"Nice meetin' you, Scotty. I'm Rodeo," Rodeo said around a smirk, making another sharp turn that still didn't lose the hungry creatures that tailed them. "Listen, we're gonna be fine, alright? I outran more'n these freaks before. Just hang on real tight and don't be scared. I got you." Rodeo might have looked like a rough-and-tumble thug, but his voice was friendly and gentle when he spoke to Scotty. He was never patronizing, never having thought that one should talk down to a child. They could handle a lot more than most people gave them credit for.
Rodeo finally saw their way out, and he darted into an alleyway. "Hang on," Rodeo reminded him around gritted teeth as he grabbed hold of the ladder of a fire escape above his head. He pulled them up and hurried up the rungs, scrambling onto the fire escape just as the runners reached them. The zombies stopped beneath the fire escape, groaning and growling, staring up at them with empty, clotted eyes.
"See? Lookit those suckers," Rodeo said, laughing at them, wanting to set Scotty at ease. "Lucky they runners, not climbers, right?" Rodeo turned towards the window of the apartment building they were suspended on the side of, working on prying it open, wrenching it up. "Window's small, so I'm gonna go through first, alright?" Rodeo told Scotty, kneeling down on the fire escape so the boy could climb off his back. "Then you'll come in right after me, and we'll find a way down on the other side."