Time to Survive

Just Another Day in L.A.

"Thanks," I finally wheezed, and he glanced up at me.

"No problem. Your hand is pretty bad," he frowned, and I pulled it away from him to look myself.

I'd had worse.

"It'll be fine. I don't have time to worry about it," I muttered, staggering to my feet.

You met survivors now and again, but it was becoming more rare as the human population started to dwindle off, either from starvation and disease, or just being torn to shreds by the deaders, as my boyfriend had chosen to call them.

The guy stood, and I blinked at his massive height.

Dude was like a bean pole.

He was slim, and looked kind of scary now that I got a good look at him.

"Thanks for grabbing me," I said after a moment, suddenly wary. What if he tried to loot me now? I'd had that happen one too many times before, and I really needed the supplies I'd gathered for Chase.

"I wouldn't have let you fall." He shook his head, and then offered one tatted hand. "I'm Chris, by the way."

I hesitated, then shook slowly with my good hand.

No point in being rude, right?

"Um, Kelsey."

Chris stepped to the edge of the roof. "You wouldn't happen to know a way off this roof, would you? The fire escape broke on my way up."

Oh shit.

I hurried to the edge, but he was right; I could see the crumpled iron in the alleyway, deaders tripping over it as they mulled aimlessly.

That had been my only plan. Other then escaping, it was hard to plan too far ahead.

"There has to be a way off," I muttered, gazing around.

The building we were on top of was at a corner, and the one I'd jumped from was the closest one around. So unless we suddenly grew wings and could fly across the street, we were majorly fucked.

"Are you up here by yourself?" I asked, looking at him over my shoulder as he prowled the edge, obviously looking for some way to get to another building.

"I got separated from my group. A horde caught up with us in the subway."

"You shouldn't go down there," I sighed, trying to keep my hand elevated enough to stop the bleeding. "It's worse there then in the streets, and the sounds echo really bad. Deaders can be on you in minutes."

"Deaders?" He glanced over at me, looking amused, and I shrugged.

"Gotta have some humor, right?" I asked, leaning far over to see how low the windows on the building were. If they weren't too bad, I could probably crawl down and drop between them until I reached the street, all ten stories down.

"Huh. You by yourself too?"

I hesitated; I didn't want to tell him I was and then he do something horrible to me. So far I'd avoided the worst of what humanity had left to offer, and I didn't want to admit to a total stranger how vulnerable I was.

"I have a group, I'm just separated," I said cautiously after a moment. "Kinda like you."

Chris sighed.

I raised my head as I heard a sudden whistle, and Chris was abruptly at my side, squinting at the sun as he looked across the street.

He suddenly laughed in relief, waving his arms.

"Is that your group?" I asked, seeing a bunch of dark figures gathered on the opposite rooftop, the street separating us full of the dead and crashed cars; we definitely weren't walking across.