I stepped on the bowl, then up onto the tank, my foot slipping on the plaster-dusted porcelain. Water splashed onto my hand.
“Crap!”
Thump!—Thump!—Bang!
The door rattled against the frame. I slipped the cup through the hole, pushing it along the top of the lathe away from the opening. Stretching to my fullest extent, I grabbed the tops of the ceiling joists and pulled myself up, letting my legs dangle. Grunting, I dragged myself up, pulling my legs through just as the door below burst open and grayish-white bodies spilled through.
I grabbed the cup of water and slid across the floor to Byron. Propping him up, I helped him sip.
“What are we doing about those rats?” I asked him.
“You’re going to have to get them,” he replied, his voice a papery croak. “I need to recover my strength.”
“Great! Of course.”
~ ~ ~
In theory, if I managed to close the bedroom door, it should buy some time from the oncoming horde, right? Except, of course, that Jake had blown a hole through the door with his shotgun. Not much help, there. Granted the buckshot left a grouping of tiny holes, but those holes weakened the door. My timing would have to be impeccable. Drop the stairs, kill the two or three Goners left in the room, grab the toolbox, and get the hell back up the ladder, closing it behind me.
I took a deep breath and pried the sword through the ceiling to push the door shut, taking care not to put as much gusto into it this time. It swung shut with a whisper, the latch giving a soft click as it engaged.
Chipping a small hole through the ceiling on the inside of the door, one of the Goners shuffled to the door, examining it with childlike curiosity. I brought the sword up and thrust it through the ceiling with all my strength, impaling the beast through the skull.
“One down, two to go.” As I pulled the sword out, the creature fell forward, its weight falling against the door. Another one stepped over to investigate.
“This is too easy,” I chuckled as I drove the sword through the ceiling again, impaling the second creature. It fell on top of its buddy.
“Two down. One to go, Byron.” He gave me a weak smile. Light washed over him from the open roof panel above. On impulse, I wanted to kiss his lips.
My face flushed and I shook my head, returning my attention to the folding stairway. Bracing my arms on either side of the opening, I pushed the trap door down with my legs, kicking the stair out as I did. It unfolded part way and I dropped through to the floor below. My feet thudded as they touched down and I folded into a crouch, holding the sword out before me.
A groan sounded from my left and a hiss met my entrance from the right. Four. There were four creatures in here, not three.
I leaped to the left, swinging for the neck with all my strength. The blade passed through most of the way, but stuck as it struck the spine.
“Really!” I shouted as I kicked against the creature, trying to dislodge the sword. It stared at me, its arms outstretched, trying to grapple me. Something crashed into my back, shoving me forward and forcing the sword from my hands.
“Son of a—” I tumbled to the floor, landing face-first. “Oh hell no. I did not just get through the church from hell to die in a Philly row house!”
I rolled to the side, stretching to grab the sword, but the Goner’s neck held it tight. The creature who barreled into me stood over me, reaching down to grab me. I kicked my leg up, grabbed its arms, and threw it into the other zombie.
Rolling to my feet, I lunged for the bed and the floor lamp standing beside it. The Goners were tight on my heels. I spun with the lamp, ripping the cord from the wall and smashing one across the jaw, breaking it off. The lower mandible fell to the ground with a sick thup. Fear filled the creature’s eyes as it reached for its face. I kicked it hard in the chest and jabbed the bulb end of the lamp at the other beast.
The first one fell backward, splaying across the floor while the bulb smashed against the other’s face, piercing the eye socket and driving into its brain. It fell forward onto the sword, twisting it loose and completing the job I had initially started by severing the head from the neck. I stomped my foot onto the Goner laying on the floor and grabbed the sword, plunging it into the creature’s skull.
“That’s four,” I said to no one.
Thump! Bang! Fists and bodies pounded against the door. It rattled in its frame. No time for celebration.
The toolbox lay on the bed, a few feet away. I grabbed it and straightened out the fold-down staircase before climbing up. As I cleared the first few steps, I pulled the lower ones up before continuing on. The springs and metal support arms groaned, protesting my weight.
Crash!
Dropping the toolbox on the attic floor, I pulled the stairs the remaining way up. Through the holes I had cut in the ceiling, I could see bodies pour into the room. The door failed faster than I hoped it would, but it held long enough to save my tail.
“Do you need me to do anything with these? Kill them? Hand them to you?” I handed over the toolbox.
“No,” he whispered. “Just look away. It’s not going to be a pretty sight.”
“No problem there,” I mumbled under my breath as I confined myself to staring into one of the corners. The wet crunching and slurping sounds behind me conjured images in my head that could without a doubt give the real sight of him devouring a rat a run for its money. In either case, my stomach lurched and I hummed a tune to try to block it out.
“Do you have to do that so loud?” I made the mistake of turning toward him.
“Sorry,” he grumbled through lips wrapped around a limp, squealing rat body. He spun away from me, but it was too late. The image already burned itself into my mind. A cute guy eating a rat with blood smeared all over his face. Why in the world do I have this nasty habit of finding the weirdest guys in the world? And the bad luck to start having feelings for them?
“That’s totally gross, by the way. I can’t believe you’re doing that.”
“Sorry,” he said in a voice more like normal. “But don’t judge me until you’ve had to walk a mile in my shoes. It’s not exactly fun and games for me, you know. But this is the life I am left to live.”
chapter seven
“Thank you.” He said the words with a sour look on his face.
“For what?”
“Helping me.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, I really appreciate that you helped. For a while now, I have been the savior. The knight in shining armor. The one to come to the rescue. I mean, here I am—Mr. Indestructible, in the flesh. And what happens? I come within an inch of dying for good thanks to a cantankerous Lord.”
“Don’t mention it. Really.” I tried my hardest not to let my aggravation show.
“You put yourself in danger for me.”
Uh-oh. “I put myself in danger so I can get to my aunt. I can’t do that if the super-zombie who promised to take me there is dead, now can I?” I shouldn’t have said that. And he shouldn’t have kept pushing.
Byron nodded. I could see the pain my words caused him painted on his face. Dammit!
I took a deep breath and exhaled a little too hard. “Look. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No. Don’t worry about it. You were just being honest. I can appreciate that.”
And now I feel like the biggest horse’s ass! Thanks for that! “Are you always this annoying?”
His eyes flashed wide and he jerked his head back like I’d just punched him in the throat. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Are you always this annoying?”
“How am I annoying?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Sweet. Mr. Sensitive. Mr. Gushy Emotional Crap!”
“What? Gushy emotional crap? I was trying to say thank you.” His voice rose several octaves. “Are you always this big a bitch?”
He did not—! Yup, he did!
I narrowed my eyes to razor-sharp slits. My voice turned g
ravelly and low. “What did you call me?”
“You heard exactly what I called you. I don’t see any reason in repeating myself.” He turned away, crossing his arms over his chest and shutting me out.
“Hey, pal. I didn’t ask you to help me. You volunteered. You were the one who told me we should all travel together. You were the one who devised this spectacular plan to save your friends, their families, and try to help me get my aunt. And you’re the guy who just had his butt handed to him by a zombie better than you. So don’t you dare give me crap. I’m the one who climbed down there to save you, remember?”
“Wait a minute. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be like, Oh, I only did this because I’m using you, and then try to make yourself out to be some kind of martyr who sacrificed herself for my survival out of some altruistic sentiment.”
“Martyr? Martyr?” I grabbed the toolbox he had emptied of rats and threw it at him. It hit him in the forehead, right between the eyes. “I am not a martyr. Nor did I paint myself as a martyr. You, on the other hand, have done nothing but swagger about being undead and being some zombie messiah with your little band of geek followers.”
He opened his mouth. I could see the words sitting on his tongue. He wanted to lace into me. He wanted to hurt me with words like every other man in my life had. He wanted to use his tongue like one of his swords and cut me apart, leaving me nothing but a pile of steaming entrails. He closed it again.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I failed you. I tried to be your protector, your guide, and failed. My first test and I nearly lost my life. If you hadn’t been here, I would surely be dead and not this half-life crap I am now. I’m sorry.”
I stared at him a few moments. He stood and poked his head through the opening in the roof.
“Hey, wait,” I called after him, grabbing his hand. If felt warm for a dead guy. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said about only wanting to go see my aunt. I mean, yes that is a major motivator for me, but it’s not the only reason. You seem like a good guy who knows how to handle himself. And I don’t want to be doing this alone. My normal life is hard enough by myself. Adding in the End of Days thanks to some crazy zombie apocalypse amplifies the difficulty. I didn’t want to lose you. Especially not without even having the opportunity to get to know you.”
Wait. Am I flirting with a zombie?
I growled and stood and stomped my feet on the floor. “Dammit. Why do you have to be a corpse? Why couldn’t you have been a nice, normal, living human being? Why couldn’t you have come along before the apocalypse? Why do you have to be so damn cute and nice?” I squeezed my eyes tight. “I hate you. I hate you because I think I like you. I know nothing about you more than the fact that you are dead. Which, to be honest, is enough to end most budding relationships. But yet you are the first guy of my type to come along in a lifetime. And you’re dead! Dead! No longer living. Dead—dead—deadski! You should be pushing up daisies, and all I can think about is what it would feel like to be press—”
I never finished the thought. Byron stepped in, slipped his right hand to the small of my back, and pulled me close to him. Our chests bumped. For a dead guy, he smelled good. I could feel the warmth of his touch radiating through my shirt. The thrumming of his heart synchronized with mine. I craned my head back to look into his exotic eyes.
His face descended toward mine. Our lips brushed and electric shocks tickled my face, neck, chest, traveling through all my pleasure centers. I pushed my lips to his. Warm, supple. Our mouths opened and we explored each other, trying to understand this strange passion growing between us.
~ ~ ~
I pressed her tighter against my body, and she still tried to move closer. Her arms squeezed around me. Our mouths parted from each other.
“I don’t care anymore.” Her whispered words blew across my face. “I don’t care if you are dead, or living. I am just glad to have you with me.”
I wrapped her in my arms. “And I you.”
Her brown eyes studied my face.
“No more questions,” I said to her and kissed her lips again. “We have to get out of here. There will be more Lords. More Goners. We need to put distance between them and us. And we need to find your aunt.”
She bowed her head, pressing it against my chest. “I don’t want to move. I just want to stay here.”
“I know. But if we do that, we’ll both be dead. In a permanent sense.”
Her eyes turned cold. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
I shook my head. “No. I am trying to help you. To help you find your family and bring them back somewhere safe.”
“The prison?”
“Yes. We can hunker down there for a while as we re-provision. We will need supplies for the next leg of our journey. We’ll need a car. There’s lots of work to do to get to safety.”
She squeezed me tight again and reached up to kiss my lips. I savored the sensation.
“Okay.” She pressed a hand against my chest and pushed away from me with light pressure. “Let’s do this. Let’s go find my aunt and bring her back to safety.”
I turned and collected my weapons, slipping both swords into their sheaths, and running through what had just happened in my head. Out of nowhere, she had struck like an emotional storm. Passionate and convoluted. It was all wearing on her.
I slipped through the opening in the roof and gazed out in the distance.
Her hormone levels are elevated and changing in fits and starts. Is she unstable?
I ignored the voices, unable to respond with Dove so close on my heels.
“Which way?” I asked as she climbed up next to me. She stared out across rooftops.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen the city from this perspective before.”
Tall buildings brushed the sky to the south. A handful stood tall to the west, while to the east stretched residential housing. I pointed southeast. “There’s center-city. Your aunt lives on…”
“South Mildred Street. Between Bigler and Johnston. South of center-city. She’s a block or so from the stadium.”
I didn’t know much about Philly. But what I did know was that the stadium sat in South Philly, close to the airport. “So we have a lot of ground to cover, right?”
“Yes,” Dove said. “Too bad I crashed the hell out of my car.”
I smiled. “No biggie. We can snag another one.”
“Steal a car?”
I stared her straight in the face. “And who’s going to complain? One of the zombies you just killed? Or one of the Lords I killed? I doubt anyone is still alive enough to give a damn.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Hmm. Didn’t think of it that way. You’re right. It’s the zombie apocalypse. Until we hit some shred of civilization, there is no law anymore.”
I nodded. “Right. So let’s get us a car, and cover some ground.”
She looked over the side of the roof to our immediate problem. “What do we do about them?”
“Avoid them, of course. Come.” I held out my hand and made for the low wall separating the adjoining roofs. She took it and followed.
We clambered over a handful of rooftops, across a narrow gap between buildings, and finally reached the building fronting on North 26th Street.
Though the bulk of the horde lay behind us, stragglers still shuffled their way along the streets, heading toward Jake’s house. “We need to cross. Put a few more blocks between us and them before we climb down to the streets.” I turned and looked south along North 26th. “Climb onto my back.”
Dove looked at me like two extra heads sprang from my shoulders. “Excuse me?”
I pointed across Swain Street to the building on the south side. “We need to cross over to there. Think you can make that jump?”
She furrowed her brow. “That’s at least twelve feet across.”
I nodded. “At least. Either you can try the jump yourself, or you can climb onto my back and hang tight.”
She looked from me t
o the building across the way and back to me again. “Fine,” she huffed as she stepped behind me and grabbed onto my shoulders. “Are you strong enough to make the jump?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. Please don’t fall. Please don’t fall. I stepped to the edge, then backed up, shifting her weight as best I could to center it on my back. Please don’t fall.
I broke into a sprint and pushed off with all my strength as my right foot landed on the top of the low wall. My legs pumped as I flew through the air. I heard bricks crack and tumble as I leapt into the air, gaining height. Dove squealed on my back, squeezing my neck tight. My jump reached its apex at the midpoint across the street and I began to descend in a sharp arc.
My chest burned. Damn! My eyes grew wide as my heart started pumping like mad. The edge of the building approached and I stretched myself out, barely crossing over the low wall on the other side. My foot landed and both our weights crashed through the asphalt and plank surface of the roof. I stretched my arms out, trying to stop us from falling through into the building below. Dove fell forward over my head, rolling across the roof to a stop on her back.
Pain exploded through my neck and shoulders. My chest burned where the Lord had sliced it open. I cried out through gritted teeth.
You have broken your collar bone, the voices told me. We are too weak to repair the damage. We need to feed.
My head swam as waves of pain washed over me. Fighting through it, I dragged myself out of the hole, tears streaming down my face.
Dove sat up and shook her head as if she woke from a daze. “Let’s not do that again.”
“Sorry,” I grunted. “Thought I was stronger than that. The colonies are weak and are fighting whatever that Lord did to me. I need to feed more.”
She stood and helped me to my feet. I nursed my arm as shocks of pain coursed through me. “Yes, you do. And I know just the place.” She pointed to the west and I gazed out across the rooftops. “Let’s go to the zoo.”
~ ~ ~
We leapt from rooftop to rooftop to Folsom Street, then followed them west. At the corner of North Taney Street, we climbed down and ran for a block to a multi-story luxury condominium complex. I cast a sideways glance at Byron. “Let’s try to keep away from that place. I don’t think it’ll be safe for us there.” A wry grin spread across his lips.
Dove: A Zombie Tale (Byron: A Zombie Tale Book 2) Page 7