Cold Ashes

Chapter 14 - Just a Little Longer

The apartment complex was a place clearly filled with years of history and hundreds of stories from tenants long gone. Despite being the bony structure of what it once was, the place still had one soul that it had helped to keep alive. The last floors of the structure had been blown through, the charred corpses still laying where they were blown to smithereens.

Ryan had never thought of the other people who might've lived in the same complex. Never wondered whether they had a story to tell. But that was his nature - his selfishness meant his survival. And it suited him just fine.

Ryan's father had claimed the penthouse suite as the home for his family and for a time it was a great place for them to hide out. Of course that was until the zombies started following the father and sons back to the complex. Until they could only smell their thick stench in that part of the city.

But the explosion that his dad set was much more than just destroying a hoarde. It seemed to stay a warning, the smell of charred deadmen and ash had been more than enough for them to keep away from Ryan and his home.

Upon seeing the home that Ryan had adopted since the apocalypse began, he instinctively smiled in excitement. It had only been days, but for him it had been days too long. He missed his bed.

"This where you live?" Leah sounded a little skeptical and unimpressed.

"Are you kidding me? This place's saved me more than enough times to count."

"It's... nice."

"Yeah, I know it's shit, Leah."

"I didn't say it was shit!"

"You were about to."

A pause where she nudged him a little. "Look if it's got a bed then I'm good."

"It's got a king sized one."

"Seriously?"

"Well it was abandoned when we found it."

"It's fine just for tonight, isn't it?"

He nodded. Realising bitterly that this would probably be the last night that they'd spend together.

****

Ryan helped Leah up the emergency exit, giving her the leverage she needed to clear the thin air below her and to start climbing upward. It was a bit perilous, the stair creaking and groaning underneath both their weight, but he had trusted it too many times before to start getting scared now.

He wasn't afraid at all of the rusted metal that looked like it could crumble at the mere touch, but he was afraid of the lack of zombies. None had crossed their path in days, which he doubted was due to luck.  

She yelped as it moved a little too much in it's screws. Flailing her arms for a second before clutching onto the handle.  

"Leah!" he shouted, afraid that she'd fallen; almost hoping that she'd seen one of the dead. Alas, there were none. The nagging fear continued - where were the dead? 

"I'm good, calm down."  

"Sorry. Yeah, I just thought-"  

"Are we getting close?"  

He nodded; reaching for her hand. "Just a bit further."

After a moment of hesitation, she accepted it. Letting him lead her up the stairs - supporting her as they both got to the top of the emergency exit. When she followed him into his home, she couldn't help but feel slightly impressed and jealous of where he was living in.

To the left there was an overstocked kitchen which had all sorts of canned and dried food, things that she would only be able to dream of in the city. The fridge clearly didn't work, and there was obviously not that much on hand, but still all of it together could certainly feed Heather and the kids for months.