Work Text:
"C'mon, we need to move. We can't afford to be swarmed again like that."
Hands interlinked, sleek handgun with silencer or a curved blade that glinted in the moonlight firmly clutched in the other, the pair moved forward, their footsteps were nearly silent as they moved through the city. Bones and flesh crunched and squelched quietly beneath their feet, and the wind brought in dust bowls made of meat and tendons. Other activity was to virtually nothing - the birds had stopped singing long ago, when the world had turned to shit.
As if the ash and dust that polluted the air made it hard enough to breath already, the scent of smouldering flesh and bloody flames polluted the air and stung their noses as if it had been acid. They briefly paused to strap their masks tighter to their faces from where they had slipped during combat.
I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the chemicals
As they passed around the corner, they broke apart, eyes darting back and forth to the potentially patient fucks parked on the opposite side of the street. Dark disappeared behind a smashed in car as Anti continued to the group of rotting corpses. With a stab and slice, he determined that each was a genuine corpse and not anything more imminently dangerous. A shot, muffled by the thick layers of ash and coagulated blood that clumped together and filled in the cracks on the street, alerted Anti to the fact his partner was nearby and that some hostiles had been as well. Glancing around and spotting no more possibles, Anti found Dark emerging from an alleyway with more blood splattered on his arms, and nodded to him, indicating their path down the street. They joined together once, making swift progress down the street as a unit.
I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse
Four minutes in as many encounters later, they reached the front of their current base. A block of flats, which time had not been kind to, which held a row of individual apartments standing next to the fire exit which were relatively secure.
Passing through the front door and locking it behind them, Dark and Anti made quick progress up the familiar stairs. The fourth and eleventh stair attempted to crumble beneath their feet, and the twentieth stair creaked bloody murder as it was stepped upon. As they entered the flat they were occupying, that were twin sighs of relief from within the room.
Mark's eyes snapped up to them and gave them a quick survey before rushing to lock the door and return to his makeshift workbench, which was cluttered with weapons, books, scrap metal and scratchy blueprints. His clothes were wrinkled and threadbare, hair pushed back and it dribbled remaining water down his neck and soaked into the back of his plaid shirt.
I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my systems blow
Dark and Anti's home made weapons were removed with relative ease, and their duffel bags of found goods were dumped on the floor to prevent smearing blood on the only sofa in the flat. There was a pause as Dark turned to Anti, noticing for the first time out of his hyper aware state, that he was coated in blood, matting his hair down with it and clinging to his skin. With a gentle hand, he was led to the shower, and they both stripped down before entering as the cold stream was turned on. Kisses were shared between them, passionate and tired, as the remaining adrenaline drained from their systems, and hands scrubbing the blood, grime and any possible contamination from their bodies.
When they had finished, drying quickly and dressing in a set of cleaner clothes, Dark and Anti headed back into the main room to sort through their loot and make a note of the inventory. Mark's voice sounded out, low and serious, although his eyes remained firmly on the gun he was deconstructing, lit by a desk lamp aimed at the metal.
"Any luck?"
"Some. No medical supplies, but some food and bullets."
Dark's stare didn't falter, even as Mark stilled to glare at him with hard eyes. "You know what I mean."
The reply was silence, except Anti's whistling as he produced some packets of microwave rice from the bag. A bang vibrated through the floor and they snapped over to where Mark had slammed his fist against the table. His weapon was now scattered and a pile of books slid for a second before crashing to the floor, but Mark was too invested in glaring at Dark to pay this any mind.
"Answer me."
"Mark," Anti began weakly, his hands resting on the rice and shaking very slightly, "You know I want to find him as much as you do-"
"No you don't!" Skin slowing reddening with rage, eyes so cold and angry that when Mark seethed Anti swore he saw flames in the cold brown. "You didn't give a shit about him until you didn't know, and then you dropped him so fucking quickly-" there was a pause, as Mark took a deep breath in. "All I'm saying, is that Sean is still alive, and you shouldn't discount him and claim he's dead so quickly."
Dark scoffed quietly, resisting an eye roll, which did nothing for Mark's temper. "You haven't seen him since the spread. He went out to do something or other, and then our windows were being shattered, and then we didn't see him. We don't know if he's alive, but fuck, its not worth risking our lives for that! So I'm sorry if we didn't keep an eye out for your boyfriend when we were defending ourselves from those shits out there."
The tension was palpable, jumping like electricity, as Dark and Mark's glares met with the force of an army behind each one. Blonde hair poked into the room before a sigh.
"Mark, we're keeping an eye out when we can, okay? If he's around, he'll be found. Just calm down."
Mark managed to tear his gaze from Dark to Amy, and had his mouth open, ready to rebuttal when an almighty creak echoed throughout the room. It stuttered halfway through, and then continued, and then silence. They all fell still.
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Their actions were swift and practiced. Mark threw Amy a few guns from the table before belting a few to himself, whilst Dark re equipped his weapon belt and loaded his again with more bullets, and Anti drew his from the belt but left it by the door. There was a pause, a moment where everyone just looked at each other and breathed, before Dark opened the door with his gun pointing into the corridor.
They only encountered two in the stairwell, on the twenty fifth step. They were children, short and skeletal, clambering up the stairs on their hands and knees, staring at the group with white eyes and a forcefully agape mouth. Blood trailed behind from where their skin had caught on one of the traps installed, and a chunk of flesh was missing from one of their legs. Amy put them down with two shots and a shiver as the frail bodies went still.
Each pounding fist and ramming shoulder against the door jolted her lethargic, battered body, forced her arms to strain more and more, and allowed the door to open more and more, scraping across the concrete floor with the sound of nails on chalkboard. Of course, the hoard funneling to a pair of boarded up plate glass double doors were louder. Splinters were embedded deep within her hands and shoulders, being ploughed into her skin and forcing blood to smear against her skin and the wood.
Her eyes were glued shut, unable to watch her slow, futile attempts of surviving being eaten by a pandemic. Fear she couldn't repress bubbled in her stomach and rose, stomach acid emptying from her mouth onto the door, only to drip onto the floor and slide underneath her bare feet. Everything was slippery, she was loosing her grip rapidly, and she was sobbing uncontrollably.
Footsteps sounded behind her, yet she couldn't pay attention. Only did she pay attention when a voice, a controlled, coherent human voice, called down to her. In hope, she moved her attention from the door to the staircase, just in time to see the lower end of someone, as the door burst open under her arms and she was flung back, only to be hauled forward by decayed and broken fingers.
I'm radioactive
I'm radioactive
The hoard pulsed like an organ, moved together, so densely packed that they whatever limbs they had left were interlinked. Red smeared every surface they touched and the groans and wailing of them were deafening.
Mark gagged as he saw teeth and claws sink into the thin skin of the woman, already reaching for his guns. Anti had already joined the fray, attempting to force the hoard back so that the group had more room to fight in the cramped lobby. Shots were already being fired from his left and from in front of him, where Amy was swallowing and then firing a shot through the howling ladies skull. After that, he lost track.
I raise my flag and dye my clothes
It's a revolution, I suppose
We're painted red to fit right in
It wasn't hard to hit a target, if Mark let one go into the dense mass then it would spear through someone's flesh and hopefully stop them in their tracks. He caught flashes of Anti above the hoard, feet sliding across the beams on the ceiling so he could swipe and thrust at the heads of the bobbing hostiles beneath him with ease and not be lost within the crowd, before he had to focus on reloading and firing more shots into the mass.
I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse
Amy pulled Anti back onto the stairwell as they retreated slightly, firing off from higher ground, forcing the hoard to funnel through an ultimately single person staircase and directly into metal. It proved effective as they began to trickle to a halt, to the point where Anti could rush in and relinquish his blood lust for picking off the remainers, with Dark on back up fire. Mark and Amy were quick to close the door back up and lock it again, retrieving an emergency lock and barricade from beside the door to make sure none of those still panting and groaning outside could enter.
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Everyone fell quiet. They remained downstairs for a moment, simply staring at the motionless shapes of blood and flesh that carpeted the floor. Dark peered through a crack in the metal box used to block the door at the smaller group of infected that had gathered from the primary wave and were drawn by the sound of gunfire and screaming. He sighed and stepped back, dropping a few dead clips he had been carrying onto the severed torso of one of the corpses.
A groan - tiny, feeble and weak - sounded from underneath the staircase. Dark looked to Amy, who was helping Anti up the stairs, and then zeroed in on Anti's wince as he put pressure on a sprained ankle. Mark nodded at Dark's concerned gaze and moved to take care of it as Dark slowly followed the pair up the stairs, being sure to hang around in case an incident happened whilst Mark cleaned up.
I'm radioactive, radioactive
I'm radioactive, radioactive
He peered into the gloom of what had been an under stair cupboard, he froze. Attempting to make a sound and signal to the man on the stairs, he simply choked on air. Moving backwards, his foot caught on a body and he stumbled, crashing to the ground. Dark was beside him in an instant, eyes also fixed on the sole survivor of the hoard that entered the building.
It was nearly full person, only missing one of his arms, possibly mixed in within the soup of red carnage that painted the floor and walls. Entrails were wrapped around his neck, spotted with chunks of bone embedded into the tissue, although these seemed to be someone else's. Their frame was skeletal, the only meat being on their thighs, hips and cheeks. Grey skin and eyes that dimmed to a pale lavender. It was hauntingly beautiful, even as ichor bubbled from their stump. He moaned again, even more quietly, but didn't seem to be moving.
Dark's grip on Mark tightened and he forced him onto his feet and against the wall, still holding him though as his knees were buckling like mad and tears leaked uselessly down into the wet mass of violence.
"Sean."
All systems go, the sun hasn't died
Deep in my bones, straight from inside