"So, how did you end up here?" I looked at Rebekka who was sitting on the floor, still exhausted after our first encounter. Her large breasts were hanging down heavy on her chest as she was eating some peaches out of a can, slowly and deliberately sucking them between her luscious lips as she was pondering the question.
"You mean, here in this here apartment, or...?" she asked back, letting the question hang unfinished in the room.
I shrugged. "Both, I guess," I said, feeling a little stupid.
She nodded. "Well, I was just going for places that might have food, and high up so the dead can't get to me," she said. "They are slow, and like even paths, not so good at climbing up." She looked at me with a sly expression. I nodded again, once more feeling stupid at my total lack of knowledge about the zombies.
"Before that," she continued, staring into space, "before that, I was living downtown, with... family." She paused for a moment, then shrugged it off. "We have come from Ethiopia many years back, when I was still a kid. My momma had to flee because of our religion. Don't know what happened to my father, she never talked about him, but she took me and my sister and came to Italy. We have been living here ever since," she finished, looking at me.
I smiled. "I'm sorry about your family," I said. "I... I don't even know what happened to mine."
She smiled back. "Is all good," she said. "They got it fast, and getting out of there taught me a lot of how to survive this."
I sighed and scratched my neck. "I'm afraid I don't know anything of the sort," I said. "I've been hiding and running ever since this whole thing started."
She eyed me up and down. "You are a smart lady," she said. "But you might not always be so lucky."
I nodded. "Well, I've never been much of a fighter, and more of a lover," I joked.
She smiled, remembering how we made love earlier. "I can see that," she replied. "Though I would not have guessed it looking at the way you are armed."
I looked down at the two holsters crossing on my chest, and the scimitar with the still slippery handle that was laying by my side. "Well, I just gathered what I thought would be useful," I shrugged. "Do you have any weapons?"
She shook her head. "Just a knife, and a large wrench," she answered.
I unfastened one of the holsters and pulled it over my head, pushing it over to her. "Here," I said. "Let me share then."
She grabbed the holster and pulled out the gun slowly, inspecting it. "This is good, but loud. Silent is better," she remarked.
"Do you know how to use it?" I asked.
"Mhm," she replied. "Before we left Ethiopia, they had me in the military camp, training for the army."
I raised my eyebrows. "But you said you were just a kid," I said incredulously.
She nodded. "I was," she replied.
Suddenly, a loud bang at the apartment door startled us. "Shit," she hissed. "They must have found us." She quickly leapt to her feet and grabbed what she could while I was still shocked and trying to process the situation. Another bang, and another, and the door broke down. In the dim light of the hallway, I could see a few figures enter the room. They looked like people, two women and a man, but their features were twisted, their clothes in tatters, they looked unwashed and unkempt, probably much like ourselves, but moved slower, disoriented, with uneasy steps.
It was the first time I saw zombies up close, and I was astonished at how normal they looked, like if I forgot what happened for a minute, I might mistake them for people and just walk up to them. Then Rebekka grabbed my arm and I snapped out of it. "Come," she said, "quick!" We hurried to the balcony door where I had entered earlier and went out, climbing across to another balcony towards the edge of the building, where an iron ladder led to the roof.
She let me go first, watching my back as the zombies came out on the balcony. One fell over the railing where I had fucked Rebekka earlier, while the others headed our way, slowly crawling across the gap between balconies. When I had reached the roof, she followed me, stopping halfway up the ladder and looked down, where a bunch of them now made it over to the next balcony, their hands stretched up towards us, but apparently unable to use the ladder.
"Yeah, fuck you bitches," she said as she turned on the ladder, spreading her legs wide. She still was only wearing her red blouse and soon a thick yellow stream shot out between her legs and rained down on the heads of the crowd below. I watched as she emptied her bladder, then helped her up onto the roof with me.