SurvivorZ

28

MIKE

Mike and John watched the listless, grim pageant filing past the window, while undead groans echoed outside their barricaded apartment door. Most of the zombies had already gone past. Only a few handfuls of crippled stragglers lagged behind. Once they moved on, the only threat left to contend with would be the ones still in the building.

With Roberta and Lawrence sequestered quietly in the bedroom, attacks on their hastily constructed barrier had trickled to nothing. From the sound of things, a small group remained on the stairway. Others lingered in the corridor outside John's apartment. Mike could hear them out there, shuffling aimlessly through the hallway, sniffing and growling as they searched for prey.

The two men huddled silently on opposite sides of the front window. Neither of them wanted to risk uttering a word that might jinx the streak of good fortune seeing them through the crisis.

It turned out that they didn't have to. Their luck was about to run out on its own.

A soft click at the other end of the room drew their attention away from the trickle of mutilated bodies staggering down Washington Street. Roberta softly closed the bedroom door behind her and scurried across the floor to kneel down next to Mike. The look of fear etched on her face since the moment they met now contained a hint of something new – desperation.

John Kenney inched over to them, keeping his body low to avoid detection.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Mike whispered. He suspected he knew what her response would be before it escaped her mouth.

"It's Larry."

Mike resisted the urge to scowl. The aged veteran hunkered alongside him responded in his stead. "Son of a—"

"What now?" Mike asked in a gravelly tone.

"He thinks we should jump from the bedroom window and escape," she said, struggling to keep her voice low. "I tried to convince him that I'd never make it, but he won't listen. Please, you have to stop him before he does anything foolish."

Mike looked at John. "Could he make the jump?" He didn't trust the man further than he could throw him, but if they could get someone outside to distract the monsters away from their door, it would make it easier for the rest of them to escape. If Larry wasn't amenable to the plan, Mike thought that he could attempt to play the role of bait himself.

John shrugged. "It's not an easy drop. Maybe fourteen or fifteen feet onto a sloping concrete driveway. Even if he hung from the window before letting go, it's still a decent fall."

Mike shook his head and groaned softly. "I'll talk to him."

He headed for the bedroom door with Roberta tight on his heels and John bringing up the rear. By the time his hand fell on the doorknob, he figured that he had prepared himself suitably for another round of verbal jousting with the domineering marketer. He wasn't ready for the sight awaiting him on the other side of the door.

At first glance, Mike thought the room was empty. There was nobody on the bed or standing in plain sight. His heart skipped a beat. Though he only met Larry a little better than an hour ago, he wouldn't put it past the man to ambush him for the gun tucked into his waistband. From what he'd seen of him, Lawrence Bell seemed obsessed with being in charge. Committing violence to assert his dominance wouldn't be much of a stretch, under their present circumstances.

Then Mike spotted him. Larry had skipped over the part of the plan where he was only a threat to his biggest rival, transitioning straight into becoming a menace to everyone.