Chapter Text
Virgil should be dead. He’s like fifty percent sure he should be dead. No, scratch that, he’s one hundred percent sure he should be dead. He got bit. The only way he could be alive is if the cure everyone talks about is real.
Virgil opens his eyes, sitting up. He looks himself over. Nothing. No bites. His clothes don’t even have rips in them. Which is weird. He looks around and gasps. That’s a zombie. And the zombie is…
...That’s him. Virgil is very confused. How can he be sitting staring up at a zombie who is very obviously Virgil himself? Virgil looks at himself. “What’s going on?”
Then he notices he can see through his hand. It’s slight, but he can see the wall through his hand. Virgil stands and looks himself over again. Yep, he can definitely see through himself. Which means he must be… “A ghost?” Virgil says to himself. Can a ghost and a zombie come from the same person? “Apparently,” Virgil mutters.
The zombified Virgil must have been waiting for the ghostly Virgil to wake up, because he starts walking. He’s surprisingly fast. “Hey, wait up!” Virgil says, chasing after him. He catches up to the zombie version of himself and notices he’s looking down at the zombie. Virgil looks down and realizes he’s floating about a foot off the floor. “Well, that’s pretty cool.” Virgil looks at the zombie. “I’m going to call you Zombie-Virgil. In case we meet anyone.” Zombie-Virgil doesn’t stop to congratulate Virgil on his wonderful naming skills and just keeps walking. Virgil pauses. “You’ll probably eat anyone we meet. Oh boy. Think I can abandon you?” Virgil suddenly gets pulled through a wall and he sighs. “Obviously not.”
Virgil floats around and looks for Zombie-Virgil. He gets to an empty stairwell. When he leans over the handrail, he sees Zombie-Virgil collapsed in a heap at the bottom, at least fifteen floors down. “Hey, you dead down there?” Virgil yells. He looks at the handrail and shrugs. “I’m already dead.” And with that, he jumps over the handrail.
He counts the floors as he falls. At least twenty. And the stairwell was several rooms away. So… Virgil does the math in his head as his feet touch the ground. He can be about three hundred feet from Zombie-Virgil. A football field. That’s a good distance. Virgil crouches next to Zombie-Virgil. “Are you dead? You should be dead. Very few people could survive that.”
Zombie-Virgil seems to be one of those very few, because he gets up and stumbles out of the building. Virgil sighs and follows him. “I’m renaming you. You’re now Zom-V. V for Virgil. I’m creative.” Virgil smiles slightly. “I think Patton would like that name.” His smile fades and he glances back at the building they had just left. “I hope they’re okay…”
“Where’s Virgil?” Logan asks Roman when he returns.
Roman sits down on his bunk and covers his face. “Virgil’s dead,” he answers quietly. “He got bit.”
Logan and Patton stare at him. “What?” Patton asks weakly.
“There were too many,” Roman says. “He pushed me out of the way, down a staircase. It hurt, but…” Roman chokes back a sob. “...Virgil saved my life. He sacrificed himself to save my life…” Roman drops his bag on the floor. “There was so much food in there, I don’t think anyone had raided it yet. But we need to get moving, though. I don’t know if any followed me.”
“Are we going back for him?” Patton asks. “His body?”
“And risk getting bit? No,” Roman answers. “He died saving my life. I don’t think he’d want me to go back. Or any of us. We need to get away before they find us.”
“But… We can’t leave him…” Patton says.
“We can’t go back, Patton,” Logan tells him. “We must leave before those zombies find us.”
“...Okay…” Patton sniffles, wiping away tears. “...I hope he didn’t have to wait very long…”