neared the first floor, until finally it was almost overpowering. I wanted to scream at the dead, tell them to shut the fuck up. Glass broke somewhere, maybe in one of the first floor apartments. I couldn’t tell for sure. It was hard to concentrate. The zombies stink filled the hallway and the smoke was getting stronger again, too. The front door shuddered with every blow, and long splinters of wood fell off the bottom of it. Cracks split open on its surface as the hammering continued.
“Which way?”
Tasha pointed toward the back of the hallway. We slipped down the passage, quick but quiet. I was in the lead, followed by Tasha and then Malik. Brother and sister were holding hands. I glanced back at them and smiled, trying to reassure them. I didn’t feel very sure, but they smiled back.
And that was when the door burst open. It slammed against the wall with a loud bang, spilling zombies into the foyer. The first wave toppled to the floor, and more of the creatures rushed inside, clambering over the fallen ones. Their stench burned my nostrils. It felt like a thin layer of film in my sinus and throat. Tasha and Malik both screamed, but not as loud as me. They froze, staring at the onrushing hordes.
“Go!”
I pushed them behind me and raised the shotgun. The first zombie made it through the crowd and stumbled down the hallway after us. She’d once been a female. One swollen, purple breast had fallen out of her blouse. She moved in a series of spasms and twitches. There was hunger in her dead eyes, and I wondered how she’d eat me. Her jaw was hanging by only a few tendrils from her skull. With each jerking step that she took, her jaw swung back and forth like a kid’s swing blowing in the breeze.
With one squeeze of the trigger, I solved that problem for her. The zombie’s head just vanished. There was a spray of red and then nothing. The corpse dropped to the floor. My arm went numb from the shotgun’s kick, but I managed to pump it again. I took down a second creature, which had once been a child about Malik’s age. Despite the gruesomeness of it all, I got a thrill as I jacked a third shell. I was a much better shot with the shotgun than I’d been with the pistol.
Keeping the gun aimed at them, I retreated down the hall. Tasha was holding the basement door open for me. Malik had already run to the bottom of the stairs. I backed into the stairwell and pulled the door shut behind me. There was no lock.
“Shit.”
“This way.” Tasha tugged on my sleeve. She led me down the stairs and into a dark, wet cellar packed high with boxes and junk. A ten-speed bike. A damp mattress with wires poking out. Roller skates. A deflated basketball. A television with a broken screen. Mildewed clothes. Stacks of newspaper and magazines bound up with twine. The cement floor was cracked and uneven. Moisture spread in gray patterns along the walls. At the far end was another set of doors. They led into a small laundry room with three coin-operated washers and dryers. Two laundry baskets sat against the far wall. Clean clothes that somebody would never wear again spilled out of them and onto the floor. Beyond those was a small set of stairs and a pair of closed storm doors.
The doors were fastened with a bright, shiny padlock.
Above us, the dead began pounding on the basement door. It was in much worse shape than the front door had been. They’d be through it in a minute—maybe less. I stared at the padlock, my mouth hanging open. Then I turned to Tasha in disbelief.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me it was locked?”
She dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “You think we’re stupid? We’re the ones that locked it. Mr. Lahav had us lock all the doors. We just didn’t have a padlock for the front door, so we used the plank.”
The pounding grew louder, in time with my pulse rate. Over in the corner, behind a pile of boxes, something skittered in the shadows. I wondered if there were rats in the basement, and if so, if they were the dead kind.
I turned back to the lock. “You have a key for this one? If not, stand back and let me shoot it off.”
Smiling, she pulled it out of her pants pocket and held it up. She started for the storm doors, but I stopped her.
“Wait. There might be some of them in the alley by now. Let me go first.”
She stepped aside. My fingers were sweaty and it was hard to hold the key and the shotgun. Plus, my hands were shaking, which made turning the key even more difficult. When it clicked open, I breathed a sigh of relief. Slowly, I opened the storm doors and stuck my head out—shotgun barrel first. The coast was clear.
“Come on.”
I helped them up into the alley, and then shut the doors behind us. The kids put their wet washcloths over their faces and waited for me. After hunting around for a moment, I found an old skid and managed to tear a board loose from it. I wedged the board between the door handles.
“That should slow them down.”
Malik squeezed my hand. “What now?”
I checked both sides of the alley. The front led out into the main street, where the zombies had surrounded me earlier. The rear intersected with another alley running along behind a bail bondsman’s office. We went that way as carefully and quietly as possible. Behind us came a muffled thump. The zombies in the basement had discovered the storm doors.
“This way,” I whispered, hurrying the kids along.
We turned left, and then right, and then left again, working our way toward the waterfront, more out of need than any sense of direction. I wasn’t trying to reach the harbor. That was never my plan. We were just trying to stay ahead of both the fires and the zombies. Several times our progress was blocked by one or the other. I preferred the flames. Didn’t have to waste ammo on them. Whenever possible, we stuck to side streets and back alleys.
We’d made it a few more blocks before we were attacked again. We were behind a used sporting goods store and I was trying to get a bearing on the fires. The smoke was getting thicker again, making it hard to tell how close the flames actually were. Every time the wind shifted direction smoke billowed toward us.
Without a sound, a corpse lurched out from behind a Dumpster. The only reason we noticed it was because it accidentally kicked an empty forty-ounce while stalking toward us. Its face was concealed by a hockey mask. The zombie clutched a hockey stick in its hand but never tried to use it as a weapon. I think it held the stick more out of instinct than anything else. With its free hand, it reached for my head, trying to pull me toward its gaping mouth. I ducked, sidestepped, and swung with the shotgun. The stock crashed against its jaw. The corpse stumbled backward. Gripping the shotgun barrel in both fists, I clubbed the creature’s legs, breaking both of its kneecaps. As it collapsed, I smashed its head in. The zombie’s face imploded behind the hockey mask. Black sludge that must have been curdled blood squirted out of the mouth and eyeholes like wet clay. It lay on the pavement, twitching.
“Hit it again,” Malik cried. “Smack that son of a bitch.”
I did. I struck the zombie on the side of the head, and its mask flew off. Its face looked like a bowl of spoiled spaghetti. Black mold grew on its skin. I slammed the shotgun down again and the skull cracked. The zombie quit twitching and lay still. Bending over, I picked up the hockey stick and wiped the mud and gore off of the handle.
“Here.” I tossed the stick to Malik. “Think you can use this?”
“Hell yeah, I can.” He grinned like a kid who’d just unwrapped his Christmas presents. Then he swung the stick around in a circle, making a sound like a light saber.
“Knock it off, Malik,” Tasha said. “You’re gonna get blood on me.”
“No I ain’t. I know what I’m doing. Next zombie we see, I’m gonna crack it in the head just like Lamar did.”
“Now you’re talking,” I said. “Just don’t hit me or your sister with it”
“You should have given it to me,” Tasha said. “He’s too little to hit anything with it.”
Malik frowned. “Say’s you.”
“It’s not fair.”
“We’ll find something for you,” I promised Tasha. “Don’t worry.”
After I’d cleaned the gore off the shotgun butt so that I wouldn’t accidentally infect myself, we continued on. I wiped the sweat from my brow and wished for a cold beer or just some water. The hot summer temperatures combined with the heat from the fires had made it pretty much unbearable. Add to that the fact that we were running and then fighting and then running again—I was exhausted. Sweat dripped from the tip of my nose and
