White Trash Zombie Apocalypse (White Trash Zombie 3)

On the second try I got the damn thing open, grabbed the five bottles of brain smoothie and tossed them onto the bed. Still at least a foot to go before that was underwater. My cargo pants were in the top drawer of my dresser, thankfully. Trying to pull on wet pants would’ve been a nightmare, and I didn’t really want to try and escape the flood in my pink underwear. I snagged a pair of pants out of the drawer, jumped onto the bed to tug them on, then shoved two bottles into each side pocket and zipped them shut. The fifth I slugged down as fast as I could. Best place to store brains right now was inside of me. Shoes were a lost cause though. I always dropped them on the floor, so who the hell knew where they were now. And the water had risen another half-foot at least in the two minutes I’d spent getting pants and brains. My phone was on top of the dresser, to my relief. I dumped out the contents of a Walmart bag and wrapped my phone in it as best I could, then shoved it in a front pocket. Finally I pulled on a jacket and headed out into the hallway.

“Dad!” I shoved my way through the now-thigh-high water. “We need to go!”

He was already by the door, pants on and also wearing a thin jacket. “C’mon,” he said, motioning me toward him and the door, urgency thick in his voice. “Maybe we can—”

“Dad,” I choked out, cutting him off, my eyes locked on the view out the window. He followed my gaze and sucked in a breath. The front yard and street beyond was a turbulent rush of water. If we went out there we’d be at the mercy of the vicious current. I was an okay swimmer and could most certainly survive drowning, but not my dad. No zombie parasite to get him through it, and he wasn’t a good swimmer at all.

I seized his hand. “Attic,” I told him, pulse racing a mile a minute. “We need to get to the roof.”

We shoved through the still-rising water, and then he had to boost me up to reach the broken cord for the attic access. The fold-down ladder was a scary and rickety thing, and, after a brief screaming match about who should go first, my dad made it almost to the top before it gave way on one side. He managed to get up the rest of the way, then I used a bit of zombie power to haul myself up the broken ladder and into the attic.

I expected it to be pitch dark up there, but my dad had a flashlight he now shone around.

“There was a flashlight up here?” I asked.

“Grabbed it from the kitchen,” he said. “Glad I did, but now I’m wishing I’d grabbed a crowbar or hatchet.”

“Only crowbar is in the shed out back,” I reminded him. Which was probably completely underwater at this point.

He scowled, but deep lines of worry framed his eyes. The water was still rising, steadily creeping up the ladder, and we both knew stories of people who’d drowned because they fled into their attics during Hurricane Katrina only to find themselves trapped. I knew people who lived in flood-prone areas who kept hatchets or axes in their attics so they could cut their way through the roof in a worst case scenario, but we’d never bothered to do anything like that. Why the hell would we? That sort of thing happened to other people. Not us.

Right.

My dad continued to sweep the flashlight beam around as if hoping a crowbar or hatchet would magically appear. “Damn flood coulda waited another couple of hours so I could get some damn sleep,” he grumbled.

I snorted in agreement, then moved to the slope of the roof and rapped my knuckles against the wood. The house was at least fifty years old, and hadn’t been reroofed within my memory, so maybe there was some nice convenient weak spot I could bust through.

I moved a bit farther down the attic, then flicked a quick glance back at my dad. He was crouched, pawing through boxes that had probably been up here for decades. While his back was turned, I took a deep breath, braced myself with a grip on a rafter, and kicked the plywood of the roof as hard as I could.

I felt a snap in my foot, and pain flared, but I managed to make a splintery dent in the plywood. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I kicked again, and succeeded in breaking through enough to see daylight, though I had to stop and take several deep breaths while I waited for the pain to dull. The third kick didn’t hurt nearly as much, though I felt something else break in my foot. Yet now a definite hole rewarded my efforts. I gave a feral smile of triumph and grabbed at the edge of the slight gap, pushing and ripping plywood and tar paper away. The sound of rushing water filtered through the hole, and a glance back at the attic entrance showed me that the water was almost to the top of the ladder.

It also showed my dad staring at me in shock. “Angel,” he said with a distinct tremor in his voice. “What the hell are you doing?”

For a brief moment I considered coming up with a lie. There was a hole in the roof already. Or It was a weak spot, super easy to get through. Aren’t we lucky? But instead I simply turned back to the hole. “Getting us out of here,” I said. I took hold of the edge of the plywood, ripped a long section away and tossed it aside. Light streamed into the attic, and now I saw blood smeared along the wood.

“Your hands,” he choked out.

I looked down. They were shredded and bleeding. A three-inch long splinter protruded from the edge of my left palm, and with a calm air I didn’t really feel, I pulled it out and dropped it to the attic floor while I tried to ignore the fact that it had been embedded well over an inch deep.

“What the hell’s going on, Angel?” he asked me, eyes meeting mine, silently pleading for a reasonable, sensible answer. Too bad I didn’t have one for him.

“It’s sort of a medical condition,” I said. That was almost the truth, right? I unzipped a side pocket of my pants and pulled a bottle out, slugged the contents down. I didn’t look at my dad, but I felt his eyes on me, watching, wary.

“That’s the shit you keep locked up in your room,” he stated. “What is it? Some kinda steroids?”

I tossed the empty bottle aside, then looked down at my hands. “I guess you could say it’s a nutritional supplement,” I said quietly, watching as the cuts closed up and the flesh became whole again.

My dad’s flashlight clattered to the floor of the attic. “I…what…?” He stared at me, confusion and shock battling it out on his face.

I gave him a sad look. “It’s tough to explain.” The fresh influx of brains sang within me. I reached for the plywood, ripped a large piece away as easily as tearing paper. “Come on,” I said, hearing the catch in my voice. “We need to get out onto the roof.”

“Christ,” he breathed. He shot a look back at the attic opening and the rising water, then swallowed hard and moved toward me. I held a hand out to him. He paused before taking it, eyes on the blood that still clung to my hand even though the wounds were healed. Uncertainty filled his eyes as he lifted them to mine.

“Are you still…my Angelkins?”

I gave him an exasperated look. “Who the hell else would put up with your whiny bullshit?” I thrust my hand toward him. “Come on, Dad. Let’s get on the damn roof already!”

To my intense relief, he reached out and took hold of my hand. I gave his a squeeze, flashed him as reassuring a smile as I could manage, then clambered out the hole I’d made and onto the roof. I used the grip on my dad’s hand to steady him as much as myself as we scrabbled up to the peak of the roof and sat, straddling it.