The Rot: Book 3

Chapter 45

 I motioned for Janice and Rue to come downstairs. "Come on, hurry."

"Why? What's up?" Rue asked.

"Just get-"

Both Ruby's and Janice's eyes grew wide. "Oh shit," Janice gasped. They dashed down the steps and joined me in the basement.

"Who is it?" I asked them, hoping like hell that it wasn't Curtis or Joshua.

"Stenches," Janice answered.

"Fuck. How many?"

"We only saw two. But there could be more."

"Did they see you?"

Neither Rube nor Janice answered me. The three of us got our answer anyway as one of the stenches stumbled onto the landing and the dead fucker saw us.

I sighed, "Motherfucker."

The biter growled at us and he shambled down the stairs. When the rotter was halfway down the steps, it reached out and attempted to grab us. Only it lost its footing and he fell face-first to the basement floor. I dispatched the rotter, striking the back of the corpse's skull with two bat swings. The rotten brain matter seeped out of its head and the smell was awful.

I turned away and tried not to puke. "Ugh. That fuckin reeks. Never get used to that odor."

"I see why you call them stenches.," said Rue.

"Oh shit, there's another one," Janice remarked.

"Wonderful," I muttered.

The second dead thing didn't even make it halfway down the stairs. The corpse took one step down and immediately went flying. The rotter's head bounced off the concrete when it landed. Ruby finished it off, ramming her blade through the back of the biter's head before it could get back to its feet.

I kept an eye on the top step, waiting for some more corpses to show up. None did, and I didn't hear any footsteps above us. Neither did Janice or Rue.

"I'm gonna go up the stairs and see what's going on outside," I told Janice and Rube. "I don't want to stay in this place any longer than need be."

"Ain't that the truth," Ruby said.

"We're going with you, Reid," Janice told me.

"Yeah, we really don't want to be down here with what's left of these eaters," Ruby added, pointing at the two rotters we had just taken care of.

I nodded, "Okay."

When the three of us reached the top of the stairs, we could hear the mob of eaters outside. But it didn't appear that any of the dead things outside were filtering towards us. Rue, Janice, and I began moving through the house.

The kitchen was trashed. Nothing worth trying to salvage. We headed to the living room next. The smell in there hit us right away.

Ruby turned her head and covered her mouth, "Oh man."

There was a dead body lying smack dab in the middle of the living room floor. It had been torn into and feasted upon by the undead.

"Where's its head?" Janice muttered.

"Judging from the trail of blood from the neck to the front door, I'd say somewhere outside," I answered.

It looked like whoever was staying in the house had been trying to board up the windows. A hammer and several wooden planks rested beside the shattered living room windows. The front door was broken down too.

"I've had enough of this place. Let's get the hell out of here," said Rue.

I pointed to the road out in front, "Uh, Ruby? Did you forget about the stenches in the street?"

"No, I didn't. But..." Ruby started to trail off.

"But what?" Janice asked.

"There's another biter in here," Ruby answered. She looked down the hallway. "I heard it."

"Are you sure? I mean, you might have heard one of the stenches outside, Rue," I said.

Ruby shook her head. "No. It's coming from down the hallway. I heard that awful hacking noise."

I followed the blood stains on the carpet, and it appeared the biter was in the room on the left-hand side of the hall.

"You're more than welcome to go and check it out," I told Ruby.

"Yeah, fuck that shit," Ruby scoffed.

"We should just get on out of here."

"Before we do anything, we should see what it's like out front," Janice suggested.

"Okay, yeah," I said.

"I'll go look."

Janice went up to the broken living room window and looked outside.

"How is it?" I whispered.

"They're still outside," Janice responded, referring to the undead in the road. I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

"Piss."

A thud coming from down the hall got mine and Rue's attention. The missing head rolled out of the room. Most of the face and scalp had been eaten away. Then, the biter wandered out of the room.

"Oh fuck," Rue murmured.

The dead thing darted right towards us. I stood in front of Ruby and tried to push the dead thing back. It grabbed my bat and attempted to bite at my fingers. I moved it away, but the rotter reached out and latched onto my shoulders. I kept it at bay, but the corpse and I stumbled backward into the living room. I lost my footing, my bat went flying, and the biter landed on top of me.

I pushed its head up, and Janice cracked the biter in the face with her shovel. Janice helped me up, while Rue drove the point of her blade into the rotter's forehead.

Our problems were just beginning because the stenches outside heard the commotion we made, and began charging toward the house.