Sunrise (3 page)

“I’m afraid that the sprinkler system would go off,” Steve said. “That is, if it even works.”

“What’d be so bad about the sprinklers going off?”

“Alarms, Dakota.”

“I thought they only went off on the main floor.”

“I wouldn’t count on that. Besides, even if they were only on the bottom floor, we can’t risk drawing zombies to the apartment.”

“You’ve got a point,” Dakota sighed.

He crossed the kitchen and made his way through the living room, where he entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He reached for the medicine cabinet and started combing its shelves for Tylenol, all the while regretting his ignorant display of stupidity. His head throbbed so hard it felt like someone was slamming him into a wall.

Or hitting me with an iron bar,
he thought, then chuckled, swiping the bottle when he found it.

He closed the medicine cabinet and was turning to leave when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. He seemed to have changed so much in such a short amount of time. Cheeks thinner, hair longer and hanging in his eyes, grey eyes bloodshot and jaw lined with stubble—he’d never looked this way before, not even in the least. The woman who used to run the adoption center would’ve never allowed him to look like he did now.

You’re setting a bad example, Dakota. You’re the oldest—you should be the one the boys look up to.

“The one they look up to,” he mumbled, tightening his grip on the bottle of Tylenol. “The one they want to be like.”

Unnerved beyond belief, he unscrewed the bottle, popped two pills in his mouth, then swallowed.

He didn’t need water for them to go down.

“Everything ok?” Steve asked.

“Huh?” Dakota asked. “Yeah. Everything’s cool.”

“You sure? You act like something’s wrong.”

“Just thinking about my past,” he sighed, leaning back into the couch. The plush cushion wrapped around his shoulders and pressed into his arms, allowing him one brief moment where he thought he was being embraced. The fantasy lasted only a moment, because when he realized they were not arms, but fabric, he leaned forward and set his hands between his knees.

Unless you want to talk about this, you should probably buck up and stop acting the way you are.

He’d never been good at hiding his emotions. After his mother committed suicide and his father ran off, he’d shut himself off from the world, hoping that someone or something would save him from the horrible agony of being alone. Mother Teresa was right when she said loneliness was the most terrible poverty. You could have all the money in the world and all the fame you could ever desire, but you would never be truly happy unless you had someone at your side.

Looking up, he sought out Steve’s eyes, hoping to find the reassurance he was desperately searching for. However, when he looked at his friend’s face, he saw nothing but concern and hurt, worry for a friend he didn’t know how to help.

“I’ll be all right.”

“I worry about you, Koda. I’m surprised you’ve held up so well given all the shit that’s happened to you.”

“Me?”
Dakota laughed. “What about you? You’re in this mess too.”

“At least I was lucky enough to grow up in a good home.”

Dakota said nothing. Instead, he stood and made his way toward the window, where he fully intended on parting the curtains and looking at the outside world.

Before he could get there, he stopped.

The gangs.

“Steve,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

“Hmm?”

“What’ll we do if the gang gives us any trouble?”

“What anyone would do,” Steve said. “Run.”

A gunshot cracked the silence of midafternoon.

Rising from their seats as though something might burst through their window at any moment, Dakota and Steve slowly made their way toward the window, careful not to make any sudden, rash movements for fear of being seen through the curtains. When Steve stepped forward and wrapped his fingers through the fabric, he gestured Dakota to the opposite wall, then gently drew the curtains aside.

Outside, a pickup truck rolled down the road at a steady fifteen miles an hour. Two living men, armed with what appeared to be shotguns, stood in the bed of the truck, picking off zombies as the driver skirted the edge of the street.

“Shit,” Steve breathed.

“What’re they doing?” Dakota asked, frowning as they pulled to a stop. A third man exited the vehicle, drew a pistol, and blew the brains out of an advancing corpse. “They’re just drawing more by shooting.”

“I don’t know. Let’s wait and see.”

Four men in total stood on or around the truck, frantically gesturing at the area. The man who emerged from the driver’s seat threw a hand up in the air and stabbed a finger toward one of the buildings.

Steve and Dakota froze.

“Close the curtain, Steve,” Dakota whispered.

“I’m doing it,” Steve said, carefully pulling the curtain back into its original position.

One of the men cried out and pointed at the window.

Dakota tore the curtain out of Steve’s grasp and pulled it over the window. “They saw us,” he breathed, grimacing as another gunshot rang out. He half expected it to come through the window and hit one of them. “What the hell do we do?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said, tangling his hands through his hair. “Fuck, Dakota. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“We can’t stay here. They know where we are.”

“What do you suggest we do then?
Run?”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

“We don’t have anywhere to go!”

“What do you expect us to do Steve? Wait here until they find us? Shoot back? You saw what they were carrying. They’ve got
shotguns.
I even thought I saw the guy in the passenger seat holding an uzi.”

“A what?

“A machinegun you idiot!”

“I know what the fuck an uzi is!”

“Then why the hell did you ask?”

“Stop,” Steve said, pressing a hand to his forehead. “We gotta figure out what we’re gonna do.”

“There’s only two things we can do: stay or run. I don’t think staying’s a good idea. Not only are we gonna to have to deal with them, we’re gonna have to deal with the zombies once they get here.”

“Goddammit!” Steve cried, tearing into the kitchen. “God fucking
dammit!”

Grabbing the backpack that sat on the floor, Steve pulled the small box of supplies off the top of the fridge and began shoving everything into the bag. Not sure what to do, Dakota grabbed his own backpack and headed for the bathroom, where he opened the medicine cabinet and pulled anything he could off the shelves. Most of it was useless, but they didn’t have time to sort through their belongings.

They could be here at any moment.

Dakota slung the pack over his shoulder and made his way out of the bathroom. Steve stood in the living room, loading a gun Dakota hadn’t seen before. “Where’d you get that?”

“Supermarket,” Steve gasped, inhaling a breath. “I found it in the office. Apparently the manager had a penchant for firearms. He had a whole case of ammo too.”

“Give it to me.”

“I’m working on it, Dakota. Fuck. Give me a second.”

“We don’t have a second, Steve.”

Steve grabbed the box of ammo sitting on the couch and passed it over. Shoving it into his backpack, Dakota took a moment to familiarize himself with the gun Steve offered soon after—what appeared to be a standard-issue pistol—then accepted a freshly-loaded clip his friend offered.

A crash froze them both in place.

“First floor,” Steve said. “Janitor’s office.”

“That means they’ve only got three floors left.”

“Fuck that.” Steve threw his backpack over his shoulder and pulled the curtains aside. The gang’s truck sat idling on the side of the street, though no one stood nearby. “We gotta go out the window.”

“What about the fire escape?”

“It’s out in the hall. There’s no way we can risk it.” A spray of gunfire sounded. Dakota felt something fall under their feet. “No time to wait.”

“Can we scale down the roof?”

“Yeah. It’s just a slide and a short drop to the balconies below.”

“What if one of us falls?”

“We won’t fall.”

Footsteps echoed into the hall. Steve pulled the window open, then peered out and around the corner. When he gestured him forward, Dakota sighed, took a deep breath, then climbed out and onto the roof.

Immediately, his foot caught and he began to slide forward.

Shit.

“Steve!” he hissed, pushing his weight back to slow his descent.

“I’m right here,” Steve said, peering down at the balconies. “You go first.”

“Why me?”

“Just do it!”

Dakota jumped and landed on the balcony below with little more than a grunt. Steve, however, wasn’t so lucky. His momentum lost by the sound of the apartment door caving in, he landed on the railing and would’ve went over had Dakota not lunged forward and grabbed his shirt.

“Thanks,” Steve breathed. “That’s twice you saved my ass.”

“You can thank me later,” Dakota whispered, pulling Steve deeper onto the balcony.

“Where’d they go?” one of the men cried.

“Fuck them!” another responded.

Steve reached for the glass door that separated them from the inside of the third-floor apartment.

Dakota swallowed a lump in his throat.

Come on.

The door slid aside under the force of Steve’s hand.

They stepped into the apartment without so much as a gasp.

“That was close,” Steve sighed.

A zombie stepped out of a nearby room. Steve raised his gun.

“No,” Dakota said. He grabbed a statue of Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders from a nearby shelf and slammed it into the creature’s face. Caught off-guard, the zombie stumbled into the wall, leaving its head perfectly open for a second, then third hit. Its skull cracked under the pressure and shards of bone cascaded from its face like rain from freshly-formed clouds when Dakota delivered a second hit into its nose. Not a sound was made throughout the entire ordeal until the zombie fell to the floor, now permanently dead.

“Shit,” Steve said. “You’re a badass, Dakota.”

“I try,” Dakota replied. He slammed the statue into the zombie’s skull one last time, then let it fall to the floor. “What now?”

“We wait,” Steve said. “It’ll be dark soon.”

“You think they’ll try looking for us?”

“I doubt it. For all they know, we’re already long gone.”

After the sun set and their fear escalated to a screaming pitch, they fled the apartment building and made their way down a long stretch of road. Guns drawn, a single flashlight aimed in front of their feet, they made their way around long-dead cars and the occasional piece of debris. Though quiet and without a sound, the night offered no solace for Dakota’s troubled mind.

“Where do we head from here?” Dakota asked, grimacing as he heard something rustle in the tree overhead.

“No clue,” Steve sighed. He straightened his posture and ran a hand through his hair, grimacing as his fingers crested the curve of his skull.

“Something wrong?”

“I’ve got a headache. That’s all.”

“You want some Tylenol?”

“Not now. Maybe later, after we figure out where we’re going.”

“Let’s think logically,” Dakota said, resting his gun against his thigh. “What’s on this street?”

“I dunno. Houses, a school, maybe a church.”

“A church?”

“One of those universal ‘Love in Christ’ ones.”

“You think it’s worth trying there?”

“Maybe, but not unless we absolutely have to. I don’t like the idea of going into a church that probably had tons of people in it right before…you know.”

Yeah,
Dakota thought.
I know.

Televangelists had flooded the airwaves after the CDC announced the true happenings in New York. God, they said, was punishing them for everything they’d done wrong. For the people they killed, for the wars they fought, for the babies that didn’t get to live and the abomination of sin. He’d punished them by opening the doors to Hell, the good men said, and letting all the dead run free. People were easily persuaded when told they were being punished by God. It didn’t matter that the government had confirmed that a virus was bringing the dead back to life; by that time, most of the west coast had fallen and people were scrambling for any sense of faith they could hold on to. Mass suicides swept the nation and the churches filled to bursting. Baptisms rose, confessionals stopped running, and priests were summoned to the front lines, only to be shown that God wouldn’t protect them in their time of need.