat and crowbar ready. The Glock was burning against my skin, begging to be used. But it was for emergencies only. The gunshots would attract not only zombies but also gangs.
"Where would they keep important drugs in a hospital?" I mumbled. Max shrugged. So we started checking nurse's stations. We climbed stairs and stared into empty elevator shafts. We opened drawers and shut refridgerators. We bashed the occasional zombie and avoided corpses in the halls.
And, finally, we hit the jackpot. A lab held cabinets of antibiotics and, after a good bit of searching, we found it. Cipro and Vibramycin and Zithromax. I grabbed all the bottles they had and slipped them into my backpack while Max kept watch. What he couldn't watch for was the cracked closet door behind him. And I couldn't either. A lab coat shambled out and screeched when he laid eyes on us. Max whipped around and jumped back over a counter. The zombie snapped at him and lunged, its broken fingers narrowly missing Max's face. I could see bone sticking out where fingertips had been, sharp and ready to tear into flesh. My flesh. (I am quite delicious, but I'm not for zombies to eat.) I tried to scramble back, but my feet got tangled in my backpack straps. A rolling tray spun away from me and clattered to the floor when I tried to pull myself up by it. Several cries sounded out down the halls.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I hit the zombie away from me with my crowbar and tried again to stand. My feet were still tangled. The Z jumped on top of me, its rotten breath filling my face. I desperately struggled against it, using the crowbar to keep its snapping teeth just inches from my face. Its claws dug into the back of my neck while it tried to bring my head closer. This thing was legitimately going to try to eat my brains. I could hear Max fighting a few feet away, knocking things to the floor and grunting as he shoved the zombies back.
Claws slipped and raked lines down my neck and across my chest as the stupid thing lost its balance and simply clawed at whatever it could. I was holding the full, furious weight of the zombie by the crowbar. The gashes burned like fire. Something else hit the zombie, throwing it to the side. I kicked free of the backpack and swung, digging the end of the crowbar into the undead's skull. I twisted and it sputtered once, then went still. Another dead zombie was nearby, its head dented in by Max's bat.
"Oh, shit, Adam," Max was staring at my shredded coat.
We didn't have time to stop and play doctor. I hauled my bag out from under one of the corpses and we started for the stairs. Shrieks rang out all over the building now, echoing down the elevator shaft and tricking our ears as we ran past. I paused to see three shapes plummet down to the bottom.
"Smart," I muttered.
"I told you this was a bad idea," Gonzalez grabbed my arm and shoved me into the stairwell. Clumsy footsteps thundered above us. "I told you!" He shouted. We scrambled down the stairs and stumbled out of an emergency exit. Long-silent alarms started to ring again when the door was forced open. We raced down the block and into a neighborhood. It was the exact wrong direction, but we simply needed to get away. We ran until we couldn't anymore, taking wrong turns and becoming way, way too lost. Finally we stopped and made our way into an empty house. Well, not exactly empty. It wasn't empty at all. Eight heads snapped up to look at us. And so did eight weapons.
"Uh, hi," I dropped my crowbar and put my blood-sticky hands up. Max followed suit. "Just stopping in, if it's cool with you, and if it's also cool, we'll be leaving."
"You get bit?" One of the guys motioned at my chest with a pistol.
"No, I didn't. Broken off fingers," I gulped. Even though I wasn't bitten, I was probably still going to be very, very sick. "We're just a couple of lost dudes trying to get home because one of our friends is dying." I felt like I was trying to talk a seeker out of tagging me in hide and seek.
"Come from the hospital?" Pistol stood up and walked over. I slung my backpack to the floor and kicked it towards him. I ignored the blood dripping from my fingertips and focused on what he was doing. He opened it and dug through its contents. "Cipro? Your friend got Cholera?" Pistol held up one of the prescription bottles. "Then go," he zipped up the bag and shoved it back towards me. "Get him sodium and electrolytes, and clean out those gashes."
"Thank you," I breathed, "We owe you." I scooped up all my stuff and backed out the door. Gonzalez quietly shut the door and we both rushed away from the house. I realized that something I had eaten wasn't sitting right.
"We need to get home," Max checked his watch. "We've got two hours before we said we'd be back."
"Yeah," I wiped my crowbar off in some dead grass. "I wish we had Anthony,"
"He would have blown up in there. We'd be dead if he was with us."
"We're lost and almost dead anyways," I glanced down at my shredded clothes.
Gonzalez shook his head. "We can get back. Just follow the skyscrapers." He pointed at the skyline. Our building wasn't a skyscraper, but it was in the foothills to the mountains. (Super deep comparison, I know.) My stomach rumbled, but I don't think I was hungry.
And, sure enough, the mountains showed us where the foothills were. I don't remember much of the walk, but we finally trudged up to 802 about half an hour before sundown. I was actually feeling pretty crappy by then. Two bad nights in a row.
"You go get food and sit down," Max pointed at 801, "I'll take the medicine." He took my backpack when I handed it to him.
I went into 801, which was deserted, and had myself a meal of canned fruit and a protein bar that tasted like legitimate crap. I had to unstick my coat from my arms when I pulled it off. Max eventually came in, grabbed his own dinner, and sat down across from me at the table. We ate in silence, him wolfing down what he had and me picking at my fruit. My stomach was roiling.
Gonzalez took a deep breath and looked at me. "Nogla died about an hour ago," he told me.
I had almost expected it to be so. I nodded. And I ate the rest of my fruit. Our ten had become nine. It was only a matter of time until someone blew up and our nine would become eight. You know, we never did hit up those extra houses Max mentioned.
I threw up my dinner a couple of hours later.