This Broken City Sky

“What the fuck is taking them so fucking long?” Kat hissed from her place on the balcony. The three men that stood with her didn’t answer. She had been anxious from the very start and now that five minutes had passed since the three walked in, she hadn’t shut up. She cursed, she yelled, she paced back and forth, and she clenched her shaking hands at the roots of her hair and pulled at it. Kat stopped pacing long enough to lean over the side of the balcony, her eyes fixed on the movement within the gas station across the street.

“If they don’t come out of there soon, I’m going to-”

“Fucking what?!” Gerard exclaimed, causing the blonde woman to look at him with an angered expression. “Are you going to fucking run across the street to get them?” Kat merely stared hard at him, her nostrils flared and her eyes harsh and unyielding.

“Shut the fuck up, Gerard,” Mikey commented quietly, causing all eyes to go to the lanky, bespectacled man. “You know you’d be the same if it were me in there and you were up here.” No one said much after that as they watched on, bottles of liquor stuffed with alcohol drenched cloth just waiting to be lit and thrown over the side of the balcony if they needed to be.

Meanwhile, Johnny stood beside the door of the gas station, occasionally glancing out the windows to be sure that none of the walkers were getting close to realized that three living, breathing humans were right in front of them. Dylan and Frank were quietly talking to each other as they nearly threw food and items into their backpacks. They paid no mind to expiration dates or what exactly they were throwing into the bags. All they knew was that it was food and they were all starving. As Dylan rounded a shelf, she grabbed a few bottles of pain killers and other hygiene products she thought they’d need. Frank hopped over the counter and began throwing packs upon packs of cigarettes into his bag, knowing that there weren’t any left in the hotel. He threw lighters and matchboxes alike into his bag because they were running short of those too.

Dylan pulled open one of the freezer doors and began throwing water bottles into her already nearly stuffed bag. Anxiously, she glanced around just to be sure before walking around the store again, making sure they had gotten what they mainly needed. Just as she was grabbing a bag of chips, Johnny hushed them and all movement within the gas station stopped completely. The three individuals watched through the dirty glass as an infected woman, who looked more like a corpse than anything, shuffled not three feet from the doors. The all held their breath as they stayed completely still, their hearts thudding heavily in their chests as they watched the woman stop in front of the door, sniffing at the air like a wild animal before slowly shuffling away.

A sigh of semi-relief traveled through the gas station as the watched the doors just to be sure no other stragglers decided to pass in front of the doors again.

“I think that’s our cue to leave, don’t you think?” Johnny said quietly, looking between Frank and Dylan. They both nodded and began to zip up their backpacks as quickly as possible, since they knew there was no time to waste. The fires set off by the Molotov cocktails would soon die out in the cool, dry breeze. They checked the store once more, making sure they weren’t leaving anything behind before pulling their loaded backpacks onto their backs and snapping them securely across their chests. Soon, they were crowded by the doors, glancing out of them to be sure there were no infected waiting just beside them.

Once they were sure that the area around the doors was clear, Frank burst through the doors, quickly followed by Dylan and Johnny. They noticed there were more walkers straggling away from the fires and pushed themselves to run against the snow covered pavement even harder. They tried to be as quiet as they possibly could as they ran toward the side door of the hotel, to be sure that none of the walkers were going to follow them. Just as they crossed over the street to the opposite sidewalk, Johnny felt bony fingers wrap around and give a sharp tug on his shoulders and he lost balance, slipping and falling onto his back onto the pavement.

A woman’s scream cut through the air, from the balcony that four of the five in the hotel stood upon, as Johnny looked up to see an infected standing above him, slowly leaning toward him. He took a few swings at the being and the walker instinctively leaned away from the boy who was swinging the crowbar around. Suddenly, the sound of a shotgun blast resounded against the sides of the building surrounding them and the infected felt backwards a couple of feet with the force of the impact, black blood spilling onto the white snow around Johnny, but not touching him. Frank was quickly pulling the boy back onto his feet as they continued to barrel toward the door.

Dylan was at the door first, pounding at the cool metal as she yelled for Lily to open the door. She jumped back as the door flew open and she immediately ran inside, followed by Frank and Johnny. The door slammed shut behind the three of them as they panted heavily from being so weak and out of shape. The four that were there stood silent for a few moments, in awe of what had just happened. They had made it back safely and they were all in disbelief of the situation.

Soon enough, there was a frantic rush of footsteps down the hallway and Johnny soon found himself crushed in a hug. What little air he had was knocked out of him as Kat held him tight, crying silently onto his shoulder. She pulled away slightly as she looked over his face, worry immediately taking over her features.

“You’re okay? He didn’t get you, right?” She asked frantically and slightly out of breath as the rest of their group joined them. Johnny shook his head; he was too out of breath to get out a sentence, let alone the one word answer he needed to. “No blood got in your mouth, right?” She asked almost immediately after he shook his head. Johnny shook his head again and a relieved smile curled Kat’s lips as she sniffled lightly before turning to Frank, engulfing him into a tight hug.

“Thank you,” she said to him genuinely as she pulled away and looked into his eyes. He merely gave her a nod and a smile, one that she returned, before turning to Dylan.

“And thank you,” Kat said, giving the woman she despised not twenty-four hours ago a warm hug. “Thank you so much.” She pulled away from the short lived hug as Dylan merely gave her a nod of recognition. She glanced to Lily who was gnawing anxiously on her bottom lip as banging resounded hollowly against the metal door. They all jumped at the sudden noise, yet knew that the door would hold.

“Let’s just go back to the rooms and sort through what you guys got,” Ray said quietly over the noise of the banging, breaking the tension as the group of them moved away from the door and back up to their rooms, thrilled that their plan had worked and that everyone had gotten back to the hotel safely and without a scratch.

Kat walked by Johnny’s side the entire time, holding his hand tightly in hers as they climbed the staircases to the fourth floor and eventually to their rooms. They all piled into room ‘415’ and gathered around the bed as Dylan and Frank shrugged off their backpacks and unzipped them, quickly removing the items they had snatched from the bags. They began to sort through the items, placing the food items on one bed to put away and see how long it would last them and everything else on the other bed. After a while, the piles on the two bed became more uniform and organized. Ray picked up a curious looking box and looked over it before wrinkling his nose.

“Condoms?” He asked incredulously, causing the room to go still and everyone to look up at him. “Who picked this up?” He asked with a raised brow, looking between Frank and Dylan.

“We were just grabbing shit,” Frank said with a shrug as he continued to sort through the items. Dylan gave him a look before glancing over at Ray who tossed the box over on the opposite bed with a look of disdain.

“I probably grabbed it on accident,” she murmured as she tossed another packet of cigarettes to the opposite bed, “It was kind of dark in there so I couldn’t really see what the fuck I was grabbing.”

Soon after that, they had done sorting the items into two piles, the food they were going to split between the two rooms and everything else was going to be split and put into suitcases for whenever they’d need it. They found that they had enough food to last them for about another month if they rationed it correctly. They could only hope that the food, and ultimately themselves, would last that long.