Page 77 of Romancing in Rot

Groans rise around us, waking in alleys, broken storefronts, and whatever dark places the city has been using to store nightmares.

Clair goes still beside me. “Wait.”

We all look at her.

Her rifle is already in her hands, but her eyes are narrowed toward the sound. “Luis said not to follow voices.”

That lands.

The scream comes again, tangled with a dog’s frantic bark and another burst of gunfire.

Jacob’s jaw tightens. “Then we verify.”

Clair looks up.

So do I.

I sign to Jacob, “Higher ground.”

Jacob jerks his chin toward the open door. “Roof.”

Inside, the building smells like mildew, old cooking grease, and death soaked into the walls. Mail spills across the lobby floor in damp piles. A folded stroller sits near the stairwell, one tiny sock tucked in the seat, gray with dust.

Clair’s breath catches.

I hate this city.

We take the stairs fast, two at a time where we can. The stairwell is narrow, concrete walls sweating with damp. Our breathing fills the space. Somewhere below, the dead scrape against a door, nails dragging over metal in slow, hungry lines.

Lyla reaches the roof access first and eases it open.

A harsh wind slams into us.

We spill onto the roof beneath a hard gray sky. Gravel crunches under our boots. Satellite dishes lean at odd angles. Dead weeds push through cracks in the tar.

I cross to the edge and drop into a crouch.

The block below opens beneath us.

There.

Carlos’s crew.

They’re running flat out down the street below, bikes abandoned or dragging uselessly beside them. No masks now. No skeleton grin. No devil teeth. No painted bravado.

Just kids.

Dirty, thin, terrified kids sprinting between dead cars while the city pours after them.

Carlos is in front, one hand gripping Luis’s arm as the kid stumbles beside him with Clair’s backpack hanging half off one shoulder. Wesker barks and lunges ahead, trying to pull them forward. The girl with the shaved side fires over her shoulder, the recoil knocking her arm too high. Two other kids drag a crate between them, supplies bouncing loose with every step.

My stomach drops.

Too many dead behind them.

Not a trickle.

A flood.