The Rot

Chapter 22

The sun went down and the interior of the apartment darkened. Cynthia, Janice, and Myself huddled into one of the corners of the bedroom and we watched the door like hawks all night. The three of us heard the stenches moving around the rest of the apartment, and it was hard not to picture the place being filled to the brim with eaters. As the night wore on, I kept telling myself that it was only a few of them inside. But, there was only one way for us to find out.

"Sooner or later, we're going to have to open that door," I muttered to Cynthia and Janice.

"Yep," Janice replied. She seemed less than enthused with that prospect

Cynthia didn't say anything back to me. I think she was just too worn out from all of the sobbing and worrying she had been doing earlier, and she was just tired. Mentally and physically, Cynthia was just done. She did have to put down her undead mother after all, and I knew that Cyn was worrying about whether or not Ang was one of the stenches too.

"I'm hoping that the stenches just leave," Janice whispered.

"Me too, Janice," I replied. "But, we're gonna have to leave. Can't really stick around here with a broken out front window."

"Maybe we can barricade it or something?"

"With what?"

Janice shrugged, "Beats me."

"If the front window was smaller, we'd be able to prop that couch in the window frame. But the window was just too damn big."

"We'll think of something."

"The only thing I'm thinking about right now is not being ripped apart by the stenches."

It was almost pitch black in the bedroom. We had to use Cynthia's cigarette lighter for some light from time to time. But we could only use it sparingly as we didn't want to run out of fuel.

Every few hours, I would go to the bedroom door and press an ear up and tried to hear the eaters in the apartment. More out of boredom than anything else. Sometimes, I'd hear absolutely nothing, and I'd think it would be safe to head back out into the rest of the apartment, other times, I'd hear an eater or two. These undead fucks really can't make up their damn minds.

When I started to see the first signs of daylight poking out from underneath the bedroom door, I knew it was time to go check on things out in the apartment. Cynthia and Janice had nodded off, and they were each resting a head on my shoulders. That couldn't have been comfortable for either one of them; I have the muscle tone of a corpse as it is, and I have some bony ass shoulders.

I nudged both of them awake, "Sorry, but you two know what has to be done."

The skin around Cynthia's eyes were all ready dry and red from all the crying, rubbing the sleep out of them didn't do her any favors. "What's going on?" Cyn asked, groggily.

"We have to check out the see the apartment, remember? Get the dead things out."

"Oh yeah."

Janice undid her braid and ran her fingers through her long, red, hair, and then put her hair back into a ponytail. "Did anything happen while we were out?"

"No. Not really," I answered.

"Did you hear anything coming from the eaters?"

"Off and on all night. I actually got sick and tired of getting up and checking the door." I stood up and walked over to the bedroom door and I began to move the bed away.

"Need any help?" Cyn asked me.

"Please. My back's still sore from lugging around those cans."