Living on Borrowed Time

Chapter Seven

        "You still didn't tell me your name." The woman says.

"You didn't tell me yours either." I reply. She just looks at me with a half smile.

"It's Janine." She reaches out to shake my hand. "But you can just call me Jane."

"OK, Jane..." I gently shake her hand. "I'm Bruce."

"Well, Bruce... shall we?" She gestures toward the side door.

"Sure thing." I step forward, pushing the alley door wide open. I lunge out from the darkness and into the light of day, stabbing my knife through the eyeball of the nearest biter. Jane draws back her bow, aiming at a biter that's further down, closer towards my SUV. After a moment she let's her arrow go. Zipping through the cool air, flying past five other biters, the arrow nails one right in the forehead, knocking it backwards a couple feet.

"Damn." I say as I advance toward the others, impressed by her skill and accuracy. I kick a biter in the chest, knocking it down, then stab the one next to him, then go back to the previous biter and stab that one while he's still down. By the time I look up, Jane has already shot two others in the head with arrows and is already on top of the last with her knife.

"We make a good team." I laugh, looking around at the seven biters that we killed in less than ten seconds. She doesn't say anything, she just pushes ahead, toward my vehicle.

"Get in." She says. "I'll cover you. Just back it up against the wall, block the alley so we can keep em out."

"Got it." I pull out my keys and hop in, starting the engine. She moves to the front of the SUV to address a biter. The biter reaches out for her but she's quick with her knife, slicing a few of its fingers off. She slams it's head down on the hood and drives her knife down into its temple, then pushes it down to the ground.

"You're good." She gives me a thumbs up as the sun shines in her eyes, making her squint. As I slowly back up I just stare at her in awe... she is something else. I don't know any woman that have the skill or the guts that she has, she has the will to go on. Distracted by my thoughts of Jane I bump into the brick wall of the gun shop.

"Watch it!" She says.

"Sorry." I say back, turning off the engine and hoping out.

"Well, that went much smoother than I expected, and much faster..." She looks around. "What now?"

"Can we get up on the roof?" I ask her. She nods.

"Follow me." She hops up onto the hood of the SUV and climbs over, back into the alley.

After climbing an old wooden staircase Jane pushes open the door to the roof, the sun momentarily blinding me.

"Wow." I say as my eyes adjust to the sun. "Very... spacious. Plenty of useful room up here." I walk toward the front of the building. Lining the edge of the roof is a wall that reaches up to my stomach. I squat so that I'm eye level with the top of the wall.

"This will be perfect for a lookout nest." I say, standing back up. "You could just rest the rifle on top of this wall and pick off biters."

"That wouldn't be a good idea." She replies. "Gunshots attract biters, or... sound in general."

"Do you happen to have a silencer that'll fit the rifle?" I ask.

"I'm not sure." She squints from the sun as she looks up at me. I stand about six or seven inches taller than her, she must be about five feet, eight inches tall. "I'll see what I have but if I can't find anything I'll figure something out." She says. I look past her and on the back end of the roof I see many large pieces of plywood.

"What were these for?" I ask as I walk over to them, inspecting them.

"I don't know." She replies. "My father had ordered them just a couple weeks before the infection hit, don't know what he was doing."

Each piece of plywood is about seven feet tall and six feet wide but thin, only about half an inch thick.

"There's gotta be what... fifty boards here?" I back up and look at them.

"About." She agrees.

"We can use these to build walls." I look over at her and smile, but she doesn't smile back. Probably because she knows how much time and effort it'll take.

"I don't think we should stay here." Sammy says. "This place is more dangerous than the suburbs are."

"Sammy, once we start building the walls and set up roads blocks we're golden... you gotta have faith in this plan." I reassure her. "We can make this whole block safe."

"And how long will that take huh?" She questions. "Days? Weeks? Months?"

"I don't know." I reply.

"Well, you know what I do know?" She says. "I know that the longer we're vulnerable like this, the more of a chance we have of dying... I knew we should have never left." She walks off in anger and frustration.

"I'll go talk to her." Johnny walks off after her. I just sigh and rub my eyes as I slowly sit down against the front wall where I slept last night.

"I'll help you guys build the walls." David says.

"I appreciate the offer but... it's too dangerous out there. At least for now it is... sorry." I apologize, knowing that all he wants to do is help. He just walks over to his corner where he has a makeshift bed made and opens up one of Johnnys comics that he had given him.

"You hungry?" I ask him from across the room. He slowly shakes his head, rejecting my offer without saying a word.

"Well." Jane walks in through the side door, walking past the empty merchandise shelves. "Looks like we're gonna have to put everything on hold." She informs me.

"What for?" I question.

"There's a storm coming in. Looks like it might get pretty bad out there." She says, walking off to do another task. I stand up and walk over to the side door, cracking it open enough so that I can see. A strong wind blows through the crack as I look down the alley, through the chain link fence and off into the distance. The blue sky fades into a shade of gray, then suddenly turns black. An enormous black storm cloud heading our way. When I look closer I can see a faint bolt of lightning crackle at the heart of the storm cloud.

"Damn." I mutter, closing the door, blocking out the moans and groans of the biters clawing and biting at the fence. The storm will be upon us in a matter of hours, all we can do is wait.