The two of us found ourselves on the roof of the restaurant and next door was a light-brown apartment building with fire escapes on the side, directly opposite us. It was a warm and sunny morning with almost no clouds in the sky. I could hear helicopters flying in the distance and I heard what sounded like a siren. I didn’t pay much attention to them because these weren’t exactly unusual to hear in the city. For all I knew there was probably a robbery happening with cops and news helicopters surrounding the vicinity. Lucas and I caught our breath for a moment before he spoke again.

“I know this is pretty bad timing with the, y’know, head injury but…” Lucas trailed off as he caught more of his breath. “We need to jump across to that fire escape and get to the rooftop.”

My head was spinning and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. My throat felt thick, as if it was ready to burst out of my neck and I began to salivate with each time I swallowed just making the feeling worse.

“Ugh, Christ…” I closed my eyes as I tried to wash this feeling away to no avail.

“Craig, are you alright?” Lucas approached me with concern.

“Yeah, I’m just… I’m… oh, Jesus!”

I turned on the spot and vomited on the ground, retching and coughing up only God knows what. I sat down and tried to regain my composure as Lucas crouched down in front of me again, offering more water which I accepted without a second thought.

“You alright, man?” Lucas asked me again as I chugged down some more water.

I gasped as I stopped drinking the water and coughed. “Yeah Doc, I’m fine. Just feeling a little dizzy, that’s all.”

“Think you can stand up? We really can’t hang around here.”

“I’m all good, trust me. It was just a little speedbump, the heat’s not exactly helping the nausea.”

I stood up and looked at Lucas who still had a face full of concern but he didn’t seem to want to argue with me due to his urgency. He took a breath and spoke again.

“Think you can make that jump?”

“Do I have a choice here?”

Lucas made nervous eyes at me. “Not really, it’s the only way we have.”

I sighed and looked down at my feet before looking up to the clear blue sky. I wasn’t sure if my current situation was thanks to a streak of good or bad luck. On the one hand, I’d survived some kind of head injury and just so happened to have been found by a doctor who ended up saving my life. On the other hand, I had a head injury and wasn’t feeling great from it anyway, never mind the extra physical activity I was being put through here to escape… whatever was coming after us downstairs. This being a case of good or bad luck would determine whether I’d make it over that gap safely or not. I looked back towards Lucas who seemed pretty desperate to get over there.

“If I make that jump, you’d better tell me what the hell’s going on.”

He didn’t say anything to that. I walked back a few paces and stared at the fire escape directly across from us, separated only by the alleyway in-between the two buildings. My lungs filled with oxygen before emptying again as I hoped that Lady Luck was in my favour right in that moment. Without wasting anymore time, I sprinted across the roof and leapt across the gap, taking in a deep breath as I did so. In that brief moment, I truly wondered if I’d make it or end up falling straight down and breaking my legs. Or worse.

My hands landed on the escape’s railing with my legs dangling down below. I pulled myself up over the railing and rolled onto my back, taking a good few deep breaths to regain my composure.

“Holy shit.”

I sat up and looked back across at Lucas who was now preparing to make the jump, and I hoped that he was experiencing the same rush of luck that I was. Lucas ran towards the edge of the building and jumped directly towards me, only barely getting a grip of the railing.

“Craig, I’m slipping!” He shouted up to me.

I grabbed onto his arms and at once started to pull him up over the railing, grunting as I did so.

“Come on, Doc!”

Lucas got up a little higher which allowed me to haul him over to safety. The two of us gave out exhausted sighs and regained our bearings. Another bottle of water emerged from Lucas’ backpack which he then opened and took a swig from. The boiling summer heat certainly wasn’t helping our situation, it felt like my shirt was so clammy and sweaty that it began to feel like a second skin.

“Come on, Craig, we need to move. Up the escape then onto the roof.”

Without wasting anymore time, Lucas stood up and began to ascend the fire escape the stairs towards the roof. After I got to my feet and began following him, I spoke again.

“Listen, Doc. I appreciate you helping me and all, really, I do but there’s a lot here that you aren’t telling me. I’m a little worried that you’re deliberately withholding information that I really should know.

Lucas didn’t seem to acknowledge what I said as we reached the top of the fire escape, and he began to climb past the window to the apartment we were both next to.

“Doc.” I said again in a futile attempt at getting his attention. Lucas ignored me and jumped up, getting a hold of the ledge onto the roof before hauling himself up.

“Doc!” I shouted as I followed him up, using all of what little strength I had under these circumstances. “Son of a bitch…”

I rolled over as I made it up onto the roof and found Lucas standing at the edge of the building on the left of where we had climbed up, facing the street below. I got back up to my feet and slowly approached him.

“Doc, you deaf?” I asked in frustration.

“You wanna know what we’re running from, Craig?” Lucas asked me sombrely. “Have a look down there and then you’ll see.”

I gently approached the edge of the building and stood next to him before looking down onto the street below. I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to witness happening down there, it truly was a horrific scene that no sane person could conjure up in their head. The street below had dead bodies spread around with what looked like other people eating them, blood was all over the street and the sidewalks and I heard voices of people in the distance making blood curdling screams of terror while an emergency siren rang. The street was also full of vehicles at bumper-to-bumper that had been abandoned by the people that used to drive them, some of them were police cars and ambulances.

“What in God’s name…?”

“They came last night,” Lucas said in a shaky voice clearly choking back tears. “They attack and eat other people, and the victims become one of them, I’ve never seen anything like it before. I…” Lucas trailed off.

I couldn’t say anything. My body wouldn’t let me, never mind the fact that I didn’t even have any words to try and formulate. All I could look at and think about were those cannibalistic monsters down on the street, roaming, attacking and eating people. Then, my eyes widened as I suddenly remembered.

“Zoey…”

“What’s that?” Lucas asked.

“Um, my girlfriend Zoey.” I said in a breathy husk “I need to find her and see if she’s okay. Our apartment’s not too far from here, like a couple blocks I think.” I started to panic as the thought that one of those monsters had gotten a hold of her.

“We need to get to safety; the evacuation site’s at Fenway Park.” Lucas protested.

“Are you kidding? Screw that! I’m not leaving without finding her and making sure she’s okay.” My words shot down Lucas’ suggestion and he didn’t reply.

“Doc, please. At least help me get back to my apartment, she might be holed up there needing help. I can’t just leave without finding out for certain that she got out. Once I find out I’ll come with you to the stadium.” I pleaded with Lucas, verging on begging.

The doctor wrestled with his thoughts before conceding.

“Okay, I’ll help you. I wouldn’t want her to be in any danger either but it’s not going to be easy getting there.” He warned me about the dangers that were involved which began to feel a little like a lecture.

“I got it, Doc. I got it.” I had to resist rolling my eyes.

“How’s your head?” Lucas asked.

“Still hurts but I’ll get through it. The nausea’s gone so that must be a good sign.” I looked back down at the street to the abhorrent scene below. Despite what I had just said, my stomach churned at the sight. “Christ alive.”

It was like a car accident; I wanted to take my eyes off the horrific scene down on the street, but I just couldn’t bring myself to, Hell had been brought to Earth and it was here with a vengeance. Whatever these monsters were, they weren’t showing any hesitation or remorse. I pinched myself on the arm in a futile effort to try and wake up from this nightmare I had found myself in to absolutely no avail.

“I already tried that.” said Lucas, “It didn’t work, we’re very much awake.”

I let out a heavy sigh before meeting eyes with Lucas. We both agreed that we shouldn’t wait around much longer and decided to jump across to the rooftop next to us. I’m not sure if it was just the urge to get home and find Zoey or just because I’d just done it before now but leaping over the rooftops suddenly became less of a worry. Don’t get me wrong, it was still dangerous, and every jump felt like a risk, but in the moment, I wasn’t particularly frightened about it.

Lucas followed me across the rooftops, and I waited up for him as he jumped the gap between them. In that second, I began to think about him and the situation we had found ourselves in. Like why he’d stuck around with me seemingly all night just to make sure I wasn’t dead, why he hadn’t just immediately headed to the evac or helped more people on the street and, perhaps not as importantly, where he was from. He didn’t speak like he was from Boston.

“How much further, Craig?” The two of us had crossed a few blocks now.

“Not far now.” I pointed to an apartment building diagonally across the street. “There’s our place.”

Lucas looked down at the street below and pointed.

“Look, there are more of those things down there.” His voice slightly shook as he spoke. “How are we gonna get across?”

I looked down and observed their behaviours, a good amount of the monsters looked pre-occupied with eating the dead bodies of the poor bastards that hadn’t been able to get away in time. Like most of the streets we had travelled through, various vehicles were left abandoned in what looked to be a traffic jam. The rabid sounds they made along with the sound of flesh being consumed turned my stomach so much that I had to close my eyes and take a few breaths.

“I think… if we make our way down to the street and quietly cross over, those things hopefully won’t notice us.”

“And if they do?”

“Then we start running.”

Lucas rolled his eyes, but I could tell he didn’t have a better plan.

The two of us began to descend the fire escape on the front of the apartment building we were situated on and dropped down onto the sidewalk before crouching down behind one of the abandoned cars. I peeked over the top of it and saw that most of the monsters were still busy eating but a few of them were mindlessly wandering around. I turned to Lucas and whispered.

“Come on, let’s go.”

The two of us began to quickly cross the street while creating as little sound as possible. The smell of rotting flesh from the scene filled my nostrils and I had to hold back a gag, lest I alerted one of those things to my presence. I led the way with Lucas behind me, and I passed behind a white van that had been left with one of its back doors open which took us to outside my apartment building. Behind me, I suddenly heard a growling sound followed by a yell. I turned and saw Lucas being attacked by one of the infected monsters.

“Craig, help me!” Lucas yelled as he was being pinned down by it, desperately trying to wrestle the thing off him.

Immediately, I ran towards him, and shoulder tackled the monster to the ground. It rolled over onto its back before climbing back up to its feet. I quickly looked into the van and saw a toolbox with a hammer sticking out. My luck had hit a new height. I grabbed it and when the growling, gargling creature ran back towards us I swung the hammer directly at its head and knocked it down again before striking it a few more times to make sure it was dead. I’d completely caved the poor sucker’s skull in which was now oozing dark, red blood while its body twitched and spasmed. I then turned to Lucas who was still knocked over on the ground.

“Bastard… are you okay, Doc? You’re not bitten, are you?”

“No, I’m fine. We’ve attracted a crowd, though!” Lucas pointed behind me.

I turned around and saw the rest of the monsters on the street coming towards us. Some were slowly walking while others were running.

“Come on!”

I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him up to his feet before pushing him towards the front doors of the apartment building and the two of us ran in before slamming the door shut and locking it. Lucas spoke loudly, clearly still in shock at what happened outside.

“That door’s not gonna hold, those things are just gonna break through the glass!”

“Then let’s not stick around!”

I ran up the stairs and Lucas closely followed me up to the first floor before he turned around to look behind us at the front door again.

“Doc, let’s go!” I demanded after turning around upon hearing his footsteps stop.

I looked down at him but couldn’t resist redirecting my focus to the door that the freaks were blocked by. I was ready to turn back towards the top of the stairs, but I was suddenly stopped again as I had to do a double take at what I saw through the glass. One of them, looking like a construction worker wearing a yellow hardhat, draped in reflective jacket over a stained white t-shirt with faded blue jeans and black working boots, was wielding a large hammer and began to strike the glass and crack it. It was taking big swings with gaps between each one as it tried flung its arm around trying to aim at the glass.