“What about the fire escape?”
“It’s out in the hall. There’s no way we can risk it.” A spray of gunfire sounded. Dakota felt something fall under their feet. “No time to wait.”
“Can we scale down the roof?”
“Yeah. It’s just a slide and a short drop to the balconies below.”
“What if one of us falls?”
“We won’t fall.”
Footsteps echoed into the hall. Steve pulled the window open, then peered out and around the corner. When he gestured him forward, Dakota sighed, took a deep breath, then climbed out and onto the roof.
Immediately, his foot caught and he began to slide forward.
Shit.
“Steve!” he hissed, pushing his weight back to slow his descent.
“I’m right here,” Steve said, peering down at the balconies. “You go first.”
“Why me?”
“Just do it!”
Dakota jumped and landed on the balcony below with little more than a grunt. Steve, however, wasn’t so lucky. His momentum lost by the sound of the apartment door caving in, he landed on the railing and would’ve went over had Dakota not lunged forward and grabbed his shirt.
“Thanks,” Steve breathed. “That’s twice you saved my ass.”
“You can thank me later,” Dakota whispered, pulling Steve deeper onto the balcony.
“Where’d they go?” one of the men cried.
“Fuck them!” another responded.
Steve reached for the glass door that separated them from the inside of the third-floor apartment.
Dakota swallowed a lump in his throat.
Come on.
The door slid aside under the force of Steve’s hand.
They stepped into the apartment without so much as a gasp.
“That was close,” Steve sighed.
A zombie stepped out of a nearby room. Steve raised his gun.
“No,” Dakota said. He grabbed a statue of Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders from a nearby shelf and slammed it into the creature’s face. Caught off-guard, the zombie stumbled into the wall, leaving its head perfectly open for a second, then third hit. Its skull cracked under the pressure and shards of bone cascaded from its face like rain from freshly-formed clouds when Dakota delivered a second hit into its nose. Not a sound was made throughout the entire ordeal until the zombie fell to the floor, now permanently dead.
“Shit,” Steve said. “You’re a badass, Dakota.”
“I try,” Dakota replied. He slammed the statue into the zombie’s skull one last time, then let it fall to the floor. “What now?”
“We wait,” Steve said. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“You think they’ll try looking for us?”
“I doubt it. For all they know, we’re already long gone.”
After the sun set and their fear escalated to a screaming pitch, they fled the apartment building and made their way down a long stretch of road. Guns drawn, a single flashlight aimed in front of their feet, they made their way around long-dead cars and the occasional piece of debris. Though quiet and without a sound, the night offered no solace for Dakota’s troubled mind.
“Where do we head from here?” Dakota asked, grimacing as he heard something rustle in the tree overhead.
“No clue,” Steve sighed. He straightened his posture and ran a hand through his hair, grimacing as his fingers crested the curve of his skull.
“Something wrong?”
“I’ve got a headache. That’s all.”
“You want some Tylenol?”
“Not now. Maybe later, after we figure out where we’re going.”
“Let’s think logically,” Dakota said, resting his gun against his thigh. “What’s on this street?”
“I dunno. Houses, a school, maybe a church.”
“A church?”
“One of those universal ‘Love in Christ’ ones.”
“You think it’s worth trying there?”
“Maybe, but not unless we absolutely have to. I don’t like the idea of going into a church that probably had tons of people in it right before…you know.”
Yeah, Dakota thought. I know.
Televangelists had flooded the airwaves after the CDC announced the true happenings in New York. God, they said, was punishing them for everything they’d done wrong. For the people they killed, for the wars they fought, for the babies that didn’t get to live and the abomination of sin. He’d punished them by opening the doors to Hell, the good men said, and letting all the dead run free. People were easily persuaded when told they were being punished by God. It didn’t matter that the government had confirmed that a virus was bringing the dead back to life; by that time, most of the west coast had fallen and people were scrambling for any sense of faith they could hold on to. Mass suicides swept the nation and the churches filled to bursting. Baptisms rose, confessionals stopped running, and priests were summoned to the front lines, only to be shown that God wouldn’t protect them in their time of need.
People knew it was over when the Pope rose up and took a bite out of one of his priests.
When it finally did end, people were hardly even aware of it.
“Dakota?” Steve asked. “Thinkin’ about something?”
“The church,” he said. “I don’t even want to think about going in there, let alone actually do it.”
“No worries then. We’ll figure out something.”
Shaking his head, Steve tapped Dakota’s shoulder and continued forward, once again hunching his shoulders and aiming his flashlight toward the ground.
Dakota had little choice but to follow.
Their pursuit for shelter eventually led them to an abandoned front porch. Tired, nervous and unsure of their next destination, Dakota settled down with worry in his heart and doubt in his mind, content to have stopped, but afraid of what was to come.
It’ll be ok, he thought, shifting further back into the shadows. Nothing’s going to see us in the dark.
Though he couldn’t necessarily be sure, he consoled himself with the idea that zombies, like people, couldn’t see in the dark.
Dakota leaned back and set his head against the wall, tilting his face up to allow himself a view of the sky. Shrouded behind a veil of cloud, the moon winked at him with its pearly, opalescent eye, taunting him in his moment of doubt. It could easily move at any moment, throwing them to the wolves and the teeth they bore, but he didn’t think that would happen. No, the moon would allow them respite, if only for a moment.
“Steve?” he whispered, reaching for his friend.
A hand grasped around his wrist. Dakota jumped, but managed to withhold his cry of surprise.
“It’s just me,” Steve said.
“You think we should try to get in?” Dakota gasped, still recovering from his sudden scare.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
“I’m afraid of breaking the glass on the door. I don’t want to make any noise.”
“What’re we supposed to do then? Wait out here?”
“I already told you, Dakota, I’m not sure. We shot down the church idea, so we either break into a house or see if we can get into the school—which, to be honest, kind of freaks me out. All those kids…” Steve shivered and released his hold on Dakota’s hand to brush his forearms. “Creeps me out.”
“I get what you mean,” Dakota sighed, “but sitting here isn’t helping us any.”
“We haven’t seen any zombies, so I don’t see—”
“Wait.” Dakota held up a hand, concentrating on something he thought he’d just heard.
“What are you—”
“Did you hear that?”