After Siege (As the World Dies 4)

Juan waved her forward after the biker. “After you, Em.”

The floor was solid beneath her feet despite the popping noise of the linoleum cracking apart beneath their footsteps. Hard wood peeked out from beneath the ugly yellow fake tile. The building was old, reeking of mildew. She wondered if the Fort would ever expand far enough to absorb it. It would need renovation, but it appeared the bones of the structure were solid. The stairs were old, worn, and solid wood. They creaked enough to let anyone upstairs know that visitors were on their way up.

A few steps ahead of her, Rune answered an unseen person a few times, nodded his head, pointed in one direction, then grunted in agreement.

“What’s up?” Juan asked.

“He’s getting chattier the closer we get to his wife,” Rune replied. “She’s on the third floor and knows we’re coming. Also, she ain’t happy.”

The second floor was worse than the first. A busted window had let in the elements. Mold covered one wall that was damp from a recent rain and rotting debris covered the floor. They hugged the far wall, making sure to bypass any parts of the surface that might be too fragile to walk on. The staircase to the third floor was narrower and Macy and her son’s footprints were plain in the thick film that covered the steps.

The air was humid, stale, and speckled with the dust stirred by their passage. Emma sneezed a few times, then tucked her face into the collar of her shirt. The hallway at the top of the stairs was brightly lit from the sunlight flooding through a big hole torn in the roof. A dead tree branch lay on the floor near it. It was easy to surmise what had happened.

Rune gestured to a door down the hall. “Corner room on the left.”

The closer they drew to their destination, the tighter the knot of anxiety grew in Emma’s chest. It wasn’t rooted in fear of the undead, but in the possibility of failure. She had lived the last year and three months of her life in a tiny, hot, and sometimes squalid Airstream. For most of it she’d been alone with the ghosts of her past and fears of the future. The thought of Macy living in such a decrepit building while clinging to hope made her chest heavy. It hit too close to home.

Rune reached the door, once a bright red now faded to maroon, and knocked.

A woman’s tired voice answered, “Come in.”

Rune gently pressed the door open, taking a moment to scrutinize the situation beyond the threshold. With a nod to the others, he stepped inside. Emma scuttled in behind Rune and holstered her weapon. She didn’t want to appear to be a threat. Rune also put away his Glock. Juan had his shotgun, but aimed at the floorboards.

Emma finally got a good look at the other woman. Macy had large, dark eyes with thick eyelashes and her slender face was framed with thick curls that formed a halo around her head. Tall and leanly muscled, she was wearing different clothes from the previous day: jeans, a black tank, and an unbuttoned chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She was perched on a rickety old chair next to a card table covered in empty water bottles, cellophane wrappers, and a can of air freshener. A backpack filled with canned and boxed food rested against the wall alongside two jugs of water. Emma knew the woman hadn’t traveled with those items, so the Fort must have provided the supplies, along with a sleeping bag stretched out in one corner.

In the opposite one, Julian, in his mask, was pacing restlessly at the end of a leash his mother had tied to the radiator. Growling low in his chest, the little boy pulled at the end of the thick leather strap, his small hands clawing in their direction. Beneath a layer of air freshener, the room smelled of rotting meat.

“I

thought you said you’d let me decide my own fate,” Macy said, directing an angry glare at Juan.

“Yes, it’s your decision to join us or not.”

“But you’re here,” Macy said, her annoyance evident.

Emma stepped forward. “We want to help.”

“And you are?” Marcy didn’t move from her chair, but tapped her fingers lightly against the surface of the table.

“I’m Emma. This is Rune.”

“So Emma, Rune, and Juan, you tracked me down after I blew out of that other building in the middle of the night so I wouldn’t be bothered by you folks. So unless you’re here to offer me the cure, I gotta say I’m not feeling too hospitable.”

The two men gave Emma expectant looks. It had been her choice to come, so it was only right that she should take the lead. She cleared her throat.

“Macy, I want to help you. I know you’re in a lot of pain and-”

The woman let out a sound of derision. “You think?”

“I know. I lost my son too.”

“I didn’t lose my son. He is right there. Waiting for a cure.”

“We told you, Macy-”

“I know what you told me, Juan.” Macy shot him a furious look. “I heard you loud and clear.”

Silence fell over the room, only disrupted by the growls of the zombie child.