An awkward silence hangs on the rooftop as we all stare each other down. I have the revolver tucked into the front of my trousers and am casually swinging the claw hammer in my hands, waiting for someone to say something. Anything. A suggestion that we finally move out, or vacate this rooftop.
Hell, at this point I'd even take a suggestion that we play poker or some shit, just so we have something to do.
Waiting for another few moments I let out an audible sigh and move to the edge of the rooftop, looking down onto the streets below. Thousands of dead faces mill about, some staring up at me, others continuing their slow, shuffling march through this dead town.
"Well that's just fucking great…" I mutter, turning back to the others, "street level's not safe anymore; waaaay too many biters fucking around down there. We'll need an alternate route out of this town." A grin flashes across my face. "And I know of one, as it happens, which we can probably access from the bottom of this building. It's just that you're all gonna hate it."
I move across the roof to the exit, hauling open the door before turning back to the others. "Well, c'mon then. You lot waiting for me to hold your fucking hands, or something?"
Here I am, sixteen years old and organising a bunch of supposed badass survivor types, one of whom claims to be in the military.
And people get confused when I tell them I have no confidence in adults.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER…
Sewers were not fun places to be even before the outbreak.
They're incredible feats of human ingenuity and design, don't get me wrong, and they paved the way to stopping crappy preventable diseases like typhoid and cholera. This town's system isn't quite as impressive as, say, New York's, where the tunnels stretch for miles down below the surface of the earth and which had an entire subculture dedicated to exploring it's depths, but they're still pretty extensive.
There's just the small trouble that it stinks to high hell down here.
Sewers weren't exactly the most fragrant of places before society went and died on us, but now they're truly something to inhale; imagine, if you would, the stench of the refuse of a civilisation that's been dead for five months, and you'll get the idea.
Still, there's probably not going to be many biters down here, if any, so we have a clear run for the exit.
From my backpack I've retrieved a spare t-shirt that was hidden beneath my other gear, wrapping it around the lower half of my face in an attempt to ward off the worst of the stench. The flashlight is also out, the powerful beam illuminating the walkways that we need to move across. I've been down here once before with Sarah, on a run several weeks ago, and if our luck holds the chalk markings I made that point to the exit should still be here.
'If our luck holds'. Ha-fucking-ha. I'll just go ahead and shoot myself in the goddamn face already, get it over with.
But it seems we've had a turn in fortunes; as I move to a junction in the tunnels I spy the faint orange outline of an arrow I drew several weeks ago, pointing to the left. "We're in business!" I call to the others behind me, my voice faintly muffled by the shirt, "This way! And keep the fuck up! You don't wanna get lost in the dark!"