“I think I need a zombie break, sweetie,” said Dara as we turned a corner and came face to face with yet another teeming undead mass, another chorus of groans, another bouquet of zombie stench.
“I second that motion, hon.” I looked around for a solution and spotted an open door. “There.”
She shrugged. “Beats here, anyway.”
And so over and in we headed, shutting the door behind us. Thankfully, we were now alone, no zombies inside. The building was an apartment complex, not large, maybe a few stories, but it was on a corner, which, as it turned out, was its saving grace. The stairs, on the other hand, not so much. And as for those stairs, well now, they were simply a necessary evil—kind of like mayonnaise or, uh, Texas, at least back in the day. See, we needed to climb them once we retrieved the weather-beaten bullhorn from outside the front door.
“Guess, by the looks of things, they were doing some kind of construction out here when the sun went all crazy on their asses,” said Dara, just before we picked up that bullhorn, the company logo barely discernable across the side of it.
“Their loss, our gain,” said I, because it was one thing to yell “halt” to fifty zombies at a time, but given a certain height and a certain loudness, we could cover way more ground.
Of course, then we had Murphy’s Law to contend with. Good old Murphy, right? I mean, who ever heard of a couple of zombies climbing up a few flights of steps? Easily, I mean. And without one’s minions to aid and abet.
So Dara and I stood at the base of the first step staring up at the dozens and dozens more. Then we looked at our nearly locked legs and frowned. “Any ideas?” I hazarded to ask.
Dara grinned, mischievously, which was my favorite type of grin, apart from the come-fuck-me one. In any case, she replied, “I always did so like your tush, Creature.”
I tapped my fingertip against my hip and tilted my head her way. “Well, I suppose I did fuck you last time, so, um, I guess it’s your turn to fuck me, but here, now? What, you want a built-in audience?” I smiled at the concept. “Hmm, you think you know someone. Took me almost a few hundred years to realize that my lover was an exhibitionist.”
Her smile amped up a couple of hundred watts. “I used to know a drag queen with a similar name.”
“Exie Bitionist?”
“You knew her, too?”
“No, just accustomed to this game by now.”
She shook her head. “In any case, not what I was getting at, despite the lovely image forming in my head of fucking you on the stairs right now.”
“Your loss.”
“Tell me about it.” She then fell backward. One minute she was standing before me, the next, she was ass-down on the third step. “Our arms work better than our legs, sweetie. Gonna take some time, but—”
“But our butts can take the abuse.”
“And amply so, if memory serves.”
I watched as she pushed her hands on the step, her stunning derriere rising and lowering as she slowly went from stair to stair, the bullhorn nestled in her lap all the while—lucky bullhorn. Then, once I had some room, I too fell ass-down before following her. It was slow-going, as she forewarned, but at least it was going. Plus, and this was a big old plus, the air was less stinky the higher we went.
“I would’ve fucked you down there, you know,” she said, one flight up and a good hour later.
I nodded. “I know, hon. It’s the thought that counts.” Then I smiled. “Did you really know a drag queen named Exie Bitionist?”
She grunted as she moved from stair to stair. “Yep. Big old German. Had a whole routine with a hoop skirt and no panties. Very, uh, eye opening.”
“I bet.”
By the third floor, I’d learned, too, about Jackie O’Nasty, Lez S. More, and Trixie Treats, all of whom, surprisingly, had acts sans panties, which, I discovered, fairly guaranteed a packed front two rows. I was visualizing all this, at the insane amount of tucking that would’ve been necessary for such an act, when we finally reached the last step, a door to the roof all that remained for this part of our journey. Well, that and two zombie drag queens trying to right themselves in a narrow stairwell.
“At least we don’t sweat anymore,” Dara made note, her hand at last on the doorknob.
“Glass half full?”
She turned the knob, shafts of daylight temporarily blinding us. “Well, we don’t drink anymore either, but, fine, we’ll go with that.”
We hobbled outside and made our way to the rooftop’s edge. Down below we could see the streets on either side and the one up ahead, all of them teeming with the past (as in passed away) inhabitants of New York.
“You look that way,” I told Dara, pointing right, “and I’ll look this way.” I then pointed left. “Ready?”
She held the bullhorn up to my mouth. “Ready.”
And I then yelled, as much as I was physically able to, “HALT!”
Well now, given our height and the bullhorn and just the right amount of wind traveling in the correct direction, and, wouldn’t you know it, but everyone down below, as far as the eye could see, halted.
Almost everyone, that is.
All but one, I mean.
Dara pointed. “Breadcrumb, sweetie.”
“HALT!” I hollered, yet again, just in case.
“Nope, still moving,” she said. “Definitely a breadcrumb.”
“Huh,” I managed.