The

  water I had thrown into the backpack was gone before noon. We sipped

  it while quietly watching the flaming piles of zombie corpses slowly

  burn themselves down and the length of time between more zombies

  wandering down the alleyway became longer until they seemed to stop.

  The majority of sounds of the fire within the building had quieted as

  well. It was eerily quiet aside from the residual crackles and creaks

  of parts of the building that were now structurally compromised.

  “I have to pee,” Sophia whispered.

  I nodded and sighed. I had to go too, but I wasn’t sure where

  exactly we were going from here. I felt frozen in place, unwilling to

  leave where I had called home even if it was nothing more than a

  smouldering pile of ash now. Besides, the burn on the left side of my

  body was starting and the idea of moving was less appealing.

  “There’s a little corner shop just across the street from the

  front of the building,” she suggested. “They might have some

  snacks and water too.”

  “I’m sure that will all be cleaned out already,” I replied.

  “That would have been the first place I thought of if I had been

  gathering supplies to leave.” I stopped and sighed, realizing I was

  being pessimistic. “But we might get lucky and find something.”

  She hopped to her feet and leaned over the side of the railing

  scanning her head back and forth at the charred destruction below us.

  The sun was at its zenith and it was casting its bright rays through

  the smoke and haze left from the fire.

  “Seems none of them are still moving,” she reported without

  looking back at me. “Think it might be clear for now, they seemed

  to have stopped coming and I don’t’ see any on the street.”

  “It seems like a good sign that they all just stupidly walked

  into the fire.” I let out a suppressed groan as I used the railing

  to pull myself to my feet. Sitting in the same position for so long

  on a hard surface had frozen my muscles and it was agony making my

  hips and knees unbend.

  Normally I would need at least a few days of babying my body after

  putting it through a stressful situation to recover and for the pain

  to subside, but I didn’t know when or where I’d be able to rest

  again. Couple it with the burn I still needed to look at to determine

  how bad it was and I was already coming to terms with how screwed I

  was in my head.

  Sophia turned her focus back onto me with concern in her eyes. She

  looked me up and down and gave me the little forced smile I was all

  too familiar with when it finally clicked for people that I was in

  pain around them and they didn’t know what to do. I assumed it was

  their internal struggle to want to sympathize fighting it out over

  the thought that maybe I didn’t want it pointed out so the smile

  was the result. A small acknowledgement that they noticed and opening

  the door for me to explain if I wanted to, which I rarely did.

  “After we hit the bathroom and grab some snacks we can see if my

  mom’s car is still there,” she said and fished a key ring out of

  the front right pocket of her jeans. “It was the only thing I

  thought to grab when the fire started.”

  Seeing the key gave me a little injection of hope. Having a

  working car would mean a lot towards my continued survival. Not only

  was it a means of getting around, but it was a fairly secure base

  that could keep us safe and warm. We were no where near saved but we

  were a lot closer than I thought we were just a few seconds prior.

  “Lead the way then, just take it slow, please.”

  She nodded and bent to pick up my makeshift spear. She handed it

  to me and gave me a more genuine smile.

  “No worries, my mom was disabled so I get it. I took care of her

  since I was ten.” Her smile faltered and there was pain behind her

  eyes that she was fighting off. “There might be a cane and a

  folding wheelchair in the car, unless I’m remembering wrong or

  someone broke into the trunk.”

  “That would be amazing.” I ignored the impulsive desire to ask

  what had happened to her mother. I could extrapolate the sad truth

  and I didn’t need to dig into the wound further before she was

  ready.

  While I was selfishly relieved to know she had a personal

  understanding of what it was like to live with disabilities, I also

  felt immensely guilty that she probably was going to feel a bit

  responsible for me now. I was going to have to work hard if we stayed

  together to make sure she didn’t transfer the feelings of being

  there for her mom to me. She didn’t have any reason to be loyal or

  want to protect me and I didn’t want to be the reason she ended up

  dead.

  “We’ll see, but no promises. The last couple of weeks are just

  one big blur…. A lot has happened.” A tear was getting ready to

  fall from her left eye so she turned quickly to the fire escape

  stairs and started down slowly. She didn’t look back at me, but she

  was intentionally giving me enough time to follow at my own pace.

  “You act as lookout for me, okay?” I asked. In that moment I

  really wished that I hadn’t modified the cane.

  I could walk unassisted, but after running around trying to escape

  the fire and then spending all night curled up on the cold wrought

  iron my body was very angry. Hanging onto the railing tightly was

  helping, but each step down required me to beg my body to move and

  the pain through my legs up to my lower back was excruciating.

  I did my best not to show how much of a struggle I was having just

  getting down the stairs, but I must have given it away somehow or

  Sophia sensed it anyway because she stopped every few steps to look

  around and buy me time to catch up to her. Even though I was wrapped

  up in the agony and just wanting to sit and give up, I still noticed

  her kind attempts to give me some dignity and pretend she wasn’t

  being held up by me. She was a good person and hoped that her teaming

  up with me wouldn’t end up being her downfall.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Near the bottom of the stairs the smell of burned hair and flesh

  was overpowering. It was an almost indescribable smell that was heavy

  and cloying, sickly sweet while being carbonized. The scent attacked

  the inside of our noses, almost burning with how powerful it was. All

  the burned plastic, wood, and countless other materials in the

  building had their own powerful aroma, but the stink of the burned

  human bodies far out competed.

  Only by pulling our shirts up over our noses did we find the

  strength to actually descend the last floor and step onto the last

  set of stairs before the alleyway. The ground glimmered like it was

  wet and with horror I realized that it was the rendered human fat

  seeping out of the piles of burned zombies. Abject horror rolled

  through my body and my stomach turned over. I had to turn my head up

  towards the sky, looking back through the grating that we had just

  climbed down to try to still my stomach and gather back the nerve to

  keep going. By the sound of it Sophia had not turned away in time and

  she vomited over the side of the railing.

  For a few moments we were stuck on the last few steps, neither of

  us talking or moving. When I finally went to look back to face

  reality, Sophia was staring at me, face gaunt and pale, tear stains

  on her cheeks. She was looking to me for guidance even though I

  didn’t know how I was going to get through it myself. In that

  moment with her young, scared face in front of the backdrop of

  something so horrible it was hard for me to focus on, I realized that

  she might need me just as much as I needed her. She needed someone

  older with more life experience to help her get through things. She

  had only started the fire because she hadn’t thought about or

  didn’t know the consequences. She was just a kid trying to do her

  best, but she still needed guidance and had a lot to learn.

  I nodded my understanding to her and then stepped down past her to

  the very last step before the paved alley to try to see if there was

  any way at all to avoid stepping in the slick mess. So many zombies

  had grouped together and piled into burning mounds that it felt

  impossible to find a single area in the alley that was clear until

  the street. We would just have to grin and bear it to get past. Not

  the ideal outcome, but rarely the necessary steps in life were

  pleasant.

  “You go first, quickly, and scout out the street.”

  “I don’t know…” she said. Her eyes darted over the path

  between the end of the stairs and the street in the distance. “I

  don’t think I can.”

  “You can,” I insisted. “It is going to suck and we’ll

  probably have to find new shoes and clothes afterwards, but you can

  make it. We can make it. You are going first though. No waiting on

  me, just make sure the coast is clear. Okay?”

  She looked back to me with fear in her eyes, but after a moment

  she nodded. She pulled her shirt up farther over her face and took

  the first tentative step down, then another. A few steps away she

  turned her head to the side and called back to me.

  “Be very careful, it’s really slippery.”

  “Thanks,” I replied and then took a deep breath of my own and

  stepped down onto the pavement.

  My foot immediately almost flew out from under me and I was very

  glad that I had made it a tentative step with my other foot still

  firmly on the stairs. My balance was terrible even on the most

  textured and stable of surfaces, this kind of scenario was pretty

  much my worst nightmare. Still, as I told her, it had to be done.

  Even if I ended up falling down into the horrific filth I would just

  have to crawl to the end and get up and keep on. I didn’t have a

  choice any longer, I didn’t have an apartment to go back to, it was

  get to the street or nothing.

  On the second attempt I focused all my energy on keeping my foot

  steady and I managed to get myself fully off of the stairs. Like the

  most morbid version of an ice skater, I carefully slid my feet

  forward, trying to use the slickness to my advantage. The first mound

  of dead right next to the stairs was difficult to manoeuvrer around

  as I didn’t trust lifting up my feet to take big steps over the

  charred limbs in my path. Instead, I had to carefully and slowly

  shuffle around them, at one point clinging to the wall of the burnt

  building to avoid stepping on anything. The other four large piles in

  the way were easier to navigate, though on an emotional level each

  one was worse than the last.

  The zombies at the bottom of the piles seemed to still be burning

  and it was incredibly disconcerting to hear the crackle and pop of

  them as I passed by. The faces of the zombies were blackened and

  deformed, yet still too recognizably human. It was something out of

  the worst horror movie only it was real and it chilled me to my core.

  I wanted to scream and cry in fear and disgust, but it wouldn’t

  change anything and might only draw more zombies towards us, so I had

  to hold it in. Still, I could feel the images along with the

  oppressive smell burning into my mind and forever into my memory.

  When I finally caught up to Sophia, I found her huddled against

  the corner of the building, sitting in on a piece of pavement that

  was relatively clean. She was sobbing and shaking with her knees

  pulled up to her chest and her arms crossed over her face, her body

  shivering. I shuffled over to her and leaned down to put a hand on

  her shoulder. She didn’t stop crying at first, but after a few

  moments she wiped her face and slowly stood up. Her eyes looked

  haunted and she looked around the corner to the right where the front

  entrance of our building was.

  “I don’t see any of them,” she whispered. “I looked for a

  while and couldn’t see anything moving.”

  “Good job, let’s get cleaned up. We’ll feel better with some

  food in us as well.” I looked towards where she was and it did look

  deserted.

  There were several cars still on the street, though not nearly as

  many as you would normally expect for a busy residential city street.

  It appeared that many people had hopped in their cars and fled while

  they could. At least it meant less cars for zombies to crawl under

  and hide. Though it also meant less places for us to hide if need be.

  “There’s a thrift store around the corner up ahead a couple

  blocks too,” she continued in her terrified whisper. “We can

  maybe find some things there and my mom parked somewhere over there I

  think.”

  “Then we have a plan,” I said and urged her to her feet.

  She stood and went to look back down the alley and without

  thinking I caught her chin in my hand and prevented her from looking.

  Instead I gently turned her face towards the street in front of us.

  “First lesson is to never look back,” I said calmly as we

  walked forward. “We can’t change what’s behind us, the only way

  to survive is to focus on what’s still in front of us.”

  We slowly walked together towards the small corner store, it’s

  door worryingly open to the street.