The Rot: Book 2

Chapter 5

Carla, Maurice, and I took a few seconds to catch our breath. If we stayed quiet enough, I could hear the eaters we had trapped in the house behind us running around in there.

Maurice pointed to the newly decapitated eater. "Look, she was a survivor."

"Key word, Maurice. 'Was.' She 'Was' a survivor. Not anymore," I replied. And no, I wasn't trying to be a smart ass with Maurice either.

"What I'm trying to say is, there's more people around. There's probably some in these very houses."

I looked at the body closely, and the woman was wearing a pair of gray jean shorts and a light green tank top and was barefoot. She didn't appear that she was ready to hit the road as I didn't see any gear around. Backpacks, front packs, or anything like that. Hell, I didn't even see a fanny pack around. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen a fanny pack in years. When did those go out of style?

Anyways, it was time for the three of us to get the hell out of there before more biters arrived on the scene. Carla and I cleaned off our weapons and I had to get a bearing on where we were. We climbed a few yards away from the house we were behind just to get away from and eaters and then we started planning on how to get back to the apartments.

"I have no idea where we are," said Maurice.

"I'm thinking," I replied. We did kind of get turned around, but I knew we weren't that far from the road that would lead back to the apartments. Actually, we were pretty close to the alleyway we had planned to head down.

"We don't have to go that far," Carla told us. "Look." She pointed to the row of buildings a few houses away. "We're right by the alleyway."

Our little detour over with, the three of us made it back into the alley and resumed heading for the apartments.

"I'm really looking forward to meeting your group, Reid," Maurice told me as we walked down the alley.

"Really?" I responded. "Yeah, they're three good looking women and all."

Carla shook her head. "You never, ever stop, do you, Reid?"

I smiled. "I do sleep once in a while."

"So, who's who back at the apartments?" Maurice asked me.

"Well, you have the sisters, Cynthia and Angela. And then you have the tall, skinny redhead, Janice. They can't stand me, like I said."

"I can't imagine why," Carla said sarcastically.

"Do they know how to handle themselves?" Maurice inquired.

I nodded. "Janice and Cynthia do pretty well. Ang on the other hand is a little bit iffy. Skittish even. I've had to rescue her twice so far. But she'll learn how to handle the eaters."

"Oh, okay. What other weapons do you guys have?"

"Cynthia has a survival knife, and Janice has a pipe wrench and a revolver. Only a few bullets left for it though."

"In my experience, shooting at these things isn't the best course of action. You could miss and the gunshot could alert more of the biters to your area."

"I know. Why do you want to know so much about us, Maurice?"

Maurice laughed. "Paranoid?"

"Just a tad."

"Don't worry, Reid," Carla told me.

"It's understandable, Reid. I'm just trying to see who we might be letting into our group," said Maurice.