by Chris Lowry
Taylor yanked the rope in over the balcony rail. He set his boots against the concrete and hauled hand over hand.
She came up backwards, shrieking as she scraped against the concrete wall of the balcony.
The rope perched her on the rail, upright, where she stayed for almost a whole second before pitching over backwards and falling onto his lap.
She landed between his legs and it was his turn to howl.
“Quiet!” Rat yelled.
“It’s not over yet,” she scrambled off him and stood on unsteady legs.
Her numb fingers fumbled at the rope around her waist.
“Help me tie this,” she said and tried to pass it to Rat.
“Who the hell are you lady?”
She stared at him for a moment, then turned to Taylor.
“Help me.”
Taylor pushed over to his knees, one hand holding his aching crotch.
“I helped you.”
“My sister is coming,” she leaned out over the rail and looked up.
She screamed and ducked back in.
A zombie moaned past her on its way to the ground below.
“Hang on Jess!” she shouted up.
Her fingers worked the end of the rope around the rail and tied it in a simple knot.
“Okay,” she yelled.
Taylor pushed her hands away from the rope.
“Not okay,” he grumbled.
“Not okay!” she yelled again.
Too late.
The rope drew taut against the rail, and the knot unraveled and slipped between his fingers.
They watched it snake up above their heads.
“Jess!” she sobbed.
A body dropped past them, tied onto the other end of the rope.
Another woman screaming.
Taylor had just enough time to make eye contact with her as she passed, the rope slithering after her.
He lunged for it, grabbed it, and hissed as it smoked through the skin on his palms.
It almost pulled him over, but he dropped on his butt, and anchored it to the rail with the weight of his body.
“Jess!”
“Is that all she can say?” he muttered to Rat. “Pull her up.”
“I can’t pull her up,” Rat explained.
“Not you. Her.”
“Help me,” she said again even as she tugged on the rope.
“Kind of busy here,” Taylor nodded to his raw hands gripping the rope.
He was going to pay for this gesture, he could tell.
“There better be ointment in the medicine cabinet,” he growled at Rat and leaned back, hauling on the rope.
Jess yelped.
The woman yelped.
Rat watched. Taylor tried to move his hands, and skin came off as he did.
It was his turn to yell.
“Quiet man, zombies,” Rat offered with wide eyes.
He bit back the cursing, and muttered under his breath. The woman pitched in and the two of the hauled Jess the rest of the way over the rail.
Her sister grabbed her and squeezed in a tight embrace.
“That’s kind of hot,” Rat huffed.
Taylor ignored him. He ignored them. Instead he studied his palms.
The skin was gone from both of them, in twin one inch wide strips. They were lines of raw weeping wounds. He tried to close his fists, but couldn’t.
“There goes your love life,” Rat offered. “But I’m filling up the bank right now.”
Taylor glared at his partner as the man eyed the two women like a dog watching his food bowl.
Jess pulled away from her sister, and Taylor could see she was just a kid, barely fourteen. Maybe.
“She’s just a kid,” he said.
“My kid sister,” the woman said and turned to him.
Rat toddled to his feet and limped over to the two of them.
“Welcome to our humble abode,” he held out a hand.
“Stay back,” Jess shoved her sister behind her and held up a karate fist to Rat.
“Jess?” she said.
“Did you see the way he was looking at you?” the young girl said.
“Technically,” he corrected. “I was looking at both of you. But I’m not so into jail bait.”
“Be nice, Jess,” said the woman. “I’m Carrie.”
She held out a hand to Rat. He hobbled two steps closer and shook it.
“Rat.”
“That’s your name?” Jess scoffed.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Rat?”
“So?”
“Really.”
“Yeah, really. I mean it’s not my real name, but it’s been my nickname forever.”
Jess studied his face for a few moments.
“I can see that.”
“Not because I look like a rat,” he argued. “It’s because I took cheese sandwiches for lunch in grade school.”
“He does kind of look like a rat though,” Carrie offered.
“Every day,” Rat explained. “The same sandwich all the way til high school. Cheese. Rat.”
“No, I see it,” Jess agreed. “He looks like a dirty rat.”
Rat sniffled and tried to not to have his feelings hurt.
“Sandwiches Taylor. Tell them.”
Taylor shrugged.
“I didn’t know you back then.”
Jess noticed his open palms on his knees.
“Ouch,” she said. “Did I do that?”
Carrie pushed past her sister and kneeled down next to Taylor.
“You should have seen him, Jess. You were falling and he saved you.”
“Thanks for saving me,” said Jess.
He showed her the burns.
“Want to go check the bathroom for ointment?”
The young girl shrugged.
“You don’t know what’s in your bathroom?”
“Not my place.”
“But he said your humble abode,” she pointed at Rat.
“Figure of speech.”
“Carrie?”
“Go check. I’ll be fine.”
A body slammed into the rail and split in half. It spilled guts and gore onto the balcony floor, and left half a zombie torso grasping toward Jess.
Rat stumbled back, tried to put weight on his ankle and tumbled into the apartment.
Carrie screamed.
The zombie tried to decide who to eat first, going for Rat’s movement, then Carrie’s scream, then back at Jess as she stifled a yell.
Carrie backpedaled toward the open door, as Rat scrambled back on his elbows and heels.
The zombie dragged it’s torso across the floor leaving a slick trail of gore and viscera that leaked out onto the etched concrete.
Taylor lifted a boot, smashed it’s head into the wall and kept pushing till the tread met concrete with a slurping squash.
“That was fucking sick,” Jess gasped.
“Jess! Language!” Carrie shouted from the dark.
“Are you two okay in there?”
Taylor tried to shake Z guts off his boot and gave up as the syrpy remains stuck in the grooves and mesh.
“My ankle man,” Rat called out to him. “It’s bad.”
“Worse than before?”
Taylor stood up, but still couldn’t close his hands.
“No, it’s about the same.”
Taylor shook his head.
“Get inside,” he told Jess.
“You’re not the boss of me,” she snapped.
But she hopped over the trail of Z goo and slid into the dark interior of the apartment.
Taylor grabbed what was left of the zombie’s shirt and tried to lift. He couldn’t close his fists.
He had to use the edge of his hands to clench together and lift.
It worked, but spilled more zombie guts on both of his boots as he manhandled it over the railing.
Another Z fell past him, reaching out as it dropped by and moaned.
“Whoa,” he sai
d.
He moved back to the slider, looked at his ruined hiking boots and kicked them off so he wouldn’t trail the stink into the condo.
He slid the door halfway closed as he stepped in.
Time to doctor his wounds and exchange particulars with their new companions to find out if they were going to hang around awhile.
Or why they were hanging around outside the balcony.
CHAPTER NINE
Taylor held out his injured palms. Jess lifted an eyebrow.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“You burned ‘em kid. I figure you owe me.”
“Owe you?”
He didn’t think her eyebrow could arch any higher, but then it did, almost touching her brunette hairline.
“I did save your life. Or did you forget?”
She shook her head, ponytail bouncing around her shoulders.
“Got it,” Carrie practically skilled out of the hall. She held up a long tube of treasure. Rat lurched off the wall and snatched it from her hand.
“This is hemeroid cream.”
“Wont’ that work?” she asked in a confused voice.
“Do you have roids on your fingers?” Rat asked.
Taylor tilted his hands toward them.
“Just burns.”
“I use it on my eyes,” Carrie added.
“You have hemorrhoids on your eyes?””
“It reduces swelling. That’s why I thought it would work on you.”
“For God’s sake,” Jess huffed.
She stalked down the hallway and promptly rammed into a door.
“Ow,” she called back to them.
“You okay sis?”
“Did you hear me say Ow?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you say Ow when things are okay?”
“No?”
Jess stepped out of the darkness, her arms full of the contents of the medicine cabinet.
“I couldn’t see to choose,” she spilled it on the floor in front of Taylor.
“So you took it all,” he examined the haul.
“I took it all.”
Rat squatted and pawed through the find. He lifted a small tube and wiggled it at the tall man.
“Lube,” he said. “Personal size. I’ll just save that for later.”
He winked at Carrie. She shivered and tried not to gag.
“Gross,” said Jess.
“Guys,” Taylor snapped. “Maye you could save the sex talk for after we doctor my owie?”
“Sorry,” Rat shrugged.
He passed another tube to Carrie.
“Want to play doctor?” he wiggled his busy eyebrows up and down.
She snatched it from his hand and squinted at the lettering.
“Anti-bacterial.”
Taylor let her slather the gel on his palms. He tried not to flinch and she pretended to ignore his wince.
“Better?”
He nodded. It wasn’t, not really. But it was a start.
“See if there are any painkillers.”
Rat pawed through the items on the floor. He lobbed a bottle of pills up in the air. Taylor made a move to snatch them and grimaced as he did.
“Ow.”
“Not okay, right?” asked Jess.
Taylor grunted for an answer. He tried to work the childproof cap, but couldn’t get the lid off.
Carri and Rat watched his struggle but didn’t make a move. After a few futile efforts, Jess shouldered between them and took the bottle away. She lined up the arrows, pried it open and poured four tablets into her palm.
“Two more,” he said.
She added a couple of more.
“Carrie, get his water,” she instructed her sister.
Carrie twisted off the top to a canteen and held it out to him.
“This?”
He shook his head.
“Give me my cup.”
Rat passed the metal cup to Carrie. She held it to her nose and took a big sniff.
“Can you mix these?”
“Just aspirin,” Taylor answered.
He gripped the rim of the cup with his finger and thumb on one hand while he picked the tablets out of Jess’ hand and washed them down.
CHAPTER TEN
His hands still hurt. Eight aspirin later, so did his stomach.
He remembered reading one time that if aspirin were introduced to the market today, it would be considered a controlled substance. It was that powerful.
It wasn’t doing much for the ache in his palms, but the burning in his stomach let him know it was doing something. Giving him an ulcer probably. Eating away at the lining of his intestines.
Just not doing the job.
He shifted the rifle next to him and tried to find a more comfortable position. The pain in his stomach flared up as he moved and settled back to a dull throb when he stopped. It made him snort.
Before the zombie plague, guys who worked in cushy desk jobs had stress induced ulcers because they didn’t make enough money, or sales or some other bullshit.
Zombies versus a missed forecast.
He figured he would win in that stress contest.
The women huddled against one wall in the living room in a nest of blankets from one of the dark bedrooms.
Rat propped up against another, away from them. Taylor wasn’t sure whose choice it was, his or theirs.
“Have you been here long?” Carrie asked from across the room.
She was older than Jess, though not by many years, he thought. Maybe had a year or two of legal drinking behind her.
“Just came up tonight.”
“You’ve been outside?”
She said this with surprise and maybe a hint of awe.
“You haven’t?”
She shook her head, wide eyes glowing in the flickering Christmas candles Rat had found in a kitchen cabinet.
“We had enough food to hide in the condo,” Carrie wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“Til tonight,” Jess added.
“You should have taken the stairs,” said Rat.
“We couldn’t.”
“We took them up,” Taylor told them. “They were clear.”
“Ours had Henry.”
“Henry?”
“The doorman.”
“Henry the doorman wouldn’t let you leave?”
“He was in the hallway,” Carrie explained.
“Hallway Henry,” Rat sang out. “The doorman wouldn’t let you exit.”
He sniffed for approval.
They didn’t give it.
“Room full of critics,” he pretended to adjust an invisible tie around his neck.
“He’s one of them.”
“A zombie,” Jess clarified.
“He was in the condo next to ours,” Carrie studied her fingers and hands.
“There was a big group of guys. One night we said good night. The next morning, they were all in the hall.”
“Was that one of them?” Taylor pointed to the smear of goo out on the balcony railing.
“Nope,” Jess glanced up at the ceiling as if she could peer through it.
“Still there.”
“Yikes, that gives me the willies,” Rat sniffled. “And you wanted the Penthouse.”
“We would have passed them by if they’re not in the stairs.”
“Well I’m glad you didn’t. Otherwise, I might be splat.”