The Rot: Book 2

Chapter 20

"What do we do? What do we do?" A panicking Ang asked. She was breathing heavily and pacing around.

"We have to get those stenches away from the building," I replied. I wasn't going to tell Angie to calm down. I understood why she was freaking out. And to be honest, I was too. I tried to stay calm as best I could.

"Reid, are you sure you saw Carter over there?" Janice asked me.

"Oh yeah. It was him all right," I answered. I'd recognize that smarmy snot anywhere.

"Fuck."

"Forget Carter. How are we getting those biters away from the damn building?" Angie asked.

That was a lot of dead things around the building we would have to deal with. Enough of them would be able to break down the back door to the office easily.

I volunteered to be the bait for the dead fuckers yet again. "You two stay here," I told Ang and Janice. "When I get the biters to follow me, you guys get back to the office. Make sure you tell the others about Carter." If everyone inside the office was okay that is. I didn't say that part out loud, however. Angie was freaked out as it is, I didn't want to make the situation that much worse. 

"What the hell are you going to do, Reid?" Janice asked.

"Something insane. See you guys later."

"Reid, wai-" Janice tried to stop me, but I already darted across the street.

I stood there about a block away from from the dentist's office. The stenches didn't even realize I was there, they just kept on trying to get into the building.

"Hey!" I shouted at the dead things. A few of them stopped pounding on the doors and looked at me with their beige-tinted eyes. "Yeah, that's right." In an effort to get even more of the biters to give chase, I knocked the head of my axe on the ground. The loud 'clang' got some more eaters looking my way and then the dead things started to run towards me.

Besides getting the stenches away from the office, I didn't really have much of a plan. No shit, what a shocker. I dashed into the alleyway across from the building. I tried to get a look back at the office  before I made it into the alley, to see if Angie and Janice made it, but I couldn't see past the dead things that were chasing me. I had no choice but to run away and hope for the best. 

The corpses filed into the alley after me. The biters were right behind me as I ran. Thankfully, I had a straight shot down the alleyway for a few blocks before it ended in what looked like a dead end: The back of a big, brick building.

I planned on making a sharp right turn to head down a side street so I could loop around and get back to the dentist's office that way, but when I made it to the last street before the dead end, more biters decided to join the fray, running out of the street and joining the pack that was chasing me. Fun! The more the merrier! Welcome aboard, biters. Glad to have you. Assholes. 

I made it to the dead end, thinking I was screwed and about to be ripped apart and devoured. But when I arrived, it wasn't an actual dead end after all. There was a right hand turn that led down another alleyway. I need to get my eyes checked. We should have holed up in an optometrist's office instead of a dentist's.

Rounding the corner with the eaters still giving chase, my legs felt like they were going to give out any second. I had to lose the biters. Preferably as fast as possible.

There was a bit of debris at the end of the alley; two wrecked cars. I knew that as soon as I saw the vehicles sitting there, I could use the wreckage to my advantage...I hoped.