Page 25 of Glitter Rose
At the ground floor, I stop to listen for any noises. Nothing. I open the door and slip outside.
The street glistens with overnight rain, puddles reflecting the lightening sky. Three zombies shuffle along the far sidewalk, heading away from me. A businessman with his entrails dragging behind him like an obscene tail, a teenager with half her face missing, and something so decomposed I can’t tell what it once was.
The apartment with the Batman comics is one block over, above what used to be a bakery. Four guys who played Dungeons & Dragons, their dice still scattered across a battle map on their dining table.
The alley beside their building offers a fire escape far sturdier than the one Knox tested with his face. I jump, catching the lowest rung, and haul myself up with a grunt. Upper body strength: another apocalypse upgrade I never asked for.
Metal creaks beneath my boots as I climb to the fourth floor. The window facing the fire escape is still unlocked from my last visit. I slide it up, wincing at the squeal of wood against wood, and climb inside.
The apartment materializes around me as my eyes adjust to the dimness. Dust blankets the gaming table, the row of action figures posed on a shelf, and the massive TV screen now forever dark. Movie posters curl at the edges: Star Wars, Marvel, some anime I don’t recognize with girls with impossible body proportions. Like, seriously, no one can look like that. Four controllers rest on the coffee table beside empty energy drink cans, waiting for players who will never return.
“Hope you guys made it somewhere,” I whisper.
The kitchen is my target. Last time I was here, I discovered their stash of instant ramen tucked away in the back of a cabinet. College student food, perfect for apocalypse living: lightweight, calorie-dense, and requires minimal water to prepare.
Jackpot.
Thirteen packages of various flavors, some plain noodles, some with freeze-dried vegetables, are still left. I shove them into my backpack. Knox eats twice what I do, so this will last maybe a week if we’re careful. Two weeks if I skimp on my portions.
The thought of sharing my hard-won supplies would have been unthinkable two weeks ago. Now it feels… not terrible.
I move to the living room bookshelf.
The Batman comics are where I remember, a neat row of graphic novels and individual issues protected in plastic sleeves. I select three I haven’t seen before. And add a fourth one. I tuck the comics carefully into the back pocket of my backpack. The weight feels good, solid. Proof I can still provide for myself, for us, without his help.
A collectible Batman figure catches my eye, posed mid-swing on a tiny gargoyle. I pick it up, brushing dust from its tiny cape. Knox would probably roll his eyes at it, all stoic seriousness, but something makes me slip it into my pocket anyway.
Maybe it makes him smile. A real one, not those tight-lipped, almost-smiles he gives when I say something he finds amusing but won’t admit to.
And he calls me stubborn.
The window slides shut behind me with a soft thunk as I get back outside. Dawn has given way to proper morning, sunlight warming the metal of the fire escape beneath my hands. Below, the street remains quiet except for a lone zombie pawing at something in the gutter.
Time to hit the delicacy shop.
Then home.
The delicacy shop sits on the corner of Elm and Third, its once-elegant awning a tattered flag surrendering to the elements.
A zombie-woman in hospital scrubs drags a broken leg,and a teenager whose face is more skull than skin, mill about on the street.
I walk among them, heart hammering against my ribs despite knowing they can’t sense me. It never gets easier. Dad’s experimental treatment made me invisible to them, but my brain still screams danger with every shuffling step they take near me.
The scrubs zombie turns her milky eyes in my direction. My breath catches, muscles tensing. Logic tells me I’m invisible to her, but my body hasn’t gotten the dm.
She sniffs the air once, twice, her jaw hanging slack to reveal blackened gums and a tongue mottled with decay. Was she a nurse? A doctor? Someone who tried to help before everything fell apart?
Don’t humanize them. Can’t afford to think that way.
Just keep walking. They can’t see you. Can’t smell you. Can’t hear you unless you’re loud.
I exhale slowly, the taste of copper flooding my mouth from where I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek. My skin crawls as I brush past the teenage zombie, close enough to count the maggots writhing in the cavern where his left cheek used to be.
The sweet-sick reek of rotting flesh coats the back of my throat like syrup. I’d give anything for a breath mint right now. Or a gas mask. Or a world where I don’t have to walk through a crowd of the dead to get delicious pasta.
I’ll never get used to this.
The first time I realized zombies couldn’t detect me was pure dumb luck and absolute fucking terror. Three weeks into the apocalypse, I’d run out of Dad’s fancy imported chocolate. Priorities, right? I decided to venture out. Armed with nothing but kitchen knives and zero survival skills. I crept down to the lobby, so focused on being silent that I didn’t notice that two zombies were there. Mrs. Abernathy from 5B,still wearing her pink housecoat, and some delivery guy with his throat torn out.
