There were no other dead or undead bodies in the apartment and not much in the way of supplies, at least not anything worth taking.
They moved on to apartment 1R, finding the door unlocked and no one inside, alive or dead. Clothing drawers were left open in the bedrooms. The cupboards were open and bare; toiletries were missing too. It appeared whoever had lived there had left in a hurry. All in all, the place was clean and seemed like a good place to make camp, but the group agreed that living on a higher floor was safer.
Next, they made their way up the creaky stairs, and with each step, the odor of rotting meat grew stronger. As Jack broached the landing, he saw a dead man’s body, wearing only underwear, lying in front of apartment 2R. Its left arm was stripped of flesh, leaving only bone and a few stringy tendons. The legs were missing chunks of meat in various places, as if the zombie hadn’t been able to find the right spot to begin chowing down until it got to the arm.
Jack walked around the body and saw that it had no face, appearing to have been blown off, the nearby wall splattered with gore. He stepped over the corpse and entered the apartment.
“Gross, man,” Zaun said.
The place was filthy and stunk of dead animal. Litter boxes with more shit than sand in them lay in the hallway and in the bathroom. Newspapers and magazines lay everywhere, as if the man had been a collector-no, a hoarder. As they went through the place, Jack heard gasps and other sounds of displeasure from the others. No one wanted to remain in the apartment any longer and the group quickly left to check on the apartment across the hall.
2F was void of life. The place was somewhat clean, the beds made, kitchen garbage empty. There was a television, a couch, a bookcase filled with hardcovers and paperbacks, mostly appearing to be romance in nature. Jack checked the bathroom, finding a small shower radio. Overall, the place was decent, a good spot to set up camp, but first they had to check out the rest of the building. They left the apartment and headed to the third floor.
Upon reaching the top of the staircase, Jack heard the eerily familiar sound of fingernails on wood coming from behind 3R’s door. Images of his wife clawing at the bedroom door sprung into his mind.
Approaching the door, the scratching grew louder and Jack knew there was some thing on the other side. He tried the doorknob and found that it turned. He called Zaun over and together on the count of three, they rammed the door. The zombie fell back and landed on the floor. It was naked, bald on top with long dark, straw-like hair, and a large, bulbous nose. Zaun stepped up and put his sword into the thing’s head.
From inside, Jack heard the sound of chains rattling. He stepped passed Zaun. The sharp scent of pine filled his nose and he saw numerous green air-fresheners in the shape of Christmas trees hanging on the walls.
As the group moved forward, they came upon another dead body laying chest down, head to the side. It was female with long blonde hair, appearing to have been no older than eighteen. She was naked except for a pair of handcuffs on her outstretched wrists. A black tribal tattoo of the sun took up the area of skin just above her ass crack. All along the body’s arms and legs were small cuts, and what appeared to be burn marks, possibly made by cigarettes and a curling iron.
The rattling of chains hadn’t let up. Jack and the others moved forward, nearing the source of the sound. Coming upon a room on his left, Jack looked in to discover a bathroom where an undead female sat handcuffed to a radiator. Upon seeing Jack, the undead thing reached out for him, but the chains kept her in check. She had cuts and burn marks along her arms, legs and face, some oozing yellow puss. Her eyes were milky white, and her mouth opened and closed, biting at the air. She had long, bleached-blonde hair and was wearing a red satin bra with matching garter and panties. She looked to have been around the same age as the other dead female.
“Dude,” Zaun said.
“Guy must’ve kidnapped her. The girl in the hallway too. Abused the hell out of them.”
“Sick bastard,” Maria spat.
The zombie kept reaching for them, its lips pulled back, jaw opening and closing.
“I got it,” Zaun said.
“No,” Maria said, holding out her arm. “I want this one.”
Zaun looked at Maria as if she were crazy.
“Give her your sword,” Jack said.
Zaun removed the weapon and handed it to Maria. “Use the eye socket; blade goes in easiest that way. ”
“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” Maria assured him.
Jack and Zaun left the bathroom, leaving Maria to it. For some reason, she wanted to kill it and Jack wasn’t about to stop her or ask why. As they moved into the living room, he heard Maria grunt and could only imagine the blade sinking into the undead girl’s brain.
Maria exited the bathroom, and gave Zaun his weapon back.
“You cleaned the blade,” he said, surprised.
“I always return what I borrow in the condition it was given.”
They combed through the apartment, finding pornographic magazines, dildos in all varieties, whips and bondage equipment in the closet of the bedroom, and boxes upon boxes of DVDs and video cassette tapes, all with female names and dates on them. Jack found some as old as 1986. The sick fuck had been raping and torturing women for a very long time. No one wanted to see what was on the things; the guy was dead, the law could do nothing anymore. Once they got to a safe place, they could report the findings.
“I’m not staying here,” Maria said when they met up in the living room.
Jack nodded.
“This place is evil,” Zaun said. “Creep’s me the hell out.”
They left the apartment and went over to 3F. A thin metal ladder leading to the roof, stood in a small alcove to the left of the apartment. The apartment’s red door looked brand new, not a mark on it. Jack tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. Three Mul-T-Lock locks took up the space above the handle. Running his fingers over the door, Jack felt cold steel, unlike the other apartments’ doors that were wood. He knocked, feeling the solidness of the steel, like banging on the vault at a bank.
“We aren’t getting in there,” he said.
“Wonder what’s inside,” Zaun said. “Why the security?” He kicked the door a few times, then shook his head. “Forget it.”
“So,” Jack said, “2F it is.”
Chapter 22
They set up camp in 2F, pulling the mattress from the bedroom into the living room. Maria decided to take the first watch, telling the others how serving in the military had conditioned her to function in good form with little to no sleep.
The sun was shining brightly, its rays illuminating the room, filling it with warmth. She left the shades up in order to have a view of the outside, doubting the bright light would keep Jack or Zaun from falling asleep.
In the kitchen, she opened a can of beans and ate enough to satisfy her hunger, knowing that eating too much before going on watch, especially with no sleep, was a bad idea. A full belly often led to sluggish movements and the potential to nod off.
She pulled a chair over to the window and sat, looking out over the street and buildings across the way. The place was like a ghost town, unease settling into her. Off in the distance she saw gray smoke rising into the sky. She imagined there had to be a number of fires throughout the city and was glad that none seemed to be nearby. Candy bar wrappers and old newspapers tumbled by as gusts of wind pushed them around. She couldn’t get over the number of vehicles left in the street and parked along side it. It was hard to imagine anyone leaving their car, but such things, material things, proved meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Panic must have spread rapidly as people fled to safety, to loved ones.
And where were all the dead? Maria and the others were in Brooklyn, a borough consisting of over two million people.