Pallor

Chapter 5 - City Living (First draft - half)

5

         Poor lindy was making her way down that fire escaping wondering what exactly it was she was doing. Up stairs Mr. Clark sat on the window sill watching her slowly go back the way they had come. They had always had problems with each other, ever since Lindy had first moved in, but this move gave Mr. Clark new founded respect for Lindy.
“Until that point I just though she was a drug addict,” he told me once. Lindy was doing something he doubted he could ever do. He sat the watching as she disappeared into the apartment below.
         Lindy, on the other hand, had no idea what she was going to do. When she reached the window she saw that the old man was still eating the same chunk of flesh, though now it was marginally smaller. She watched him for a moment, thinking about what to do next. The child was still in the corner, bawling his eyes out. She slid the window open slowly trying not to make a noise.
The old man continued to eat.
Slowly she stepped into the room. It smelt sickly. The man looked at her, still chewing his raw food. Lindy noticed a large bite mark on his wrist.
She crept past, staying as far away from the man as possible.
She reached the boy.
He was sitting in a puddle of urine.
He stretched his arms towards her, fingers groping at the air.
He wanted her to pick him up.
He wailed horribly.


         She bends down to pick the boy up. He is covered in blood. The boy grabs at her neck, little fingers digging into the skin, covering her in the foul smelling liquids. Slowly she walks towards a door in the shadows. She opens it slowly, a cupboard full of linen. She opens the door next to it. The kids room. She walks in, notices the lock on the back of the door and slides the bolt into place. She has to get the kid clean.
This apartment was bigger then her own.
She puts him down on the changing table and pulls the clothing off him. His skin is stained red in some places.  She uses some wipes on him and puts him in Wiggles clothing. He kicks at her, still crying. Suddenly he stops struggling and looks at Lindy in the eyes.
They are ready to go back upstairs.
         Lindy unlocks the door and creeps forward. From the door she looks directly at the man eating, a different piece of meat in his hands now. Slowly she moves forward, inching closer to the occupied yoga master. She stays as tight to the outside wall as possible, shielding the boys head against her shoulder. The boy struggles free, one blue eye taking in the figure of his grandfather. He starts crying again. The old man stops chewing his prize, sniffs the air and looks at Lindy and the boy. She stops in mid-step. A growl comes from his old throat, the kind of growl a dog will make over a prized bone. Lindy sees his teeth bared in a threatening grimace. He stops growling, snatching the flesh around him close, and begins eating again. Lindy reaches the window and climbs back out onto the fire escape. Holding the child and the rungs with one arm, she closes the window with the other and slowly begins the climb back upstairs towards Mr. Clark;s smiling face.


The boy was unharmed but in shock. They were safe in the apartment for now, but both Lindy and Mr. Clark knew they would eventually have to leave. They turned the television on. They hear the same reports as Holland, but with different location names. While Holland and his father barricaded the house, Lindy and Mr. Clark tried to decide where to go and how to get there, neither of them had a car.
Hours passed and then a safe house report is put on the news. Their nearest evacuation point was the city park, a forty five minute walk from where they were, too easy they though, as long as they didn’t run into too many of those crazy people. Up until this point they had avoided looking out the window, scared of what they might see, and with good reason. All day they had heard screaming, growling and the sounds of things smashing around them.
         At about four in the afternoon they decided to make a move, packing some food and clothes. Finally one of them had to peer out through that window, it had been mocking them all day, a dark presence in the room.
“Mr. Clark, would you mind?” Lindy asked, gesturing towards the window,
“Lindy, call me Roger. I think we are well past formalities now. I’ll look, no problem, “ Roger answered, patting Lindy on the shoulder as he walked past.
         Outside was worse then they could have imagined. The street was full of the crazy people, staggering around groaning. Most of them looked severly injured, they really should have been dead. One man had half of his face missing under his left eye, another was missing an arm and dragging pink, wet intestines behind it. There were hundreds more, some little children. There was no way they were going to be able to leave via the road.
Roger turned to face Lindy, his face grim.
She understood straight away.
         “I have lived here for a long time Lindy, I think I know how to leave” Roger said at last. Their roof had access to the roof of the next building.