This Rotten World (Book 2): We All Fall Down Read Online Free Page B

for
hesitation. Zeke didn't care if he was alive or dead, so he put a bullet
through his head.
    They stepped inside of the room.
It was a crash pad, a stained mattress on the floor, a rotting body, and a beat
up old loveseat in the corner. "Help me!" he yelled to Lou as he
hastened to the loveseat. They dragged it across the scarred wooden floor and
pressed it up against the broken door. It wasn't much of a barricade, but it
would give them the time to reload.
    Zeke pulled out the empty clip
he had put in his pocket and began thumbing in rounds of ammunition that
floated in his other pocket. He pulled the half-empty clip from the machine gun
and did the same as the sound of the first fist on the door hit. More fists
followed, and the cheap wood vibrated with the force. When he finished loading
the second clip, he saw that Lou had done the same, back against the loveseat
and his legs dug into the ground, preventing the dead from forcing their way
inside.
    Zeke ran to the window and threw
it open. The apartment opened on the backside of the building. The ground below
was solid concrete, but it was clear. Still, a twenty foot drop was not a thing
to be taken lightly. He thought about throwing the mattress out the window to
break their fall, but when a rotten fist punched through the wood of the door,
he abandoned the idea.
    "Looks like we're going to
have to jump. You want to go first or second?"
    "You go. I'll be right
behind you."
    "You sure you don't want to
go first?"
    Lou looked at him as if he were
from another planet. "Man, are you scared?"
    Zeke looked out the window.
"It's a long way down."
    "Get out that goddamn
window, before I shoot you myself." Zeke smiled at Lou as he threw the
window up and leaned out.
    Zeke rested his gun on the
ground. "Before you jump out, toss this bad boy down to me. I don't want
to damage it in the fall." Lou nodded his head. "Man, that's a long
way down," Zeke said as he climbed out the window. He dropped down,
clinging to the windowsill to lessen the distance that he would have to fall.
The cracked and dried paint dug into his hands. He had the feeling that this
was how his life was going to end, and then he let go, dropping the fifteen
feet to the ground. He landed with a thump, his heart landed a few seconds
later. He was alright, though he still felt the impact of the drop in his
knees. He looked up in time to see the gun falling towards him. His hands
reacted out of instinct, protecting his face from the falling chunk of metal.
He managed to catch the gun and not shoot himself in the process. Not too
shabby, he thought.
    Lou appeared at the window, the
gun tucked into his pants. He put his legs out the window first and then sat on
the edge. From the ground, Zeke read Lou's moving lips. He thought he made out
the words, "Fuck this," but he could have been wrong. Lou hesitated
and paused, looking up at the sky before he dropped out the window, fear frozen
on his face.
    Zeke stepped out of the way. He
had seen people make the mistake before of trying to catch people jumping from
high places. It was a good way to get cracked in the face with an elbow. The
last thing he wanted was for both of them to be lying on the ground unconscious
because they had bashed heads when he tried to catch Lou. So he watched the
impact, and moved in quickly to help Lou to his feet.
    "You alright?"
    Lou was having difficulty
catching his breath.
    "You alright?" he
asked again, looking up at the window to see arms attached to leering faces
snarling down at them.
    Zeke dragged Lou down the
sidewalk, away from the window as the first of the dead tumbled down to the
ground. Its landing was not as graceful as Lou's had been, and it smashed it's
face into the ground. When it looked up at them and tried to rise to its feet,
its face no longer looked like a face.
    They moved away, Lou gasping,
while Zeke tugged him along with his free hand under Lou's elbow.
    "What's wrong with
you?"
    "My balls. The shock of
landing