Redemption of the Dead (12 page)

“We
do.”

Hard
footfalls closed in behind them. Billie turned around with a start
and saw a smaller, thinner version of the man she was with. He had
the same face, same hair, same beard, but was only slightly taller
than she was and had a bony, farmer-strong kind of build. He also
wore jeans and flannel, his a plaid of baby-blue and dirty
gray.

He spoke to
the larger man in a language she guessed as German. The big man
replied in the same, the two never breaking stride ahead of her
during the exchange. She jogged to catch up. The men stopped
talking.

Oh please,
she
thought,
don’t be those
people who show off by talking in a different language and look at
you as if you’re stupid because you don’t understand them.
“Um . . .” she started, but couldn’t
think of anything to say.

The three
walked in silence, each passing minute making her feel more and
more like an outsider. After a few minutes more, they reached the
cottage. It was quaint, but very old, probably eighty-plus years.
Most of it was made with stone, the rock streaked with gray from
the day the Rain fell. The roof was gray as well, with patches of
brown shingle showing through. Obviously the roof hadn’t been up
kept over the years. The windows were filthy and she couldn’t see
inside. The door was made of thick wooden boards, with age cracks
running through it. It was dark brown and not as gray-stained as
the rest of the place. She assumed the door being partly inset in
the frame protected it from some of the Rain.

“W
e go in,” the big
man said.

Billie
waited for him to enter then followed behind the shorter one. When
she came in, she felt like she was in a museum. It was one room
with a wooden table in the middle, a kitchenette from the sixties
off to the side with a wood-burning stove, fridge and a faded pink
countertop. It looked terrible. A stone fireplace against a
wood-paneled wall was off to the other side, closer to the door. A
coat rack was beside the door and not much else aside from a wooden
chair and a few iron pans hanging on the wall. There was something
cozy about this place, though, something homey.

There was a door against the back
wall.

“You eat
first, yes?” the big man said to her.

“Hm?” she said and stopped scanning
the room.

“You eat first.”

“Actually,
I’m starving. Sure. And—” He raised his eyebrows. “Thank you for
helping me.”

The big man smiled at the
other.

The shorter one said, “He’s
happy.”

“Happy?”

“Yes.
Before, he told me he thought you were very pretty.”

A flush of warmth came over her and
she was mad at herself for suddenly going all girly from the
compliment, but it was amazing to hear after so much sadness and
tragedy and depression. All she could do was smile.

“I cook for you,” the big man
said.

The smaller
man grinned. “Just let him have his way. He treat you nice. Don’t
worry, you safe.”

She hoped he was telling the truth.
Being in a cottage in the middle of nowhere with two strange men
wasn’t any girl’s idea of safe.

The big man
seated her at the table and told her to, “Wait while I make you
specialty.”

You mean I get to have real food and not just scroungings
of leftovers and canned beans?
She couldn’t help but be excited.

The two men went to work, the big one
doing the cooking, the other leaning against the counter, arms
crossed. They exchanged words, once again leaving Billie alone to
her English thoughts and musings.

Tired, she rested her head in her
hand. She didn’t mean to fall asleep.

* * * *

11

The Window

C
oming up on
April’s apartment building instantly
took Joe back to the day of the Rain and him running out into the
storm to see if she was all right. The building before him looked
more or less the same as the one from his world—filthy brick
streaked with gray, broken windows, blood scraped along the
sidewalk.

Holding the
knives—he hadn’t yet found something to wipe them on—he went toward
the door, ears open to any sound that would indicate he wasn’t
alone. He checked the apartment registry inside the door for her
name. The glass over the listings had been smashed, most of the
tiny white plastic letters scattered on the floor.

“Doesn’t
matter,” he said quietly and started heading up the stairs to the
top floor where April’s suite was.

The hallways
and stairwell were quiet, the silence amplifying his footfalls on
the linoleum steps. Once at the top floor, he scanned the hallway,
remembering the little girl who originally pointed him to April’s
suite in the other world, the girl who ended up getting devoured
right after by her own father.

“Sorry I
couldn’t save you,” he whispered. The man he’d been the day of the
Rain was a far cry from the man he was now. Himself—Joseph—died
after April did. The man of tenderness who loved words and poetry,
comics and cereal, no longer existed. The days of hoping for love
and a future . . . no more.

The door to April’s suite was closed.
The handle looked untainted, which he took as a good sign. He
didn’t expect her to actually be in there if she was alive, but he
hoped he’d find something within that might lead him to her
whereabouts.

He put all
three knives in one hand and carefully gripped the handle in the
other. The knob turned a quarter inch then stopped. He turned it
the other way. Same thing.

Locked.

Heart
sinking, he knew there was no way he’d kick this door down.
Apartment doors were thick, heavy, and locked in place so severely
that it’d take a bear to barrel through. The deadbolt alone was
unbreakable never mind any other locks that might be in place
inside the door. In the other world, the door had been unlocked and
he had kicked it open.

“Options, options, options,” he said
to himself, the words slurred together. “All right, here we
go.”

He went to
the suite next door, checked the handle. It was locked as well. He
hit the suite at the end of the hallway and was relieved to find
the door open. He went in and checked the place over for any
creatures. Books and open movie and videogame cases covered the
living room floor, the TV gone, the unit that held it tipped over
onto the ground. The kitchen was an equal disaster; same with the
bedroom and bathroom. The place had obviously been looted at one
point.

Joe went
back to the kitchen, found a dish towel, and wiped down the knives.
After replacing them in the slits in his belt, he sat the kitchen
table back on its legs and opened the window above it. The window
was about three feet by two, big enough to fit him, but also
dangerous because he was three stories up and there wasn’t a ledge
to climb out on. Joe hoisted himself on to the sill, turned around
so his back faced the outside, and drew his legs up so all his
weight was on the sill’s edge. Carefully, he gripped between the
bricks around the window and used them as small handholds while he
slowly got himself onto his feet, his toes still hanging inside the
kitchen on the sill.

He
glanced at the ground below. “This is dumb.” If he fell, he’d break
his legs for sure, and that was
if
he even landed on
his feet. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he
landed on anything else. The window to the next suite was a far
reach from where he was, but the windows themselves linking the
bedrooms to the kitchens were possible to climb along if he was
careful.

He reached
slowly, straining his fingers to grab around the corner that led to
the next sill—the bedroom window—then slowly did the same with his
foot. Only the tip of his toes touched the sill he was aiming
for.

Maybe it’d be better if I went back in, went down and tried
this from outside?
He quickly
scanned how the windows were situated and the height going from one
to another would be impossible to scale.
You’re crazy for doing this for a girl.
He drew himself back to the kitchen
sill and regained his balance.
You’re also the guy who vowed to do anything for her if
needed. This falls into the category of “anything,” if that was
ever true.
There was only one
way to have a chance of doing this if he was going to go for
it.

Taking a deep breath, he went to the edge of the sill again
and reached for the other one. Fingers barely touching around the
brick, same with the tip of his toes, he knew the next move he’d
make would determine if he lived or died.
Don’t fight it. Use the adrenaline. Keep your hips in,
don’t think about the ground or where you actually are.
Inhaling and exhaling three breaths
in rapid succession, he took the leap. The second his reaching foot
set more of its weight on the sill, he immediately hopped it over
down its length and leaned the same way, keeping himself more or
less in balance. He made it, heart racing. His fingers ached from
gripping in between the bricks so hard. There was no going back
now. He had to do this two more times before he’d hit April’s
bedroom window. From there he could kick in the glass and climb
in.

He didn’t
know how long he stood there on the sill, gathering himself and
psyching himself up for the next leap, but once he did, the second
jump came easier than the first. His legs were shaking so badly
from the rush he didn’t know if they had the strength to do it one
more time and keep him stable.

The seconds
slowly ticked by; Joe steadied his breathing, imagining he was
somewhere else, like a sidewalk where balance wasn’t an issue. He
tried not to think about his fingertips and how numb they were
along with the sharp pain in his wrists from holding on so
tight.

“Take it
easy,” he breathed. “Just sloooow down. Relax.” Heart racing, he
decided the best course of action was to just do it, live in the
moment of the leap, and get it done. He was at that place that any
more dawdling and he’d have to give up and climb in the window in
front of him.

“Okay, go,”
he told himself and reached for the brick bordering what should be
April’s bedroom window. He took hold and reached out with his foot.
Once he found purchase, he took a deep breath and leaped sideways.
Gravity took over as his hand slid down the brick, scraping it. He
caught the edge of the sill where his foot should have landed and
hung there with one hand, yelling from the surprise. His right hand
was so tight up against the corner of the sill that he couldn’t
squeeze his other hand beside it. His only choice was to reach up
and cross his arms in an X, his left hand over his right and grab
the sill that way. From there, he brought his right hand out from
under his left and worked it beside it. Hanging there, ready to let
go, he tried to do a pull-up against the sill, maybe get his elbow
on it and hold his weight that way. He couldn’t gain more than six
inches when he tried. The sill was too narrow to accommodate his
elbow, forearm, and his shoulder that would inevitably lean forward
against the glass.

He imagined
letting go, the spike of pain rushing up his legs and into his hips
when his feet hit the ground, the loud snap of bones cracking as
they shattered from the impact and he collapsed.

“Can’t go
out like this,” he said. If he broke his legs, both of them, he’d
probably pass out from the pain and lay there helpless as zombie
food.

He needed to
break the glass, but needed leverage to make the impact count.
“Yeah,” he said, thinking of a way. He cautiously reached for his
belt and pulled out the steak knife. He worked his hand past the
handle and up to an inch or so from the end of the blade, then
flipped the blade over, dull edge on the inside. He brought his
palm onto the sill, giving his other hand a rest of taking all the
weight.

Like a hammer,
he told
himself.

He drew his
hand back enough so there was enough space between the butt of the
knife and the window, and then rapped it on the glass. The outside
of the blade cut his finger as he did and terror ran through
because those were the same blades he used on the undead. If the
blade wasn’t completely clean, their blood would make its way into
the cut and he’d be done for.

“Worry about that later,” he said,
still freaked out over it.

Joe used the
knife to rap on the glass again, this time striking hard. He was
mindful to keep hitting the same spot. “Come on!” He struck the
glass again and he heard it crack. One more blow and it shattered,
creating a hole about the size of a fist. Joe quickly used the
knife handle to bang out the surrounding glass as much as he could,
then threw the knife through the hole so he could fully use his
hand again.

He
shuffled down the sill so he was better in line with the hole and
hugged his body as close to the wall as possible even so far as
leaning
into
the wall to make his weight work for
him not against him.