Page 2

Before he could even answer, she heard the many voices of the ankle-biters whispering. They were getting closer—fast.

"Run!" Hugo screamed.

Shelley did just that. She may have been a golfer at heart but she had learned how to run pretty quick when the apocalypse came about. Just when her feet were about to hit pavement, something tightened around her and the road fell away beneath her.

Hugo had broken her quick of the habit of screaming. However, the squeak of surprise and fear was inevitable.

Shelley's back scraped against the roof's edge as she was hauled up on top of the building behind the bank. The wind was knocked out of her when she landed.

A hunched old angler loomed over her. Shelley had never seen one before but she knew this was, without a doubt, one of them. She'd heard stories from Hugo and seen the bodies they left behind.

The angler looked like a man, old and crusted with dirt and long-dry blood. Its gray hair was tangled and frizzy and it had very little clothing on. Wringing its hands nervously together and unable to stay standing in the same place for more than a second, it circled around Shelley.

She didn't want to alert anything else to the problem and knew Hugo was already aware. So she laid there quietly, struggling against the twisted and knotted garbage bag net she'd been caught with.

The angler went to a pile of shredded black garbage bags and muttered incoherently to itself as it grabbed some pieces and tossed others aside. When it was satisfied with what it found, it got back to Shelley and started wrapping her up like a spider did a fly.

Shelley struggled but the angler was too strong and its reflexes were too quick. It was able to easily compensate for any movement she made.

The angler muttered and twitched and shifted nervously. Shelley could occasionally make out what she thought was a word here and there, but she couldn't be sure. It sounded almost like it was saying "Drink, need a drink" over and over again.

Shelley did her best not to panic. The bloody bottles and cans and buckets and trash cans that littered the rooftop were ominous but she trusted Hugo would get her out of the situation.

She was fully cocooned by the time she saw Hugo crawl up onto the other end of the roof, beyond the angler. Just in case the thing was smarter than it looked, Shelley watched it instead of her friend.

Hugo was already on top of it by the time the angler noticed. As it paused its ministrations and started to swivel to look behind it, Hugo's crowbar embedded itself in the thing's skull.

It squinted one eye, the other one bulging out, and its mouth opened in a silent scream. Then, like a dying bug, it flailed wildly before collapsing to the ground.

Hugo watched it go down and waited until it stopped moving. He hit it a few more times for good measure, Shelley turning her face away from the spattering blood.

"Sorry about that, girl," Hugo said quietly. He pulled out his knife and started cutting the plastic off her. "It was a pain in the ass to get up here."

Shelley's terror started to get the best of her and she started shaking uncontrollably. When Hugo helped her to her feet, she clung to him. He patted her on the back a few times.

"We gotta go. There's a bank that needs robbing."

Shelley didn't move for a good solid minute. Then, finally, she peeled herself off her friend and got control of herself again.

"Sorry." She looked around at all the bloody receptacles again. "I'm just not keen on getting bled out."

"I don't think anyone is. Come on. Help me with this." Hugo started dragging the angler over toward the ledge Shelley had been pulled over.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Just come on. We need it for the chum."

Shelley helped though she wasn't happy about it. The sound of it hitting the ground below was gross but both of them had heard far worse lately.

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