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Bloom glanced at me and rolled her eyes. Only one person referred to us collectively as the Bliters.
“John Brown,” she and I said at the same time.
Folding my arms over my chest, I scowled. “I’m not in the mood for him.”
“He’s a distraction.” Bloom’s mouth quirked into a sideways, apologetic smile. “I love you, Sera, but sometimes I get tired of the quiet.”
“John doesn’t know the meaning of quiet.”
“That’s my point.” She shuffled to the roof’s edge and peered over.
“Hey, Blite,” John shouted. “There’s a load of Nasties on our heels.”
“Our?” I asked.
“He’s got Timber and Honey with him.”
I nodded. “Timber’s all right.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like we’ve got much choice. There’s a herd of dead rounding the corner behind them.” Bloom started for the stairs. “You give them some cover while I let them up.”
I never turned down a chance to practice shooting, so I grabbed a loose chunk of rubble from the roof and used it to prop up my rifle barrel. I was a flawless marksman at about fifty yards. Much farther than that and my accuracy declined exponentially with each extra yard. Fortunately, the dead were in range.
“Come on, Bloom!” John shouted again. “You’re cutting it close, and it ain’t funny.”
She hollered back at him. “It’s not my fault you come calling this close to dark, John. Don’t get your stays in a bind. Sera’s got them covered.”
“Sera’s with you?” The obvious interest in his voice made my skin crawl.
Bloom glanced at me, an exasperated look on her face, before she yelled down to him. “If you weren’t sure she’d be here, why’d you take the risk of coming all this way? You’re lucky we were on the roof and heard you shouting.”
I considered feigning a misfire just to give John a scare, but like I’d said, Timber was all right, and getting your brain sucked dry by something that smelled like the trash heap behind a leather tannery was no way to go. I lined up my gunsights with a dead man’s head. Most of a long, droopy mustache clung to the livid skin of his upper lip, but one of his ears had gone missing as well as a large hunk of flesh from his neck. He stumbled ahead of the pack, making himself my prime target. I exhaled and squeezed the trigger.
Blam!
The explosion roared in my ears. Contrary to what you might think, I found the sound comforting. Mustache Man’s head exploded like a ripe melon. “Hot-cha-cha,” I said and lined up my sights for the next one, a short woman wearing a ridiculous plaid nightgown and a lacy nightcap. She lacked most of her right arm and shoulder, so I felt none too bad about taking her head as well.
Blam!
“Bull’s-eye,” I whispered.
“Keep it up, Sera,” Bloom called from somewhere several stories below. “The ladder is sticking for some reason.”
Turning my attention back to my gun, I peered down the barrel, searching for another target. A head full of gold ringlets appeared in my sights. The curls belonged to a little girl in a yellow dress with crinoline and lace. Pausing, I let my barrel dip down. The girl wore a hungry, empty look on her face like all the rest, but her hair was less matted, her face less bloodied. Most of her body remained intact. Once upon a time, she must have looked like a baby angel.
“Sera?” Bloom asked when she heard no gunshots from me.
“Sorry. Had to reload.” I moved to target the young man behind the little angel. He might’ve been around Bloom’s age and wore a round bowler hat. Why does a dead guy need a hat? I removed it for him, along with most of the top of his skull. By the time Bloom returned with our guests, I had picked off three more Rotters.
“Maybe you can give Honey some shooting lessons.” John Brown crossed the roof and squatted beside me. His beefy, ex-boxer frame strained the seams of his tweed waistcoat and trousers. His red hair was parted in the middle and slicked down flat, and he smelled like lavender and something caustic and sharp. Turpentine?
Timber ducked under the access doorway and joined me and John. I’d never known his real name, but everyone called him Timber because he was so tall that if he ever fell over, someone would have to call out Tiiiiimberrrr! in warning. He carried a parcel wrapped in brown paper and winked at me as he set it beside the cookstove.
Honey scooted up next to Bloom. Because her temperament was usually more sour than sweet, I figured she’d gotten her nickname from the color of her lovely gold skin. Honey was obviously sweet on my sister, but Bloom said Honey had little to offer other than a pretty face, and no one could afford to get by on just their feminine wiles anymore. Honey had more womanly charms in her little pinky than I had in my whole body, but I shot better than most men, and I wasn’t afraid to go out in the city on my own. She was probably jealous of my survival skills, and I was a little envious of the way she filled out a dress, but you’d never catch me telling her that.
“Hey, Sera, let me give it a try.” John reached for my gun, but I jerked it away. “Those half-dead freaks have followed us since Third Avenue. I’d like to give them a proper send-off.”
I never liked people touching my rifle. It had belonged to my father, and it was about all of him I had left.
“I ain’t gonna hurt it,” John said, wheedling in a whiny voice. He looked like an overgrown toddler, even though I suspected he was well over thirty years old. “Just let me knock off a couple of them Rotters.”
I exhaled and handed over my rifle, though it pained me to do so. He lowered himself flat to the roof and took careful aim. We all watched, breath bated, as he pulled the trigger. His shot missed the horde and took out a chunk of brick from a wall across the way. “Damn,” he muttered as he aimed again. With his next shot, he managed to hit a thick fella right in his sagging gut. The revenant rocked back on his heels but kept his balance as he shrieked a hateful sound. I believed they felt no pain, but even the dead had to hate taking a shot in the belly.
“Give it back.” I scowled, hoping John could read disapproval in the lines on my face.
He gave me a dark look in reply, but he didn’t resist when I tugged the gun from his grasp. Balancing the barrel on the piece of rubble again, I steadied my breathing and put the wretched beast out of its misery in one shot.
I often wondered what would have become of me in the Time Before. This strange new world suited me. Maybe it suits me just a little too well.