The dog, sick with mange and splattered with Boomer pheromones, was doomed. The Runners pursued, howling and gnashing their teeth in excitement, until at last they cornered it just under a building. They closed in without hesitance. The dog bit at them, they bit back harder, and it was several tears later before the tussle eventually put an end to its shrieks. After the grotesque sounds of phlegmy coughing and tearing flesh wafted gently up many stories above, to where she and Snickers watched the zombie procession from the safety of darkness.
The bulk of the party was still coming.
Like bees about their queen, the crowd of zombies swarmed upon the Boomer and its unmistakable aroma. They followed wherever it tottered upon its fat legs, mumbling incoherently to themselves as its drool and pheromones dribbled down the crevasses and boils of its belly. Whether it had once been male or female was difficult to ascertain; its saliva had long since destroyed all clothing and hair, and what remained of its flesh bulged in a saggy, swollen, and asymmetrical manner.
Its arrival fueled a growing feeding frenzy, but Boomer elbowed smaller bodies out of the way with easy sweeps of its massive arms. It plucked the canine remains one-handed out from the swarm with runners still clinging to the broken limbs, and then bit into the torn with a cacophony of crunches and pops. Not all of said pops seemed to come exclusively from the meal, either; some, surely, had to do with the broken boils and ooze which leaked down the sides of its head.
Above there was only silence. Calm, poised silence, pregnant with readiness that something unexpected might occur, but otherwise still and almost serene as it waited for the danger to pass.
She was hugging the wall against the window's right side, with only the nose of her suppressor visible in the moonlight as it steadied her aim against the sill. Her scope let her see everything she could want to see of the scene below (and plenty she didn't). Her Hunter was ready at a second window, alert but unmoving, his arm draped almost casually over the length of the sill and his chin resting upon his shoulder. He had been her tutor in this: in learning that safety came with going unseen and, therefore, unheard.
She'd never been a strong woman, and the Green Flu had forced her to confront the sad reality of how very little she had been able to really carry over an average day of post-apocalyptic horror. Her weapon count and ammunition numbers had dwindled in face of a need for water purification hardware, sleeping pads, and medicines. Multiple guns had been rendered impossible, as had carrying any dependable melee weapon. Her future had been sealed when she'd chosen a single-shot, long-barreled rifle: she'd ever after survive only by the virtues of patience and positioning. But she and Snickers were a team in that: they worked quietly, and efficiently; they took down isolated targets only in ideal circumstances; and they relied on ambush tactics, bottle necks, vantage points, stalling tactics, and stumbling blocks. If the Boomer noticed them, for instance, she would need to kill it in a single shot. She and Snickers couldn't fight fair in any way- not when their party numbered only two against legions, and an unimpressive two at that.
It began to rain, faintly. The breeze picked up, so that the air was no longer so thick and muggy. She waited, feeling strangely like any normal bookworm curled up in the safety of their apartment window as a late summer storm blew in. The Boomer began to move again, as the remains of its meal were consumed in a guttural feeding frenzy. It straightened, wobbled, and then began tottering on northward through the main road of town. Its swarm inevitably swallowed, with some members dragging tattered fragments of their kill along behind them- bits of bone, hair, sinew, and tendon.
When the crowd was long gone, she eased the nose of her rifle back into the apartment, and glanced over at Snickers. His nostrils flared as he sniffed noiselessly at the rain for a short while. Then he eased his legs out in front of him, and rubbed his toes together as if to work out tension or jitters. A short while later, he pushed himself up to a squat and crossed the room to join her. Snickers didn't walk like a man; he clung to walls and rafters for additional support like a monkey, child, or invalid. He crouched before her and pawed gently at her arm.
'I watched you today,' he seemed to say without having any of the words to do so. 'Have you been thinking too much again? Do I need to pay close attention to you tomorrow?' There was still something clever about Snickers, in the same way there was something clever about service animals. Now and then he reminded her of it, in the way he stared, and in the way his eyes squinted while he was thinking.
"I'm okay," she told him. If she wasn't, he'd know from the sound of her voice better than she did.
He bunted gently up against her shoulder, and then curled up into her and half on top of her- big heavy inconsiderate feline thing that he was!- to get some rest.