"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Bunny waved him off. "What were you doing?"
"I was closing up the auto shop I worked at, just over there," he told her, pointing. "Headed out to meet up with my girlfriend. Big night for us. Our one-year-since-our-first-date date."
"Had a job and a social life. I'm impressed," Bunny said.
"Yeah, I was a real go-getter," Marco quipped. "Anyway, I'd gotten her this stupid necklace. Had a unicorn on it. She loved those things. Never did understand why. Must be a girl thing."
"I was always more into handcuffs," Bunny said with a smile.
"I don't want to know," Marco said as he moved to sit on the edge of the roof.
Bunny joined him, saying, "No, you probably don't."
"Anyway," he continued. "I hadn't noticed anything wrong yet. I don't think most people had. This was about 6:30 or so. I mean, I'd heard a lot of sirens, but hey, it's Chicago, am I right?"
Bunny nodded. "That you are."
"So, I left the shop and was walking to my place to change, just over there. I was feeling pretty good, too. Why wouldn't I, right? Had a good night ahead of me. Hell, I was so cocky about it; even though nothing could ruin it."
"Bad move."
"I got that memo, thanks," he drawled. "Well, I only got maybe two blocks, right about over there, when the shit hit the fan. Me, and everyone else on the street didn't even see it coming. I don't think anyone would have, though, so I'm not too messed up about it. I mean, who expects this sort of thing?"
"Dead people attacking and eating the living, you mean?"
He looked at her in surprise then shook his head. "No, that was a bit later. I'm talking about the semi that came through the intersection doing about 90."
"What?"
"Yeah, right over there. You can see it from the other side of the roof. Damn thing plowed right through cars and everything; jackknifed in the middle of the intersection and turned over. Everyone on the west side of the street got plastered by the trailer. Happened so fast I didn't even get a chance to shit my pants."
"Wow," Bunny said.
"Anyway, after I got over the shock, I decided to be all heroic or something and go see if I could help anybody. I went around the front of the rig, saw the driver was dead, cab was full of blood, but I didn't have a clue what’d happened. The people, though, they were all beyond any help I could give."
He paused for a minute, obviously bothered by the memory. "They were just torn up, you know? Even the ones who weren't flattened were bad. It was horrible."
"I can imagine," Bunny told him.
"Can you?"
She nodded, having worked accidents in the past. "Yeah, I can."
"Sorry to hear that," he told her. "Nobody should be able to imagine that."
"I was a cop for a while. I saw that kind of stuff a few times," she admitted.
"Cop to a stripper. Your story is definitely better than mine."
"But we're talking about the living dead dude here," she reminded him.
He shrugged. "True. So, I was running around, checking for pulses, seeing if anyone was alive, when one of them got up. Just stood up, like they weren't torn to hell and gone. Then a couple more. Only took a few minutes, I'd say, before all of them that didn't have their heads bashed in were up and moving, and I was standing in the middle of them."
"If it was like it was for me, you didn't know what to," Bunny intoned, remembering the night at the club.
"No, I didn't, not even when one of them sunk their fingers into my face. I remember screaming and jerking away. I remember it hurting so much I thought I was going to die, and I remember running. After that, it was a blur. Then I woke up in the alley behind the clinic. I felt weird. And by weird, I mean, there wasn't any pain. Nothing hurt, even though I knew it should."
He trailed off, staring down at the street. Bunny looked at him for a bit then turned her gaze away. It wasn't just his face that was ruined; it was him, in a lot of ways. She understood that better than she wanted to admit.
"Then I heard screaming. I came out of the alley and saw a bunch of people crowding around a car, beating on it, trying to get inside. There was a woman inside, Rosa actually, and not realizing what’d happened to me, I ran over to help her."
"She told me you saved her life," Bunny said.
Marco shrugged. "I guess I did. I didn't really understand what was happening, but I figured out pretty fast that these guys weren't all there. Hell, who am I kidding, I figured out pretty fast they weren't even alive. I beat them down and spent the next hour convincing her to get out of the car. We've been here since then."
"With no idea why you didn't turn the way they did," Bunny added.
"No clue," Marco told her.
Bunny shook her head. "In an impossible world, nothing is impossible."
"Looks that way," Marco agreed.
Neither of them said anything for a bit, just sitting and watching the sun rise. It was the second morning after the world had ended. Bunny wondered, in that moment, how many more sunrises she'd see.
"Come on," Marco said as he stood. "I got something to show you."
On the ground floor of the clinic, in the very back of the building, Marco led Bunny into an ambulance bay. It was small, only big enough for one vehicle, with the same garage-style door that The Tawdry Tail's loading dock had. It wasn't this that made Bunny's breath catch in her
