As I lifted the food, about to take another bite, my gaze fell on the girl. Awake now, her nostrils flaring, she was staring at the meat, her gaze wide-eyed and frantic.
“Hungry?” I asked dryly, and when she nodded vigorously I tossed what I still held in my hand into her lap. She scrambled onto her side, not yet able to fully sit up without pain, and grabbed for the turkey. Holding the meat in both hands she tore into it, her eyes closed as grease dripped down her chin.
“You’re going to puke if you don’t slow the fuck down,” I warned her.
As I figured she would, she ignored me. Rolling my eyes, I picked up what remained of the food, and with the exception of the girl’s ravenous and obnoxiously loud eating habits, we spent the rest of our meal in silence.
Soon all that was left was a pile of tiny bones and a grease-stained blanket. I was about to start cleaning up when the blare of the warning alarm wailed to life in the distance.
The girl’s eyes found mine, the hunger in her expression replaced with fear. “Me ... ?” she whispered hoarsely.
“Doubt it,” I muttered, tossing aside the bones in my hand and getting to my feet. The guards had spent two days on her and then called it quits. Everything had since returned to business as usual. “Probably rotters attacking the gates.”
I headed for the door and swiftly unlocked each lock, then stepped outside. I was far enough away from the center of the compound that the alarm wasn’t all I was able to hear. Alongside the trilling horn was the telltale popping of guns discharging. Sniffing the air, I confirmed my suspicions of rotters at the gates. The distinctly awful scent of crispy fried rotter flesh wafted in on the warm breeze, turning the turkey in my stomach to a ball of lead.
It wasn’t often that those dead bastards were able to catch us off guard. Our men constantly patrolled the surrounding area, taking out the strays on sight and always on the lookout for hordes. Usually we were able to shut down activity, bringing Purgatory to a silent standstill until they’d passed by.
The rotters relied on sound and smell to find their next meals, and we had a system in place to deprive them of both. Silence was key, as were the barrels of cleaning chemicals we dumped strategically around the perimeter of the gates. Most times, the rotters passed us by without a second glance. But sometimes, when we didn’t have ample time to prepare and they caught us off guard, they attacked.
“Fuck,” I spat out as I spun around and headed back inside.
Grabbing the rifle I kept beside the door, I turned toward the bedroom to find my jacket and stopped short. The girl was standing just outside my bedroom doorway, trembling so hard her teeth were chattering. A fresh pile of regurgitated turkey meat lay at her feet.
“What the fuck!” I shouted.
“B-biters ...” she whispered, her words barely audible over the sound of her teeth chattering.
“They won’t get in,” I snapped. Grimacing at the mess of urine and puke on my floor, I opted to leave my denim jacket where it was, and instead scoured the room for my spare. Finding my leather coat beside a stack of boxes, I shrugged it on and started for the door.
“Clean this up!” I shouted. “It better be—”
I staggered sideways as she ran past me, catching me off guard. Dropping my rifle to the floor, I swung her back around, easily done with how little she weighed, before releasing her with just enough momentum to send her flying across the room. She slammed into a metal table leg with a pained grunt, followed by pathetic whimpering. Clutching her wounded side, she stared up at me with wild and angry tear-filled eyes.
“Don’t make a fucking sound,” I warned her. “And don’t you dare move. You step out of here and someone sees you, you’ll be shot on sight, and I’ll be in a world of shit that I don’t want to have to deal with.”
“B-b-but biters ...” she whispered.
“Shut up!” I bellowed, then bent over to retrieve my shotgun and aim it in her direction. “You shut the fuck up, and you’ll be safe. Do you understand me?”
She let loose another flurry of whimpering before finally averting her eyes and giving me a jerky nod in response. I spun around and stalked outside, kicking the door shut behind me. After quickly locking up, effectively securing her inside, I jogged for the compound.
Much like I figured it would be, Purgatory was in chaos. Shouting men and women were bunched up at the east gate, which someone had thankfully switched off the power to, and were shooting, stabbing, and even pushing back at the decent-sized group of rotters piled on top of one another, trying to push, shove, and bite their way through the steel. The gates were holding for the time being, but were starting to lean preciously inward from all the pressure.
“Turn off the alarm!” someone screamed. “Turn it off, it’s attracting more!”
I scanned the crowd of the living, finding among the shooters a fallen woman, wailing as she cradled her arm. The limb had been shredded and was gushing blood, ribbons of flesh trailing from where the teeth of a rotter had sunk into her bicep. Several yards from her was the still body of a beheaded rotter, and next to it was a man lying on his back, oblivious to the people trampling over him to keep the gates from bending further. He was sweating and trembling, and I watched as his unseeing eyes clouded over.
Letting loose a string of curses, I shoved several people out of my way, pushing my way toward the man. One rotter inside these gates; that was all it took. One always became two, two become twenty, and so on and so on, and within an hour everything could fall.
“Adam!” I shouted, spotting him among the crowd. “Adam!”
I didn’t have time to see if he’d heard me. The man who only seconds ago had been in the throes of death was now snarling, snapping his teeth together as he lay on his back, reaching blindly for any of the legs surrounding him.
“Move!” I bellowed, shoving people aside. I dove forward and slammed the butt of my shotgun directly into the back of the newly infected man’s head just as his teeth locked onto the Achilles heel of a nearby man.
As the second man let out a shrill scream and crumpled to his feet, the skull of the new rotter shattered beneath the force of my blow, killing it instantly. Jumping to my feet, I pulled the fallen man up with me and slung his arm over my shoulders, balancing him at my side.
“I’m bit!” he screamed. “I’m bit! I’m bit! I’m bit!” His shouts stopped and began to sob, his body trembling.
