“You cool?” he asked.
I smiled. “Yeah, man, I’m cool.”
“You better be. I ain’t no punk. I’m hardcore, G. You try messing with my sister and I’ll mess you up instead. And if you think I’m playing, just try me.”
I choked down my laughter, careful not to offend him. The sincerity and ferocity in his voice was really something, and I had no doubts he’d try to do that very thing.
“Malik,” I said, holding up my hands, “I promise, you’re in charge. I just needed to hide out here for a second. Okay?”
“Okay.” His attention was drawn to the pistol. “Cool. Can I try that out?”
“Can’t. No more bullets.”
“Damn. Well what good are you then?”
Tasha waved her hand, angry and dismissive. “Malik, get the hell out of the way and let us in.”
“Don’t boss me,” he repeated. “What’s that noise?”
“There’s dead folks beating on the door downstairs.”
Malik’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit. I told you we shouldn’t let him in. Now they know we’re here.”
“It’ll be okay,” I assured them. “Just give me a moment to catch my breath, and then we’ll figure something out.”
“Damn straight.”
I shook my head. “Did your mother let you talk that way?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she let you curse like that?”
“Shit, man. I’m eight years old. I can say what I want. Before she got sick, Momma said I was the man of the house.”
“No she didn’t,” Tasha said. “Momma told you to mind me. If she’d heard you cursing like that, she’d have washed your mouth out with soap and then beat your ass.”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh!”
“Enough,” I snapped. “Both of you knock it the hell off.”
Tasha got quiet, but Malik frowned at me.
“You can’t tell me what to do. You ain’t my father.”
Sighing, I laid the empty pistol on the coffee table. Then I knelt down and looked the boy in the eye.
“No, Malik, I’m not your father. You don’t even know me. But I am a grown-up, and I do know things and I can help you and your sister, if you’ll let me. I’d like to help. Would that be okay?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“Good.” I stood up and looked around the dismal apartment. It was small and cramped and dusty. Empty food wrappers and dirty plates littered the floor and coffee table. The furniture was threadbare. Soiled laundry lay heaped in piles. On one shelf was a picture of a heavyset woman: smiling, cheerful eyes beaming behind gold-rimmed eyeglasses, her arms around Malik and Tasha.
“That your mom?”
Tasha nodded.
“Anybody else left alive in this building?”
“No,” Tasha said. “Everybody else is gone. They either left or…”
She didn’t have to finish.
“Mr. Lahav helped us out after Momma died,” Malik said. “He let us stay in his apartment. Cooked for us. Read us bedtime stories. I liked him, except when he made us brush our teeth. He said we got to be our own dentists now, so it was important to brush three times a day, even if we didn’t eat. But he went out for water and never come back.”
“And how long ago was that?”
The boy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe five days?”
“He’s dead by now,” Tasha said. “Those things got to him.”
“We don’t know that,” Malik insisted. “Maybe he got hurt, or trapped. We should go out and find him.”
“Don’t be stupid. He’s one of them now, Malik. A zombie.”
“No he ain’t.”
“He is too.”
“Guys.” I held up my hands. “Let’s not fight, okay? That won’t help us get out of here. Other than Mr. Lahav, is there anybody else in the building?”
They both shook their heads.
“Are there any zombies?”
Tasha shuddered. “No. Thank God.”
“And this shotgun is your only weapon.”
“Yeah,” Malik said, holding it out to me, “but I can’t get it to work no more.”
“Let me see it.” I took the shotgun from him and pumped it, the way I’d seen it done in the movies. An empty cartridge ejected from the side and bounced off the wall.
“I tried that,” Malik said, pouting. “Wouldn’t do it for me. Stupid gun.”
Before this, I didn’t have much experience with kids. One of my old boyfriends had a daughter (he’d been married for several years before finally coming to terms with the fact that he was gay), but I’d never really interacted with her, and had dumped her father after a few dates.
“Tell you what.” I smiled. “Let me keep this one, and soon as we find more, I’ll pick out one more your size. Sound good?”
He looked reluctant. “I guess so. You best not be tricking me, though. Just because I ain’t strong enough to use this shotgun don’t mean it don’t belong to me.”
“It’s all yours, little man. I’m just borrowing it until we find a safer place to stay.”
“Safer?” Tasha asked, confused. “Hold up a minute. We’re not going nowhere. Malik and I are staying right here. Momma and Mr. Lahav both told us to—”
“Listen,” I interrupted. “You hear that? They’re going to get in. If they can’t break the door down, sooner or later one of them will get lucky enough to bust a window. Then we’re screwed. And there’s something else, too.”
“What?”
“The city is on fire. That’s how you guys found me. I was running away from it when I got trapped down there.”
“Fire?” Malik’s eyes grew wide. “How bad is it?”
“My whole neighborhood is gone. It’s spreading block by block and it’s coming this way. It’ll be here soon. We don’t have much time.”
“But if we go outside, the zombies will get us,” Tasha said.
“And if we stay in here,” I reminded her, “we’ll burn to death.”
“So we’re screwed.” Malik folded his arms across his chest.
I patted him on the head and smiled. “Not quite yet.”
My knees popped as I stood up. Downstairs, the pounding continued. I glanced out the window and saw more zombies converging on our building. They were four deep around the door, clawing and shoving each other. More of them emerged from side streets and alleys. I didn’t know how they communicated, or even if they did, but somehow they knew that dinner was inside this building. All they had to do was get inside.
The fires were spreading, too. The entire horizon was now glowing orange and yellow. As hard as it was to believe, it looked like the entire city was going up in flames. The rain we’d had earlier in the day had done nothing to slow it down, apparently. And it wasn’t like there were firemen or other emergency personnel to battle the flames. I’d once seen a Civil War documentary on TV. In it, they’d talked about how General Sherman had burned Atlanta to the ground. At the time, I’d tried to picture that. It seemed inconceivable; unreal. But now, I had a good idea what that had actually looked like.
The kids had lined up the remaining shotgun shells on the windowsill. There were four of them; not nearly the amount I’d hoped for. I had no idea how many the shotgun could hold; indeed, I’d been surprised I was able to figure out how to pump it so easily. Rather than trying to load them into the weapon and risking jamming it or something, I scooped the shells up and stuffed them in my pants pocket.
Malik frowned. “Ain’t you gonna put them in the gun?”
“Not now. Maybe later.”
“Later? Nigga, do it now!”
“Hey,” I scolded. “You shouldn’t use that word.”
“Nigga? Why not?”
“Because it’s not a nice word. It means you’re ignorant.”