I was

  back home during a summer break from college. The hot afternoon sun

  beat down on me as I relaxed in a lounger in the grass, Gloria next

  to me half asleep with the radio playing a summer party mix. The

  roses and peonies in the garden were bright and beautiful as always,

  a testament of my mother’s green thumb and the grass still had the

  perfect parallel lines from my father’s obsession with lawn care.

  Somewhere over the wooden fence was the sound of a dog barking

  happily and children laughing as they played.

  I watched the clouds in the sky floating lazily overhead and

  sighed contentedly as a breeze brought cooling relief over my toasted

  skin. Somewhere behind me I could hear my mom and dad talking. They

  were discussing what order to put dinner on the grill, working out

  timings so that dinner would be done at once and nothing would end up

  cold. They were playfully bickering over the order of the vegetables

  and how dad liked his corn to be mush and mom still liked it to have

  some texture.

  The smell of the grill wafted over to me, deep and smoky, and I

  inhaled deeply. The dorm meals had not been the best and even just

  the smell of the fire starting was tantalizing. My stomach growled

  and I started to turn tell my parents that I couldn’t wait to eat

  when Gloria woke up with a start and grabbed my wrist. I could feel

  the fear flowing from her to me and I met her blue eyes and saw she

  had tears in them.

  “No.”

  I could see her lips move but no sound came out. The knowledge of

  what she was saying came from somewhere in my head, like she was

  talking to me psychically but still had to move her lips to do it.

  “Run, please.”

  I furrowed my brow in confusion. We were having a great time

  sunning ourselves, no books or exams looming to stress us out. It was

  a great day, why was she afraid? I went to move my head again to look

  at my parents and her hand snapped from my wrist to my face,

  preventing me from looking at them.

  “Focus!”

  I stared into her eyes, silently pleading for her to just explain

  when the delightfully smoky aroma of the grill turned acrid and

  cloying. It wasn’t the small of a lazy backyard grill, it was the

  smell of burning paint and plastics.

  As if she understood that I was finally getting it, the tears in

  her eyes fell and she jerked me to her, pulling me into a tight hug.

  Her skin was wonderfully warm from the sun and despite the terrible

  smoke I could smell the artificial scent of the coconut in her

  sunscreen. I wanted the hug to never end, just be held by her so

  safely and securely forever.

  I woke up choking. Clawing my way out of my blanket fort in a

  panic, I swept my eyes around the room expecting to see a raging

  fire. Luckily, there was nothing but a thin haze that was seeping

  into the apartment from under the door. Distantly, I could hear

  crackling from somewhere in the building and my heart dropped to my

  feet. I was so unprepared for this.

  Thudding at the hallway door followed by a muffled plea for help

  woke the zombie beneath my feet. They charged the front door of their

  apartment and began smacking on it, trying to claw their way out.

  Another set of thuds on the hallway door, more desperate this time.

  The time for being cautious was over for now. I couldn’t ignore

  someone begging for help during an emergency.

  Ignoring the aches and pains that were still very much front and

  center after all the gardening work I threw open my door and a cloud

  of smoke rolled in from the hallway. The acrid smoke burned my eyes

  on contact and my lungs felt tight, making me start coughing within

  seconds. Desperate to get whoever it was rescued from behind the door

  I tore at the strips of cloth until I had pulled them off the door

  handle and I pushed at the door.

  With a weak gasp a teenage girl with long brown hair and brown

  eyes stumbled through the door and clasped onto me like she was

  having trouble standing. She was coughing horribly with snot running

  from her nose and her eyes shockingly red with tears streaming down

  her face.

  “Help!” she managed to yelled between coughs.

  My body finally kicked into action and I helped her walk to my

  apartment, though I mostly had to drag her. At the fire escape window

  she swayed on unsteady feet as I opened the window and cleared out of

  the way the various plant pots I had set below the sill.

  The crackling was getting louder, the roar of flames was starting

  to drown out the sound of the zombie downstairs. The pounding of my

  heart in my chest was the only other thing I could hear as I motioned

  for the girl to climb out of the window. She scrambled out the window

  and threw herself onto the metal grates, gasping clear air into her

  lungs.

  I looked around at my apartment in a panic. I likely didn’t have

  much time to figure out what I should grab. My walker wasn’t going

  to fit through the window, but my makeshift cane spear would. Moving

  as fast as I could I grabbed my backpack and threw a few of the

  knives from my weapon pouch into the pack and then hobbled around

  gathering the last few containers of saved water that still had lids.

  A few cans of food that could be eaten cold got tossed in, then with

  the smoke billowing in now black and feeling like tar in my lungs,

  the last items I could manage were my medication haphazardly pushed

  from the bedside table top into the bag.

  “Careful!” I yelled as I shoved the spear cane through the

  window and the girl scurried over to the side to avoid getting

  stabbed.

  Without time to consider the easiest or safest way for me to

  manage it, I hefted myself through the window backwards, using the

  power of my legs to scoot to safety quickly. The pain in my back and

  hips was the last thing on my mind, but I could tell that somewhere

  down the line I was going to have to suffer through the consequences

  of my running around for the first time in years.

  We both laid on her backs panting and coughing. There was a strong

  roar from below that I assumed was a raging fire and loud thumps of

  things falling and hopefully zombies trying to smash their way out of

  the building as they burned. The roaring didn’t sound like any fire

  I had heard before, but in that moment where I was just grateful to

  suck clean air into my lungs I wasn’t going to question it.

  I had been exposed much less to the smoke, so after a couple of

  minutes I felt well enough to roll my head to the side to check on

  the girl. She was still coughing heavily and her face was slick with

  mucus and tears, but her breathing did seem to be easier out in the

  fresh night air. She was definitely a teenager, though to be fair

  anyone under thirty seemed to look like a teenager to me these days.

  Her clothes were singed and covered in smoke, but looked to be a

  purple velour sweatsuit set. One of those that pretended to be a high

  end fashion brand but without the weird words across the butt.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The sound of glass shattering somewhere below us prompted me to

  try to take stock of our surroundings. The fire escape above us was

  dark, but from what I could tell it was empty, but when I rolled over

  to look down fear gripped my throat. Instead of a dozen zombies in

  the alley, there were a hundred or more, their forms writhing

  together to push against the walls as they tried to get into the

  doors and windows of the bottom floor. The roar I had been hearing

  was not roaring flames, but the battle cries of a horde of undead

  pushing towards our location. The flames that were reflected in the

  glass seemed to have drawn them in and hypnotized them towards the

  single purpose of getting to the fire.

  “Oh fuck…” the girl said next to me. She had managed to turn

  over and had followed my horrified gaze down.

  I nodded my agreement.

  She glanced towards the window which was billowing out thicker

  smoke by the minute. It was only a matter of time before the fire

  took over the apartment as well, but going down the fire escape was

  obviously out of the question.

  “What do we do?” she asked and coughed again, then wiped her

  face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “We can’t go down there.”

  “We definitely can’t,” I agreed. “We’ll have to stay

  here and hope.”

  I reached out and patted the side of the brick building and then

  scooted over to where there was a small part of the landing where it

  was just the brick of the building without the window. It would be

  barely big enough for both of us and we would be sitting ducks if any

  of the zombies below got enough of a whiff of us to distract them

  from their apparent love of fire, but it was the only choice we had.

  The girl let out a sob, but followed my lead and pressed into the

  small corner next to me. In normal circumstances it would be very

  strange to huddle so close with a stranger, but in survival mode I

  didn’t give it a second thought. I put my arm around her and pulled

  her in closer and away from the smoke. She was shivering terribly out

  of fear or being cold, perhaps both.

  I manoeuvred my spear over to me with my foot and grabbed the

  handle to have it pointed towards the downwards stairs just in case.

  I knew we were completely done for without any hope if they did make

  their way up, but it made me feel secure to think that maybe I could

  at least buy us a few more seconds for some kind of miracle to happen

  just in case.

  Several minutes later the fire reached my apartment and the window

  lit up from the inside. Tears flowed freely down my face as all the

  planning and effort I had put in were being destroyed with no hope of

  any of it being recoverable. Even if I did survive the night and

  could make my way out through the zombies below somehow, I had

  nothing and would be all the weaker now. That was it, it was game

  over for me, I might as well walk myself into the horde below and

  give up. Had the girl pressed against me not been there, I might have

  actually done it, but getting up to go now would only alert them to

  our position and I would not put her as risk for my own selfish

  desire to give up.

  It was shocking just how quickly the fire went from a warm glow

  inside to completely licking out of the window. The heat was

  oppressive, even making the brick of the building warm against me.

  For The first few minutes it actually felt kind of nice, but it

  quickly became too warm, though there was no where else for us to go

  so there was nothing to do but to just sit and try to ignore the

  burning sensation against the left side of my body.

  The girl next to me began to shake me and she pointed into the

  darkness down the alleyway. There was a glint of firelight coming

  from somewhere other than the building. A zombie had gotten to the

  fire and it was now spreading from zombie to zombie like a trickle of

  water growing into a stream. The zombie stumbled into another

  catching them on fire, then they went on to stumble into others and

  the chain reaction continued until the whole alleyway was filled with

  flaming zombies thrashing and continuing to pound on the building.

  They had managed to break into the building at some point and were

  funnelling inside slowly, both spreading the fire more and those that

  weren’t already lit would soon be burning as well.

  It was horribly fascinating to see their complete indifference to

  being on fire. They must have had no ability to feel pain because

  they barely seemed to notice. Some of the zombies had noticed each

  other on fire and had broken into clumping groups as they clawed at

  the burning zombie as they themselves then lit on fire. They had no

  sense of self preservation and it seemed as if maybe they didn’t

  even really recognize each other. It unsettled me to my core to see

  them acting not only so inhuman, but I couldn’t think of any animal

  that would so starkly lack any self preservation as well. They felt

  alien and quite stupid, it was a complete mystery to me how exactly

  the world had ended to a group of things that were so easily

  manipulated. Quite literally like moths to flames. Maybe my

  misanthropic ideas about humanity had been right all along and

  humanity had been truly brain dead enough to fall to the least

  impressive of threats.

  Eventually the fire started to recede from the window and the

  zombies in the alley had slowly burned into crackling piles of burned

  flesh. More were wandering in from time to time from other parts of

  the city, but they too were stupid enough to walk right up to the

  still burning piles and catch themselves on fire as well. Maybe given

  enough time all the zombies in the city would be lured over and burn

  themselves out. That would be convenient, though pretty anti-climatic

  way for humanity to take back everything. I felt hopeful that it

  might be true, though I felt deep down that it felt way too easy and

  reality was never easy.

  “So, I’m Sophia,” the girl next to me whispered.

  “I turned my head to meet her eyes and replied, “Claire.”

  She nodded and scooted away to give me space now that the worst of

  the fire had gone out. I gratefully pulled myself away from the wall

  and gritted my teeth against the sharp feeling of the skin that was

  touching the wall rubbing against the inside of my clothing. I was

  definitely burned which just added to the likelihood that my end of

  the line was coming up.

  “I guess you’re the person who was holed up in the hallway,

  huh?” She laughed slightly.

  “And you’re the person who left the note?”

  She nodded, then glanced into what was left of my apartment and

  winced. “Guess we’re stuck together now.”

  I let out a long sigh. “Did you get a chance to see my note?”

  “No, you left one? I went back to check a couple of times and

  didn’t see one.”

  “I left it there late this afternoon, you must have not had a

  chance before the fire started.”

  Her eyes darted from the inside of the building, then over to me

  and guilt washed over her features, but her lips stayed in a thin

  line.

  “No matter,” I continued, “but I did tell you that I’m

  disabled. Not exactly who you might want to team up with.”

  I didn’t quite understand why I was shooting myself in the foot

  and potentially giving up working with someone, but it just felt

  wrong to lie. Maybe if they had been an adult and not someone I had

  spent the night holding close while they shivered in fear I would

  have kept the lie up for a while. It felt unfair to someone so young

  and with potential to survive long term to hold them back.

  “Oh, that sucks,” she said and wrinkled her brow into a frown,

  “but that’s okay, I don’t judge.”

  “I will slow you down,” I suggested, again, against my better

  judgement.

  “Look if you don’t want to stick together, I get it, I mean I

  started this whole mess…” she trailed off and fresh tears poured

  down her face. “I was just cold and I didn’t know it would get

  out of hand.”

  I pulled myself closer to her, set aside my spear, and grabbed her

  shaking hands.

  “That’s not what I meant,” I explained gently. “I just

  meant you’re young and healthy and I would understand if you didn’t

  want someone slower to put you in danger.”

  She looked up at me with shock in her eyes. “So you’re not

  mad?”

  I glanced into the charred remains of my apartment and sorrow rose

  in my throat. Everything was gone, all my hard work and effort had

  been for nothing. Yet, I didn’t feel mad at her, she obviously

  didn’t mean to do any of it.

  “No, I’m not mad. Sometimes things happen. Bad things

  especially seem to happen in a way that we can’t predict. We’ll

  just have to make the best of it.”