The water felt sinful. Cold and clear from the bottle, I poured a little into my cupped hand and scrubbed at the speckles of dark fluid on the bat's grip. It was a stupid thing to do. Water was life now. But I couldn't stand the feel of it on my hands. Jonah watched me, his eyes huge. The new thudding from the gate was a different rhythm. Slower. More patient.
"I need a cloth," I said, my voice too loud in the quiet shop.
Jonah just stared. He was looking at me like he'd never seen me before.
"Jonah. A rag. From the back. Now."
The order snapped him out of it. He moved to the stockroom and came back with an old, clean t shirt from a box of lost and found clothes Mr. Chen kept for homeless folks. I took it and finished cleaning the bat, then my hands. The dark spots on my jeans would have to stay.
I walked to the gate and looked out through the slats. The mechanic in the coveralls was there, leaning his forehead against the steel, his hands hanging limp at his sides. He wasn't pounding. He was just... pressing. As if he'd forgotten why he came. The morning sun, weak as it was, seemed to have drained the frantic energy from the night.
"Sunlight slows them down," I said, thinking out loud. "Or maybe they're just less interested when it's quiet."
I turned back to Jonah. He was still holding his inventory list. The numbers had given him a lifeline, but seeing me come back spattered with gore had cut it.
"We have a problem," I said. "That alley is the only way to our back door. Right now, it's a trap. One Walker in there is a problem. Two is a death sentence. If we ever need to get out that way, or if something gets in that way, we need it clear."
"How do we clear it?" Jonah's voice was thin. "You just... you just go out and..."
"And what?" I asked. "We have to. It's that or we're fish in a barrel. We wait until they break down the front gate, and we have nowhere to run."
The logic was cold and simple. He hated it, but he couldn't find a hole in it.
"So we kill it," he said. The words sounded strange in his mouth.
"We remove the threat," I corrected, though it was the same thing. "But we do it smart. We use the sun. We use the layout."
I spent the next hour planning. It was better than sitting. Planning was a form of hope. We ate our first real meal in the new world, a can of cold beef stew shared straight from the tin with two plastic spoons. The food sat in my stomach like a lump of clay, but the calories were a real, physical comfort.
I laid it out for Jonah. "I go out the front. I make noise, lead the mechanic away from the gate and around the corner into the alley mouth. You watch from here. The second I'm in the alley, you lock the gate behind me. You don't open it again unless you hear my voice saying my name. Not a shout. My normal voice. You understand?"
He nodded, swallowing hard.
"The alley is narrow. It can only come at me one way. I have space to swing. I get one clean shot. I take it. Then I come back."
"What if there are more?"
"Then I run back to the gate and we rethink."
He looked sick. "This is insane."
"Staying here until we starve or they break in is insane," I said. "This is just dangerous."
I picked up the baseball bat. Its weight was a comfort. The shotgun was a last resort, a thunderclap that would call every monster in a ten block radius. This was a scalpel. Or a hammer.
I went to the gate. I listened. Just the soft, brushing sound of the mechanic's coveralls against the steel. I nodded to Jonah.
He took the key. His hands were shaking.
"Remember," I said. "Wait for my voice."
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the safe, stale air of the bodega for what might be the last time. I gave a sharp nod.
Jonah turned the key. The click was deafening. He pulled the gate open just a foot.
I slipped out into the morning.
The air was cool and tainted. The mechanic, startled by the movement, took a stumbling step back. Its head lifted. Its eyes, a filmy grey, fixed on me. It wasn't the hungry stare from last night. It was emptier. Dumber.
I didn't run. I walked backwards, keeping my eyes on it, leading it like a dog on a leash. "Hey," I said, my voice low. "Over here."
It followed. Shuffle drag. Shuffle drag. It came around the corner of the building, into the narrower space between the bodega and the laundromat. I was at the mouth of the alley now. I could see the dumpsters. The stained pavement where the woman in the bathrobe still lay.
The mechanic kept coming.
I backed into the alley. The space felt tighter immediately. Walls of brick on either side. "Now, Jonah," I whispered, though he couldn't hear me.
I heard the gate roll shut with a soft rumble behind me. We were committed.
The mechanic shambled into the alley after me. Perfect.
I stopped retreating. I planted my feet. I raised the bat.
It didn't speed up. It didn't change its expression. It just came. Arms lifting in that slow, marionette gesture.
I waited. Let it get close. Let its fingers almost brush my jacket.
Then I moved.
I wasn't Alex the teacher. I was a machine. I sidestepped its lunge, and as its body passed mine, off balance and slow, I swung the bat not in a wild smash, but in a tight, controlled arc. I aimed for the side of its head, just above the ear.
The impact jarred up my arms. There was a wet crack, like stepping on a thick shell.
The mechanic spun halfway around from the force and collapsed against the opposite wall. It slid down to sit slumped against the bricks, its head lolling at a terrible angle. It didn't move again.
Silence.
Just my own breathing, harsh in my ears. I stood there, bat ready, waiting for the twitch, the groan, the sign that it wasn't over.
Nothing.
I had done it. One clean shot. No drama. No screaming. Just removal.
The relief was dizzying, but it was short lived. A shuffling sound came from deeper in the alley, near the back fence. Another one. Drawn by the noise of the impact. This one was smaller. A teenager in a shredded band t shirt.
My grip tightened on the bat. I could take one more. I had the space.
I took a step forward, ready to repeat the process.
Then a door opened.
Not the bodega's back door. The door to the next building over. A rusty metal service door swung inward with a shriek of corroded hinges.
A man stood there. He was maybe in his forties, with a shaved head and a gaunt, sharp face. He wasn't a Walker. His eyes were clear, terrified, and focused. In his hands was a fire axe.
He looked at me. He looked at the dead mechanic against the wall. He looked at the teenager shambling toward me from the shadows.
Without a word, he lunged past me.
He moved with a desperate, clumsy speed. He didn't aim for the head. He screamed, a raw, ragged sound, and brought the axe down in a wild chop into the teenager's collarbone. The Walker jerked but didn't fall. The man yanked the axe free, spattering black fluid, and chopped again. And again. It was butchery. Brutal, inefficient, and loud.
The noise was awful. The wet chops. the man's grunts. The clang of the axe head hitting the pavement on a missed swing.
Finally, the teenager stopped moving. The man stood over it, chest heaving, the axe dripping. He turned to me, his eyes wild.
"Who are you?" he panted. "Are you bit?"
I lowered the bat slightly, but kept it ready. "No. Are you?"
He shook his head, still breathing hard. He looked at the bodega's back door. "You're in Chen's place."
"We got trapped last night," I said. "We're clearing the alley."
"Clearing," he repeated, and gave a short, ugly laugh. He gestured with the bloody axe toward the two bodies. "This is clearing? This is just making a mess. They'll smell it. The noise..."
"I was doing it quiet until you showed up," I said, my voice cold.
He stared at me for a long moment, then seemed to really see me. The bat. The lack of panic. "You've done that before," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Once."
He nodded slowly, some of the wildness leaving his eyes, replaced by a sharp calculation. "I'm Silas. I live upstairs. The flower shop." He jerked his head toward the open door behind him. "I've been watching you two go in and out of Chen's all morning. You have food in there."
It wasn't a question this time either. It was a statement. A demand.
My grip on the bat tightened. "We have enough."
"Everyone has enough until they don't," Silas said. He took a step closer. He was bigger than me. The axe was a serious weapon. "Look. It's not just these dumb ones. There are people out there. Bad people. They're already looting, fighting. You two kids holed up in a stocked store... you're a target. You need more than a baseball bat."
"We're managing," I said.
"Are you?" He looked past me, toward the street. "How long do you think that gate will hold if five men with crowbars want in? Or if one of the fast ones decides to keep charging it?"
He was voicing my own deepest fear. The one I hadn't said out loud to Jonah.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"Safety in numbers," he said simply. "You have a fortress with supplies. I know this block. I know the buildings. I have tools." He hefted the axe. "And I'm not afraid to use them. We help each other. Or you try to survive alone until the wrong people find you."
The offer hung in the stinking air of the alley. It wasn't friendly. It was a threat wrapped in a proposition.
I looked at him. The desperation. The violence still trembling in his hands. Letting him in was a risk. A huge risk. He could be a liar. A thief. A killer.
But he was right. We were two college kids with a shotgun we didn't know how to use. The world wasn't just zombies anymore. It was survivors. And survivors could be worse.
"I decide the rules," I said finally. "My friend and I. We decide who gets in, what we do. You follow, or you walk away."
Silas's sharp eyes studied me. He was weighing my words, my posture, the bat in my hands that had taken down a Walker with one clean shot. He nodded slowly. "Fair enough. For now."
"Go back inside," I said. "I'll come to the front of your shop in ten minutes. We'll talk. Not here."
He didn't like being given orders, but he nodded again. He retreated back through his metal door, pulling it almost shut. I heard the click of a heavy lock.
I stood alone in the alley with the two dead things. The sun was a little higher. The new world had just gotten more complicated. The first law wasn't just about Walkers and Runners anymore.
It was about the living.
And I had just invited a wolf to the door.
I turned and walked back to the front of the bodega. I stood before the gate and said, in my calmest, clearest voice, "Jonah. It's Alex. Open up."
The gate slid open. Jonah's terrified face peered out.
"We have a new problem," I said, stepping back into the dim safety of our store. "And his name is Silas."