The Rooster (Erotic Apocalyptic Thriller) by Richard Peters Page A

the door’s lock off. I looped a length of chain through
the hole and tried to find a hard point to anchor it to… when
something crashed behind me. A split-second later I heard “Shit!”
and, worst of all, a boom ! I spun around, baseball bat at
the ready, only to see some fat raccoon dash away. Dixon’s face was
paler than a zombie’s.
    “It… he… surprised…”
    A collective roar from a thousand cannibals
rose up around us. Not all from outside the building.
    Clamp, clamp, clamp rang throughout
the dark stairwell behind me. “Let’s go! Move!”
    I ignored my bag five yards away and just
dived straight for the fire escape we used to get up here. Sure
enough, the alleyway was filling up quick. No point in dropping the
ladder. Something howled on the roof just yards away. Without a
glance over my shoulder, I snatched one of our backup ropes, locked
in my D-ring and jumped off. Was it my paranoia or was there really
some hot breath on the back of my neck a millisecond before I went
flying?
    A plan C is the secret to survival when the
world hates you. Dixon was going to kiss my ass after the way he
griped when I insisted we toss grabbling hooks onto a secondary
hideout before scaling this building. I finally looked around to
see if he was having as much trouble as me climbing the one-story
difference in height. I wish I hadn’t.
    Maybe he hesitated too long; maybe he just
slipped. Could be his luck simply ran out. Either way, he lay down
there in the middle of the alley with a twisted leg. You got to
hand it to the old guy. Dixon went out swinging. He must have
dropped half a dozen of those fucks before saving the last round
for himself. After all the ruckus he made, I don’t think any of the
monsters saw me Spiderman-ing away.
    At least, not for a while. In ten minutes, I
creeped a couple blocks further from the hotspot. Quiet as a mouse,
since the last rays of sun were slithering away. I’m positive they
didn’t track me. It must have just been my turn to run out of
luck.
    Some little kiosk with a metal rolling
facade seemed a decent place to hole up for the night. The place
was picked clean, but without obvious struggle. Probably scavengers
like me. Shouldn’t be anything lurking around. I swept the small
shop for threats and painstakingly eased the clinking metal cage
down… just as a scream filled the air. My blood curdled, but I
opened my eyes anyway to identify the threat.
    Across the street, a nude young woman
sprinted towards me. She was fast, with an even stride. Much faster
than I’d seen any cannibal move before. She also kept screaming
something about “they’re all gone” real loud. Speaking, coherent
movement and, I won’t pretend I didn’t notice, breasts still perky.
She was human! I let my gun dangle to the side and tried to
help.
    “Shhh! Be quiet and get in here!” I reached
out to take her hand and yank her inside. Maybe it was the fading
light or the stress of the day, or even the jiggling breasts, but
it wasn’t until then that I noticed that famous snarl and bloodshot
eyes.
    I whipped up my pistol and managed a
snapshot to her gut, but just like in the movies, that doesn’t stop
them. Only a head shot will. She knew what the gun was too, and
batted it playfully out of my hand with that superhuman strength of
theirs.
    Which was why I nearly pissed myself when
her head exploded. Still would have, if I hadn’t of seen the horde
further down the street rushing my way. No time to lose your shit.
Hurling the corpse off me, I didn’t even have a chance to scoop up
my gun before someone grabbed me.
    “Let’s go, dumbass!”
    Several soldiers, rifles at the ready,
dragged me into the street and chucked my confused ass into some
car. A hybrid. What the hell? It was packed too. Six of us in a
four-seater. Strange enough, I had someone’s standing crotch in my
face. Rat-tat-tatting from above explained that mystery.
These people had cut a hole in the roof and mounted a