to live. When the world was alive.
The drone of the dead were what he was used to ignoring now.
His head pounded. He knew he should be drinking more water, but had no idea when he would get some. The storm had passed and the puddles of rainwater long since dried up. His stomach growled, eager for some breakfast. But the food in the backpack had run out a couple of days ago.
Stiffly he walked to the edge of the roof. With each step his rigid joints eased off. It was even harder for him to get going in the morning these days. He would shuffle around this confined space until his ligaments and muscles had eased off.
He stepped up to the edge of the roof. Before him lay the dead city. Hundreds of abandoned buildings, thousands of rusting cars and what seemed to be millions of dead inhabitants.
He looked down at the seething mass of undead flesh below. The street was packed with cadavers, all calling their baleful lament.
Ali sniffed back hard, then hocked up the phlegm from the back of his throat and spat it at the baying swarm.
The undead milled around, jostling with each other for position, arms outstretched as if in worship.
Ali cleared his lungs with a sharp cough and pulled the crotch of his underwear to one side. A torrent of thick yellow urine streamed off over the lip of the smashed rooftop. As the urine fell the long way to the ground, the wind caught it and dispersed it into a thin mist. The piss drizzled down onto the upturned faces of the reverent zombies filling the street.
“That why you moan so much, eh?!” Ali shouted out at the mass of undead. “‘Cause I still piss on you?!”
Iain McKinnon
