to go. This room is five steps above the Bermuda Triangle on that list. I pretend it doesn’t exist and you do what you can to confine your chaos here lest it escape the apartment and gobble up the neighbors. That is the bathroom.” He pointed to the closed door across from my room and then indicated the last room, the one at the end of the hall. “And that is my room.”
His room. His room? “We live together?” Hell, no. Family, brothers, sacred oaths sealed with a bar of chocolate smacking you in the face; I was doing all I could to accept that. But living together? “What if you want to bring your vamp over and do … I don’t know … whatever you do? Bite each other, talk about how sexy losing a pint of blood is, and how iron deficiency is so hot? Do you leave a blood bank brochure taped to the door to warn me? What did I do when I brought over Lassie? Hang a chew toy on the doorknob? Aren’t we a little old to be bunking together as if this were sleep-away camp?”
He could’ve given me reasons. It took two to pay the rent, especially on a place this huge, even with a good deal on that rent. It was also convenient if your roommate was in the same business as you so you didn’t have to explain the spider guts on your clothes and the knives in the dishwasher—the kind of knives you aren’t using on toast unless you planned to gut and field-dress it. The stalest toast didn’t deserve that treatment.
But there were things on his mind other than explaining our living arrangement. “Do you know how very hard I’m trying not to smack your thick skull right now?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Open the bathroom door.”
I didn’t see how that was going to affect his wanting to inflict bodily injury due to my runaway mouth and a weariness that still deepened the creases beside his mouth. Four and a half days searching while not knowing if your brother was dead or alive, I’d have wanted to pop me and my smart-ass self one too. “Is there aspirin in there? You look like you could use it.” I put my hand out and turned the knob. “I think we need to get the landlord over here. It smells like the toilet’s been backed up for a month or you have a body decomposing in the bathtub.”
Holy shit.
There was a decomposing body, and more surprising than that was how fast it moved. I’d have thought the death and putrefaction would’ve slowed it down some, but nope. It was hell on wheels, a graveyard on wheels, whatever you wanted to call it. It snarled in my direction, showing me yellow teeth stained with fluids I didn’t want to think about. The eyes were white and clouded, but it could see. They were fixed on me with unmistakable greed as its mottled tongue swiped at the dead gray of its lips. The slime of its flesh wasn’t nearly covered up enough by the shabby clothes of a bum, and there was nothing at all that could cover up the stench of it out in the open. It saw me, it wanted me, but it didn’t have a chance to reach for me. Its head had already landed on the floor with the sound of a rotten melon splitting apart.
Niko’s sword wasn’t like Goodfellow’s. While Goodfellow went for a more traditional broadsword, Leandros carried a katana he’d pulled from a sheath strapped to his back and hidden by his coat. What had been a fan of silver slicing through the air was now held before him, as ready as it had been before chopping through the zombie’s neck.
“What the fuck? What’s with you people?” I demanded, “First giant spiders, now zombies. Can’t you take a piss without running into a monster? Just goddamn once?”
It did explain the broken lock, though. As zombies were always wanting to eat brains, they couldn’t have enough of their own left to pick a lock. It had smashed it instead.
“Don’t be so dramatic. I wanted you to see how you need to always be prepared, even when you’re home, especially when you’re home. Revenants have always hated us and they work for the
His room. His room? “We live together?” Hell, no. Family, brothers, sacred oaths sealed with a bar of chocolate smacking you in the face; I was doing all I could to accept that. But living together? “What if you want to bring your vamp over and do … I don’t know … whatever you do? Bite each other, talk about how sexy losing a pint of blood is, and how iron deficiency is so hot? Do you leave a blood bank brochure taped to the door to warn me? What did I do when I brought over Lassie? Hang a chew toy on the doorknob? Aren’t we a little old to be bunking together as if this were sleep-away camp?”
He could’ve given me reasons. It took two to pay the rent, especially on a place this huge, even with a good deal on that rent. It was also convenient if your roommate was in the same business as you so you didn’t have to explain the spider guts on your clothes and the knives in the dishwasher—the kind of knives you aren’t using on toast unless you planned to gut and field-dress it. The stalest toast didn’t deserve that treatment.
But there were things on his mind other than explaining our living arrangement. “Do you know how very hard I’m trying not to smack your thick skull right now?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Open the bathroom door.”
I didn’t see how that was going to affect his wanting to inflict bodily injury due to my runaway mouth and a weariness that still deepened the creases beside his mouth. Four and a half days searching while not knowing if your brother was dead or alive, I’d have wanted to pop me and my smart-ass self one too. “Is there aspirin in there? You look like you could use it.” I put my hand out and turned the knob. “I think we need to get the landlord over here. It smells like the toilet’s been backed up for a month or you have a body decomposing in the bathtub.”
Holy shit.
There was a decomposing body, and more surprising than that was how fast it moved. I’d have thought the death and putrefaction would’ve slowed it down some, but nope. It was hell on wheels, a graveyard on wheels, whatever you wanted to call it. It snarled in my direction, showing me yellow teeth stained with fluids I didn’t want to think about. The eyes were white and clouded, but it could see. They were fixed on me with unmistakable greed as its mottled tongue swiped at the dead gray of its lips. The slime of its flesh wasn’t nearly covered up enough by the shabby clothes of a bum, and there was nothing at all that could cover up the stench of it out in the open. It saw me, it wanted me, but it didn’t have a chance to reach for me. Its head had already landed on the floor with the sound of a rotten melon splitting apart.
Niko’s sword wasn’t like Goodfellow’s. While Goodfellow went for a more traditional broadsword, Leandros carried a katana he’d pulled from a sheath strapped to his back and hidden by his coat. What had been a fan of silver slicing through the air was now held before him, as ready as it had been before chopping through the zombie’s neck.
“What the fuck? What’s with you people?” I demanded, “First giant spiders, now zombies. Can’t you take a piss without running into a monster? Just goddamn once?”
It did explain the broken lock, though. As zombies were always wanting to eat brains, they couldn’t have enough of their own left to pick a lock. It had smashed it instead.
“Don’t be so dramatic. I wanted you to see how you need to always be prepared, even when you’re home, especially when you’re home. Revenants have always hated us and they work for the
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