Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The end of the world was gradual, blending in like a doomed shapeshifter, warping minds, and gleefully it laid in wait when the wars began; when science reached a peak so high it mixed with weaponry, and that…that was what happened, really. No bang, flood, or fire, but rather like a ticking timebomb, and when it eventually exploded, things only got worse.

Rumors began to spread once it happened: The crumbling of human government, the chaos of science, genius brains craving something insubstantial, and, at last, the possibility of a bacterial infection gone wrong, decaying people's brains and turning them into cannibalistic monsters. Zombies.

Shawn was prepared for this, he and his mother had trained for it longer than this whole thing started—a decade prior, to be exact. He had been eight when his conspiracy theorist mother sat him down and opened his eyes about the undead and the danger they posed. It was like a curtain had been ripped away from his rosy life since then; he started following her on her wilderness survival training and, when he wouldn't leave, she often let him join her. Even with the jeers and teasing he endured, he remained steadfastly fixated that the day would arrive when their world would be taken over by the cannibalistic monsters. His mother told him so, and he believed her with all his heart. Plus it made sense. With the way things were going, of course, an apocalypse wouldn’t be far off. People were just blind, oblivious. 

Yes, he was ready, 100 percent prepared. He waited on tiptoes for this moment to come. He trained for this. That still doesn’t dampen the horror he feels when he got the phone call one seemingly ordinary Tuesday night.

He’s slumped on the couch five minutes prior, remote in hand, waiting for his mother to return from the studio where she runs her own solo conspiracy podcast. Running a hand through his hair, he’s in the process of wondering if he should cut it soon–having long hair makes it easy for zombies to grab at–when the phone in his pocket buzzes.

He digs around in his pocket for it, fumbling it for a couple of seconds as his flimsy fingers catch up with the program. He could count on one hand the possible callers—he doesn’t have many friends nor is he popular in town, being homeschooled and having the interests he has. Maybe it’s his father, who lives farther up north and who Shawn visits on weekends, or maybe it’s Monty, his best (and only) friend—the only one who seems to tolerate his habits. Those two seem the most plausible, if the only ones; his dad often likes to call Shawn at late hours to catch up after closing up the bakery, and he had been in the middle of watching The Walking Dead (for the fifth time) because of Monty.

When he finally flips his phone around and sees the caller id on the cracked screen, he’s understandably confused. It’s his mom.

As soon as he picks up, he asks, amusement coloring his voice: “Late again?”

This wouldn’t be the first time his mom called him to inform him that she’d be an hour (or several) late for some reason or other, and it certainly won’t be the last.

His mother’s voice on the other end throws all amusement out the window.

“Shawn. I want you to get in the bunker now. This isn’t a drill.”

Several things about that sentence and the way it’s said chill him; his mother rarely calls him by his given name unless it’s something serious; while they often went to the bunker at night, Tuesdays are their night, and the bunker is several miles away; and finally, the words ‘ this isn’t a drill’ and the way her voice shook minutely as she said it.

“Mom? Ma? What’s going on?” He lowers his voice, the only reason she could be this concerned causing him to involuntary speak in a near-whisper. “Is it happening?”

There’s a deliberate pause like she’s weighing the gravity of her response before she says “ Yes.”

Like that one word is a dam breaking, a cacophony of screams sounds from outside his door. Phone still pressed to his ear, he rushes to the window, peeking out through the gap between the curtains.

The first thing he sees is a lady in a floral nightgown bent over a huddled form on the sidewalk. Light from the streetlamp above them shines down on the large patch of blood on the ground and, when she looks up, seeming to stare straight at him through the window, her mouth and lower half of her face are drenched in the same red substance. And that’s not the only thing about her that sends a jolt of adrenaline into his veins—it’s the patches of skin hanging off her face, the lifeless eyes that bore into his soul, and, as she raises her hand, the crooked fingernails that point right at him.

Zombie, he thinks. His mother is saying something in his ear, but the phone is in a loose grip in his hand. He can only stare, frozen, as this nameless lady he’s never seen before but must be someone in his neighborhood shambles to his front yard, dragging one foot behind her and it takes him a second to realize it’s because the foot is half hanging off her ankle, the bone a shocking white in the darkness, illuminated moreso by the streetlights.

He doesn’t feel nauseous, but his stomach still rolls. Because this is it. This is what he had been preparing for. And now, it’s staring at him, dead in the eyes (pun intended) with a gaping maw and a stained nightgown, looking so normal yet so utterly not, and he’s stiff with shock (and not a slight amount of terror).

His mother’s voice jars him back to reality. “Shawn! Are you listening? You didn’t leave the house, right?”

“No—I mean, yes—I mean, no I haven’t left yet, Mom,” he stammers, stumbling back from the curtains, letting them fall back shut, though, through the minuscule gap, he can still see that zombie lady shuffle closer and closer toward him.

“Good,” his mother’s voice is brisk, unwavering, and he mentally grips it like a lifeline. “Get your head in the game, mój syn, remember what I said? They feel no fear, so why should you? ”

She’d gotten the line from her favorite book and drilled it into his head at every opportunity to erase any potential fear of the undead from his mind. Well, it worked in theory, but seeing the things in reality is a different story. Nonetheless, Shawn takes in a deep breath, grounding himself, screwing his head on straight. His mom is right; he has no reason to be scared, he’s been training for this for ten years now, he can definitely do this. And once he and his mother are in their bunker, no zombie can mess with them.

After a second, his mom asks “You good?”

“Yeah,” he says, heart rate back to normal, jaw set. “Let’s do this.”

With his mom listing instructions through the phone, he sprints upstairs, taking them two at a time and jumping the last five steps to land in a crouch on the upper landing before racing to his bedroom. The screams outside aren’t the greatest background music for impromptu packing, but he’ll manage.

“No overpacking, remember!” his mom repeats for the third time as he looks over his belongings. “Keep it short and simple—we’re not going on a road trip.”

Little, simple, and to the point. That’s how they roll. In the apocalypse, you can’t pack elaborately, so they’d already bought a proper roll-up bag and his mother had taught him what stuff to pack that was convenient and necessary but not extravagant. 

Clothes? Enough for a week, he can reuse them if necessary.

Bathroom supplies? Check.

Weapons? The most important assets. He has his crossbow, and he’s packed several daggers and an ax his uncle had given him as a birthday gift just in case.

Entertainment? Well…he’ll figure that out later. For now, he takes a portable DVD player (with a couple of DVDs), a phone charger, and earbuds. And, of course, his phone in the pocket of his ratty jeans.

He quickly changes into more suitable clothing, stuffs his things in the camping bag and rushes back downstairs, practically sliding down the banister in his haste. Outside, things seem to have gotten more chaotic; the screams have risen; there’s the occasional thumping noise to accompany them now; his front door bangs, slowly and steady, unhurried, and he doesn’t dare open it. He’d rather his brains intact, thank you very much.

“Take the truck,” his mother instructs, but Shawn already knows that. There’s no way in hell he’s going to run all the way to their bunker–he might as well serve his brains on a fancy plate for the zombies. He grabs the keys from the side table, along with a water bottle and a granola bar in case he gets hungry during the drive; his eyes dart around as he does, assessing his options.

Front door is a definite no. Breaking windows would attract too much noise, so the back door seems like the best option–he can sneak out, and creep around the side to the truck.

“Let’s do this,” he mutters to himself, and his mother echoes the sentiment, her own voice getting more hurried and breathy–he deduces she must be running.

Shouldering his bag more securely over his shoulders, Shawn inches the back door open very slowly. 

He gives it a minute. When no undead crazies launch themselves at him, he pushes the door open fully, pausing only to flick off the lights, before slipping out into the night, closing the door gently, quietly, behind him. 

First part of the mission complete; now for the harder part: getting to the damn truck.

At first, it’s fine; he sneaks across his silent backyard—the atmosphere here at odds with the noisy madness from the other side of the house; his beatdown sneakers stealing over the grass. Using the skills he learned, he presses up behind a large oak tree, taking time to exhale twice before poking his head around to survey the situation.

Boy, is it bad.

Sure, Shawn was already aware of that after witnessing what he’d seen through the window, but seeing it outside of the safety of his house provokes a different sort of perspective of the chaos.

People are running around, most screaming, some leaving trails of blood in their wake; many are collapsed shapes on the ground, looking like boulders in the shadows; and then there were the creepies–feasting on the collapsed figures like it’s the Boze Cialo or catching up to the runners and dragging them down amidst screams and pained cries. The multitude of sounds makes his ears ring, but he shakes his head and focuses on his goal: the brown pickup truck his mother gifted him on his sixteenth birthday when he’d gotten his permit. It sits on his driveway, innocently, surrounded by the mayhem. 

All he has to do is get to that damn truck.

His mother is quiet on the other end, save for heavy footsteps, and, sometimes, a door slamming shut. Clearly, he’s on his own this time. 

He grips one strap of the bag with one hand, pulls out his ax with the other, spares a second to pray to whatever God might be up there watching this shitshow (he may not be religious, but he feels this particular case deserves a ‘hello?’ to the big guy, himself), and makes a break for it, sprinting as fast as he could toward the truck.

He hacks through several undead creatures who were already hacked brutally by what looked like blunt objects (the severings on their abdomens weren’t cleanly cut) so it takes him half a second to pause, whip his ax down on them, and continue running like nothing happened. Given his speed and mobility plus the fact that no one seems to notice him, his hopes of reaching the truck without much disarray swell as he nears the truck. 

Fifteen feet. Ten feet.

A hulking shape erupts to stand before him, lopsided, straightening to a freakishly tall height, this one clearly not severed and ready for flesh and brains as it reaches for him with hanging arms. The light of a streetlamp and the flare of a burning car shines an eerie light on its face for a split second but it’s enough for Shawn to recognize him.

It’s Mr. Logan—his next-door neighbor, the nice old man with the neat garden who Shawn used to help once in a while. 

But this creature before him isn’t the kindly old man he’s seen before. This one has greenish skin, dark splotches on his cheeks, skin peeling off the area under his eyes like he’d clawed at them in his last living moments, and dull bloodshot eyes. This Mr. Logan staggers toward him, moaning and groaning rather than speaking in perfect pristine English. And Shawn’s mind blanks–hacking those other zombies, heck seeing those other zombies was different since they weren’t familiar to him. But this? He’s laughed with Mr. Logan before, helped the man tend to his flowers and pluck his tomatoes. Now he’s faced before him, ax in hand to deliver the final blow into his lifeless skull.

As though she can hear his internal stupor, his mother’s voice hisses from within the phone “They’re not them, okay? These creatures are not who they were before, they’re not the people we used to know, Shawn, mój syn. In fact, killing them would be a greater mercy than what they would be forced to go through.”

To punctuate the point, there’s a gurgle and a sick splat from her end, and she’s there again, speaking rapidly over the phone: “Do you hear me? Don’t let your heart get away from you!”

They’re not them he chants over and over in his head. Raising the ax high above his head, he brings it down with stunning force, cleaving the skull of Mr. Logan—the zombified Mr. Logan—clean in half. Blood splatters on his front and hits his cheek. He steps over the fallen body, eyes on the truck to prevent himself from catching a glimpse of the distorted brain matter and other fluids leaking out.

He flings himself into the drivers seat of the truck, breathing heavily.

“Shawn, are you okay?” comes his mom's voice, loud and real.

“Right as rain, Ma,” he responds, starting up the truck. "Heading to our bunker now.”

He’s revving the truck back while resolutely ignoring the consistent bumps it goes over that are definitely bodies—dead or undead—when a surprised yell so close to his ear sends his foot stomping on the brakes.

What the fuck?

He peers into the driver's side mirror, wondering who the hell had shouted so loudly and so…devastatingly. It had sounded like actual pain and terror, and so close, as though…

As though it hadn’t happened on his end.

“Ma? Everything alright?”

It’s silent. Dead silent.

“Ma?” he calls again, voice rising.

The car is quiet. There’s rattling from outside, zombies trying to get in the car, get to him, but he doesn’t care. He stays in place, truck halfway on the road, waiting with a terrible feeling in his gut for his mother to respond.

He’s just about ready to turn the truck around and drive to her studio despite knowing that’s the absolute last thing one should do in a zombie apocalypse—every person for themself—when she speaks and his heart starts beating once more.

“Fine…I’m fine,” she’s gasping, her breath rattling, the worry battles with his initial relief. “Get to the bunker…I’ll be there…in a bit. Don’t worry.”

“Ma?” Because that seems to be the only thing he knows to say right now.

“I’m okay, mój syn,” she repeats, sounding more stronger this time. “Get to the bunker, and whatever you do, look out for yourself and yourself only, okay?”

He takes a breath, shifting the gear to drive. It’ll be okay. Nothing’s going to happen to them. 

“Yeah, Ma, got it.”

“Good.” Her breath shudders again, and now there’s a dreadful feeling creeping, like ice, down the back of his neck. “I know you can do it.”

Her version of an ‘I love you’.

Before he can respond, the line goes dead. She’d hung up.

He drives like a robot past his (now-former) neighborhood. Past the sprawling fields and chaotic highways, barely noticing the overturned cars and raging fires. He drives and drives, mind carefully blank because if he dares to open the door to his thoughts, he isn’t sure what will happen.

The bunker is located in the middle of a grassy field far, far away from civilization, inconspicuous in every which way except for the pole sticking out of the bottom that serves as a telescope, a way for oxygen to travel through, and a door handle.

He parks the truck in a canopy of overhanging willows, shielded from any prying eyes, and makes the downhill trek down to the bunker. Once he reaches it, he tugs the brass pole upward, wrenches open the entrance, and drops inside.

The bunker is nicely furnished, ready to be used at a moment's notice. With several small rooms—a bedroom, a common area, and a small washroom—and homely decorations, just being in it soothes his frayed nerves. This right here was his and his mother’s longest project after coming across a deeply dug hole with a tunnel system that was supposed to be used for a well but got scrapped at the last minute. No one cared for it, so they took advantage of it and made something far better than a simple well.

I’m here, he thinks, reaching up to close the bunker entrance—a circular opening camouflage with foliage—and crossing the common room, dropping his bag as he went, to plop down heavily on the creaky couch. I’m here but where are you?

He waits. All night he sits there. 

But his mother doesn’t come.

[***]

THREE YEARS LATER

Dave hates horror movies. 

He also hates zombies. 

It’s a bad fucking joke that the zombie apocalypse occurred during his lifetime. A ravaging conundrum of disgusting dirty freakies indulging in their newfound diet of meat and brains—it’s like life wants him to die of throwing up and curled up in a ball, in hysterics.

(He also thinks it’s a bad fucking joke that the whole shit hit the fan in his town right as he and Sky were having The Talk. She was so close to confessing—she’d said “I like you but-“ and then a freaking zombie had appeared out of nowhere in front of their car, giving him a near heart attack, Dave literally thought he was in a shitty horror movie at first.

Now she’s who knows where while he’s stuck in an underground bunker with Noah, who’s about as fun to be around as a dictionary. She could be dead for all he knows!)

Okay, so maybe he’s exaggerating a bit. Noah’s not that bad to be around; sure he’s sarcastic, pessimistic, a cynic, but hey—so is Dave! Plus Noah had saved his ass by dragging him into his car as soon as Sky had hightailed them back to town (Dave had been a gibbering mess in the passenger seat) and getting them into the bunker they’re living in now.

And the bunker itself isn’t so bad either. Yeah, he may be living in close quarters with more people than he liked, but it’s miles better than being on the surface and dealing with those germy zombies. Plus the people here are pretty nice and chill—they understand his germaphobia, and they don’t mind when he opts out of going up to the surface for supply runs (he makes up for it by keeping the place as neat and tidy as he could).

Over time, he started getting used to the occasional midnight moans from the next room over, waking up in the face of lightbulbs instead of sunshine, handling Noah’s ‘I’m Reading, Not Socializing’ moods as well as his odd group of friends, and he’s surprised to say he’s actually gotten close to everyone here. Dave’s not someone who gets close to people easily—apparently, his judgmental demeanor labels him as a jerk, which he understands but it’s not his fault ninety-nine percent of the population is so weird. 

Yeah, he really isn’t helping his point. Oh well.

Anyway, the only news he gets from the surface is from the weekly supply run groups that are sent out to scavenge for anything useful to bring back. It’s a dangerous job and one that has the hairs on Dave’s neck rising—especially whenever Noah goes on one. Several people have been ambushed and Bitten during supply runs, and being the only connection to his actual family despite not being related, Dave likes to think that Noah’s the closest he is to anyone in the bunker. They share the same cramped room with only a curtain to partition their sides, but even before that, Noah’s his family friend—out of all his siblings, it’s Dave that Noah connected with. Despite all his melodrama, he knows for a fact that Noah cares immensely about him. And Dave, despite being the kind of person he is, definitely cares for the guy as well.

Hence why every time he goes up to the surface, Dave is on the edge of his seat. Then he comes back with no news about either of their families and Dave’s a combination of disappointment and relief. Rinse and repeat. It’s a waiting game at this point, though what exactly they’re waiting for remains unknown—news about family? A miracle? Hope?

He'd come to an empty house when Sky had dropped him off in the middle of the panic, and he'd been dragged out by Noah from an empty house. His father is probably holed up in a fancy secure lab—he wasn’t in the house when they’d driven away (not a surprise); his mother is in the UK along with his older brother—he doubts the apocalypse has reached across oceans yet, apparently, Canada was the first casualty and the United States is coming second; Jaydha, his older sister, is probably either with their father or in Australia on a business trip; it’s Viola, his younger sister, that he’s most concerned about. News of her whereabouts is null, he can only hope she found a good bunker like theirs to hide out from the undead freakies.

(Though Viola is definitely not the type to run and hide from anything. He dearly hopes she isn’t fighting those horrible things by herself or going on supply runs consistently.)

Then there’s the second reason the lack of news from the supply runs leaves him desolate: Sky.

He misses her. There’s no other way to say it. Her boundless optimism that balances his middle-ground of realism and pessimism, her encouragement and support, and how awesome she is at anything and everything. He wants to believe she’s still out there—as a living human being, not as an unalive zombie—because she’s Sky. But six months have passed and even the high hopes he has for her are starting to dwindle. The portable radio he brought with him from home in hopes to pinpoint which bunker she might be in isn’t being much help either. Okay, it is being a help, it’s just the fact that the fuzzy voices and grainy snippets of conversation he’s able to pick up while huddled on his mattress with his ear pressed to it are the ones that are unhelpful. Because there’s no mention of Sky and that increases his worry and decreases his hopes.

He doesn’t give up though, which is a shocker even for him; he’s not the type to persevere through something. As much as he hates to admit it, he’s notorious for giving up at the slightest inconvenience, and complain all about it, even managing to turn the blame onto another person. This time, he doesn’t. He’s laser-focused, spending most of his time in front of the tiny radio, and, during the times when he isn’t, his brain is constantly fixed on it.

Sky deserves it. He just knows she wouldn't give up on him if their roles were reversed, so why would he? He’ll get a lead someday, he forces his mind to focus on that sliver of optimistic hope.

Don't get him wrong, he still complains, often enough for everyone in the bunker to eventually comes to know about this persistent—dare he say, obsessive—interest of his (he’s gotten a variety of reactions about it, from teasing to genuine support to flak), but none of that deter him. Sooner or later, something will happen. He just has to wait for that moment.

Then a miracle does happen, sometime in the middle of his third year in the bunker: he gets a lead.

He’s slouched in his usual spot on his bed—a thin mattress basically—with a throw blanket over his legs and a pillow against his back, the radio parked in its usual spot in front of him. Mindlessly, he’s turning the dials, fiddling with the wiring, humming an old Bollywood song to himself to keep the boredom from driving him insane, when all of a sudden—

“…yeah…n’t worry…far away…right, Sky?…”

He freezes, hand on the dial, about to turn it. Had he really just heard that? Or is he hallucinating hearing Sky’s name now?

He strains his ears but there’s no other mention of Sky, only garbled noises and cut-off words.

Had he really heard her name?

He slumps back down the bed, dragging a hand down his face, going to turn the dial when he hears it again:

“Uphold defenses…off the coast…Sky, make sure—“

For a second, he stares at the radio, unable to comprehend that he’d actually gotten something, then he leaps into action. Literally. He flings himself off the mattress, slips his shoes on, rips open the curtain partitioning his sleeping area, and sprints down the cramped hall (well, it’s more of a narrow lane with several curtains on each side for doors).

He flings away the curtain barricading the kitchen/dining area. “I made a breakthrough!”

He’s slightly disappointed to find that the only people in the room are Noah's odd group of friends—who refer to themselves as Team E-Scope. He’d been hoping for some trackers.

“Davey!” Owen grins. Big, blond, and smiling, he’s your typical teddy bear if you get around the fact that he has a bit of a loose cannon from behind. “You finally decided to hang out with us?”

“You’re just in luck, I’ve started my hourly workout regime,” grunts Eva, sat across from Owen and lifting a weight like it’s nothing. “Your twig arms need it.”

“You say that to Noah too and he doesn’t listen.” Izzy laughs, her frizzy hair bouncing as she turns to give her girlfriend a look that’s a mixture of fondness and the usual craziness she exudes. “Hey, Dave, you wanna go bash some zombie heads with me? I’m feeling kinda bored.”

“Uh, no, no thanks! To all of that,” says Dave quickly. He holds up the radio that’s still crackling. “Are any of you guys trackers perchance?”

The group exchange looks.

“Well, Noah’s the best out of us,” says Owen. “But you probably already know that.”

“He’s on a supply run,” Izzy adds, as though Dave didn’t already know that when Noah had told him before leaving. “We’re all caught up on the major supplies so probably off getting more books.”

“I guarantee the reason he gets bitten is because he stopped at a bookstore instead of running like a sane person,” grumbles Eva.

“What’s the situation, little dude?” asks Owen, curiously leaning forward. “Can it wait until after brunch? I’m making some mean waffles—“

“No!” says Dave firmly. “I think—I think I found Sky. I just need to know where the signal coming from this station is.”

Just like that, the situation spirals.

Owen gasps loudly. “You found her?!” he practically shouts, causing Dave to wince.

“Found who?” comes a faraway shout.

“Davey found his girl!” yells Owen.

“Damn, I didn’t think she existed,” admits Eva.

Dave glares at her. “Seriously?!”

There are several sets of hurried footsteps and Dave braces himself as the curtains are ripped open. All of a sudden, there are a lot more voices and a lot more people, overlapping one another.

“Dude, you found her?!” choruses Geoff and Brody, then high-five when they realize they said it at the same time.

“Yay,” Ennui and Crimson intone.

“Man, I thought she was a running joke or something. I didn’t think she was actually real, ” says Cody, impressed.

Bridgette pats him on the back. “I knew your hard work would pay off.”

“Good for you, man,” says Trent grinning, guitar in hand. Justin and Harold peer over his shoulder, voicing agreement, both holding stacks of sheet music. It’s clear Owen’s announcement had interrupted a rehearsal session.

“Where is she, do you know?” asks Beth eagerly. She turns to Lindsay. “Oh, this is so exciting!”

“Yeah!” cheers Lindsay, then frowns. “Wait, who are we talking about again?”

Her boyfriend, Tyler, bounds up to her, slinging an arm around her shoulder and kissing her cheek. “Sky, remember babe? The girl Dave’s into,” he murmurs into the kiss.

“Oh, right!”

Staci pushes her way forward. “This reminds me of the time my great-great-great grandfather–”

“Sha-yeah!” hollers Lightning, sidling up to Dave and wrapping one muscular arm around his shoulders. “Who said having twig arms don’t mean you can’t get shit done!”

Gwen’s smiling widely. “Finally, some actual news.” She nudges him. “Good for you.”

“You used the wiring trick I showed you, didn’t you?” says Courtney from beside her. “I told you my CIT training is useful!”

Overwhelmed, Dave can only smile awkwardly and shrug, his own responses getting lost in the din. As the words grow more incoherent and as more people enter the cramped kitchen, he finally calls over the babble: “Okay, okay! Guys, I don’t know where she is. I need someone to track the station signal.”

There’s a lull as everyone thinks that over.

Geoff raises his hand. “Uh, there’s Noah?”

“On a supply run,” responds Courtney.

“Again?”

“For books,” elaborates Eva, rolling her eyes.

More silence, more thinking.

“My great-great-great-great-great grandfather is good at tracking,” Staci chimes. “He can track even the quietest animal in the middle of the jungle with only a piece of rope and an empty can of beans.”

“That’s great, girl, except for one minor detail,” says Leshawna, “your great-great-something grandfather is dead .”

“Oh, oh, I can try!” Izzy waves her arms. “Once I tracked this guy who bought my favorite record player at the antiques store my mom used to work at, without leaving my room! Turns out he was descended from a Persian king!”

“Uh, okay then.” Dave wants to ask but he’s learned early on not to question the stuff that goes on in Izzy’s head. As long as she knows how to track signals, he’s down. He hands the radio carefully over. “Try your best. Please.”

Everyone gathers around Scooby-Doo style as Izzy cracks her knuckles and, after pulling out a variety of contraptions from different locations on her person (Dave’s definitely not touching the knobby thing that had come out of her bra ), she gets to work.

It’s astounding to see the fizzling energy seep out of Izzy when she truly focuses on something, the restless hands turn into something deliberate and steady; a laser-focused determination that no one can interrupt even if they try to. Which they don’t. The bunker knows Izzy’s as crazy as they come, but when she’s really working on something, the wise thing to do is to give her some space. Distractions can lead to unintended explosions and they really don’t want to lose the bunker.

Time ticks by. Izzy doesn’t look up, continuing to connect wires and, at one point, put on a large pair of those chunky headphones Dave sees in infiltration movies. The rest of the group sticks around, but their patience wears thin.

Owen makes his way back to the kitchen space, Leshawna trailing behind, both discussing possible food options in quiet tones. Justin, Harold, Trent, and Cody stake out in the corner closest to the curtains, spreading their music on the ground with Trent strumming his guitar and the rest humming random tunes for a song. Lightning and Eva challenge each other to a push-up contest (they’re both in the hundreds and neither looks like they’re going to stop anytime soon). Courtney’s seated across from Izzy, with her List of Various Commodities And Supply Run Schedules, and is marking stuff down with a red pen (never a good sign). Ennui and Crimson have already left the room. Geoff, Brody, and Bridgette play cards out in the hall. Beth and Tyler arm-wrestle while Lindsay cheers.

For his part, Dave first indulges in a couple of card games with the Surfer Trio as he likes to dub them (seriously, who brings a surfing board to a bunker?!); then, when he’s too distracted to focus on his cards, he sits between Courtney and Tyler; on one side, he hears muttering and the scratching of a pen; on the other, is groans and grunts as Tyler struggles to maintain his dignity after losing several times over to Beth. He hardly pays attention to either instead waiting with his hands clenched on his jeans.

He’s just lazily shut his eyes and tilted his head back when Izzy’s shriek startles him into falling off his chair.

“Victory!”

“You got a location?” asks Dave, popping up while rubbing his head. Three years ago, he would’ve freaked and lathered in a nice shower if he’d found himself sprawled on a floor as grimy as the bunker’s, but the Dave from three years ago also never had to deal with the shit he had to in the middle of an apocalypse; he supposes that’s one good thing about this craziness: it heightened the tolerance levels of his germaphobia.

“Duh, of course! That was my victory crow!” Izzy chuckles.

“Well, dont leave us in suspense, dude!” says Geoff, poking his head inside, apparently having heard her ‘victory crow’ too. “Where is it?”

Please somewhere nearby. Dave crosses his fingers. Maybe a mile away at most? 

“Across the country!” cheers Izzy. “The signal’s out west–over by Vancouver!”

Dave’s shoulders deflate. “ What? ” he croaks.

“Dude, that’s like…months of traveling,” says Brody in a hushed voice.

“Not if you’re driving,” Leshawna reasons.

“And where do you suppose Dave will find a car in the middle of all the wasteland?” retorts Heather, who’d entered the room an hour ago after hearing all the commotion and gotten briefed of the situation by Harold. “You going to pull one out of your ass for him?”

“Okay, girl, do not sass me when I’ve been doing shit and all you’ve been doing is complaining–”

“I have a car,” interjects Trent, “but it’s at my place and I don’t really know if it’s still around. The Bros and I got here on Harold’s motorbike.”

“Wait,” Bridgette eyes them skeptically, “all four of you got here on one bike?”

They nod.

“Must’ve been a pretty big bike,” mutters Gwen.

“I had to sit on Justin’s lap,” Trent grumbles.

Justin grins. “I’m sure that was a lovely experience for you.”

Wait. “Do you still have that bike, Harold?” Dave asks excitedly, but it dims when Harold shakes his head.

“Sorry, man, the zombies made scrap metal out of it. The guys and I had to run for it here. Well, I did some wicked jujitsu–”

“Yeah, we ran for it,” Trent interrupts quickly.

Dave sighs, staring forlornly at the radio on the table. So close. He’s so close–well, technically he’s not even close to close (he’s across the damn country, to be precise), but metaphorically, everything he’s ever wanted is right there at his fingertips. It’s agonizing. How did Sky end up so far away?

The rest of his assembled bunker-mates look pretty bummed too.

“Sorry, buddy,” Owen lays a heavy hand on his shoulder. And he sounds sorry too, the big guy is always sincere in everything he says. “I know you want to see her. Sucks that she’s so far away and that you can’t.”

Heather scoffs. “He’s literally the biggest germaphobe I’ve ever met, and he’s a first-class wimp. How many times has he gone up to the surface since coming here? That’s right, zero. ”

“Cut him some slack, Heather, the outside world is a weird place,” says Harold. “If it weren’t for my mad skills, I wouldn’t want to get out there either.”

Heather looks like she’s going to ask what ‘mad skills’ Harold is referring to exactly—a question Dave has pondered over ever since he met the guy—when a crazy, stupid, totally insane idea hits him, pushing everything else from mind. One of those ideas that he knows he’ll regret the next second but, for now, won’t leave him alone. He sits up straight, excitement and trepidation twisting in him. 

“Who says I can’t go see her?”

When he looks up, everyone in the room is staring at him.

“Uh, dude,” says Geoff. “Not that I’m being unsupportive or anything but–”

“Well, I’m being extremely unsupportive here when I say what the fuck do you mean by that?” cuts in Eva.

“You can’t possibly be thinking about going out there,” Heather says incredulously. “You can’t even hold a blade correctly let alone fight off a zombie!”

“Gonna have to agree with her on this one.” Leshawna shakes her head. “I love the enthusiasm, don’t get me wrong, it just seems like the type to…how do I put it…”

“Get eaten alive by a horde of zombies?” For some reason, that makes Izzy grin crazily. “If it were me, I’d love the extra challenge—maybe if I bite a zombie before it could bite me, I’ll reverse the effects!”

Bridgette scoots back a bit. “Uh, yeah, how about you don’t try that, Izzy?”

“We’re getting off-track,” says Eva. She points at Dave who involuntarily takes a step back. “Listen, buddy, you’re Noah’s family friend, and your death is gonna flatten him, so don’t even think about doing what I think you’re planning on doing because your puny romance-adoring self will get you offed.”

“Sha-killed!” emphasizes Lightning. “Like the football teams I used to play against except you’re gonna get actually killed.”

Geoff nods sympathetically. “Dude, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

And maybe it was that nod that pushes him over the edge a bit but the word is out of his mouth before he can think twice: “No.”

Everyone’s back to staring at him again, and, yup, he’s put on the spot. He’s probably lost his marbles, gone fully off the bend, because there’s no other reason why he’s endorsing his own stupid-crazy idea that’ll definitely get him killed in five seconds flat because they’re right he doesn’t know a thing about the surface world, but all he can think about is Sky’s determination and how if she were in his place, she wouldn’t have let her fears hold her back. 

He'd spent years doing all that he could to get any sign of her being alive. Instead of giving up, he powered on. All of this is with her and their potential future in mind. And now that he got a sign, he can’t just leave it just like that. If he has to live out his life in this apeshit world, he wants to do it after confessing to the girl he likes or die trying. He’s a huge romantic that way.

A loud sniffle alerts him of two things; one, the dampness on his shirt is Owen crying, and two, he said all that out loud.

Quickly, he shrugs Owen’s face off his shoulder before the big guy can bring out the snot. Owen doesn’t seem to mind, practically wailing “That was so sweet!”

“Huh. Didn’t think you were the sappy type,” says Eva. She’s still glaring but it looks…softer. Almost impressed albeit grudgingly.

Trent shrugs. “Can’t argue with that logic.”

Bridgette looks at him incredulously. “What logic? There was literally no logic in that entire adorable spiel!”

“It’s for love though,” a wistful smile spreads across Harold’s face. “A quest for love.”

Leshawna gives Dave a once-over. “Dang, darlin’, look at you being a sweetheart!”

“And here I thought his scrawny self will end up as deadpan as Noah,” agrees Justin. “You might not be high enough on the hotness chart, but you make up for it by being weak enough to have a heart.”

Dave’s face is burning at this point. “Um…thanks?”

Courtney’s still frowning. “I still don’t think—“

“Aw, come on, Court,” Cody leans forward, chin propped on his fist. “Love is a beautiful thing!”

Courtney raises an eyebrow. “ You don’t get to call me that.”

Cody backs off, hands up. “Uh, sorry.”

“And it’s so-called beautiful until it gets you killed.”

 Gwen props an elbow on her shoulder. “If he’s so hellbent on getting out there and finding love, let it happen. Overrated cliche it may be, though I don’t know about you, to me, cliches are welcome in this messed up world we’re in.”

Harold nods sagely. “Because of us that the world is in turmoil. It seems only reasonable that we, humans, light a candle in our darkness.”

“Yeah, uh, thanks for that, Dumbledore.” Gwen rolls her eyes and turns to Dave. “As long as you actually pack reasonable things and don’t go charging out there like fucking Braveheart or something, go for it!”

“Yeah, little dude!” Geoff pumps the air, fist-bumps Brody, then offers one to Dave. “For love!”

“This is awesome!” chimes in Brody, fist-bumping Dave on the other side.

Courtney sighs. “Fine. As long as you follow the list I’ll make you of what to bring. I’m not allowing a bunker-mate to foolishly get themselves killed because they packed the wrong things.”

“Let her have this or she’ll never leave you alone,” Gwen whispers to him, grinning. So he nods because words appear to have failed him, and Courtney relaxes minutely.

He’d noticed in small increments, but never to this degree, the impact of these people on each other, all strangers to one another (in most cases) when they first entered the bunker but now as close as family. Noah said—with a sardonic eye roll—that humans are social creatures, they thrive in close-knit groups, and this is the biggest example of that theory Dave can find. Despite staying mainly in his room and hardly partaking in the theatrics of his bunker-mates with the exception of Noah, the overwhelming enthusiasm and concern he’s receiving for venturing out onto the surface for the first time in three years is enough to leave him floundering.

He hardly knows these people, at least not well enough to spend one-on-one time with, yet here they are, discussing what he should bring, supporting his “pursuit for love” as Owen put it, or, in Courtney’s case, already scribbling a list for him to refer to. His actual family—distant both emotionally and physically—had never been like this. The closest were his siblings, particularly Viola and Gabriel, who made sure to check on him every so often, but still most of the time, he was on his own.

Though here he is, surrounded by this group of bizarre people he’d only considered akin to extensive dormmates, who are excited for him. There's a brief thought that maybe he should’ve spent more time with them before heroically getting himself killed on the surface, but then he sees Izzy eating an entire brick and Tyler cheering her on, and he rethinks that thought pretty quickly. 

Meanwhile, Staci is in the middle of one of her rambles. “—grandfather predicted the apocalypse, you know? He said that the world will rot under the undead’s hands and—”

“Okay, thanks, Staci!” he calls over the hubbub. The last thing he wants to hear right now is anything zombie-related. Especially in Staci’s drawling ramble.

“When are you leaving, man?” asks Cody.

This is it then. This is really happening. He’s actually going through with this crazy stint.

With everyone watching him expectantly, he says with hopefully more determination than he feels: “Hopefully tomorrow morning.”

The majority of the group's eyes widen.

“That’s…really soon,” says Tyler.

Bridgette hums. “Well then, guess we better help you pack.”

Courtney's shoulders hunch more over the piece of paper she’s writing maniacally on. “And the list, need to finish the list!”

Gwen peeks over her shoulder and squeezes it, murmuring something in her ear. Beneath her hand, Courtney’s shoulder slowly lowers.

Lightning hops to his feet. “Lightning's gonna get you into tiptop shape, don't you worry!”

That's what I'm worried about, Dave thinks but there's no way he's going to say that out loud. Lightning will probably get him to do extra sit-ups or something.

Eva nods. “Count me in. He needs it.”

“Hey, I’m literally right here,” complains Dave.

Owen cheers, pulling him up in a hug and nearly cracking his ribs in the process. “Oh, you’re so brave! Noah will be so proud of you, little dude!”

Long story short: Noah was not proud. In fact, he wasn’t even happy.

As soon as he’d arrived, Owen pulled him into the kitchen, more than likely explaining in great detail the showdown that occurred today. When Noah entered what’s dubbed as Their Space, the first thing he did was push aside the curtain partition, pull out a stool, and sit on it with one of the books he’d gotten from the surface.

Dave senses it in the way Noah sits, his expression may be the usual nonchalance, but Dave can feel the occasional quick glances sent his way as he packs his meager possessions.

Noah’s quiet, but not his usual ‘I’m Reading, Don’t Bother Me’ way; he’s sullen, sulking, thinking stuff over, and everything in between. Dave doesn’t have to be a genius to deduce what’s going on in his friend’s mind. So he waits, letting the silence fester until it’s large enough to encompass the space, and finally, Noah speaks.

“You’re seriously going to do this?”

“Noah, it’s the first and possibly only lead I’ve got in years. You know I want to do this.”

“Right. And you, germaphobe extraordinaire, are going to go up to the surface after three years of hiding here. The grimy, zombiefied, dirty surface-world, and you’re going to kick ass, aren’t you?”

Dave stares at the shirt in his hands, knuckles white. “That’s the idea.”

“Okay no, you suck at kicking ass. You’re literally underprepared in every way for this. Sheltered, paranoid, germaphobic, don’t know a lick of fighting—“

“Thanks, I was wondering when the supportiveness would start rolling in,” Dave says sarcastically.

He hears the thump of Noah setting his book down. Oh, this is seriously serious then.

“Listen, I support you and your quirks or whatever—”

“Quirks?!” Dave whips around, forgetting about his initial decision to not look at Noah. “I have quirks?”

Noah cocks an eyebrow. “You really thought you didn’t?”

“I’m sorry, have you met your friends?”

“Of course. That’s why they’re my friends. And I said you have quirks, not me, can I fucking finish now?”

Dave grumbles some choice words under his breath but stays quiet. Noah takes that as a sign to continue.

“Okay, I support you and endorsed all this hula-ball-oo about finding the girl you liked and whatnot. But this? You’re supposed to be the practical thinker. Sit down for a second and think: it’s been three years, she could’ve easily moved on by now. Heck, you two aren’t even dating, why are you all worked up to go find a girl across the country when you have people here?”

With that, Noah buries his face back in his book, though Dave notices the other’s eyes don’t move from the page. Throwing down the shirt in his hands, he sits on the bed, propping his chin on his hands. 

He’d definitely considered the idea that Sky could’ve moved on, three years is a long time to wait for someone, but the bigger part of him—the part that encompasses his heart and his right-brained thinking—argued that what if she hasn’t. He won’t know for sure unless he goes out there and sees her face-to-face. Plus the past three years in this bunker, he’s comforted himself with the thought of Sky, she boosted him whenever he feels low, it’s the thought of her that helped him weather everything. Unintentionally or otherwise, most of his life in here has revolved around finding her, and dropping his newfound knowledge of her whereabouts feels pretty anti-climactic. It feels wrong. There’s no way else to put it, his heart is begging him to get out there and surprise her. Thinking about it makes him feel worthwhile.

Noah's eyes peek over his book, watching the shift of emotions on Dave's face, and sighs. “You do know you have people here, right?”

Dave shrugs. He's never fit in here. It’s like everyone tolerates him because he’s friends with Noah.

“You do. Like it or not, they do care. But I also know all of what I'm saying will be useless because a). Owen already told me of your lovey-dovey spiel, and b). you can be stubborn as fuck, so…” he sighs again, steeling himself. “When you go out there, try to call once in a while, okay? I’ve—Everyone’s lost so much already.”

‘Everyone’ meaning Noah in this situation, which was what the other boy was going to say. They had no idea if their families were okay, Dave knows not hearing from his sisters is slowly killing Noah inside, and, on top of that, the same with Noah’s elusive boyfriend (Dave’s only met the guy a handful of times). While Dave dealt with the lack of information about Sky by hyper-focusing on her, Noah does the opposite: he pushes the thought of his boyfriend from his mind, focusing on what’s in front of him.

Maybe he’ll do that to Dave too once he leaves—though Dave finds that he doesn’t want that. Noah might say it’s more healthy but the number of times Dave’s come across him flicking through his phone late at night when he thinks no one is around, looking at old pictures from before, has the same level of emotion as Dave’s own coping mechanisms. In his humble opinion.

So he musters up a small smile. “Thanks, Noah. Of course. But only if you help me pack instead of sitting there.”

He doesn’t agree not just because of Noah, but because he’ll miss his only tether to his old life. No thinking about that though; if he does, he might get cold feet.

A mirror of his smile flickers on Noah’s face, even as the other boy’s eyes remain shadowed. He hops off the stool. “Whatever.”

No one sleeps that night. Dave and Noah spend quality bonding time packing, arguing about whether books are a sensible addition (it isn’t on Courtney’s list), packing, Noah huffing when Dave threatens to toss his new books out the bunker entrance if he doesn’t help properly, discussing random things out of nowhere like they won't have enough time later to do so (which is mostly correct), and more packing.

Owen dumps a load of canned food on the bed, saying that, for travel, those would be the most efficient. He moves to hug Dave again though, thankfully, Noah intercepts.

Soon after Owen leaves with Noah in tow, Trent pops in. “Those things aren’t going to last till the west coast, dude. I’d definitely recommend getting a car. And restocking.”

Dave only manages a nod. His initial display of confidence has been slowly waning with every passing hour.

A throat clearing makes him look up. He thought Trent had already left, but he's still there, holding something at him. From here, Dave can’t make out what it is and even when he walks the five steps across and accepts it, he still can’t figure it out. It looks like an oddly shaped carving though what it’s supposed to be he has no clue.

He also has no clue why Trent is giving it to him. “Um, what’s this about?”

“I’ve someone on the west coast—‘least as far as I know. Since you’re heading there anyway, if you come across them, mind giving this?”

Dave might not know the man well enough but one thing’s for sure, his hopeful puppy-eyes are damning. He glances at the weird carving then back at Trent.

“But I don’t even know who you’re talking about.” As far as he can remember, Trent has never mentioned anyone living on the west coast. Then again, Dave doesn’t spend much time with him. With any of them, really.

A wry smile replaces the hesitant downward tilts of Trent’s mouth. “Trust me, you’ll know.”

“Thanks, totally helpful.” Dave sighs, pocketing the trinket.

A new voice comes from behind Trent.

“Crypticness isn't a good look on you, stop scaring the poor guy.”

Trent lightly nudges Gwen who’s leaning against the frame watching amusedly. “Hey, shut it, that’s not even a word.” 

“So?”

Trent rolls his eyes fondly. Gwen smirks back.

Dave shifts his feet. He’s ninety percent sure these two are the only pair of exes that can actually tolerate each other's presence, much less actively seek each other out. Funnily enough, being around these two is like third-wheeling somehow. 

“I’m gonna get some strumming in before shut-eye.” Trent shoots Dave a thumbs-up before ducking out. They hear him calling from down the hall: “You guys better not have messed with my sheet music! I just organized them! Justin, for the love of god, stop focusing on your nightly routine for one second and get Cody and Harold away from my music—”

Gwen snorts. “Ah, the sweet sounds of Trent giving shit to Cody." She pulls the divider between the hallway and Dave and Noah’s space shut. Her eyes trail to the camping bag on Dave’s mattress. “Well, you’re certainly, uh, packed.”

His bag is crammed with an assortment of items including Owen’s canned food, several spare clothes, his radio and electronics, utensils, and a bucketload of sanitizer and wipes. Noah managed to sneak in a book or two which he had been trying to dig out when he’d been interrupted.

He scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, can’t be too prepared.”

“I can see that,” says Gwen amusedly.

She’s still standing there, hands fiddling, and he’s far from being in the mood for small talk, so he asks blunter than intended “Do you need something?”

She shifts her feet, and it takes him a second to realize she’s hesitating. “Don’t work yourself up about this, but you’re going to have to pass Alberta to get to Vancouver, and my cousin lives there. If I give you the address, could you, I don’t know, check in on the place? See if she’s there?” She rubs at one arm and bites her lip, chewing on it worriedly. “I haven’t heard from her, and she’s not really cut out for this apocalypse business. At least, I just want to know if she’s still at her house, for my peace of mind.”

“The cousin named Ella?” Dave asks.

“Yeah!” Gwen looks surprised. “I didn’t think you knew.”

He wouldn’t have if he hadn’t passed by the common area after getting a midnight snack two weeks ago and overheard Gwen talking about her to Courtney by accident. He has half a mind to tell her that because the look on her face is a picture of anxiety and eagerness that leaves him uncomfortable. 

For something to do, he scuffs his shoes on the ground. “I don’t know…” Gwen’s acting like he’ll somehow make it to Alberta from here. On one hand, the trust is appreciated especially when most of the bunker has it in their heads that he won’t make it five feet after leaving, but in this case, it’s also pressuring. “Maybe she’s at a bunker already.”

“I hope she is, honestly, but just in case…” she trails off, and he really can’t say no to her about this. Not when the worry for his younger sister is still prevalent in his mind.

“Fine, I’ll see what I can do.”

The smile that breaks out on her face makes him squint but he doesn’t regret it. She was one of the first people to reach out to him when he and Noah first arrived, the least he can do is give her some peace of mind. Besides, Gwen’s right: Alberta is on the way to Sky’s location, so it’s not like he’s deviating from his own destination.

Before leaving the room, she hands him a crumpled piece of paper. “Here’s the address. And Dave—thanks. You’re a good guy.”

When Noah returns, wiping baking powder from his cheek, it’s to see Dave packing as he had been for the past four hours, though what he doesn’t notice is the small smile on his face.

An hour later, Crimson and Ennui waylay him as he’s coming from the bathroom, nearly making him piss himself.

“You’ll need this,” Crimson hands him a wicked-sharp knife. “Don’t cut yourself, we don’t know if the undead can scent blood.”

“It’d be devastating if you died,” Ennui adds monotonously.

The Goths always creeped him out and the added rumor from Geoff that he and Brody had found them expressionlessly facing down a horde of zombies before inviting them to the bunker was more incentive to steer the fuck away from them. Now, as their stares bore holes into him, Dave edges slowly around them after a hasty “uh, thanks!” before booking it out of there as quickly as possible without running. He stuffs the knife in one of the bag’s side pockets, making sure the blade doesn’t cut the material. It’d be pretty stupid if he walked around with his supplies falling out.

Amidst more random visits of encouragement, various support, and an incident involving Lightning, Eva, and some dumbbells that leaves his arms feeling like rubber, somehow Dave finally finishes packing. It’s a struggle to zip up the bag due to how crammed it is, but eventually, he does, and flops down on his bed. Even as his body relaxes his mind doesn't get the memo. He's still jittering with emotions. As much as he wants to, his eyes refuse to shut. He’s wide awake, thoughts churning, and he hates it.

Something lands on his chest, causing him to let out an involuntary “oof”. He gropes at it and when he brings it up to eye level, he sees it’s a videogame controller.

“Noah,” he groans, drawing out the name.

A finger pokes his shin, and he can imagine Noah’s smirk. “Get your ass up so I can beat it at Dragon Assassin.”

And, well, even though he thinks video games are annoying as heck, Dave does need the distraction. And if he agreed because he wants to spend more time with his closest friend, he doesn’t voice that thought aloud. In fact, he doesn’t talk at all about what will happen come morning. Neither does Noah. They both smash their fingers on the controllers (and Dave gets slaughtered repeatedly by Noah) and ignore the fact that this might be the last night they’d ever see each other.

When morning comes and Noah pauses what feels like their fiftieth game, Dave’s eyes are straining and his mouth keeps pulling on a yawn, but he doesn’t give a shit. Because the analog clock propped on the laundry basket reads five in the morning, and, as though, hearing his thoughts, the bunker alarm that signifies dawn rings (a rooster cawing because Cody has a shitty sense of humor).

Within an hour, Dave knows the rest of the bunker will be assembled before his door, ready to see him off.

He feels like he’s going to vomit.

The fact that Noah’s watching him with sympathy, of all things, only makes his stomach twist more.

“I’m going to shower,” Dave mumbles. Maybe feeling more clean and fresh will, in turn, help him feel the same kind of confidence he’d felt yesterday when he’d declared his mission to find Sky.

It doesn’t. He spends most of his shower trying not to pass out or puke—both due to nerves—then most of his time drying off telling his reflection in the small circular mirror that he’s not going to back down and that he’s doing this for Sky. His reflection looks so disappointed in him.

When he finally exits the showering area and treks back down the main tunnel to the bunker, he’s ironically more irritated than before. The quiet babble of voices that grows louder the closer he gets to the tunnel entrance is the only indication he gets that everyone’s waiting which serves to further increase his nervousness. He wants more than anything to hide away and pretend he never agreed to this craziness in the first place, but no, he has to. This is what he wants, and he’s not going to leave a life of regret because he let a golden opportunity pass by.

So he exhales and steps out to cheers and a glimpse of Geoff tossing his hat (does he wear that thing in his sleep too?!) into the air. His camping bag is passed down until it lands in his arms, and the walk (more like the parade) to the bunker entrance is filled with numbness all through Dave's limbs even as everyone else crowds around him.

Sooner than he desires, the ladder to the entrance is in front of them, and everyone stops and steps back—an unintentional, unspoken signal: you’re on your own now. Dave tilts his head up to the closed entrance; he’s hardly come to this part of the bunker before and now here he is so close to leaving it.

He feels Noah by his side, the pat on the back from a great distance, like an out-of-body experience, but he doesn’t turn around. He can’t, or else all the effort working himself up to doing this will go down the drain. His breath quickens. His eyes are fixed on the entrance. Come on, reach up and open it. But his hands don’t move.

“What a man!” he hears someone—probably Owen—whisper awestruck from behind.

Don’t puke, don’t puke, he chants to himself.

“Let’s do this,” he whispers lowly, but clearly not low enough because the entire bunker cheers in response.

The first grip on the ladder is like a death sentence, but, funnily, once he gets it over with, climbing the rest of the way up the ladder isn’t as difficult. With the calls of his (former) bunker-mates ringing from below, he reaches the entrance and heaves it open, feeling the breeze hit his cheek for the first time in three years.

“Stay safe, man—”

“—and go kick some zombie butt, dude!”

“Three centuries ago, my great-great-great-great-great—”

“Don’t be a wimp in front of those creepies, got it, Stick-Arms?”

“Sha-slam them in the skull when they get too close! Lignting’s trained you well—”

“Remember what I wrote in my list? Don’t you dare do anything stupid—”

“Shame you can’t stun the zombies with your mediocre looks—”

“Make sure to tap into your rad skills, you gotta have at least some!”

“Keep your chin up and head cool, damn straight!”

“Where’s he going again?”

“Don’t forget to call once in a while, little bud—”

“If they try to bite you, bite them first to assert dominance—”

Daves looks down at the bunker one last time, at everyone staring up at him. Despite their words, all he saw on their faces are encouragement. It makes his heart ache and, for the first time, it's not because of Sky.

Trying to think of something to say and coming up with exactly nothing, all he does is give one last wave (which is received and returned tenfold) and finger-guns to Noah who cracks a smile and shoots one back. Then, before the worries and concerns for what will come next can eat him alive, he’s up and crawling into the sunlight for the first time in three years.

The bunker door closes with a sense of finality and he breathes in the stale air of the surface world. Everything’s different from the last time he’s seen it, but all he can think of at that moment is one thing: at last, he’s doing something useful. He’s going to find Sky.

Or he’s going to die trying. 

Preferably the first though.

(Even if the heroic thing would be to welcome death with open arms at the prospect of love. But he's not going to think about that. He'd much rather enjoy the prospect of love while alive.)

No one knows how the world came to end. Not with a bang or a scream. It snuck in like a metaphorical disease, infecting all those around the world, starting from the Western Hemisphere.

Even in an apocalyptic Canada where signs of life were as stale as the air around them, life has a tendency of throwing a curveball. (Or in the case of these two, multiple curveballs). 

Shawn resolved to spend the rest of his life alone living in his bunker because matters of the heart have no place in this hellish world. Dave resolved to travel somehow all the way to the west coast on a mad journey—because matters of the head have no place in a rosy future of love. Realistically, their paths shouldn’t ever cross and, if they did, it shouldn’t have been as impactful.

But they did and it was. Two days later.

A guide to surviving the apocalypse? More like a guide to messing shit up.

Chapter Text

Shawn has a strict regime when it comes to supply runs.

Get out. Get the necessities. Don’t dawdle. Get back to the bunker ASAP.

Distractions are a big no-no, if he stopped to save every dog or child or old lady, chances are they’ll just hold him back and the price of playing hero in that one moment will be a zombie chewing on his head to eat his brains.

So no thanks. He’d rather survive. That’s grown to be his mentality ever since it all went down to hell—granted, it’s been his mentality since he was eight due to his mother’s survival training, but back then, he had his dad, his uncle, his best friend, all of whom he would do many things (not anything, but many things, there’s a difference) for.

Not now though. In this case, he can actually put to use the mindset his mother told him to adopt: every person for himself. The world had dissolved into primal natural selection—there’s no use playing hero for someone who’s too weak to face the surface. 

It’s why he runs solo. He’s just good at being alone. Makes everything more efficient. Simple as that.

Except, of course, it isn’t always that simple. He’d done terrible things that would’ve made him guilty as fuck (it had made him guilty as fuck, but he pushed those emotions away pronto. Distractions, after all). But his mother’s death three years ago had hardened him. She hadn’t come to their bunker that fateful night and he knew deep down that she wouldn’t ever. She was gone, and he could only hope she managed to take the necessary precautions to make sure she didn’t come back as a zombie. 

The grief still hangs over him, though over the years, it’s grown muted in the face of his primary goal; the only person who understood him and encouraged his interests was gone and, by hell, he isn’t going to follow in her footsteps. She wouldn’t want that and neither does he.

So no distractions. He’s survived this long, he’s not letting some ravaging shuffler ruin it now. He hates supply runs for that exact reason. There’s always a risk that he might never get back to the safety of his bunker; that the hordes of undead would overrun him, eat his intestines and brains, and he would rot on the streets of Ottawa.

Ironically, zombies both annoy him and freak him out—they’re his biggest fear (mainly because his fear is not the zombie itself, but being eaten by one) and the source of all his pain (therefore his biggest vexation). He simultaneously wants to run away as fast as possible from them and hack them into little pieces.

But the apocalypse survival guidebook he and his mother had studiously worked on during long hours in the bunker said otherwise; one of the big rules other than not being a hero is to not go picking fights. If a horde isn’t paying you any mind, keep it that way.

Shawn breaks both of those big rules today. While on a fucking supply run. All because he, for some incorrigible reason, decided to save the life of a random stranger instead of sneaking away from the horde that definitely wasn’t looking his way.

He fucking hates supply runs.

Driving to the empty field bordering the nearest town to his bunker had been easy enough. He took a winding route to prevent the shufflers from tracing him, and parked his car by the treeline, draping some vines over it to make it seem like it was abandoned. Then, stuffing his keys in his pocket and grabbing the ratty tote bag from the passenger side, he cautiously made his way into town, crossbow strapped to his back, an assortment of other weapons on his person, and dirt streaking his face for extra camouflage.

Keep to the side, don’t walk in the middle. Shawn pressed himself to the sides of the buildings, letting the grime rub against his clothes—it could further help him blend in. He made it to his destination—a large supermarket—without much incident, thankfully, and got all that he needed with minimum interference from the undead (there had been one incident where the slumped cashier was a zombie lying in wait and, when he’d passed by, had grabbed him with a rotting claw-like hand. He’d simply chopped it off at the wrist with his steak knife and wasted no time shooting it through the head with his crossbow).

He did waste precious minutes cleaning the zombie guts off his arrow with a stray piece of paper— don’t waste your weapons, everything can be reused— so when he leaves the store, there are a lot more zombies than before.

Great. And he’d been looking forward to a relaxing day too.

The only solace is that the zombies come in singles so he readies his ax and cuts them down quickly and noiselessly. Guts splatter the blade of his ax, the arrows he uses are covered in muck, and the lower half of his vest is lined with the blackish-red of zombie blood and his tote bag of supplies is no better; but he notices none of that as he slashes and hacks away at all the walkers between him and his truck. The usual hum of energy thrills in his veins; gone are the hints of hesitation from three years ago when he’d killed his next-door neighbor, now whenever he faces them, the only thing on his mind is survival. He doesn’t dare think about who these inhuman creatures might have been and he sure as hell doesn’t think about the close ones he’s lost because of them. 

I’m alive and they’re not. That’s what’s important.

He flips his ax and smashes the handle of it into the skull of a zombie that had gotten too close.

Sometimes his mother's voice joins his own internal one: they don’t feel fear so why should you?

Stooping down to scoop a handful of dirt mixed with zombie blood, he scrapes it onto his face. He’d read in a book that coating yourself in zombie scent throws the deadies off.

You want to thwart a zombie, act like one.

Slashing down the final zombie crowding him—a lady in a torn business suit—and, in one motion, shooting another lingering around his truck with a well-aimed arrow from his crossbow, Shawn surveys the carnage with a triumphant look. Easy peasy. 

Then he rounds the corner to the alley where his truck is parked and sees the guy.

Well, technically, he sees the zombies first, huddled in a crowd at the foot of a run-of-the-mill apartment building's fire escape. As he’s thinking huh that’s a hell lot of deadies, his eyes travel upwards until they rest on the form of a figure pressed to the opposite side of the escape. The figure holds something bulky in their arms that, squinting, Shawn deduces must be a backpack of some sort. 

Though what any intelligent human being would be doing walking around on the surface, hitchhiking like they’re on a camping trip, he has no idea.

He doesn’t want to know either. Whoever that dumbass is, they’re not his problem. As long as they’re keeping the horde busy, Shawn can easily sneak away back to his bunker sanctuary.

Except when he reaches his truck, his hand hovers on the handle. Against his better judgment, he glances back at the horde; the figure on the fire escape is so close to the brick wall that they’re basically one with it. There’s no way they’ll survive, it's a cold, hard fact. And Shawn’s left many people in the dust during these merciless three years—his best friend included, which he still gets nightmares about—so why should he care about this one stranger?

The weakest get picked off first. He reassures himself as he slides into his truck. I’m just doing them a favor. And saving myself too. 

While previously, that kind of sentiment would’ve worked on pushing any heroic moralities from mind, now, for some aggravating reason, it doesn’t. It only makes the tumultuous thoughts worse.

They’ll get Bitten. That’s not doing them a favor at all. 

He looks out his windshield. One of the crawlers has groped up onto the pole of the escape. Soon, the others will follow. 

The thought sickens him. A memory flashes before his eyelids—his best friend, wavering on the edge of a precipice, reaching out to him in a silent plea, Shawn backing away, running like a coward, watching him fall down…down…

What's going on? He used to be able to keep these memories and thoughts back at bay. Who the fuck is this stranger trying to get Shawn to risk his brains trying to be a hero?

Don’t be a hero. One of the big rules in that guidebook he and his mother worked on—and dammit, thinking about her in the middle of all this just makes his head and heart hurt more.

“You’re doing everything wrong today, aren’t you?” Shawn mutters out loud.

The only responses are the muffled groans of the horde from outside the truck.

Goddammit. 

He's going to regret this. He’s definitely going to regret every moment during and after this.

Shawn opens the truck door, steps out. This isn’t playing hero he tells himself. This is to right a wrong you did in the past.

His mother had told him to only look out for himself, but her voice is softer than the memory of Monty’s screams as he tumbled over the edge. Straight onto the horde chasing them.

He’s just righting a wrong. That’s all. Heroes don’t survive in an apocalypse. 

You look a hell lot like you’re being a hero right now, murmurs a sly voice in his head. 

Shut up, Shawn tells it.

He grabs his ax, swings his crossbow on his back, and walks over to meet his doom.

Too focused on their prey, the zombies don’t notice him even when he’s within shouting distance, which is exactly what he does.

“Hey, shitbags!”

Half of the horde shuffles around—taken by surprise that someone actually addressed them probably.

He keeps on yelling. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, dumbasses! Why don’t you pick on someone who actually knows what he’s doing?”

Now most of the horde is staring at him—gaping maws, vacant eyes, some missing limbs and eyeballs, some with most of their brain matter on display in gooey messes. Shawn clenches the handle of his ax tighter.

“I should’ve known,” he taunts. “Zombies are brainless walkers. You lot don’t know anything. What? Don’t know how to climb a fire escape so you’re moaning and groaning like a baby?”

Bad move. At the mention of the fire escape, a couple of the zombies look back at the figure who, Shawn sees out of the corner of one eye, is staring wide-eyed at him.

Panicking slightly, he raises his ax. “Or are you too scared to pick on people on ground-level?”

With that, he slams the ax down on the nearest zombie, cutting it neatly in half. (Exaggeration: cutting any part of the undead is never a ‘neat’ endeavor, and this time was no different. There are still strings of flesh stuck to the ax’s blade when Shawn pulls it away and brandishes it at the horde.)

That catches every zombie in the horde’s attention. They stand stock-still as their comrade’s body slowly slumps forward, landing in a puddle that gets Shawn’s sneakers wet.

His heart pounds. His palms are sweaty and he resists the urge to whimper as all those lifeless eyes bore holes into him. When he yells, his voice cracks a little: “come and fucking get it, you motherfucking shufflers!”

He has to give it to them, those zombies sure know how to take orders. They fall on him like nobody’s business.

Panic hits him like a tidal wave that’s quickly washed away by trained focus and sharp instincts. He raises his ax, bringing it down, repeating the movement again and again. Blood, guts, even an eyeball, flies everywhere, but he only pays them half-mind. His sole focal point is not dying.

Somehow he makes it to the center of the horde, slashing, spinning, stabbing, occasionally pulling an arrow from his quiver to strike at the jugular of a close-up deadie. He can feel the shreds of them clinging to his body, strings of flesh and intestines and bloodstains, his beanie is stuck to his head with sweat; at one point they overwhelm him, sending him falling to the ground shoulder-first in a roll, coming back up with his ax in the air, cutting the legs off two zombies. 

When he gets through half of them and receives a momentary reprieve in the form of the rest shuffling back from his maniacal slashing spree, he chances a glance back at the fire escape. The stranger—a guy around his age—is motionless, though he’s no longer pressed against the wall; instead, he’s leaning over the rail. It’s too far for Shawn to make out his expression but he guesses the guy must be pretty damn surprised.

He knows he would be if some random lunatic stranger decided to save his ass.

A split second before the zombies—he does a quick headcount: about ten more—shuffle toward him again, Shawn pulls out one of his daggers and chucks it at the escape. “Take it!”

The guy makes a pitiful effort to catch it, and both watch as the knife falls to the ground.

This dude’s sorely underprepared for this shit, is Shawn’s last coherent thought before one of the zombies—a farmer—lurch toward him and he’s back in Fighting Mode.

He slashes the head right off the farmer zombie and, when it still attempts to bite him, he stomps on it. The squelching sound under his shoe doesn’t register because there’s another one—a lady in a floral-print cardigan, ew—in his face, mouth open, decaying teeth in full display.

He runs one of the arrows through her head, causing her to slump backward instantly.

As he steps out of the muck of brain matter from the farmer zombie, he hears screaming behind him. Chancing a second to look back, he sees that four of the shufflers must have figured out how to climb the fire escape ladder; two of them are halfway up and the other two are already farther ahead on the escape.

Shawn curses. The guy screams again and, damn, he really has a set of lungs. With the way he’s shrieking about, he’ll get the attention of every zombie in the vicinity.

Without another thought, Shawn sticks his ax against his back, wheels around, sprints to the fire escape—snatching his fallen dagger as he goes—and leaps up, catching the railing with both hands. The flat of the knife’s blade digs into the soft skin of his palm, though not enough to be much hindrance. Vaulting over the railing, he slams feet-first into one of the zombies, sending them both tumbling back, almost falling off the ladder; before it can do more than groan up at him, he stabs it with his knife.

During all that, the zombie closest to it had turned to him. Shawn tugs his knife out of the skull of the first one letting it flop down onto the horde as he arcs the blade upward and stabs the second one through the chin. Blood trickles down the length of his knife onto his wrist.

Two down, two more to go. Plus the eight more surrounding the fire escape.

He clambers the rest of the way up the ladder, and dispatches the third one on the fire escape quickly enough—something was wrong with its leg; despite having a headstart, it was moving slower.

The last one…Shawn scans the fire escape and freezes.

It’s so close to the guy huddled against the corner of the railing. Too close. Like one-more-step-and-it-can-bite-him close. There’s no way Shawn can get there in time.

He pulls out his crossbow, takes aim, and lets the arrow fly. Lodged straight through the head of the zombie.

It sways, slumps forward but doesn’t quite fall, held up by the rails and apartment building walls so that it hovers barely an inch in front of the guy. Black blood drips down. Shawn catches sight of his face over the top of the dead zombie’s head. It’s terrified. And rigid. Probably going into shock. It happens.

He doesn’t spare it much thought, instead leaping back over the railing into the fray before the rest of the horde can follow their friends. Getting rid of four zombies wasn’t that difficult, but fighting all eight on the fire escape—especially when he has to deal with a guy who doesn’t know the first thing about fighting the undead? Yeah, no thanks.

After some more whirling and slashing, a heartstopping moment when he was so sure he’d gotten Bitten, and more blood and guts on his shoes, the last of the horde slumps to the ground with its head cleaved down the middle. Shawn takes in the damage; his shoes are messed up, his vest is no better, his beanie is soaked in sweat and other unidentifiable junk, his hands are scraped, and his weapons are covered in undead weird shit. But he’s alive . Somehow, his stupidly heroic deed hadn’t killed him.

“We better get out of here before more come along,” he calls over his shoulder.

No response.

Well fuck, is he dead?

But no, when Shawn looks around, the guy is still there, frozen in place, exactly how he’d left him, practically under the form of the dead zombie.

For fuck’s sake. Putting his weapons away, Shawn scales the ladder and kicks the form of the zombie away from him, letting it fall to the ground between them. The guy’s eyes are trained on his shoes which are stained with black zombie blood, his body wracked with shudders. His knuckles are white and fisted tightly on the straps of his backpack.

“Come on, dude,” Shawn says, moving back down the escape, not waiting to see if the guy is following—after a couple of seconds, he hears a set of hesitant footsteps on the ladder.

Shawn’s so concentrated on listening for more sounds of zombies that he’s halfway to the truck when he realizes there’s a distinctive lack of footsteps behind him.

He quickly turns, hand on his ax handle, bracing for a zombie that had snuck up on them, but they’re still alone. Nothing different. Other than the guy now hunched over, shoulder pressed to the wall; his chest heaving and his eyes dilated.

Shawn takes a hesitant half-step toward him and like the motion was a signal, the guy slides fully against the wall onto the grimy ground. For some reason, that makes his breathing more erratic.

“Um,” says Shawn eloquently. He clears his throat and tries again: “Are you…”

The guy wheezes.

Shawn hurries over to him. The guy’s still hunched over, knees pulled up to his chest (Shawn notices that he doesn’t look at his soiled shoes), gasping for breath, one hand clutching his chest crumpling the fabric of his sweater-vest (also muddied), the other hand in a tight fist.

Shawn has no idea what to do, he has no idea what’s even happening.

Then his mother’s voice comes to him in his head, detailing the symptoms of a person Bitten. And—Shawn backs away when the realization hits him—this guy is checking all of the boxes. Shortness of breath, glassy eyes, trembling hands, unfocused.

“Dude, are you okay?” he asks once he’s a good five feet away. He’s not risking getting Bitten, no siree.

The guy gasps and shakes his head, one hand reaching out in grabbing motions.

Shit, he really does look like he’s been Bitten.

Shawn’s got his crossbow out before he knows it. Points it at the guy’s head. Straight shot through the skull—perfect way to kill a zombie. He’s never killed a living person before, but this is life-or-death. This guy got Bitten somehow, he’ll become a zombie soon.

At the sight of the crossbow at his head, the guy’s eyes widen and his fisted hand uncurls and he’s shaking it, fingers spread wide, at Shawn in a silent no, no, no. His gasps become more conserved, enough to muster spaced-out words: “What…are…you doing?”

Shawn shakes his head, clenches the crossbow tighter. “Sorry, man, I have to do this. You’re Bitten. The symptoms are all over you.”

The guy’s jaw drops and, for a second, he looks like he’s forgotten he’s short of breath and basically in the process of turning into a zombie. “What?!”

This is stupid. There’s no reasoning with a Bitten. Shawn pulls back the arrow on his crossbow’s stock, readying himself to let go.

The guy’s eyes widen more. “Wait, wait wait wait!” Forget short of breath and spaced-out words, now he sounds like he’s wasting his oxygen trying to reason with Shawn. “Are you crazy? ” The crossbow aimed between his eyes and the accidental sight of his shoes sends him back into panicked wheezes as he tries in vain to scoot farther away.

“I’m sorry, I really am. It’s gotta be like this though.” For his part, Shawn does sound apologetic because he is. He played hero and loads of good that had done—the person he was saving is gonna be a ravaging shuffler. The least he can do now is kill him for his sake. “Save your energy. Being Bitten means you’re—”

“I’m having a panic attack!” the guy yells in a sudden burst of coherent energy.

Shawn blinks, pauses. “Oh.”

He’d forgotten about those.

“So just…please…” the guy waves at the crossbow, the burst of vigor drained out of him.

“Oh. Uh, yeah, ‘course.” He pulls out the arrow from its launch, sets down the crossbow. Pauses again. Scratches the back of his neck. “Is there anything—”

“Just let me…” a gasp breaks the sentence “Breathe!”

“Right, right, right-o, I can do that. Totally.” Shawn steps back, giving him ample space. The guy has already turned his attention back to his knees, trying to take measured breaths. To spare himself from thinking about the embarrassment of nearly offing someone for having a panic attack, Shawn turns away and scans the area, deserted save for the littered corpses of the zombies and the signs of their fight. He puts his crossbow away but keeps one hand in his pocket where his knife is.

After two minutes pass by—Shawn knows, he counted—there’s the sound of a throat clearing. When he turns, he’s relieved to see the guy is standing upright, his shoulders hunched, mouth pinched, and his hands, although still trembling, move restlessly over his jeans.

“I think I’m good now,” he says.

His eyes have a glossy sheen to them, his lower lip is bitten red, and he still looks one second away from screaming, but Shawn doesn’t say anything for concern of the guy's sanity if he does. He swears he saw the guy's eye twitch.

Speaking of, he should stop referring to him as ‘the guy’.

“I’m Shawn. You are?”

The guy looks up from picking at his outfit. “Dave. It’s Dave.”

Dave. Cool, that works.

Listen, Shawn hasn’t had a proper social interaction in three years, cut him some slack.

He jerks a thumb to the truck. “Well then, Dave. We should probably get to the truck before more of those shufflers come by to see what’s up.”

Chapter Text

Dave’s in shock.

Matter of fact, he’s so shook-up that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over what had happened.

When Noah had told him he wouldn’t last a week on the surface, Dave had brushed him off, laughed internally about it, even as he mulled over the possible truth of the words.

He isn’t laughing now.

As mentioned before, he’s in shock.

It’s quiet in the pickup truck the scruffy-looking guy with dirt on his face had directed him into. Dave is curled up in the far corner of the passenger side (the truck has one long joined seat rather than separate ones); one of his hands is curled in a loose fist—his palms dotted with crescent-shaped nail marks after his mini panic attack—and the other rests lightly atop the seat, idly scratching at its peeling material with one bitten nail. His nose wrinkled at the layer of grime coating the floor as well as the patches of unidentifiable muck—shit, that better not be zombie blood—crusting the edge of the window he looks out of. 

To prevent his thoughts traveling from the dirt and other unidentifiable substances in the truck to inevitably the dirt and other unidentifiable substances on himself (he’ll probably have another panic attack if he did), Dave’s eyes drift to the truck’s driver—his rescuer.

Looking past the mussed, dirty clothing and overall appearance of a guy ungroomed—the stubbly jaw, the shaggy hair that falls in front of focused eyes, the slight scruff on his chin—his rescuer, Shawn, looks way too steady considering the situation they’d been in. His fingers would occasionally tap out a random rhythm on the wheel, sometimes tugging at the neck of his sweater; he’s taller, more lean and wiry, but Dave knows firsthand the coiled muscles under that deceptive frame. He’d seen the man vault over railings, kick down those disgusting creatures, and fight an entire horde without breaking a sweat.

He looks completely in his element and, admittedly, Dave would’ve placed Shawn higher on his coolness meter if not for the fact that, shortly after saving his life, the man had tried to kill him for having a panic attack. Prospective coolness aside, this guy, it seems, is paranoid as fuck too.

And Dave’s judgment meter tends to be…how should he put it, extreme, in a sense; wildly unproportionate, Noah had commented several times over. There are only two options, both on opposite ranges: If someone isn’t cool, then they’re weird. Simple as that. He’s gone through his life categorizing people in that manner and it’s worked out fine for him.

Minus the fact that he’s been labeled as a jerk for this very reason. But hey, it’s not just him—Viola is just as judgemental, if not more, than him; so are his mother and Gabriel—when they critique artwork they get nasty;  Jaydha goes by unsaid, she’s a lawyer, it’s in her nature to be perceptively judgemental even if she’s the most levelheaded of them all. And don’t even get him started on his father.

See? Being judgmental runs in the family. The difference is that Dave has nothing else going for him except being judgemental, so people can’t really overlook it for any other traits or talents because he doesn’t have any.

His hand accidentally brushes a stain on his sweater and he recoils, pulling the appendage away from the stickiness—but it’s too late, his hand is speckled in it and he doesn’t dare try to wipe at it for fear that it might end up on his other hand too.

Great. Spectacular. Simply fantastic. More synonyms of great. 

He sighs loudly, then remembers he’s not alone when Shawn’s eyes flick minutely to him.

Awesome. Now Shawn’s going to think he’s a lunatic—the guy with zombie blood on his face is going to think he is crazy.

Cut him some slack, he just saved your life, a voice in his head that sounds like Sky scolds him. He could’ve easily left you behind there to get eaten.

Then he nearly shot me because he thought I’d gotten bitten, he shoots back before shame floods him. Who’s he to start assessing Shawn when the other man had nearly gotten himself killed to help him? And, based on the looks of the guy, he doesn’t seem like the kind of person to help random strangers. He wants to ask Shawn why he’d intervened, but he doesn’t feel like getting kicked out to the curb—he’s learned his lesson about overestimating the surface-world.

Upon leaving the bunker, he’d lasted a grand total of a day and a half before the hordes got to him—and he lasted that long because he’d spent most of yesterday on a tree wasting previous traveling time. (He thanks the gods that Izzy’s and The Goth’s information about zombies not being able to climb is correct. If he’d been ambushed by those undead creepies while on a tree, the zombies wouldn’t need to do anything, he’d be dead of a heart attack on the spot.) 

The following morning, he lost the battle with his growling stomach and ventured to the nearest town for something to eat. He hadn’t wanted to risk heating up the canned beans Owen packed for him—the crawlies would see the fire and be on him in a heartbeat, and it’s not going to be because of the beans—so he’d gone hungry since leaving, which was after breakfast. He hadn’t eaten for twelve hours and his stomach was showing its disgruntlement pointedly.

He’d set foot in town and instantly knew this was a bad, bad idea. Getting swarmed by a gaggle of zombies that quickly turned into a horde when more joined the fun activity of ‘Let’s Chase The Terrified Living Human’ until he’d scrambled up a rusted fire escape, turned to look below, and knew he was a dead man—well, an undead man once those things were done with him.

He’d been in the middle of saying his goodbyes and writing his metaphorical will when the guy around his age with a frayed beanie, dirty attire, and dirt on his face came charging in like an avenging angel. An angel with bedraggled hair, voice cracks, and dark blood across his face like warpaint (Dave would’ve felt nauseous if he wasn’t too busy feeling a combination of relief and stupor).

Then those zombies that had managed to crawl up the escape while Shawn was fighting the horde like a fucking maniac. Now, with his head pressed against the glass of the window, nausea rises up Dave’s throat. Shawn had gotten rid of all fucking four of them, one motion after the next, like he’d been trained for this, but a shudder wracks Dave’s body when he recalls how close that last zombie had been to him. How it had frozen still when Shawn had shot it, and fallen forward, held up by the fire escape’s railing so that barely an inch’s gap was between its gaping mouth, blood dripping out of it, and Dave’s muddied sweater-vest.

With every drop its blood made on his sneakers, Dave had wanted to cry, but the terror that had overwhelmed him had been so great even his tear-ducts seemed to be frozen—just like the rest of him.

Dirty, the whispers engulfed him as he’d stood there, trembling and letting out embarrassing whimpers. Dirty, grimy, unclean. Growing louder: suffocating, sick, dirty, dirty dirty—

The truck skids to a halt and Dave, unprepared for the sudden stop, pitches forward an inch.

“What—” he looks out the window. They’re still in town with the truck parked at the curb in front of a rundown thrift store. He turns his confused look at Shawn. “What are we doing here?”

Is this where Shawn will make him leave? Driving him to the edge of town like a good samaritan only to toss him out? It’s not like they know each other other than the whole ‘saving-Dave’s-life’ thing. They’re strangers, there’s no reason for Shawn to help him out more or whatever. 

The panic pushes forward again, making his next breath stutter.

Shawn sighs. “Go get a change of clothes, man. You’ve been clawing at your arms the whole drive and I’m almost certain if you look at your sweater-vest again, you’ll have another one of those panic attacks. I saw the way you’re trying not to look at it.”

Indeed Dave's arms are littered with red scratches; the stinging feeling hits him not a moment later. He hadn’t noticed, although he should have; whenever he’s feeling particularly anxious, his hands move straightaway to rub at his arms; sometimes, depending on the severity of the crisis, the nails come out and he only realizes it too late.

Surprised that Shawn actually noticed and felt a need to both call him out on it and find a way to minimize the action, Dave can only blink owlishly at him. The next thought that enters his head alleviates his anxiety even more: Shawn’s not kicking him out. He’s trying to help.

“Why’re you staring at me like that?” Shawn mutters. “Just get out there, dude. I’ll keep watch.”

Nodding dumbly, Dave stumbles out of the truck, nearly falling forward as his half-asleep legs buckle under the weight of the rest of his body. Thankfully he doesn’t fall, which would’ve been the metaphorical cherry on top of the cake of embarrassment he’s concocting today. 

Wrenching open the store door, he slips inside, taking care to make less noise as possible. The interior is dark with only the shaded sunlight for a source of light. He experimentally flicks on the switch, not surprised when nothing happened, and remembering a second later that he probably shouldn’t have fluorescent lights turned on in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Despite knowing the switch doesn’t work, he still turns it off. Just in case.

Shawn’s probably wondering what’s taking him so long, expecting him to be halfway done by now, while Dave’s still at the freaking entrance, trying to figure out where to start.

First, get some clothes, dumbass.

The racks of clothing look like long-limbed creatures, their shadows coupled with the sunlight casting eerie frames against the walls. Everything is still and quiet save for his footsteps, and Dave’s in the middle of deciding between getting a sweater or a flannel when he wonders if he should’ve checked over the store for potential lurking zombies before his shopping frolic. 

Pausing with the articles of clothing clutched to his chest, Dave strains his ears.

Nothing. Not even a squeak.

Well, if no one’s jumped me all this time I’ve been in here, I doubt there are zombies around.

It must’ve slipped Shawn’s mind to mention checking the interior of the shop beforehand. Then again, they’ve been living in the apocalypse for three years, Shawn must’ve expected Dave already knows to do that.

He actually regrets not going on at least one supply run back at the bunker. If he had, maybe he would’ve known the basic etiquette for zombie-survival. 

God, the things he’s doing for love.

Even though he’s already established the lack of undead in the store, the pace at which he grabs the clothes and enters the fitting room is distinctly more hurried than before. Undressing and tossing his soiled clothes in a waste bin, he first spends a couple of minutes in the much darker bathroom, washing his face, then doing the most pitiful version of a bath ever while cursing himself for leaving his flashlight in his backpack in the truck. After drying himself off with some paper towels (at least the sinks and paper towel dispensers work, that's a relief), he puts on a new pair of clothes—soft blue sweater paired with brown khakis and black sneakers—and gives his face in the dusty mirror one last scrutinizing look.

There are bags under his eyes, his skin lost a bit of its pallor, and his lips are cracked from having bitten them over and over. Yet something about not being covered in grime relaxes his shoulders and tampers down the wild look in his eyes. He raises his hands up to eye-level; somewhere between the impromptu bath and the dressing, they’ve stopped shaking. A little bit of confidence trickles back in.

For Sky, he tells himself. He wants to say it out loud, just to hear her name, but who knows what kind of creepy crawlies might overhear?

It could just be the trick of the light, but his reflection’s face hardens a tad in determination at that. He certainly doesn’t feel more determined—just the usual amount of terrified and anxious—but he likes to hold onto that hope, however pathetic it may be.

Back in the store, Dave snags a couple extra pairs of clothes and, after a moment's hesitation, a long-sleeve and jeans that aren’t his style. His mother liked to say that gift-giving is the best form of gratitude. He shoves the majority of the clothes in one plastic bag and the last two articles of clothing in a separate one, gives the store one last look, then pushes the door open to leave.

There are more zombies around, though none have noticed him yet. Heart in his throat, Dave speedwalks to the truck, bags clutched close to his chest.

“Took your time,” Shawn comments when he scrambles in. He revs the car, speeding away before Dave can even properly sit down.

“Whoa, hey!” Dave yelps, grabbing the seatbelt. “Give a guy some warning!”

“No time.” He jerks the wheel to the left; the truck hugs a sharp curve, sending Dave reeling against the door. “More shufflers have grouped around while you were taking your merry time getting dressed. Can’t have them tracing us back to the bunker.”

Dave grips the seat with both hands. Whatever speed limit had been enforced in this ghost town pre-apocalypse Shawn breaks in two seconds flat, speeding out of the downtown area and into a suburban street. At the sight of the colonial houses, Dave remembers something from back at his bunker.

“Hey, do you think you can stop at one of these houses—I think I remember the address. I just need to check something.”

“I’m not running a chauffeur service, dude.”

“Oh. Right, uh, sorry.” Dumbass, Dave berates himself. Just because he saved you doesn’t mean he’s going to do anything you ask. His excitement dims.

Shawn glances over at him, then sighs. “What’s the address?”

Unable to believe his ears but also someone not willing to look this gift horse in the mouth, Dave quickly gives the address to Trent’s house before Shawn could change his mind. Though it was all for naught; when they pull up on the driveway, the house is in a state of disrepair and not a car to be found.

Disappointment overwhelms the excitement, and Dave sighs. “Nevermind.”

Shawn doesn’t say anything, likely sensing the heavy atmosphere in the truck suddenly, but he can probably put two and two together and figure out what Dave’s plan had been. He puts the truck in reverse and they’re off again, past the suburbs and out of the town line.

It’s only when they reach the rows of plains and long grass that he visibly relaxes, and turns to survey the bags in Dave’s arms.

“When I said to get a change of clothes, I didn't think you’d steal the whole store,” he says dryly. Stealing is a tad dramatic, though; how can one steal when there’s no one manning the place?

Dave pushes the bag of clothes he’d gotten for Shawn in the other boy's direction. “You’re welcome. If anyone needs a spare change of clothes it’s you.”

In surprise, Shawn digs through the bag with one hand. “What’s with the sudden act of kindness?”

“One good turn deserves another, I guess. Consider it a thank-you for saving my ass.”

Shawn shifts in his seat, looking like he doesn’t know how to react. “All in a day’s work, man.”

Quietness settles over them again. Dave’s eyes slip shut when Shawn speaks again.

“Do you have any weapons with you?”

Dave’s eyes shoot open. Had he heard that right? 

He stares aghast at Shawn who looks completely serious.

What kind of a conversation starter is that?

“Uh—” he’s about to say no when he remembers The Goths' gift to him. “I have a knife. It’s a sharp knife,” he adds, aware of lame it sounds.

Shawn seems to sense it too. Or maybe he realizes how absolutely stupid that answer was. “Just a knife?”

Dave sighs. “Just a knife.”

He lifts his head up from where it’s resting against the window, catching sight of Shawn eyeing his backpack skeptically.

“Packed for a long trip, huh? And you didn’t think to carry any weapons with you?”

“I had other things on my mind, okay?” Dave retorts, the waspish tone reflexively making itself known. He knows he fucked up, he knows he underestimated how bad the surface would be, he knows his bunkermates were right when they said he wouldn’t last a day out here. He knows it all and he doesn’t need a stranger judging him about it.

“More important than not getting eaten by zombies?” Shawn’s eyebrows have reached his hairline. “Seriously? Whatever important thing you’ve got in mind will go down the fucking drain if you get bitten!”

Dave crosses his arms in an admittedly petulant fashion, only sparing a simple: “Whatever.”

Raising the hand not on the wheel in surrender (and definitely not hiding the following headshake), Shawn asks, “Where’s your bunker?”

Still ruffled, it takes Dave a good moment to place the question. “My what?”

“Your bunker, dude. You obviously must’ve been living in one, you’re like crap out here. I can drop you off at your bunker—if it’s not too far away ‘cause if you’re all the way in, like, Quebec, then,” he shrugs helplessly, “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I don’t have one.”

The wheel jerks and Shawn swears. While he rightens his grip, he whips around to where Dave’s sitting silently. “What?!”

“Watch the road—”

“Yeah, I got that, man, but can we talk about the part when you said you don’t have a bunker?!”

“Yeah,” Dave lets out the awkwardest laugh known to mankind. “Surprise?”

Shawn is not amused.

“Dude, what the hell do you mean you don’t have a bunker? I doubt you’ve been living on the surface all these years.”

At the incredulity in his voice, Dave sits straighter, unintentionally puffing out his chest as he says “I was in a bunker, but I left it. I’m going to the west coast—there’s someone I…know who’s there.”

Shawn stares at him. “You’re planning on traveling across the country—a zombie-infested country—to meet up with someone?”

Why is that in Dave’s head it sounded romantic, but when Shawn said it, it sounded moronic?

Then Shawn makes it worse by asking “Who are they—the US president?”

“No, of course not!” Dave rolls his eyes. “It’s this girl I like.” Just like that the words come pouring out: “We were so close to getting together, you know? Literally in the middle of confessing—I had flowers and a movie picked out and everything—when the world went to shit. Now she’s across Canada and I gotta go find her, man, I spent three years trying to figure out if she’s alive or not, I can’t let it go now.”

“You’re insane,” Shawn whispers.

Coming from the guy with dried zombie blood streaking his face.

“It’s every man for himself in this world, Dave. This is like…the stupidest thing anyone can do. Instead of staying in the safety of your bunker, you’re off on some knightly quest for love bullcrap, and you’ll probably end up getting eaten by zombies!” He shakes his head. “You’re dead, man. A goner.”

“Well if that’s what you think then maybe you should just drop me off here and not waste your breath.”

Deep down, he knows the real reason he’s taking so much offense to Shawn’s otherwise harmless words is because he, himself, is fully aware of how crazy his plan is. His bunker thought so, Shawn thinks so, and Dave’s rational side (which is basically all of him) thinks so too. He’s been living in denial of it for the past two days since leaving the bunker, and hearing that he’s insane from a guy who looks like he trains for the apocalypse in his spare time is a bit of a hard pill to swallow.

“Yeah, no way in hell, dude.” Shawn shakes his head. “I just saved your ass, I’m not letting that effort go to waste and drop you off on the street to get eaten.”

“Gee, thanks, really feeling the appreciation,” mutters Dave sarcastically.

“You’re coming with me to my bunker. It’s safe and epically stocked with cool shit.”

“But I need to—”

“Yeah yeah, I know. You need to go on your super-important mission to get eaten by zombies, chill, dude. Just stay for a while. Recuperate. At least wait a week before charging out and ruining all my hard work keeping you alive.”

Dave eyeballs him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But Shawn keeps his eyes on the road, his side-profile betraying no hint of bogus. He has no idea what’s going on in Shawn’s mind, but this guy is being for real. Man, today just keeps getting weirder.

“Fine,” he says half-heartedly. “I’ll think about it.”

Though he knows he’s already on the verge of agreeing, and it only grows when the truck pulls into a circle of long fronds—plains on every side, not a single building in sight, no sign of zombies either—and Shawn parks it in the undergrowth of a neighboring forest, tucking the drooping branches and leaves so that it mostly covers the truck’s shape.

Shawn leads him to a circular pipe-like entrance that Dave hadn’t noticed previously—it blends in very well with its surroundings—and wrenches it open, pushing it up, exposing a tunnel-like entrance below not unlike Dave’s old bunker.

“Well,” Shawn nudges him. “Guests first. Bunker policy.”

Dave grumbles, peering down into the drop. “Hold on, hold on.”

He has to remind himself that this isn’t his old bunker; that this is some stranger’s totally unfamiliar bunker that could be laden with traps, torture devices, and other weird things. Then again, said stranger had saved his life and graciously invited him to stay in his bunker, so maybe he’s being a tad dramatic.

Oh yeah, he’s definitely being dramatic. Because when Dave drops down into the bunker, his jaw drops as he takes it all in amazedly.

When Shawn said 'bunker', given the guy's appearance, Dave expected the bunker to look run-down and hardly well-kept.

It's far from that.

The room he appears to be in seems to be the common area with a ratty couch, a crate that acts as a table—a portable DVD player sits on it along with a water bottle and a half-eaten bag of chips—and strings of modest lights with a string that he assumes is a switch to turn it on and off. There is an ironic painting propped against one side that depicts a peaceful scenery of the outside world, and directly across from him on the opposite side is a small kitchen space that's basically pots and pans on more crates, slabs of granite and concrete acting as countertops, and a concave indent that's likely a firepit to heat stuff up. A small, narrow version of a hallway leads into—he can catch the barest glimpse—of a curtain divider that is probably where Shawn sleeps. The smell in the air is of dirt, hints of sweat, and something earthly that he'd picked up on Shawn.

It looks lived-in. Warm. Like one of those magical camping tents (not that he's ever been camping) in those wizard books Noah reads.

“Home sweet bunker,” says Shawn happily from behind. He must have dropped in without Dave noticing.

Not for long for me, Dave can’t help thinking. He has to get out there—onto the dirty, terrifying surface filled with flesh-tearing disgusting zombies—and continue to Vancouver. He has to find Sky.

Though, as he looks around at the homely bunker, he thinks that maybe he’ll stick around for a couple of days. Rest, recuperate, like Shawn said.

Just for a couple of days.

[***]

It’s been three weeks and Shawn still doesn’t know what to make of his bunker’s newest guest.

Granted his bunker hasn’t really seen all that many ‘guests’ these recent years or, in fact, other people save for Shawn—with the exception of Monty for a few weeks—so the term ‘newest’ guest doesn’t make all that much sense, but the sentiment still stands.

Dave keeps mostly to himself and he’s surprisingly a good bunkermate, all things considered—other than the time when he’d had a freak-out when Shawn told him the bunker didn’t have a shower. Shawn hadn’t realized how messy his bunker is until Dave took it upon himself to try and neaten things up; brooming, cleaning the counters and tables, and even digging in the closet Shawn hadn’t touched in three years to find an unused bucket to use for hasty baths. (The guy even placed it in a concealed corner, farthest from the common room yet closest to the divider between the bedroom and the rest of the bunker for easy access.) Shawn doesn’t know if this is his idea of paying him back or something, but from the way Dave often complains about the state of the bunker, he has a feeling it isn’t. This is just something Dave apparently likes to do: keep things neat.

If Shawn hadn’t already put two and two together and figured out the guy is some sort of germaphobe, he certainly knows now. (Specifically when, a week after he’d moved in, Dave had caused a ruckus because there was an anthill on the mattress. Shawn was hauled up in the middle of the night, bleary-eyed, from the couch to sort it out.)

In spite of it all, weirdly, it doesn’t feel weird having another person living in the bunker with him. He even admits it’s a nice change; his mom (and he) had (and still have) this tendency to put off basic needs like decent food and sleep in favor of survival training. Back when his mum was around, Shawn wired himself to watch out in case she goes too far and to reign her in; now with her gone, Shawn didn’t have anyone like that for him, and he hadn’t even realized it until Dave came along and forced him to eat one of the heated-up canned beans in his backpack.

During the times when he isn’t fluttering about the bunker looking for something to clean or harping on Shawn for his (“super unhealthy, you’re going to die of low blood-sugar before getting eaten by zombies, Shawn”) apocalypse-living habits, Dave’s sprawled on the mattress of the bedroom that had previously been Shawn’s before he’d given it to the other man, fiddling with the handheld radio he carts around everywhere.

Curiosity reached its peak four days before everything went to shit, and Shawn finally asked him what was up with it.

“It’s my only connection to Sky,” Dave explained, holding the radio close to him. “Keeping it with me reassures me that she’s actually alive and I’m doing this for her, that it wasn’t some messed up dream. It keeps me motivated.”

Sky—the girl Dave likes. The one he’s risking his life for. Shawn still thinks he’s bloody mad for doing this instead of hiding out in a bunker, but the last time he brought that up, Dave got (unnecessarily, might he add) annoyed, so he keeps his opinions about her and his whole love-quest to himself.

Nonetheless, even with all the changes in his living environment, Shawn can’t help admitting he’s bonded with the other guy. To some extent—as far as bonding can go in the middle of a zombie apocalypse when either of them could die at any given time. He doesn’t know if Dave feels the same way about him, but Shawn hadn’t grown up with many friends, so this is a new experience—this whole being social and accommodating thing—and he’s pretty proud of himself for handling it as well as he is.

Shawn doesn’t know what having a roommate is like, but if he has to guess, it’s something like this. This quiet tranquility interspersed with occasional bantering and exasperated fussiness. 

Naturally, whenever he thinks anything remotely positive, the world just has to come along and fucking ruin it.

It happens three weeks after Shawn saved Dave from the horde. They were running low on food—something Dave informs him when Shawn rolls off the couch that morning. That was weird in and of itself: Dave hardly gets up before him; they were opposites sides of the coin (in more ways than one, he’s growing to realize), and their waking habits is one of them; Shawn’s mental clock wakes with the sun, Dave’s wakes him when it’s like noon or something.

(Unbeknownst to him, waking habits is going to be the last thing on his mind when the day is over.)

Shawn mumbles an incoherent “on it, pronto”, rubs the sleep from his eyes, (brushes his teeth hurriedly upon Dave’s insistence), shoves on his trusty orange vest over his sleepshirt (and ignores the appalled look Dave sends him), lets the other boy herd him into the kitchen space to make a mental checklist of what they need, before shoving his shoes on and scaling the ladder to the bunker entrance.

“Hey, uh.”

Shawn looks down at Dave who’s shifting his feet.

“Don’t do anything stupid out there, okay? Don’t go be a hero.”

Shawn raises an eyebrow. “You weren’t saying that three weeks ago.”

Dave scowls. “Yes, yes, I’m eternally grateful for you saving me, but that’s different!” He spreads his arms. “I can’t run this place by myself, so don’t get your brain eaten.”

“It’s a bunker, dude, not a business company.”

“Don’t get eaten,” repeats Dave.

Shawn salutes. “Yessir.”

Turns out Dave didn’t need to worry about him being eaten or leaving him alone to fend for himself in the bunker. Shawn’s only popped the top half of his head out when he spots the array of zombies clustered so fucking close to the bunker—too close for his liking.

He drops back into the bunker in a flash, heart pounding.

Dave’s taken only three steps away in the meantime, and turns with a raised brow. “That was quick.”

Shawn barely hears him. “We need to get out of here now. Fuck why are they here?” This bunker is supposed to be so far out that the chances of any walker stumbling upon it and staying close by would be slim. He’d gone three years sneaking in and out without giving himself away, what had happened?

“Whoa, whoa,” suddenly Dave’s in front of him, hands hovering. “From the beginning, Shawn. What’s going on?”

“Zombies,” he runs a hand over his head, pushing his toque off in the process. “Surrounded the place. We can’t get it out without facing them.”

Dealing with twenty zombies when saving Dave was pushing it already, but this? He counted at least forty within the two seconds he was up there—why are they all here?

“Zombies?” whispers Dave.

It’s because you played hero, whispered his mother’s voice—ever the voice of reason—in his mind. You broke one of the biggest rules and the zombies tracked you down right to the bunker entrance.

Shawn forces the thought to the corners of his brain—he had done what he did, and sure he may regret it a bit (especially now that his bunker is close to getting overrun), but he can’t let that stop him nor can he wallow on it. He needs to get his head screwed on straight otherwise they’re both zombie food.

“Get only the necessities,” he tells Dave shortly. “Anything that can be packed in one pack each. Clothes, some food, the like. I’ll distract them and you head to the truck, then—”

“You’ll distract them? How? By challenging all of them?” Dave shakes his head. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Stupid? I’m stupid? This is the best plan we got considering you’re not in the least prepared to fight the undead!”

Guilt hits him when he sees Dave flinch—but it doesn’t weigh as much as the worry currently coursing through his veins. Cursing the situation, the apocalypse, his emotional side, and all the other things he’s too confused and panicked to pick out, Shawn turns away, pulling a backpack from the side of the common area.

Behind him, Dave clears his throat. When he speaks, his voice is more subdued: “Do you think…that I brought them here?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Shawn echoes his words. “You couldn’t have led them here—zombies don’t hunt for specific people. The attack three weeks ago must have triggered something that brought them here.”

“Triggered what?”

“I don’t know—something!” He tugs at the ends of his hair in frustration. “We can’t think about that now, there’s like more than forty of them, we gotta get out of here quick.”

If Dave responds, he doesn’t hear it. His mind clicks into gear, habitually reviewing over the list of materials he needs to pack; but it’s been so long since he’s moved locations, his brain’s fuzzy, he’s still reeling under the revelation that they need to get out as soon as possible, that the beloved bunker he and his mother made would be left behind forever…

Hands—smaller, slighter, and far less calloused—grip his shoulders, first hesitantly then more firmly. Shawn’s mind feels like it’s in a place far away—with his mother, listening to her go over the rules of surviving the apocalypse—but physically he’s aware of being steered onto the ratty couch and pushed down on it by the hands on his shoulders.

In an effort to force himself back to reality, he attempts to focus on the things around him. The quilt throw-blanket haphazardly on the couch, the DVD player on the crate that doubles as a ‘coffee table’, the hands still holding onto his shoulders and the hazel eyes peering apprehensively at him. Somewhere in Shawn’s dazed mind, he notices the numerous flecks of lighter and darker browns within the irises; it’s like looking into woodwork—firewood when the fire is starting to burn. It’s soothing, surprisingly. Grounding.

“Shawn? Dude, you okay?”

He blinks once, hard. When his mind returns back to the bunker, it’s to see Dave’s pale face staring at him—the other man is kneeling on the ground, dirtying his jeans, grips on his shoulders keeping him in place on the couch. 

Shawn shakes his head, dislodging the heavy memories and thoughts. Focus, he repeats to himself. Don’t look back. 

Another one of his mother’s rules. Another chapter in that apocalypse survival guidebook.

A thump from above makes them both jump. Dave shoots to his feet, dusting the knees of his jeans. Shawn’s shoulders twinge where his hands had been.

“Okay,” Shawn takes a deep breath, exhales. “Okay, here’s what we got to do. Pack, first. Only the important stuff. Then we try to sneak out—”

“No.”

Shawn stops, blinks at Dave. “What?”

The other man’s biting his lip, deep in thought. “We can’t go out there in broad daylight, Shawn, it’s way too dangerous. It’s suicidal basically. No matter what plan we try, those things will overwhelm us. Forty…forty is a lot.”

Knowing Dave, he probably thinks one zombie is a lot, but Shawn doesn’t voice that aloud. Because Dave’s right. It’s a hopeless thought to try and get to the truck in daylight when there are three times the usual horde numbers surrounding the bunker.

He leans back against the couch. “Then what do you suggest? We can’t stay here for another day.”

“We won’t have to. How about we leave tonight?”

Shawn raises an eyebrow. “Travel by night?” Risky and not his favorable method, but it is the best bet they have.

Dave nods. “We can sneak past them. Zombies don’t have night vision…right?”

As far as Shawn knows, they don’t. But that doesn’t ease his paranoia.

When Dave meets his eyes, his own softens. “It’s the best we have,” he says, echoing the very words bouncing around Shawn’s head.

He knows that. He feels embarrassed that he’d let his head get away from him. A guy who doesn’t know shit about the apocalypse had to bring him back to reality, Shawn wants to scoff. Get a grip on yourself. You’re more than capable of a little nighttime travel.

He stands. “C’mon. Let’s get packing.”

They make quick work gathering the supplies they’d need. While Shawn stuffs his backpack with weapons as well as snares, ropes, and other equipment for traps, Dave handles the food, clothing, and other necessities. In the recess of his mind, past the laser-focus, Shawn thinks that even with how opposing they are they manage to work seamlessly together.

He’s a solo traveler, though not relying on everything for once is kind of unsettling but relaxing. It makes him more focused on what he’s packing. However, it also gives him more room to mull over the fact that this is the last time he’ll be in his bunker. That is enough to drive away any of the happier thoughts he has going on.

Save for the occasional exclamation of astonishment (“why the hell do we need more tubes of sanitizer than this zombie repellent spray I’ve been saving?” “One: so we can stay alive and fucking clean; two: those things don’t work, they’re a scam.” “Are you screwing with me right now?”), they’re both quiet until the analog clock on the coffee-table-crate reads close to ten at night. Unanimously, they gather at the base of the bunker entrance, bracing themselves for what is on the surface.

Dave’s silent, seeming to sense that Shawn needs some space, and while he appreciates that, the silence is suffocating. A dense cloud hanging over the room. He gives the bunker one last, final look under the guise of checking if they’d left anything behind—the not-so-comfy-but-reliable couch, the curtained doorway that leads to the bedroom, the kitchen space (that’s mainly just pots and pans and a hollowed-out firepit to heat things), even the fucking cleaning bucket Dave stuck in the farthest corner, Shawn’s going to miss it all.

This had been his home—it still is his home, because no matter where he ends up, this place will always have a piece of his heart. He can still see the signs of life even now, and it just makes his heart ache more.

Another thump above, and a new sound to accompany it: a long, low groan. It sounds closer than it had been this morning.

Shawn rips his gaze away, catching sight of Dave watching him with an unreadable expression, and says jerkily, “I’ll go first. See if the coast is clear.”

He doesn’t want to stay here a second longer.

After Dave nods in acquiescence, Shawn hoists his backpack over his shoulder, scales the ladder. When he reaches the top, hands braced against the circular entrance, he looks back down.

“When I give the signal, run and don’t look back.”

He thinks he hears Dave ask “what’s the signal?” but he’s already pushing open the entrance and crawling out onto the surface.

He goes to take in a breath of air before he sees the sheer number of them and promptly chokes on it.

There are so many.

Quickly, Shawn scans the area—most of the zombies are congregated directly across from him. Unfortunately, that is also where the truck is (he can only hope none of the zombies have messed around with it). Which means they’re going to have to sneak the long way around from behind, using the trees for cover and hoping the undead aren’t using the trees for the exact same reason.

Fuck the undead for making his life infinitely harder.

“So we’re pretty much fucked,” Dave’s voice from behind makes him nearly jump and shriek like a little girl (he’s so glad that he didn’t because one: that would’ve been super embarrassing, and two: the plan would’ve been scuppered before they even enacted it due to the zombies attacking them).

“Dude, I told you to wait for my signal,” Shawn complains, turning around and aiming a disapproving look at the shorter boy who aims a sheepish deadpan look of his own back.

“You were taking too long, I…I thought something had happened.”

“So you came out?” Shawn asks incredulously. “Instead of staying inside, you decided the best option was to come out? Oh, I can't hear my bunkermate, let me just go out into the zombie-infested open and get myself eaten alive!"

“I panicked, okay?” Dave retorts defensively. His expression turns queasy as he gets to his feet and looks at the tree-line. “On a scale of one to ten, I think our chances of dying are at eleven.”

Shawn grips his backpack strap. “Not on my watch.” Getting eaten by zombies is not on his to-do list and never will be. “Close the bunker door. We’re sneaking out.”

Dave closes the entrance quietly, and they set off—Shawn leads the way, creeping to the tree-line with the groans of the zombies filling the air. When they’re halfway to the woods and no zombie looks their way, Shawn dares to hope that maybe they might make it alive after all.

Then a memory slips out of its tightly packaged mental compartment, taunting him: his mother, murmuring to him during one of the nights they’d sleep in the bunker. “Don’t look back,” she’d say whenever nightmares would hit him. “Keep moving forward. Never look back. It gives more openings.”

Dave mutters a curse in a language Shawn doesn’t recognize, their shoes scuff the ground, grass brushes their legs, but Shawn’s slowed down to hardly a crawl-pace. There’s a funny ringing in his ears. His heart feels like it’s going through a woodchipper.

“Hey,” whispers Dave. “What’s wrong? Move!”

Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

Clenching his fists, Shawn looks back.

Over Dave’s shoulder, he can see the outline of the bunker’s in-ground entrance. Suddenly the memories hit him like a freight train, so hard that he staggers. His mother and him cooking canned soup in the firepit stove, sanding the walls so they’re smoother, debating which curtain design would work best for the divider. And more than that, he remembers camping, tree-climbing contests, listening to her podcast with pride and awe, thinking ‘I wanna be like her’ all bold and unflinching. Spending hours on end working on their apocalypse survival guide together; titling one of the chapters Don’t Look Back. 

The few moments he shared with Monty before everything went crazy-wrong. The guilt and grief that accompanies each and every one of them.

Involuntarily, he takes a step backward.

And steps on a branch.

The sound rings through the air, loud as a bullet.

All forty-something zombies look up at them, milky eyes boring into their souls.

“Shit,” Dave says into the sudden dead silence.

The zombies move toward them, and, now that they don’t have to worry about being quiet, Shawn can yell as loud as he wants to: “RUN!”

Chapter Text

There are a shitload of things happening at once around them, but Dave is aware of just two things: the treeline within his sights and his shoes pounding the grass as he and Shawn race to the woods. He doesn’t dare look back, but his ears have already picked up on the groans of the undead swarm making surprisingly good headway toward them.

His lungs burn, his breath comes out in sharp wheezes, there’s a stitch in his side. Maybe he should’ve humored Lightning and Eva and joined in on more of their training sessions, instead of just that one hour the night before he left the bunker. There’s not much you can do to get yourself in tip-top sprinting-from-zombies shape when running and zombies have never ever been your preferred interests, but then he couldn’t say he didn’t try.

Unfortunately, here he is. Sweat dripping down the back of his neck, backpack thumping painfully against his back, cursing every second of his life that led to this particular moment—he pays special mind and reserves some extra elaborate swears for the apocalypse. Sports have never been his forte—Noah’s favorite line, but he likes to steal it once in a while because it’s true.

But, lack of training sessions or not, staying alive is enough of a motivator to keep his legs pumping.

Shawn keeps pace with him, pulling his ax out as he goes. His eyes are focused, none of the faraway, panicked look Dave had seen him wear back in the bunker this morning. If he hadn’t witnessed it, he won’t have ever believed that Shawn, the guy who fought off about twenty zombies when he’d saved Dave, had nearly spiraled into ‘anxiety attack territory’.

Frankly, seeing it happen had unnerved him. In Dave’s mind, Shawn is supposed to be the unshakeable force against the hordes of filthy undead accosting them. He’s supposed to have his head screwed on straight and his thoughts in order. Nothing’s supposed to throw him off-course because that’s just how he’s portrayed himself as within the three weeks Dave got to know him. When he’d seen Shawn’s breath stutter minutely, his eyes drift to some distant land, full of memories and dangerous waters to tread, Dave’s mind had jumped to grounding techniques and how having a stable hold for the person in distress to mentally grab ahold of was recommended. It helps him during his panic attacks, and moreover, he’d seen Gwen do it for Trent through a breakdown in the dead of night.

Trent is also an unshakeable force to Dave. Cool, collected, the kind of guy you wanted to be, that you looked up to. He had everything under control. Until that night when he’d seen the older man’s hands shake, his whispers tremble as he counted down from nine to zero and back up again with Gwen, his eyes far away like Shawn’s had been, and how quiet the whole occurrence had been like the two were hiding it from the rest of the world. He’d been going through his own memories too. It was only a year since the apocalypse truly began.

Gwen had looked up, caught his eye. Neither said a word, but Dave got the message. He let them be, heading back to his and Noah’s room, his own dangerous memories piling up, the initial mission to get a glass of water forgotten. The next morning, none of them mentioned it, but the knowledge was still there, as were the recollections of the firm touches he’d glimpsed Gwen do for Trent—hands steady on his shoulders, a constant stream of unwavering syllables, reigning him back to reality.

When Shawn had stiffened stock-still, Dave had panicked. Hell, he was still panicking when he’d forced Shawn to sit on the creaky couch with hands tight—super tight, the nails must be digging—on his shoulders; but somehow, the voice that came out of him was steady and calm, not a trace of panic to be found. If Shawn lost his head then they’d both be dead. Dave couldn’t afford that.

Now, as he side-eyes the other boy, staring straight-ahead, same as with Trent, Dave’s view of Shawn is altered. He isn’t an unshakeable force like Dave assumed.

That doesn’t sound like much of a positive.

His eyes catch onto the glint of the ax under the moon, and he thinks that maybe he should’ve pulled out the super sharp knife The Goths had given him when the world turns upside-down and sideways all at once. A sharp gasp escapes him, turning into a strangled wheeze as his stomach hits the unforgiving ground, meters from the trees and, consequently, the truck—safety, at least temporarily—and then his heavy pack squashes him from behind, turning him into a Dave sandwich between two unforgiving solid forms. 

He struggles to right himself, panic making his movements more hurried as the sounds of the zombies chasing them grow louder.

“Shawn!” he shouts, finally managing to flip himself onto his back, clutching his smarting stomach, looking around to see if the other boy is still beside him…that he’d doubled back to help, to hold back the horde while Dave fixes himself so they can continue running…

But no. It takes him several seconds—several precious seconds that he could’ve used to get to his feet and haul ass to the truck—but he spots Shawn, still sprinting madly to the truck, not turning back, probably not even noticing. He hadn’t even stopped to check if Dave was still next to him—at least a side-eye. The only thing he spares Dave is a “come on!” over his shoulder.

Offended. That’s what Dave feels. Indignant and majorly offended. Seriously? A little bit of hurt trickles in. It’s no wonder this guy doesn’t have any friends. 

Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh, but can you blame him? He just got left behind, for gods sake!

More moans and groans—far more louder than they were five seconds ago.

Dave’s brain kickstarts back into gear. Getting affronted over Shawn and his severe lack of people skills will have to wait. After he survives because he’s not fucking dying from tripping and being an easy meal for zombies. Not when he has to see Sky.

Staggering to his feet and stopping himself from halfway buckling under his backpack, Dave ducks under an outstretched zombie arm then yelps as he’s tugged back by a surprisingly firm grip on one of his backpack straps. 

Who knew zombies could be so strong? It’s not like they have time to hit the gym what with their 24/7 desire for human brains and intestines.

Blindly he reaches down, backpack choking him, and gropes around until he finds—aha!—a branch. Dave grips it and swings it up, shoving it backward at the zombie holding him back.

He can’t see what had happened but judging from the sudden resistance on the other end of the stick, he thinks the thing has its jaws on it.

“Let go, let go,” he mumbles frantically tugging at the stick, but the zombie holds fast to both his meager weapon and his backpack. More moans join it, like a deranged cacophony, and maybe he is going to die like this. Held back, choked by his own backpack, killed in such a mundane way despite everything.

Something slick grasps one of his backpack straps, pulling his sweater up along with it, and he stiffens, a swirl of rising fear and panic making him pull extra hard at the stick.

SQUELCH!

Dave would’ve stumbled forward if not for the grip on his backpack as the stick breaks free, landing on the ground in front of him. Attached to it is…

Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god. 

Is that its jaw?! Not even its entire head, just its jaw still clamped onto the stick, dangling limply.

Nausea rises, his vision swims. He knows he has to move—that slimy thing on his backpack will soon fully encapsulate his shoulder, dirty his sweater; plus the other zombies will catch up, they’re probably almost there—though try as he might, his eyes stay frozen on the tendons still hanging from the limp jaw, black goop sullying his weapon that he’s certainly not going to be touching again.

He’d rather die. Which is exactly what’s going to happen in less than one second because he can’t fucking move his feet.

His chest is heaving, he has to exert conscious effort to not choke on his next breath. He can feel foul breath against the back of his neck. Panic makes his breath short and jagged. Dizzying.

Hey! Dave! Snap out of it!

He blinks, pauses. That voice in his mind, small but steady…it sounds so much like Sky.

Like how she’d calmed him down from a panic attack two weeks after them meeting—a huge feat considering the intensity of his panic attacks. 

When he’d started to fall for her.

Slowly. Carefully. His breathing starts to slow. The inner voice that sounds like Sky coaching him gently, cutting through his hyperventilations, until before he knows it, he’s breathing normally. Panting, yes, but that’s to be expected. Exercising isn’t his forte, after all. Noah’s line, but he’s stealing it. Can’t let his friend get all the cool liners.

The faces flash before his eyes like a picture show. Sky, Noah, his siblings, Sky again. Repeat.

Breathe, Dave, breathe. You can do this.

He remembers, like the voice in his head pulled aside a curtain of memories; Sky with her hands on his shoulders, earnest eyes looking up to him. Even with the dirt covering his arms, he couldn’t help listening to her soft, steady voice. Bringing him down from the edge.

Back then it had been a reality; now, it was only the voice in his head that sounds like her, doing the same thing its associated human had done all those years ago. Brought him down from the edge. Gave him something to fight for.

The noise around him crashes down suddenly, as though everything had been on mute on the reality show that is his life and now someone had turned the volume back on. Moaning, groaning, the wet hand so close to his bare skin that he can feel its presence on the back of his sweater.

“ARGH!”

Dave pushes away, ripping the slimy appendage off his back in the process, feeling the vibration in his sneakers as it falls to the ground. He turns and when the jawless figure of the zombie falls face-forward, this time he’s ready—he leaps back before it could get him more dirty.

Another one comes after, like it’s a line-up—who can get a go at eating the human first?—and Dave freezes, cursing consecutively in his head for leaving that super-sharp-knife in his backpack. 

An arrow thunks into the zombie’s head. It goes cross-eyed, trying to see it, before tumbling backward, tripping the next two creepies, giving Dave an opening to turn the fuck around and hightail it out of there. The stars glimmer above, painting a pretty picture of the night sky, but he doesn’t give a shit about any of that. He runs. Faster than he’s ever run his entire life with the sounds of the undead as the motivational music, and it shows—and feels—when he collapses, at last, into the truck, slamming the door shut, clutching his stomach and puffing out a string of pant-wheezes.

If he can’t breathe properly from here on out, he’s completely blaming the zombies. And the stupid apocalypse. And Shawn. And his own stupid heart for getting him in this mess in the first place.

Shawn’s in the drivers, crossbow tossed haphazardly to the side—Dave almost sits on it, he really thinks Shawn is out to kill him—and is fiddling with the gear, grumbling aloud, “lost an arrow.”

Which reminds Dave. “You…left me…behind?” 

Did he sound accusatory? The words mixed up in wheezes came out that way. He sure hopes Shawn gets the fucking message.

“It’s the apocalypse, dude,” is Shawn’s only response, which makes absolutely no sense at all. Yes, Dave’s aware it’s the apocalypse, he’s gotten several near aneurysms because of it, but what happened to bunker-mates and all that shit? If The Drama Bros were here, they’d be so disappointed and horrified.

Next moment, his thoughts of whether using The Drama Bros as an example was the best idea in this context fall away as Shawn revs the truck at such an alarming rate that Dave remembers he hadn’t put the seatbelt on only when he pitches forward and would’ve planted his head through the windshield if he hadn’t stopped himself by grabbing the door.

Crunching noises from behind signal that the truck hadn’t run over just dirt and grass.

Shawn changes the gear into drive then says, almost as an afterthought, “hang onto something.”

He gives Dave exactly two seconds to comprehend that statement and cling harder to the door, seatbelt be damned, before flooring it and sending the truck careening into the woods.

Now Dave’s seen his fair share of crazy drivers. Viola with her license and you in the passenger seat is a nightmare; Jaydha may seem collected until she experiences traffic when she has an appointment; even Noah and Sky have had their bouts of road rage that left Dave reevaluating their mental states.

Shawn puts all of them to shame.

Then again, they are running from a horde of zombies ready to eat their brains out, so that’s a pretty important thing to factor in.

Still, zombies or not, Shawn seems like the type to drive shitty just because. (And no, Dave’s not thinking that because he’s still pissed that Shawn nearly left him behind. Not at all. He’s no grudge-holder, of course not. Never.)

The truck swerves past a tree sending Dave flying against the window. His head throbs and his cheek stings where he accidentally bit it. If he wasn’t pissed before, he is now. 

Okay, maybe he’s a bit of a grudge-holder. A bit.

“Grab the wheel!” Shawn says suddenly after another sharp turn that grazes a pine tree’s branches against the side-mirror.

What? Grab the wheel? Dave has so many questions but Shawn’s already rolled his window down and is halfway sticking out of it, crossbow in his hands though Dave hadn’t seen him reach for it—are all zombie nuts weirdly fast?

Following his motto as of late, Dave resolves to let the guy do his thing. He grabs at the wheel, holding it in place as they crash through the forest, Shawn thwacking the occasional faster zombie with his crossbow or shooting at the ones pursuing them behind the truck. After a couple of minutes of this and Dave’s heart crawling up his throat as he made insanely dangerous turns that could’ve gotten them flattened if he’d been a second too late, Shawn tucks himself back inside and takes the wheel, tossing the crossbow to the side.

Dave scoots back to his spot, avoiding contact with the dirtied weapon, and resumes his death-grip on the door handle. The truck jerks past impediments—trees with their branches scraping jarringly against the windows, large rocks, the occasional gaping maw of a zombie that pops up out of the darkness like a deranged jack-in-the-box—and hugs curves, and it’s so quiet, Dave wonders what kind of cool music would be playing if they were in an action movie right now; probably some high-speed chase track that gets viewers on the edges of their seats, like he currently is. He’d honestly take any noise that isn’t the dull quietness in the truck and the muffled groans from outside—it leaves his skin crawling and sweat creeping down his temple. 

When Shawn brakes this time, Dave’s prepared. He only moves forward a centimeter. Talk about improvement!

“What’s happened?” he asks, turning.

Shawn has his eyes fixed out the windshield, words lost.

Dave follows his gaze. Freezes stiff in his seat, body twisted oddly that’s sure to be a pain tomorrow morning, but for now, every possible thought has left him except for one.

Oh fuck.

Shawn had some sense to turn on the headlights before his wild rampage through the woods; unfortunately, the bright lights also illuminate perfectly the crowd of zombies barricading them from potential freedom.

“Weren’t they just behind us?” Dave asks, the question hanging in the air as he turns to look behind the truck. The woods are still, no sign of pursuit except for the carnage in their wake. Of course, there isn’t, because apparently, all the zombies who’d been chasing them are now in front of them. How did that even happen? No zombie is quick enough to overtake a moving vehicle!

Right?

“They used the trees,” Shawn mutters, palming the wheel, eyes cloudy. “Shouldn’t have turned on the lights.”

Despite the gravity of their situation and the fear curdling in Dave’s gut, something in Shawn’s expression throws him for a loop. It’s not exactly fear—it’s something darker, more contained but primal, straining to be released. Despair? Grief? No, no, something more.

Shawn moves, unlocking the door to the drivers. “Don’t get out,” he calls over his shoulder and even his voice sounds weird now too. Rough. Halted. Dave’s father had sounded like that once or twice too, right before he’d argue with Gabriel—they fought over the stupidest things; their views, their beliefs, their perceptions of the world and its people, Gabriel’s future and career. Who and how he should love.

Dave keeps his door locked. He watches squinting out into the gloom, at the zombies waiting as Shawn steps out and slams the door shut with a ringing finality. Crossbow behind him, ax in one tight grasp, his gait is stilted, uncoordinated, like physically he’s moving but mentally he’s somewhere far away, and Dave thinks he knows now what’s going on. This is the same kind of Shawn in the bunker when they’d been packing. The withdrawn, pensive, shadowed Shawn.

The bunker. Of course. Shawn’s safe haven with the string of flickering lights and coffee-table-crate and rickety couch and anthill mattress. Home sweet bunker. A home that’s no longer so.

In the light of the headlights, Shawn’s shadow strikes out eerily against the trees as he stands in front of the truck, facing down the horde. Even from here, Dave sees the white-knuckled grip he has on his ax. A sense of deja vu overcomes him—of a time when he’d seen a scene similar to this, atop a fire escape when he believed it was all over. That time he’d thought of Shawn as a sort of bedraggled avenging angel; in this case, he looks more like the fucking devil ready to reign hell on the creatures who forced him to leave his sanctuary.

Was that why he’d tried to leave Dave behind? As a method of reigning hell onto Dave? Paying him back for leading the zombies here? The stifled guilt from this morning starts to spawn once more.

Stop it, he chides, giving himself a mental slap. You didn’t know this would happen. Besides, Shawn said there was no way. He’s the zombie expert here.

He shoves the niggling insecurity and anxiety back into the recess of his mind, the nooks and crannies where it always lingers—the type of subtle insecurity a proudly ordinary person feels in the midst of extraordinary people.

Nope. Not thinking about that too.

He focuses with some effort back on what’s happening outside, which admittedly hasn’t changed all that much except Shawn’s raised his ax high in the air, the metal glinting off the moon, so the zombies can see clearly the weapon that’s going to end their miserable undead lives.

But there are so many of them. Their white eyes peer at the truck, at them, from the darkness like multiple pinpricks of light. How can Shawn, one single person, fight them all? That’s madness. Wasn’t Shawn the person who told Dave not to go picking unnecessary fights with zombies?

Shawn must have been thinking along similar lines because he remains unmoving—maybe waiting for them to make the first move? Don’t pick unnecessary fights with the undead, exploiting that loophole in the rule, if they make the first move, it’s fair game, isn’t it?—his shoulders rigid, hands clenched. Dave goes to say something, anything, that’d break this hanging silence; maybe get back inside or please don’t get killed or what, are you stupid?!

Then one of the white pinpricks moves forward, the ax flies down, and the words die in his throat.

Shawn hacks at the approaching zombies with a viciousness that takes Dave aback. Over and over and over. He never seems to tire. When he turns to swipe at the ones coming from the side, Dave sees his eyes are laser-focused, narrowed and solely on the threat at hand like how they were when he’d taken on twenty zombies back at the fire escape and walked away without a scratch.

But the dark expression and the strength and vigor at which he tears at the zombies speak differently, this time around. His goal isn’t to get out of here alive. At least that isn’t just his goal.

If he’s being honest, Dave’s pretty damn glad he’s safe in the car. Whether because of the zombies or the disturbing intensity Shawn eyes the zombies, he doesn’t quite know. What he does know is that he feels bad for those undead creeps. This isn’t a crazy suicide-plan; this is Shawn needing to burst out at the unfairness of the situation on something—and what better way than to bash the very things that had led them to this situation? To wrangle that dark expression and let it bleed out into something lighter.

Dave knows. He’s witnessed it firsthand before. Watching through keyholes and around corners as his dad wrangled his own dark expression by shutting himself in his lab in their basement, working madly into hours and even days, a cold presence made colder; as Gabriel handled his by taking the race-car in their elaborate garage reserved only for these occasions and speeding around racetracks, taking bets and winning as he lets the wheels screech his darkness away on the dirt, returning with his typical smirk and philosophical words; how his mom deals with it by locking herself in her room and screaming into her pillow, he’s heard the muffled sobs she tries to hide, seen the slashes of frenzied paint streaks across the easel and the red-rimmed eyes when she comes out after hours.

Everyone has that dark, shadowed expression, hidden in them. Even zombie nuts who seem, at first glance, like nothing or no one can tether them, like their emotions are locked away in a rock-solid safe.

He wants to look away from the carnage Shawn’s creating right there in front of the truck, but his gaze is stuck. The headlights cast spotlights on the zombies as they fall in unrecognizable pieces, on the irises of Shawn’s green-hazel eyes as slowly the shadowed expression seeps out with each hack, each skull he cuts through. Until he’s standing, breathing heavily, ax splattered top to bottom, and he’s no better.

But there are still more of them. He’s only cleaved through half, and he realizes at the same time Dave does that it’s a hopeless cause. (But maybe it’s never a cause—only a need to vent. And now Shawn’s frame just looks tired, shoulders slumped, hands not so tight on his ax.)

So Dave leans over and honks the horn. Three sharp beeps. Come on.

Shawn listens. He has to. Or else he won’t survive.

He tumbles into the truck as more of them emerge like monsters in fairytales from the trees, floors the gas, and they’re off. For real, now.

“Gave us an opening,” Shawn rasps. And Dave pretends not to notice the red-rimmed eyes, the twitching fingers on the wheel, and the hoarseness of his voice (had he been yelling out there? Dave hadn’t heard); he only nods, facing the window. 

He doesn’t flinch as they run over the rest of the horde, as they tear through the woods at the same breakneck speed Gabriel must go during his races. The memories and emotions push his mental wall, but Dave pushes back. Not now, not the place or the time. He’s blank, far away. Out-of-body. Maybe it’s the shock.

The ride out of the woods is a silent affair. Neither man speaks, neither wish to. The silence may be thick, but their whirling thoughts are thicker. Dave doesn’t know what’s going through Shawn’s head—though thankfully his expression has lightened to something like his usual—but in his own is the consistent replay of the number of times he’s seen members of his family fall apart and piece themselves back together, people like Trent, Gwen, and Noah use their willpower as the glue to hold themselves together. How he’d seen Shawn do exactly that.

Everyone has a dark expression. Even ordinary people like Dave. The thing is Dave isn’t so sure he’ll be able to piece himself back together if his makes its dreaded appearance.

[***]

They pass the sign reading Welcome to Toronto! hanging on one hinge when Shawn’s eyes track to the gas meter. 

Nearly empty. Only enough for a mile or two, maximum.

Reluctantly, he takes the exit off the deserted highway. Toronto’s a city—one of the more populated ones formerly—and cities mean one thing: more converged hordes. After the shitshow last night, he knows the last thing either of them want is more zombies. But driving four hours straight when the tank was already halfway empty prior to them leaving means they need to stock up on gas and any supplies. Who knows when the next town will be and if he could force the truck to make it till then?

He turns to Dave slumped sideways in the passenger's side, the other man’s head against the window as it has been since they left the woods, and the only sign that he’s actually alive is the rise and fall of his shoulders. 

He hasn’t looked at him since leaving the bunker and Shawn can only throw stones as to why. The air was quiet between them, but not the comfortable kind of silence Shawn’s grown accustomed to living with Dave in the bunker. This one feels more charged and overhanging, filled with unsaid things but Shawn can’t figure out what things are being unsaid.

Was it him not stopping to help Dave when he’d tripped? It’s a fucking apocalypse! Every person for themselves, it’s one of the rules in his guidebook: first priority is always yourself. Besides he’d helped Dave in the end; he’d shot that zombie and lost an arrow—a valuable weapon.

Was it what had gone down in the deep, dark forest? When Shawn allowed just once for his hold on his emotions to slip and to wreak havoc on every deadie within his range to pacify the rage and heartbreak roaring for blood in him. He’d never lost himself like that before, not even when his mother never showed up that first night; he prides himself on having a head-over-heart mentality—his mother had one too and loved that about him—but last night there was an animal clawing at his chest the farther he walked away from his—and his mom’s—bunker, dark and dangerous, and he knew he needed to get it out. So he did. And he used it productively. So really, he was helping out again. Dave obviously has to know that.

Or maybe he’s overthinking things and nothing is actually wrong and he’s reading too much into the silence. Yeah, that seems about right. He’s thought about it from all angles and is confident he hasn’t done anything wrong.

Shawn sighs and rubs his eyes with one hand. They definitely need a break.

Stupid zombies. Stupid Shawn for letting someone into his ranks, now look what happened! They’re driving around with minimum gas and no shelter save for his pickup truck. Why, oh why did he have to play hero?

The guilt shoots back up again when he side-eyes Dave’s head of dark hair, still not paying him any mind.

Maybe he’s in shock—should Shawn check? See if he’s having another of those panic attacks?

And why should you care? Caring had led him to where he is now. Nowhere. Every person for themselves, even when it comes to bunker-mates. Or rather former bunker-mates as there is no bunker for them anymore.

His thoughts are driving him in circles. Forget they, he seriously needs a break. 

He turns into the first gas station he sees, sharper than intended. Dave grunts, then lifts his head up, an imprint of the window on his cheek as he takes in the vacant gas station expressionlessly.

Shit, is he actually in shock?

Enough!

Shawn clears his throat.

“Gonna get some gas,” he says, jabbing a thumb at the pump outside.

Dave spares a second to nod and glance at where Shawn was pointing before slipping out and making a beeline to the bathrooms in the corner store, tugging on his backpack as he moves.

“Don’t forget to check for walkers!” calls Shawn after him.

Dave waves a hand in response and then he’s gone, disappearing into the store, leaving Shawn to fill up a gas tank and continue to mull over his puzzling thoughts.

Yippee.

He hops down from the truck, closes the door, and inhales the stale air, content to breathe in something that isn’t the stifling silence he’s had to endure for the past five hours.

Three years ago, Toronto was a proud city sitting on the coast with tall buildings overlooking Lake Ontario and full of bustling people, always the hub of business. Now it looks utterly deserted; the roads are caked in dust and dirt, occasionally a splatter of blackish blood coalesces in a puddle; edges of the sunrise creep up the distant shape of Lake Ontario; the formerly tall and proud buildings are now weathered and cracked, vines creeping up them like eager hands; the only sounds are hinges squeaking when the wind brushes by and faraway moans that have Shawn’s shoulders tensing instinctively.

No time to enjoy the scenery, however miserable it may be. He only has a couple of minutes at most to fill as much gas as he can into the truck before a walker comes along and sees an easy meal.

The topic of zombies, while a consistent presence in his head, also reminds him of the bunker he’d left, and as he sticks the pump nozzle into the opening of the truck’s tank, his mind wanders back to last night. In what shape is the bunker now? Would the zombies figure out how to open it, intrude in his safe space? He imagines it now: undead crawlies all over his stuff, all over where he’s lived his life for three years and before that too, ruining everything he’s worked hard for…

Shawn shakes his head, looking down at the pump to check if everything’s still alright before letting his eyes scan his surroundings. Focus on what’s around you. Think about the present, not the past. The past won’t lead him anywhere, but the present will.

A piece of paper flies past him as he cranks out the last of the pump before removing it from inside the truck. When he hooks it back in its position next to the fuel tank, he glimpses a shadow flitting from the other side of the road. Stiffening, he slides a hand casually in one pocket of his jeans, loosely wrapping around the handle of one of his knives. He wishes he has his crossbow—long-range would be more effective right now—but it’s in the truck and he doesn’t want to cause any sudden movements and alert the zombie.

He remains pressed against the truck, trying to blend into the shadows created in the space between the station’s gas tank and his truck, watching the ground in front of him closely until the silhouette of the shambling shape flits away.

He breathes out. That was too close. He may have been able to get rid of it easy enough but fighting like a lunatic last night in the woods had taken up most of his energy; he’s knackered. And hungry. 

Quickly he turns back to the truck and sees Dave approaching while smoothing down his sweater and wiping his hand (with sanitizer, probably).

“We should figure out our plan,” he says, keeping his voice low when the other man’s in earshot.

Dave looks up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time in five hours, and Shawn’s shoulders loosen a tad at that. No more unsaid silent treatment then—if there even had been one. Which he agreed there wasn’t. He should really stop confusing himself.

“Plan?” he repeats warily.

“Let’s get out of here first. We can discuss it in the truck. Don’t need shufflers overhearing.”

It was said in a partial jest (zombies don’t have the brain capacity to comprehend words) but Dave’s eyes widen. Two seconds later, the truck’s peeling out of the gas station and speeding down the deserted road.

“We need to get out of Toronto,” Shawn continues his train of thought. He taps his fingers on the wheel as he thinks. “Cities are more dangerous, riskier. We’ll attract way more hordes than last night like this.”

A movement comes from Dave at the mention of last night—a cross between a shudder and a twitch. “But how do we know we’re even going the right way,” he asks. “Your truck doesn’t have a GPS because it’s ancient—”

“Hey!”

“And using up the charges on our phones so quickly wouldn’t be the wisest.” Dave continues, ignoring him, which Shawn bristles at because that is his truck. “We can’t stop at every rest stop just to charge them. We’re going to need a map—an actual paper one.”

“Right! Only thing is acquiring said map will involve getting out and scouring inside buildings and potentially meeting brain-thirsty zombies.”

Dave bites his lip, clearly as unwilling as Shawn is about doing that. “Well…what other choice do we have?”

And goddamn when he puts it like that, Shawn doesn’t have a definite counterargument.

“Yeah alright,” he says, fingers tapping faster, turning the truck into a less urban street; a zombie pokes its head out from the bushes but Shawn slams the truck’s hood into it and drives on. “Alright, here’s what we’ll do. You and I go to the most likely place we’ll find a map…” he trails off, shooting an inquiring glance at Dave.

The other man frowns. “The sheriff’s office, maybe?” he offers. “Or maybe the City Hall?” 

“We’ll stop by the City Hall, find a map that’s hopefully not been tampered with, and grab some supplies at the grocery store we just passed before we get the fuck out of here. I feel like we’ve tempted fate too much in the past twelve hours.” Sounds solid. Yeah, so many things could go wrong, but he’s determinedly not thinking about that right now. That’s a Later Shawn’s problem—when he actually has the mental capacity to be paranoid, maybe after breakfast. “How’s that for a plan?”

Dave shrugs. “Not to be pessimistic—”

“Come on, man, I’m the hypervigilant one here.”

“We’re in Toronto, the biggest cosmopolitan city in Canada,” Dave points out. “Biggest city means lots of weird zombies. Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, get protective gear or something before heading out there?”

“Dude. If we load ourselves in gear, that’ll just hold us back when we gotta haul ass away from the weird zombies. Best to travel light.”

Dave groans, throwing his head back and slouching in his seat. He mumbles something that sounds like “this sucks” which is the biggest understatement Shawn’s ever heard. Even though it’s mainly complaints, it’s nice that they’re talking freely again, so Shawn doesn’t mind all that much.

“Don’t sweat it, kolega, we’ll be in and out in no time. We know what we’re looking for and we have a plan, that’s something.”

“Scraps of a plan,” mutters Dave.

Shawn shoves his backpack into him.

They make it to City Hall after running over only twelve zombies. They leave the truck and creep up the steps—Dave leading the way with Shawn watching their backs—and encounter three more deadies at the doors like zombie guards or some shit. Shawn gets rid of them pretty quick, a simple slash to their heads has them rolling (literally). Dave presses open the door and they wince as it slides open with a screech that sounds insanely loud in the silence.

The City Hall is still, large, and encompassing. On the outside, it's shaped like large, curved, pillar-like structures, towering above them. Inside, it’s dark though neither of them reaches to test the light switches. They take a couple of steps farther in and let the door behind them slide shut with a muffled click. 

A shape shifts from behind a column, some feet beyond.

Silently, Shawn puts a finger to his lips. Dave nods and inches toward the stairs while Shawn moves forward to where they’d seen the shape.

When he rounds the column, a female zombie receptionist lunges at him, teeth bared, eyes drooping. Moving fast, Shawn backs away, raising his ax as he does and slams it down on her head. The receptionist falls. It takes him a moment to tug the ax out of her skull, but when he does, he shakes it to remove excess brain matter and joins Dave at the foot of the staircase.

“All good?” Dave mouths.

Shawn gives him a thumbs-up.

Their shoes thumping lightly on the stairs are the only noises in the building. When they reach the second landing and no zombies attack, they deem it safe enough to converse in quick whispers.

“The Council’s office,” Dave says, straight to the point. “They must have a map lying around somewhere.”

Shawn raises his eyebrows. “You lived in Toronto?”

Dave shakes his head, setting off down the hall, Shawn at his heels. “My sister, my older sister, she’s an attorney. Did her internship in Toronto and met a few renowned faces on the Council.”

“Oh. That’s cool. You wanna follow her footsteps?”

“God, no way in hell. I do not have that kind of people skills.” His eyes skim the doors as they pass them by; they all look the same to Shawn: wooden with a brass number and, occasionally, a plaque nailed to it, but Dave examines each one like he’s expecting something.

He gets it at the last door. “Here!” the whisper is edged with triumph. “It’s this one.”

The door looks the same as its companions down the hall, but Dave’s looking at it like it’s the answer to their problems. Shawn wants to ask if he’s sure but he decides to trust Dave on this one; it’s not often he sees such a confident look on the guy.

They assemble in front of the door, Shawn with his ax held before him, Dave with his hands clutching his backpack. Shawn takes a deep breath and kicks the door open.

For a Council’s office there sure are a lot of papers cluttered about. Filing cabinets are toppled over; the blinds are partway open, some bent at unnatural angles; the only source of light would come from the window because, when Dave shines the flashlight from his phone around the room, they notice the lightbulbs appear to be shattered; there’s a ladder that winds up to probably a storage attic; a bloodied handprint slides against the far most wall.

“Cheery,” Shawn says under his breath.

Dave makes a noncommittal sound, eyes trained on the bloody handprint.

“Okay,” Shawn says, because that handprint could mean anything and they need to stay on guard. “Stick together. This place is too dark right now, we don’t—” he wants to stop there, to not make the situation more terse than it is, but his survivalist mentality doesn’t allow that. “We don’t know whether there’s a zombie hanging around.”

“Turn off the flashlight?” asks Dave nervously. But they both know: they need the flashlights on. It’s not like either of them have night vision.

“Keep them on but don’t shine them everywhere. We can split up in the room—it’s small enough—but don’t go up the ladder yet.”

Dave nods, mouth downturning at the ends with worry. Without further ado, he whips around and begins rummaging through the nearest filing cabinet. Shawn makes his way to the large desk taking up most of the space. He overturns drawers, pulls out various papers and files, inspects stapled billings and geographical updates now years old, but no map.

He shifts his attention to one of the other filing cabinets propped up against the wall opposite where Dave stands. As he’s digging around, feet pressed up, head sticking inside, Dave’s voice comes from behind faintly.

“Kolega.”

Shawn frowns, retreats from the cabinet enough to inspect one paper then toss it aside when there’s no map. “Hm?”

“That word you said to me when we were in the truck. Kolega. What does it mean?”

“Oh!” He pulls himself out of the cabinet, twisting around to look at Dave who’s bent over sifting through a plastic paper organizer, back facing Shawn. “Uh, it’s Polish. My mom is—was—Polish. And Irish. Canadian too.” He scratches at his neck, tugging the back of his toque. “Anyway, it means buddy. Companion, basically.”

“Oh.” Now it’s Dave’s turn to pause, to pull himself from his sifting and twist partially so that he looks at Shawn out of the corner of one eye. “So like, friend?”

“I mean…” This was territory Shawn isn’t an expert on. Emotions, friendships, and every other bonds. The only people he’s felt close to were his parents and Monty. Everyone else tended to never give him the time of day, so he thought why bother? He was fine by himself. Still is.

Dave waits.

“It’s more like companion. That’s its literal meaning. So, like traveling companions, because that’s what we are technically.”

Dave’s eyes flicker, drop. He turns back to the cabinet. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

The silence is back, and Shawn, again, has not a clue what just happened. He knows he’s said the right thing—prioritize yourself, the guidebook says—and Dave doesn’t sound annoyed or upset, but he can’t help feeling like he’s just fucked something up somehow.

Turning back to the cabinet, itching to do something that makes sense, he’s about to pluck a paper from the top of a pile when a hand—brown, slender, with knobby knuckles—cuts in front, halting him.

Shawn blinks and turns to give Dave, who’d crossed the room without him realizing, a bemused look.

“Your hands are dirty,” Dave says simply. And, looking at them, Shawn realizes that yes they are. They’re caked in dirt, zombie blood, and his own blood from scrapes. Not that it matters to him. He doesn’t know why Dave’s pointing that out all of a sudden. He’d have thought the other man was already aware of that, being such a germaphobe.

He’s about to ask ‘so?’ when Dave pulls something out of his pocket; Shawn tenses, thinking it might be a weapon—was this where their odd alliance would end? With Dave killing him?—but no, it’s just a bottle of hand sanitizer.

Dave gestures for Shawn to hold out his hands, palms up, which he does, unable to wrap his head around what’s going on. “Zombies may be the main threat to life right now, but don’t disregard diseases and viruses that could take you down from the inside-out.” he squirts a heaping amount of sanitizer on both of Shawn’s hands. “There. Now rub.”

Shawn does, eyeing Dave a look with raised eyebrows, which the other man interprets.

He drops the sanitizer bottle in Shawn’s hands. “Keep this,” He keeps talking as he returns to his position by the organizer, his low voice growing fainter, “and don’t forget to use it. I draw the line at my traveling companions leaving dirt everywhere like a hooligan.”

A small grin making its way up his face, Shawn pockets the bottle and salutes Dave’s retreating back. “No promises. But I’ll try," he adds when Dave shoots him a look.

The air between them is considerably more amicable after that, and they get through the office in no time. They meet up at the center, simultaneously looking at the ladder that leads into the storage unit.

“I didn't even know this place has a storage-unit-attic-thing,” Dave huffs. “What could be possibly in there? More papers?”

“Or a map,” Shawn suggests. “C’mon. Together? It’s more efficient.”

Dave sets his jaw and nods.

They scale the ladder, one after the other, Shawn goes first this time and when he reaches the loft-door, he shoves it open with a strained grunt, the top half of his body falling inside with it as his lower half scramble for solid ground. One of his feet flails and Dave’s hand steadies it, pushing it onto the storage loft.

Shawn nods his thanks down at him and returns the favor by hauling him inside.

Side-by-side, they stand and take in the interior—which is basically complete darkness. No windows here, so no way for light to filter through; just outlines of more cabinets—yay!—and what looks like a table at the far end.

“Flashlight?” Dave whispers.

Shawn nods then realizes Dave probably can’t see that so he says “Yeah.”

There’s fumbling as Dave reaches into the pocket of his khakis for his phone. Rushed curses in that same language that flows like water—though Shawn still can’t understand a word of it—echo from his side where Dave is, there’s a creak from far below—maybe a zombie got into the lobby—and the complete blackness surrounding him.

Shawn blinks rapidly, getting his eyes to adjust while he waits for Dave. He attempts to pick out the outlines in the area; cabinet on the side closest to him, another cabinet overturned next to Dave, the table is the farthest, a spinning office chair behind it, the crunch of papers beneath their feet (he hopes one of them isn’t a map), a string above that probably leads to a lightbulb—

Wait.

He freezes, eyes flicking back to the table and the chair. The spinning chair.

Like a bullet, his arm shoots out, swings into Dave’s stomach. 

“Oof! What the hell?”

“Don’t turn on the flashlight,” Shawn breathes out.

“What? What are you talking about? I can’t see.”

But Shawn can. At least, he can see the outline. Of the chair that’s still moving even though that shouldn’t be possible in a room that’s supposed to be empty for three years. Unless there’s something here in this loft with them…

A finger pokes his arm. “Shawn, what’s going on?”

“Shh.”

“Is it a zombie?”

Discreetly, Shawn trods on his foot.

“Fucking ow. Fine, I get your point.” Grunts and more shuffling next to him as Dave rubs his sneakered foot on the ground. Come on. Shawn hadn’t stepped on him hard or anything. “Where is it?”

I don't know.

His eyes sweep over the chair, takes a cautious step forward, vision darting around on either side of the table. He curses the dark, his inability to see at least two feet before him. Nightvision would’ve been so useful right now. Honestly, it would be useful 90 percent of the time in the world they’re living in.

Everything is still, quiet, too quiet. Nothing moves. Not even the papers on the ground. The only sounds are their breathing and the creaks from below and above them.

“Go back down,” Shawn whispers out of the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t like this. Something isn’t right.

“But the map—”

“Fuck the map. Do you want your brains to be eaten?”

They stumble back, feeling their way in the dark, Shawn’s shoe teetering over the edge of the trapdoor. How many feet is it from here to the main office? Could they jump? He gives the office chair another nervous look. If there’s a zombie here—and there certainly is—where could it be?

“Shit!” More fumbling from Dave’s side. Before Shawn can ask what’s wrong, a blinding white light shines in his eyes; he reels back, squinting. “Shit, shit, the flashlight just randomly turned on!”

The white light, like a beacon in the thick darkness, swings around wildly as Dave tries frantically to turn it off, pressing at his phone. In short bursts, Shawn gets a glimpse of the room they’re in; the outlines giving way to reality, adding flesh to their silhouettes; the table is mahogany and dented, the office chair has fluff sticking out of it, the cabinets are marred with more bloodied handprints, papers strewn about like fallen snow. 

The beacon of white light flashes upward to the beamed ceiling and Shawn’s eyes follow it. His breath catches.

There it is. On the ceiling, perched on one of the beams. He only sees patches of it stained bright by the light. But one thing he can see clearly: it’s staring right at them.

Maybe zombies do have night vision. He’s going to need to research that. After they make it out of here alive.

“Step back really slowly,” Shawn hisses, hardly moving his mouth.

From the corner of one eye, he sees Dave respond with a look that, in the glaring light, says: what the fuck are you on about?

He signals upward with his eyes. After a second, Dave follows them and his own widen impossibly wide, the white of the irises stretching in shock and horror. A gasp escapes.

The zombie drops down, flailing.

Shawn pushes Dave forward or diagonal or both, his sense of direction skewed from the unbalanced light and dark; just any direction that isn’t toward the zombie currently trying to claw him to shreds as he holds it back at bay with his ax.

The thing is strong though. Its eyes bear down on him, merciless, sharp nails dig into his arms. Shawn’s knees buckle. Slowly he’s pushed backward until it looks like he’s doing the limbo, hovering over the trapdoor opening with a crazy zombie—who looks so dilapidated that he can’t figure out who it might have been previously—centimeters from biting his neck.

No, not happening!

Adrenaline courses through him and with great effort that leaves his arms feeling like rubber, Shawn heaves the deadie away onto the ground.

There’s a ruckus coming from the table. He probably pushed Dave in that direction. But he can’t see a thing except the outline of the zombie gargling at him—Dave’s flashlight is over by the table with the man himself. The flickers of light cast shadows against wooden walls, but that’s no help to Shawn. On his side, it’s dark again.

The zombie lunges again, its body falls on Shawn’s legs, driving them both to the floor. Something in his shoulder gives and long shoots of agony race up and down his left arm. He grits his teeth. The pain makes his vision swim in and out. Blackness. Then the zombie’s face, bones stark on its face, flesh torn away. Than blackness again. Than the zombie. His arm is numb, it hurts to move it. But he needs to, he has to kill this thing before it bites him. Even though it’s torture—fire in his bones, his teeth hurting from gritting them so hard—he has to move.

Somehow he manages it. He can’t say how, he’s only aware of the firehot pain and the spotty vision, but somehow, he twists the handle of his ax and hits the blade against the zombie’s jaw. Half of it shears off, but it isn’t deterred, crawling back to its knees and dragging itself forward, snapping at his ankles as he scoots back and readies his ax for a second round.

His shoulder protests. He mentally tells it to shut up.

The zombie darts forward in a sudden burst of speed. He slams it down with his ax again, but the weight of the weapon and his already-exhausted state leave his hits weaker, hardly impacting the zombie despite its skull partially cleaved in. 

When it crawls to him a third time, at the same moment, a shape comes flying from the side of Shawn’s vision and smacks against the zombie’s head, sending it sprawling to the ground. The object thunks to the ground, revealing itself in the weak light to be a heavy-looking tome, hurled from where the table is.

Seizing the opening, Shawn leaps to his feet, grabbing his fallen ax as he goes. He’s at the trapdoor when he remembers and turns to where he recalls the table is.

Prioritizing yourself is great, but one good turn deserves another.

(The thought reverberates in his mind in a voice that sounds awfully like Dave’s. He pushes it away with the intention of never thinking about it again. Not important.)

“That thing isn’t going to play dead for long!” he all but shouts. Ha, was that a pun? It sounded like one.

“Wait, wait!” Dave scrambles, snatching several papers and a file before dashing to the trapdoor, giving the twitching zombie as wide of a berth as he can in the small room.

They slip and slide down the ladder, and dash madly to the door. At the doorway of the Council office, Shawn skids to a halt, Dave colliding into his back.

“What the heck—”

“Shh!”

A ringing of moans and garbled grunts resound from down the stairwell. Next to him, Dave’s fingers tighten on his acquired papers.

“How do we get out?”

From above, there are thumping noises, the sounds of something dragging itself across the floor. They’re trapped from both ends. Unless…

Shawn’s eyes fall on the window with its cracked glass.

A plan gradually forms. An insane one, but that's how he rolls anyway.

“I got an idea.”

Dave follows his gaze and shakes his head, slowly at first growing quicker and more frantic.

“No, no, no way. We are not jumping out a fucking window.”

“No, we’re not.” If his hunch is correct—and he’s more than fifty percent sure it is—they won’t need to. There will already be a way of escape—a method as old as time—situated for them. He crosses the room, wrenches open the window, and peer out with a relieved laugh.

“We’re going to slide down that,” he nods at the pipe directly next to their window and traveling all the way down to the bottom.

Dave sticks his head out too, pushing Shawn to the side. His face pales more.

“Are you kidding me?!”

“No time to kid around.” With that, Shawn vaults out the window, snagging ahold of the pipe, feeling it creak under his weight but holding strong even as his shoulder gives another painful twinge. He groans lowly.

Dave’s head cranes sideways to see him better, looking more than freaked out. “You okay?”

“Never been better.” Okay, let’s do this.

Compartmentalizing emotions is his forte, which is what he does now with the pain in his shoulder in order to better focus on the task at hand. He slides down the pipe, relaxing his stance and letting gravity take over, like sliding down a fireman’s pole. In no time, his feet hit the ground and, after a second to regain his balance on solid ground, he throws his head back to look at Dave’s head still hanging out the window.

“See? Easy as that!”

Dave turns back to eye the pipe; Shawn doesn’t need to see his expression to know that it’s probably twisted in disgust as he takes note of the grime and dirt on the pipe.

“Um, how long ago has this thing been last washed exactly? Do they have pipe cleaning services during the apocalypse?”

“Dude, you can get some clean pants later!” Shawn calls. “This is life or death!”

From here, he can see Dave’s shoulders tense as he steels himself. A crash comes from somewhere in the building, jolting him and sending him flying to the pipe in a wild jump, wrapping his arms around it in a koala-hug. 

“Now slide down!” Shawn encourages.

Slowly, carefully, painstakingly, Dave does. It feels like hours, but finally, he touches down beside Shawn, hopping from one foot to the other as he inspects his dirtied pants with a grimace.

“Oh god, oh my fucking god, this is fine, I’m totally fine,” he mutters as Shawn grabs his wrist and leads him around the City Hall, taking the long—but safer—route from behind to get to the truck.

They creep up the side of the building, ducking from one alley to the next, and poke their heads around the corner. Silently, they take in the zombies circling their truck, and the gaggle crowding the main doors of the City Hall.

“We’re really having a day today, huh?” says Shawn.

Dave snorts shakily. “You can say that again.”

Unfortunately, making it to the truck is the only plan they’ve got. Shawn goes first, flanking the right side where there are more deadies; every step he takes sends a jarring pain up to his shoulder, but at that point, he’s running so fast and focused only on the zombies slowly looking up at them that the pain’s turned to numbness. Definitely not a good thing, but neither is getting eaten. Matter of fact, getting eaten is worse. He’ll take a bad shoulder over that any day.

Dave slides into the truck through the drivers side. Shawn takes down the four zombies mingling by the left tires and climbs in through the passengers side. Once inside, they switch spots and Shawn spurs the truck into motion as the rest of the crowd began to notice there are a couple of stray humans getting away.

Sadly, for them, they only had time to groan pathetically before Shawn’s speeding the truck down the road, away from the City Hall building, with clouds of dust swirling in his wake. Dave’s on his knees, twisted around, watching the back window of the truck, saying “go, go, go!” to which Shawn, leaning forward, hands clenched on the wheel, shoulder screaming in protest, says “I’m going, I’m going!”

Only when the City Hall is a distant speck behind them did Dave relax and twist back around to face the front. “We made it!”

Shawn sighs, leaning back in his seat, rubbing his shoulder absentmindedly.

Dave’s eyes track the movement. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, just a little stiffness.” He flexes his shoulder experimentally. It twinges and he holds back a wince—just barely—and gives Dave a grin that’s feels like more of a grimace. “See? It’s fine.”

Dave’s expression doesn’t change.

“Listen, I’ll let you know if it’s not.” No, he won’t. “Anyway,” he nods at the stack of papers on Dave’s lap. “Any maps in there?”

That diverts Dave’s attention. He sifts through the papers, pulling out one after the other. Shawn alternates between looking at the road and watching Dave’s brows furrow more and more with every paper he tosses aside.

“No. No. No—wait, a geographical volcano discussion? Huh. No, no. This one’s weird, it’s taking about the mayor’s birthday, why is that here? No, nope, not even close.”

Eventually, the slew of negatories starts to go in one ear and out the other, and Shawn ends up focusing more on the road than the papers, tuning out the shuffling of papers and files, until he turns a corner and almost crashes due to Dave’s victorious shout.

“A map! I found one—ah.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Shawn cranes his neck to look at the map Dave’s poring over. He notices the problem instantly.

Dave’s holding a map, all right. Half of a map.

For a long moment, all they do is blink stupidly at it. Then Dave groans loudly. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“Hey, look,” Shawn points. “The half we have shows eastern and northern Canada. Up until Manitoba and Nunavut. We can still use it.”

“To go west?”

Shawn shrugs. “I guess. That’s the plan, isn’t it?”

No, it’s not. Because they never made a plan for this. They never even discussed it, during the five hours in the truck from Ottawa to Toronto or the one month spent together in Shawn’s bunker. Dave’s going west and probably assumes Shawn would go west too, same as where he’s going: the group bunker in British Columbia. Allegedly the safest and most secure in western Canada. Where else would Shawn go? He doesn’t know. But staying in a bunker is safest, he doesn't want to stay on the surface more than is needed. And safe and secure is exactly what he wants for a bunker.

The only problem is he’s not exactly the best at living in group bunkers. Or just groups in general. But he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

“Yeah,” he says. “Going west. To whatever bunker you said your girl is at.”

Maybe he imagines it but Dave’s shoulders relax minutely at that.

“Yeah. Yeah, cool, great. Uh, one problem: we don’t have the other half of the map.”

That is a problem and a pretty big one too. “We could look at another town’s city hall for an intact one?” he suggests, though it’s half-hearted. Toronto’s City Hall’s scarred him enough.

Dave doesn’t look enthused about the idea either. “I mean, I could draw the rest,” he says doubtfully. “Just a light sketch. It could work.”

“I can help here and there, kind of. I’m decent at geography.”

Dave tilts his head at him. “Then why are we looking for a map if you’re decent at geography?”

“I said I’m good at geography,” responds Shawn, emphasizing the word. “Not navigating unfamiliar terrain with no referral.”

Dave raises his hands. “Okay, okay. Well, I’m no artist or geography expert, but I can use google maps for reference. Just so we have something to go off on.”

“Didn’t you say like an hour ago that we shouldn’t use our phones too much?”

“I’m using it only to draw the other half of the map, smartass.”

Shawn scrubs a hand down his face. Tiredness weighs down on him, his shoulder is still being a pain, and he still hasn’t eaten breakfast. “Fine, yeah, sounds great.” Then, he adds, throwing a grateful look toward the passenger side: “Thanks for the assist back there, by the way. With the book.”

Dave’s shoulders rise up and down, already mostly focused on the half-map. “What? Oh yeah, no problem. That thing was, like, feral. It was freaking me out.”

A hysterical snicker escapes him. “All zombies freak you out, man.”

“Hey, no need to call me out like that! And for good reason too—they’re disgusting.”

Shawn’s still snorting in fits of laughter, Dave’s affronted look heightening when he shows no sign of stopping. He supposes there’s one thing good about having a traveling companion: he doesn’t feel as weary anymore. Sure, the tiredness is still there and he’s hungry as fuck, but it’s like his chest lightens in time with the sun rising over the horizon.

Maybe he’s finally losing it.

“I’m going to need some pens,” Dave says once they’ve calmed down. “And pencils. A ruler too. And paper, obviously. Do you think that grocery store we passed will have those?”

“Actually,” Shawn replies, turning the curb out of the hub of Toronto. “Change of plans. Hows about we stop for supplies in another town? I’m never setting foot in Toronto ever again.”

A small smile cracks Dave’s face, and maybe it is the hysteria or the lack of sleep or the hunger or Shawn’s insanity finally rearing its head, but he thinks—just fleetingly, so quickly that his brain doesn’t grasp it fully before it’s gone—that it’s just as light as the sunrise they’re driving into.

“I can get behind that,” he says. “I’ve had enough of Toronto.”

Chapter Text

LOOK OUT FOR 'NUMERO UNO':

As mentioned in the previous chapter, prioritizing yourself takes, ironically, extreme priority—yes ha ha, laugh it off at the unintentional joke. 

Prioritizing oneself means gathering survival supplies for you mainly, if only, over anyone else. It’s keeping your head in the game to survive the dangerous terrain. Priority is a broad term, particularly in this context. 

Which is why I added on this chapter; an add-on to the previous: looking for number one. Numero uno. Numer jeden.

That’s pretty self-explanatory. Unlike the broad generality of what constitutes as a priority, looking out for number one—which should always be yourself—really has no other hidden meaning behind it. It’s no excuse either. Biggest rule—other than getting close to someone who could potentially lead you straight into a zombie attack—to survive the apocalypse is always look out for numero uno: yourself.

Later in this chapter, I will go over the basics and number of ways you can ascertain your safety in this harsh world. 

It’s always going to be yourself. You can’t go anywhere, do anything without thinking for yourself in this harsh world.

(edit: I’ve learned that there are some exceptions to what is considered ‘number one’ to a person; it could be yourself, it should be that, but if you care for someone to such a degree that you’d place them as number one over you, well, that’s dangerous and—)

“Ma?”

Elean Novak quickly crosses out the last part of the chapter she’s writing as her ten-year-old trots into the common area of their bunker. He plops down next to her on the couch with all the grace of a young child filled with curiosity—which is none.

“What’re you doing, Ma?”

“What does it look like, dziecko,” she replies, bopping Shawn’s nose. “I’m writing another chapter.”

Shawn’s eyes widen. “The apoc—apola—” he frowns. “I still can’t say it!”

She laughs—it’s so easy to when her son looks so adorable with that frustrated pout. Just as easy as it is writing the survival guide. “Apocalypse,” she says slowly, enunciating the word.

He nods vigorously. “That!”

“Yes, I’m working on the survival guide.”

If possible, Shawn’s eyes widen more. “Awesome,” he breathes out.

A warm feeling settles in Elean’s chest at the wondrous look in his eyes. It’s not often she sees an expression like that directed at her. Suddenly overcome with fondness, she reaches over and ruffles his hair, pulling him close to her in the process. He squirms, per usual, before eventually settling in by her side, peering over her side at the scrawled words.

“Why don’t you type it out?”

She stifles a sigh and answers patiently—the same question and answer they’ve gone through about ten times now. “Because it’s more authentic this way, baby. Written out with pen and ink on pieces of paper, it feels more real, doesn’t it?”

Shawn’s pout-frown is back again as he surveys the strew of papers. “I guess.”

She rests her cheek on the top of his head. His hair is long, she makes a mental note to get it cut—Shawn doesn’t like his hair long like that. One of the things he wants to change about himself.

For a moment, they stay like that, in each other’s embrace, peaceful and quiet without judgment about anything.

Then Shawn asks, “what’s the chapter about?”

“Looking out for number one.”

“But isn’t that the same as the last one?”

“No, dear, looking out for number one is more specific,” she explains patiently. “It gives no room for people to mess up. It’s simple; look out for yourself, you’re number one.”

She tries not to think about the crossed-out section of the chapter. She hopes, when Shawn is older, he won’t read too closely into it.

Ironically, Shawn forces her to think about it with his next question: “when we’re in an apocalypse, mama, will you look out for me?”

Innocently inquired. Elean doesn’t know what she had been expecting, but she needn’t have worried her head about it; the answer is out of her before she realizes she’s saying anything at all.

“Of course, Shawn. You’re my numero uno.”

And right then she comes to the realization that it’s true; somehow, somewhere along the way, her perception of ‘number one’ had changed. It’s no longer about herself. Maybe that’s why, subconsciously, she’d been writing the part she had hastily crossed-out.

She messed up being a good co-worker, she messed up being a good wife. She’s not going to mess up on being a good mother.

Shawn giggles, snorts. “You can’t say that.”

“Say what?”

“Numero uno.” His mangled Spanish is just as bad as her halting one, but she doesn't mention it, watching him in amusement.

“And why not?”

“Because only papa can say it right. Rolls his r’s, does the thing with the 'm', and says it with the accent.”

“Oh really?” she pokes his side and he yelps. “Only Papa can say it right, huh?”

“Yes!” he shout-laughs, trying to scramble away from the impromptu tickle-attack.

“Well can Papa do this? And this?” she continues poking him, digging her fingers into his side, making him laugh until he’s gasping for breath. Then he retaliates—because, of course he does, he’s her son, after all—by darting his small fingers in her sides. 

Their somewhat serious conversation dissolves into a tickle-fight right there in the middle of the bunker, laughter coating the air, and papers for surviving the future apocalypse cast about, the written words basking in the moment of happiness as authentic as Elean’s intentions.

[***]

Shawn doesn’t know how long he’s been driving. (After the four-hour-mark, he stopped keeping track.) All he’s aware of is that the burning pain in his shoulder seems to have multiplied during that time.

They stopped at a nondescript town— Hamilton, Dave says, frowning at the half-map in his hands—for a quick breakfast (and bathroom) break. Shawn was content to keep on driving—it was best to stay on the go, escape potential hordes, especially after the mayhem in Toronto—but Dave had staunchly refused.

“You’re no good driving like an unhinged maniac without any food in your stomach,” he told Shawn, jabbing a finger in his direction. He probably would’ve poked Shawn if not for the grime on his vest. “Eat! I’m starving too.”

So they ate, in a ratty burger joint where they snagged some buns and meat in the freezer of the kitchens that miraculously hadn’t gone bad, darting back to the truck before they caught the attention of any shufflers. Shawn didn’t dare think about how easy it had been for Dave to convince him to stop. It was because of the hunger pangs. What else could it be anyway? 

Focusing solely on the food, it was easy to push any perplexing overthinking out of his mind. They both ate like ravished hounds, even someone more refined as Dave, who’d looked horrified when Shawn pointed it out with a smidge of amusement. (Only for a second, though, before continuing to gobble up his improvised burger.)

“How’s your shoulder?” Dave had asked once they were done, and set off once again on the road.

Shawn had given a noncommittal hum. “Fine, obviously. Relax, dude. Get some rest or something.”

It was not fine, and it’s currently not fine either. But Dave only gave him one scrutinizing look before shrugging and curling up against the truck window, watching the trees flash by. Shawn is an expert at hiding—not just physically but mentally too, and, in this case, the last thing he wants the other man to find out is the consistent searing pain that had overtaken his shoulder from the moment that damned zombie shoved him in Toronto’s City Hall.

A part of him wanted Dave to realize, ironically. He wanted him to press, to insist they rest or that he could drive instead (even though there’s no way in hell Shawn would let him; this is his beloved truck), to say something else along the lines of what he had back miles behind when they were scouring for a map in the dark office of the City Hall.

Companion.

But Shawn couldn’t blame Dave. There’s no reason to. They’ve only known each other for about a month and a half and, among those weeks, the two hardly know much about the other personally. They were survivors in a ravaging apocalypse going out to the same destination, that’s the only thing Shawn knows about Dave (as well as Dave’s crazy desire to be a lovestruck knightly fool), and that’s the only thing Dave knows about Shawn.

(Memories push forward, rebuttling: shallow breathing, his bunker swaying in his vision, the noises of the undead above the earth, Dave’s hands on his shoulders, grounding him; wide brown eyes watching from inside the truck as Shawn hacked at the damn walkers outside his bunker with nothing and everything to lose, expelling his own version of a silent scream as they left his bunker behind, the epitome of his ma and his lives; eyes that watched him apprehensively, but with something else too: something knowing.)

Shawn’s hands tighten on the wheel. 

More or less the only thing, he amends.

Even so, unsaid understandings or not, Shawn’s instinct above all is to hide. He isn’t a hero, that’s already established (yet his current situation proves the opposite and, no, he’s not ready to analyze that). All he wants to do is survive. Why face a whole horde like a moron when you can hide away and prolong your life another couple of years?

In the physical aspect, this concept works splendidly. Mentally? Not so much.

Shawn sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. His shoulder twinges—by his logic, after more than four hours of straight-driving, it really shouldn’t be hurting as much, he should be used to the consistent burning. The fact that he isn’t should be concerning and it is, but he’s got bigger problems on his plate.

Later, he vows. I’ll see to it later.

He hopes he actually sticks to it. Letting an injury fester in the middle of what’s probably the road trip of his life isn’t the smartest idea. Dave would’ve said something all medical and shit, stuff that Shawn wouldn’t have given a second glance about, but something about hearing it from Dave made him pause. Just a bit.

Huh.

Shawn chances a glance at the passenger side of the truck. The only signs of life from Dave being the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders. His eyes are closed, head smushed against the window and his body contorted in a way that Shawn knows can’t be comfortable. Not like he can do anything about that. But as he looks at him, something swells in his chest, light and airy. When he sleeps, the faint signs of worry by his eyes smoothen; he looks even more removed from the sort of lifestyle they're in now. Has Shawn ever looked like that when he sleeps? Probably not, the dangers of the undead plague him in sleep as well as the waking world. But watching Dave's peaceful expression reminds him of when he would come across his mother passed out on the couch or at their bunker, tranquil and relaxed, as though her troubles vanish the second it's lights out for her.

He’s glad to have Dave by his side, facing this shitshow with him, despite not knowing the first thing about surviving the apocalypse. Surprisingly, it lifts some of his own troubles in the same way sleep helps many.

Is this what having a friend feels like?

The last friend Shawn had was Monty and, truth be told, there was something distinctly different between the two. The fact that Shawn had left Monty for dead basically while he tried to do the exact opposite for Dave is enough of an indicator.

The side of him that also told him to follow his apocalypse survival guidebook reasons that it could be due to the circumstances, perhaps it is due to growth as a person—morals and such. The situation surrounding Monty’s death was unexpected; it was hardly a year since the apocalypse started, Shawn was fresh out of the grief of his mother’s death, he was in the mood to do something foolish—like drinking out in the open. The horde had taken them by surprise, Shawn had reacted the only way his grief-addled mind could. He followed his instincts; he ran.

This time was different. He had been the one to challenge the horde ready to rip Dave apart. He had been the one to take everyone in that damn situation—including himself—by surprise. He wasn’t addled by grief, yet he still ended up doing something foolish.

It’s no wonder his mother always advised him to place his head over his heart. This feelings stuff is confusing as shit.

Shawn’s shoulder throbs again, as though in agreement.

Strong social bonds don’t belong in this kind of ruined apocalyptic world—he knows from experience. Sooner or later, something will happen and he’s going to have to run on his own again. 

But this time there’s a curveball. Kolega. It had slipped out of his mouth in the City Hall during a moment of camaraderie. Naturally, someone like Dave, who’s not so experienced with zombie survival, would take it in the last possible way Shawn intended him to—an offer of friendship—and leave Shawn second-guessing.

Lost in his thoughts, Shawn fails to notice the shape in the middle of the road until the truck is nearly on top of it.

“Shit!” He slams on the brakes.

The wheels of the truck screech so loudly it’s a wonder no walkers popped their heads around to see what’s up. Shawn leans forward, pressing down hard on the brakes until, finally, finally, the truck stops a hairsbreadth away from whatever is lying on the road. He squints. The glass is so grimy and the sky so foggy, despite being an inch from whatever the hell it is, he can't catch a proper glimpse.

The abrupt jolt must have obviously awakened Dave for he was sitting up, one hand propped on the dash to catch himself, grumbling incoherently.

“What the fuck was that?” he finally asks. His hair sticks up on one side like a startled rooster, and Shawn resists the inane urge to snicker. He has the slightest feeling his traveling companion won’t appreciate the gesture.

Instead, he shrugs. “Something on the road. I—” he stops himself before he can blunder on and say something stupid like I was distracted.

Because Shawn doesn’t get distracted, especially over matters so dumb. The apocalypse doesn’t have time for distractions. Look out for numero uno. Himself.

But Dave appears not to have noticed his awkward trail-off. He leans forward, attempting to peer out the windshield at the motionless shape, wrinkling his nose at the state of the windshield. Shawn resists another urge, this time to roll his eyes—he's really out here doing God's work.

“You think it’s…one of those…you know…”

“Zombies?” Shawn offers. It’s funny, how sometimes the other man can accept the undead as a part of their lives, but most often, he cannot even say the word aloud. Shawn’s already accepted this fate way long back—even before the actual apocalypse.

Dave nods, looking queasy.

“Dunno, man. Gonna have to check and find out.”

From the look on Dave’s face, it’s obvious that’s the absolute last thing he wants to do. Honestly, it’s the last thing Shawn wants to do too—didn’t he just motivate himself about looking out for himself five seconds ago?—but he reasons that if they pass whatever the fuck is on the road without checking if it’s actually dead, there’s a fifty-fifty chance they could get attacked, and Shawn’s shoulder is still being a bitch.

“Stay here,” he mutters.

Dave watches wide-eyed as Shawn exits the truck without waiting for a response.

Let’s get this over with.

Gripping his crossbow, Shawn creeps down the road, aware of how quiet it is outside. The road is deserted save for scraps of paper and wayward grocery bags; not even a shuffler in sight.

Odd.

Shawn runs a mental map as he moves closer, figuring out where exactly they’re at—they’d left Hamilton several miles ago, so they must be close to the borders of Lake Ontario and Lake Superior.

Shawn hadn’t been lying when he told Dave he harbored an interest in geography. When you’re training to survive the impending apocalypse, one must always know their location and surroundings. Another something his mother drilled into him—probably also another chapter in his apocalypse survival guidebook too.

Over time, the add-on interest in geography just for his training turned into genuine interest in the subject just for how it is. He likes comparing and contrasting the various topographies of not just the country but around the world. It made him feel, at the same time, small yet part of something.

It was a curious feeling, at first, but he found he liked it.

However, not even his geographical knowledge allows him to pinpoint where exactly they’re at. He can’t even see the bordering lakes, if they had been driving in that direction. All he knows is that the quiet is much too unsettling—aren’t all the towns plagued with zombies?—he wants to get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

When he finally reaches the figure, he claps a hand over his nose.

The stench is mortifying. And that’s saying something considering he’s dealt with zombies for the past three years, and, more mundanely, there have been times when Shawn hasn’t showered for weeks. Covering his nose tighter with his sleeve, he edges around the carcass.

Legs akimbo as though it had been mid-jump when it was felled, eyes open and glassy—not zombified, just in the grips of regular death; its hide must have been lush and stunning, but is now matted with blood and other unidentifiable substances. Flies buzz around its body, and the bite marks that look suspiciously humanistic inform Shawn that the dead deer in front of him has been dead for quite some time, and whatever—or whoever—had caused it was of the undead variety.

Slowly, Shawn backs away, all too aware of how quiet it is; not like he hadn’t been before, but seeing that dead deer—imagining him and Dave in a similar situation, eaten alive—spurs his paranoia. His crossbow is hefted up to his shoulder, swinging slow but steady, focus narrowing on his surroundings, as he carefully backs away toward the truck.

Coming out had been a bad idea. Seeing that dead animal is even worse. He may not believe in shit like that, but he can’t help thinking it’s almost like a bad omen.

By the time he clambers into the drivers seat, slamming the door shut, he’s heaving for breath as though he had run a marathon, and his palms are sweaty.

“Gotta go,” is all he says in response to Dave’s confused exclamation before flooring the gas, curving a wide berth around the dead carcass to get to the other side.

“What’s wrong—” Dave abruptly cuts off, and Shawn sees, out of the corner of his eye, the other man watching the mutilated, rotting animal carcass with wide eyes. He looks vaguely sick, there’s even a greenish tinge to his complexion, although Shawn notes that he continues staring even though he must want to look away. 

Before he can stop himself—and to get Dave to turn the fuck away before he spewed his meager breakfast all over the window—Shawn barks out, “don’t puke in my truck, dude!”

Because, you know, this truck is pretty damn special to him. If he can hold his lunch after getting up close and personal with that thing, so can Dave.

(Then again, comparing him to someone like Dave for this kind of situation might not be the best train of thought.)

Thankfully, that jolts Dave back to reality. He blinks, then whips his head around, looking at Shawn reproachfully—and with a hint of embarrassment, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t be.

“I wasn't going to! I was just..." he hesitates, ultimately decides whatever he's thinking isn't worth elaborating. "You should’ve warned me about that… disgusting sight. If I puked, it would be all on you.”

Seriously? “Sorry for not taking the time to inform you when I was getting our arses the hell out of there so you wouldn’t have to see that shit longer than necessary.”

The tension in the truck cranks up a notch—several, actually. Likely because of the lack of food in their bodies, the exhaustion weighing down on them, and the fact that they still haven’t found a suitable store that offered them sustainable office supplies so they can attempt to draw the rest of their map. Adding onto the fact that Dave’s started scratching at his sullied pants, passive-aggressively signaling that a cleaner pair is in order while probably not even realizing he's doing it; seeing that carcass was like the final straw that broke the camel’s back—at least for Shawn. From the furrowed brows, it looks like Dave feels the same way.

He’s proven correct when Dave shakes his head, pausing, then mumbles something under his breath, like saying it any louder would blow up the world.

Shawn still wants to hear; the world was already as blown up as can be, what’s a little more chaos. (Apparently, he gets quite unrestrained when he’s deprived; duly noted.) “What?” he asks.

Dave clears his throat. “It, uh. It’s stupid, but…kinda seems like a sign, doesn’t it?”

Shawn doesn’t reply, doesn't say that he'd been thinking exactly the same back there. Acknowledging Dave voicing the same thoughts aloud in the stiff air seems almost like banging a gavel with finality.

As though realizing something along the same lines, Dave doesn’t say any more, instead curling more into himself and resting his head back against the headrest. His hair is mussed and dirty, both from the zombie attacks and his nap; his neck is streaked with odd bits of grime and dust from the City Hall, and, of course, his pants aren’t the cleanest.

Maybe a change of clothes would help the guy out of his funk. Shawn resolves to find a shopping complex that, in the past, would’ve sold clothes and supplies. Two-in-one. They both win in the end.

But for now…

Shawn reaches back, groping unseeingly for his pack. Dave watches his movements bewilderedly.

“What—?”

“Aha! Knew I packed an extra pair!” With some tugging and impressive one-handed steering, Shawn tugs out a mostly clean pair of cargo pants. He tosses them to Dave, the other man catching it instinctively. “There. So you can stop griping about your pants. Stop gaping at me, dude, don’t worry, it’s clean enough, and it’s temporary—just until we find a good store.”

Dave’s incredulous expression shifts into skepticism when he examines the pants. “Clean enough?”

“Just wear the damn pants, man.”

“Uh.” Shawn looks at the significant lack of relief in Dave’s tone, and sees him darting his eyes around the truck. “Not that I’m averse to changing out of dirty clothing, but where can I—?”

“The back, dude, come on. Just climb over your seat to the back and change.”

“Right.” An awkward chuckle slips that has Shawn eyeing him confusedly. “Yeah, of course. I just didnt know—let me just do that right now.”

Weird, Shawn thinks, as Dave brushes past him. He’d have thought Dave, being the apparent normal one in their duo, won’t have cared about changing in front of traveling companions, but he’s acting like he’d been told to face a zombie. Shawn chalks it up to stress; they’re all going through it, after all.

Meanwhile, Dave wedged his frame in the small gap between the front and back sides of the truck—somewhat shoving Shawn into the driver’s window in the process—and drops into the back with a yelp and thump.

“Take it easy,” Shawn calls. And then because he can’t resist: “I know getting clean clothes is like a high for you, but maybe chill—”

“Oh shut up!”

The easy chuckles that escape Shawn leave him momentarily stunned; he hasn’t laughed like that in ages, this whole apocalypse spiel has left him wired up and tense like a boomerang. But here, in his truck, with Dave just behind his seat changing, it’s the loosest he’s felt in a long time. Granted, it’s not all that loose, but definitely more so than he had been before that fated supply run that changed everything.

“Done.” Dave heaves himself back over the seat and tumbles into the passenger side. Shawn’s cargo pants are slightly loose on him, bunched up at his hips by the cord to keep them in place. He nods at Shawn, contrite, looking looser too. “Thanks, man.”

Shawn nods, hardly listening. They’ve just passed a sign, cracked with bullet holes for whatever reason, and he makes the turn for the exit immediately.

“Don’t mention it,” he says. “Besides, you’ll get your clean pair of pants soon enough. We’re heading into Sudbury.”

Greater Sudbury is a coastal city and as soon as they take the exit, the first thing Shawn notices is the bordering Lake Superior and its murky waters. Perhaps sometime long before the world went to shit, the waters were clean and blue, but now they’re dark—filled with all sorts of dangerous substances from bacteria to zombie blood to probably literal bodies. The scene is discouraging, but they really need supplies in order to actually make progress traveling to the west, and Shawn had visited Sudbury a couple of times with his ma. He isn’t an expert on the place by all means, especially in its deprecated apocalyptic state, but it’s better than nothing.

After some aimless driving, he parallel-parks into a deserted row of small shops. The asphalt is cracked, the parking meters are stained and dripping with some sort of viscus, and Shawn’s eyes are back to tracking the area for signs of threat. Being by a large body of water, it makes sense that Greater Sudbury isn’t as zombie-populated as Toronto, but it still leaves him waiting for the other shoe to drop. Shouldn’t the place have some shufflers?

(He’s not complaining, don’t get him wrong; but this sort of lifestyle has ingrained it in him that if there are no visible zombies around, you need to be more cautious.)

“Shawn?”

“Yeah, all good,” Shawn nods, refocusing on Dave’s voice, sees the thinly veiled concern lurking beneath his expectant face. “Okay, so, uh, I remember there’s a small clothing store here…yeah, it’s right there, in front of you. There’s a grocery store two stores down from it; maybe we should head there first, then—”

“You’re kidding, right? Clothes first, dude. I’m sticky with whatever crap was in that City Hall.”

“Ugh!” Shawn groans, watching as Dave hops out of the truck and turns back impatiently, tapping his fingers lightly on the doorframe. Apparently, the notion of clean clothes temporarily must have kept his anxieties at bay since he's hanging around a deserted zombified street like he’s on a fucking outing. Idiot, Shawn thinks, and is stunned once more to find that it’s a lot fonder than it had been two days ago. This friendship thing is more trouble than it's worth.

A pointed clearing of the throat makes him huff.

“Keep your head on, I’m coming. Though I still think getting food and supplies are more important…”

“You won’t know cleanliness even if it’s staring right at you stark-naked.”

“Damn, sometimes I forget you have a fiery streak in you all locked up.”

“Excuse me? The rest of us can’t outright show our shit by slashing down those undead weirdos.”

Their bantering takes a temporary pause upon reaching the store, and Dave spends over an hour—a fucking hour— deciding which clothes to get. It takes Shawn hanging the threat in the air that the longer they linger the more zombies they’ll attract to get him to move along—but not without shoving two large bags worth of clothing, and shoving a white sweater in Shawn’s arms, demanding him to change too.

Shawn doesn’t know why, but he follows with only half-hearted complaints. The way Dave seems to actually give a fuck about him, even if it’s something superficial like his appearance, makes Shawn’s chest warm. He hasn’t had someone care about the shit he does in so long, he had nearly forgotten what it feels like.

When he returns from the changing rooms and they're ready to leave, he notices a crucial detail: Dave’s still wearing Shawn's pants.

“They’re comfy. And I’m saving these for later use. God knows we’ll need them,” Dave explains, and that had been that. The warm feeling doesn’t lessen though, considering Dave’s normally so picky about cleanliness. Maybe Shawn’s pants aren’t as dirty as Dave initially thought they were. It’s a nice thought to rub in Dave’s face about at a later time—see? He is capable of looking after himself!

After the clothing store, it’s time for grocery shopping. By now, the sun has started to descend and the sky tinges with various, stunning colors. He can’t admire the sunset now, however; after-dark means more shufflers, and when he tells Dave this, the other man nervously eyes the suspiciously calm streets.

“We’ll split it up,” he decides as they stand just inside the entrance of the store, taking in the dark interior with its flickering fluorescent lights and cracked floor. “Take either end of the store and meet up in the middle.”

And, okay, Shawn and every other person and their fucking moms know that splitting up in the middle of an apocalypse when it’s close to sunset is a terrible idea. Every horror movie and Scooby-Doo show explains that quite clearly.

Unfortunately, it’s also the only idea they’ve got.

“Fine,” he says reluctantly. “But if you see the slightest thing off, holler. Or, here—” he reaches out, beckoning at Dave’s pocket until the other man gets the memo and pulls out his phone. Shawn types out his number and saves it in Dave’s contacts. “There. Less obvious way to alert each other if there’s danger.”

“We’re not supposed to use our phones though?” Dave argues, taking back the phone, sparing a glance at Shawn’s number. The argument is feeble compared to the way he goes back to apprehensively looking around the store.

“We agreed not to use them all the time,” Shawn reminds him. “Pretty sure this constitutes as an emergency.”

“Does your phone even have text?” Dave retorts, picking up a basket. “It’s, like, ancient. Dinosaur times, even.”

“First my truck, now my phone. Lay off, dude!” But when they part ways to conquer their sides of the store, both wear smiles that border on good-natured and the mood is light.

Though it dissipates slowly the farther Shawn scours the store, replaced with the laser-focus that’s kept him alive for so long. He drops some canned soup—the number one savior in this cruel world, he can make so many things with soup—into his basket and, when he strides into the next aisle and sees the toppled packets of instant ramen on the floor and shelves, goes fucking haywire, swiping as many as he possibly can—which is basically all of them—into the basket.

What’s better? Not a single zombie interrupts his hoarding spree.

All in all, he feels pretty proud of his purchases and how the endeavor went, but when he and Dave meet up in the middle, the other man gapes at Shawn’s basket.

“Those are a lot of ramen noodles. You can’t survive off of that!”

“Uh yeah, you can?” Shawn defends. Been there, done that. His bunker was filled with the stuff until Dave came along and added actual healthy food to the diet. When Dave’s eyebrow arches skeptically, he adds, “I once ate just ramen for six months straight and it was the wildest days of my life!”

“Yeah, that’s totally healthy,” Dave responds sarcastically. Before Shawn can protest with an actual justified reason as to why soup and ramen are the best apocalypse food, Dave gestures at his own basket, which is filled with an assortment of supplies including lentils, meat, nut butter, and a buttload of sanitizer and wipes. “This is more like what a normal human being would get to survive properly.”

Now it’s Shawn’s turn to stare at his companion’s pick. He has to admit, he's impressed. “Wow, you must’ve been an expert at supply runs in your bunker.”

Dave blinks, confused. “What’re you talking about? This is what I get normally.”

“Huh. Did you raid the cleaning aisle of this place?”

“I don’t think the person who’s eaten ramen for six months before should judge me about health. ”

Shawn goes to respond when, all of a sudden, he stops.

“What?” asks Dave annoyedly. When Shawn doesn’t reply, only cocks his head in the direction of the back of the store, he repeats the word but with more anxiousness.

“Something’s wrong,” Shawn whispers. He can’t explain exactly how he knows other than the fact that all the years honing his hearing and life-skills allow him to notice even the slightest change in the environment he’s in. Whether it’s a faint noise, a choked gasp, or, in this case, the slightest trickle of tension that certainly wasn’t evident ten seconds ago. Or perhaps it hadn’t been evident because Shawn’s focus had slipped from its focus on scouting for threats during their shopping.

Either way, something else is in the store with them, and it’s coming from the far end of the aisle.

As though proving his point, a sliver of sound makes itself known, from the partially hidden shadows of the approaching dusk. 

Immediately they’re on guard. Shawn is about to herd them the fuck out of there when Dave gasps softly, pointing with one hand over his mouth. Shawn's eyes accustom to the alternating flickering lights and the darkening shadows cast against the store walls; he’s ashamed to admit it, but he wouldn’t have even noticed the lopsided shape on the ground if not for the suspenseful feeling building up in his chest, and if Dave hadn't pointed it out.

Without taking his eyes off the spot, Shawn hands his basket over to Dave, who’s watching the shape with wide eyes and a sick expression, and creeps toward it. The lack of footsteps from behind indicates that Dave must be hanging back—a good thing, one less person to think about.

Closer, Shawn sees that at the end of the aisle, there is an opening for employees to enter and exit. The door is propped open by the slumped body on the floor. When he takes another step forward, Shawn’s boots dip into a puddle of liquid, but, looking down, he can’t determine its color or texture. It’s getting too dark in the store.

When he’s mere inches away, he stops. Under the flickering lights and patches of shadows, the figure is obviously a dead body; matted long brown hair sprawls around them like a messed-up halo. It's facedown so Shawn can't make sense of the face, but it's limbs are littered with dirt and scratches.

He waits. And waits. Continues waiting for probably a minute. Bated breath, one hand mid-motion for grabbing his parrying knife.

The figure doesn’t move.

Maybe they’re dead. Maybe they’re a dead human who hasn’t been Bitten. Yet.

Or maybe they’re playing dead. Humans can be pretty good at that. And the world has come to the knowledge that zombies are too. Must be the fact that they’re basically dead—but, like, undead. Oh man, now is not the time to think about the logistics of zombies and death.

“Dude,” Shawn whispers, tilting his head back ever so slightly to catch Dave in his peripheral, but making sure to keep the motionless shape in his vision. “I think you might need to come forward as backup ‘cause I don’t think—”

Dave’s nowhere to be found.

Fuck.

“Dave?”

A muffled shout echoes, sudden and sharp in the tense quiet, some aisles over.

Shawn makes an aborted move toward it, Dave’s name at the tip of his tongue, a flurry of emotions crashing in him before his usual balm of narrowed focus covers it—worry at the forefront—when a hand clasps his leg.

He doesn’t need to look down to know what had grabbed him, but the surprise still hits him as the not-so-dead not-so-human zombie bares its teeth at him—he can see its face now, previously a human woman, and god he wishes he couldn't.

Quick as a flash, it drags him down.

Letting out a shout, Shawn falls hard. On the same shoulder he hurt back in Toronto. Somehow, between Hamilton and this moment, he had forgotten that his shoulder was in pain, managed to compartmentalize it so well, that putting all his weight plus the added zombie on it was like fire, everything hitting him all at once.

There’s no other explanation.

A yell rings around the shop, and it takes him a moment to realize it came from him. He can't move, his shoulder is pulsing, the pain and effort holding the zombie back nearly makes him white out. Pain rips violent gasps out of him as he grapples futilely at the zombie who’s wearing a bloodied cashier uniform, her dark hair plastered to her emaciated face, mossy teeth so fucking close to his throat. 

In a fit of panic that grants him a flash of strength, he shoves the zombie to the ground, but only manages onto scramble to his knees, clutching his shoulder, before the thing rushes at him again, spitting at him, moaning and groaning like a deranged cacophony and the store amplifies it, Shawn’s fucking funeral march. Normally, he would’ve at least gained the upper hand by now, but this one is too frantic, its blows hitting him everywhere, claws scraping his newly changed sweater and probably getting blood all over it. (An unhinged thought escapes him that Dave would be so ticked.) The pain and shock leave him disoriented, he never gets the opportunity to righten himself mentally and, in some sick way, he thinks the zombie knows that and is using it to its advantage.

It’s useless. Toronto was a lucky break, but this?

He can’t see an out. His vision swims, the damn shuffler is choking him. Such a human way to die, it’s almost fucking funny. Except for the fact that he can’t breathe.

Might as well start writing his mental will.

This is it. I’m gonna fucking die, and it’ll be in a goddamn grocery store while the only person who’s stuck with me during the end of the world is so close yet doesn’t even know I’m gonna die. I’m sorry, Ma, I should’ve listened to you from the start—

A basket appears in his field of vision and smacks the zombie above him on the head. It gives a shriek that sounds more startled than aggressive before toppling over. 

Shawn scrambles onto his hands and knees, hunched over, wheezing for sweet, sweet air. Through blurry eyes, he sees Dave march past, wild-eyed, shoulders rising and falling rapidly, clothes rumpled, and continue to repeatedly smack his basket on the zombie with such ferocity that Shawn almost feels bad for the damn thing, its wails slowly morphing into weak gurgles until all Dave is hitting like no tomorrow is a bloodied lump that’s barely distinguishable with blood pooling all around—unmoving, this time for real.

Dave slows and finally stops, gasping for breath, chest heaving, and hair in disarray. The basket falls from his limp grip, the contents leftover from that wild attack tumbling to the floor. He staggers into a shelf. His hands are shaking and covered in blood; he stays like that, and Shawn lets him, both out of shock at what transpired and acknowledging that the man needs this silence, for a moment before taking out a bottle of sanitizer and slathers his hands in them, wiping clean, then moving onto his wrists and each nail, turning his back resolutely on the dead zombie as he does, breath trembling.

Close your damn mouth, Shawn chides himself once he realizes he’s gaping like an idiot.

After pocketing the little bottle that's already nearly done from that one usage, Dave says in a forcibly casual tone, “sorry I left your basket back there.”

Shawn nods. Then registers the words a second later. “Wait, back there? What happened?” He recalls the muffled shout he’d heard earlier and discreetly checks Dave for any bites, but the other man looks fine. Majorly ruffled and probably traumatized terribly, but fine. He's not Bitten. He's fine. But Shawn will have to check more thoroughly later.

In response, Dave silently leads him to the next aisle where there’s another dead zombie, probably a customer if the shorts and ripped baseball tee are any indicators, with shampoo containers stuffed in its mouth; oozing foam and blood combined trickle out of its mouth from where it bit into the plastic and ingested its contents.

Shawn’s back to being speechless and gaping.

Who knew shampoo could kill a zombie?

That’s pretty concerning for the multitude of people Shawn knew who’d bragged about drinking shampoo.

Hands still shaking slightly, Dave picks up the fallen basket next to the dead zombie, keeping his eyes trained on the shelves and not at the carnage he’d created, and hands it to Shawn.

The air around them is thick, heavy. Dave is carefully not looking at both the zombie and Shawn, only licks his lips and clasps his hands tightly together. Shawn frowns; it looks like he’s a second away from a breakdown which would not be helpful right now. Besides, he killed an actual zombie! That’s progress for surviving in this world!

So he says, casually with not a meager amount of amazement, “not conventional but effective, I like it!”

Dave doesn’t say anything, but Shawn likes to think he saw his shoulders loosen a little.

They spend the next five minutes quickly scooping up their fallen rations into their baskets and hurry to the store entrance, ready to get the fuck out of there before more zombies get the urge to have some tasty human morsels.

Before they leave, Dave darts back to the counter and, much to Shawn’s bemusement, gives a tip.

Shawn cocks his head to one side when Dave rejoins him. “You do realize no one’s going to be here, right? What you did was basically pointless.”

The other man shrugs. “Maybe. But I’m feeling a bit grateful after turning a zombie into pulp with a shopping basket and choking another one with shampoo.” A smirk creeps up his face, completely unfamiliar—but not an unwelcome feature—that Shawn gives him a second glance. “And I saved the zombie-expert.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t let it get to your head,” Shawn grumbles. He shakes his head. “You’re bonkers, man. Absolutely crazy.”

Dave sputters, positively offended. “No I’m not!”

"Tipping a deserted store? Yeah, you are."

"It's called being nice and looking out for people. You should try it sometime."

"Being nice? Looking out for people? In this economy?"

But that sticks. Looking out for people. Shawn can't shake it off.

They’re walking down the street, halfway to the truck when Shawn finally asks the question bouncing around in his head. 

“You could’ve gotten out of there. The store, I mean. Just left me and ran after getting rid of that other zombie. Why didn’t you?”

Dave stares at him like he’s spouting nonsense. “You’re better at this apocalypse thing than I am. What good will it do for me if I ran away?”

“Oh.”

Makes absolute sense. In fact, it’s the kind of response Shawn would’ve said if he was in Dave’s place. Doesn't prevent an annoying wriggle of disappointment from worming its treacherous way into his heart—one that he wants out of his system as soon as possible.

Then Dave nudges his arm, hardly a nudge more than the brush of the crook of his elbow for minimum contact with Shawn’s dirty sweater sleeve.

“Also, we’re in this together now.”

Oh.

Shawn shakes his head, staring out at the streets, keeping watch, but every so often, flicking back to look at Dave. His shoulder hurts like a bitch, his stomach rumbles, putting one foot in front of the other feels like a chore. But his mind whirs. 

Fucking bonkers, indeed.

Look Out For Numero Uno is a subsection in his apocalypse survival guide—’numero uno’ meaning himself. But maybe, just maybe, he can afford to share that title with Dave too. Shawn knows he's already bonkers too; might as well take it the whole way.

Strangely, that thought doesn’t feel as upsetting as it should be. 

Chapter Text

They’re ten miles in when Dave can’t take it anymore.

“Let me drive,” he says.

At the wheel, Shawn jerks. The night sky is moonless, just open road and trees, but from the outline, Dave’s eyes have already adjusted to and the occasional spotlights of flickering cracked streetlamps they pass by, he catches glimpses of Shawn reaching out to his shoulder, rubbing at it absentmindedly, wincing a bit—he probably doesn’t even realize he’s making the face. 

“What?” Shawn asks, confused. Now that Dave is looking—or rather hearing —for it, he also detects a tinge of slight pain masked underneath. “Dude, this is my truck—my baby—what if you mess it up?”

Dave’s well aware of how much Shawn adores his ratty, rusted pickup truck. Even the slightest insult toward it he takes at least mild offense to. That aside, the care he puts into filling its gas, checking its tire pressure, even running his hands over its cracked leather seating are all obvious enough indicators. One of the main reasons Dave hasn’t already asked to drive before—he knows a thing or two about how territorial people can be about their beloved possessions, especially vehicles. Gabriel is just as bad when it comes to his racecars—the guy is amazing in personality until you mess with his cars. (And try to dictate his life, which was what their father tried to do, but that’s neither here nor there.)

However, enough is enough. Dave has had to watch Shawn rub and wince at his shoulder for hours now, thinking Dave hasn’t noticed. Well he fucking notices, and he’s not going to be part of a car accident because Shawn was too stubborn to give over temporary control of his precious truck to him.

“Truth be told, I think I’m a better driver than you,” Dave replies flatly. “You look like actual shit run over. I thought you said your shoulder didn’t hurt anymore!”

Shawn stifles a sound that’s suspiciously like a groan, rubbing his temples–-which brings Dave to another concern: when has this man gotten a proper sleep? He wracks his brain, but comes up with four days ago the day they left the bunker—even during their pitstops, he’s the one insisting to keep watch. That is definitely not healthy. And all the more reason to get the dumbass off the wheel.

So Dave plays his trump card. “If you crash because you were sleep-deprived and a stubborn moron, there’s no chance we can outrun a horde of creepy zombies then. Are you asking to get killed?”

“Zombies don’t kill you, they eat your brains and make you one of them,” is Shawn’s automatic response, but Dave can see he’s getting through to him.

“Well, genius, you look about close to death anyway, so the zombies won’t even get to that point if they do catch us.”

Shawn doesn’t reply, which Dave takes to mean that some of his words must have registered in his head—and he has a slight idea which set of words. But he keeps quiet, waiting, watching as Shawn taps a restless beat on the wheel as he mulls it over; he’s learned that it’s best to keep silent when Shawn is thinking; if he talks in the middle of it, there’s a high chance that all the effort Dave’s made getting the other man to see reason will most likely go to waste.

They pass what feels like a hundred more trees when Shawn speaks again.

“Fine.”

Dave blinks, actually taken by surprise. He had been gearing for a solid rebuttal to counter Shawn’s denial. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Shawn points a finger at Dave, accidentally poking his shoulder, and Dave barely resists the urge to flinch from the grime-encrusted fingernails. “But if you get one dent on moje dziecko…my baby…I swear, I will take all those clean sweaters you bought and sprinkle grass on them.”

“Jeez, okay, as if I’m the crappy driver out of the two of us.”

“Well, you never know. Appearances can be deceiving.”

Dave gives him an unimpressed look.

Sighing, Shawn pulls the truck to the side of the road and tosses him the keys.

After catching them and switching places, Dave proposes the rest of his ultimatum; he’d been saving it until he got the keys so Shawn couldn’t take them back.

“We’re stopping at the nearest town too. Just to stop and check your shoulder,” he adds as Shawn opens his mouth in protest. “Remember what I said? About the zombies?”

Shawn’s mouth clacks shut and he groans long and loud, which Dave takes as an answer. Smirking in satisfaction, he starts to drive.

Two hours later, the smirk is long gone, and Dave’s close to pulling his hair out. Who knew finding one measly exit would be so difficult? There had been one that had looked promising but a clump of zombies were collected about nearby and Dave wasn’t willing to take any chances. He vowed that once they both were rested and patched up, they’d take on the zombies.

Take on the zombies…

Damn, that’s Shawn-speak. When did he get so used to this?

Okay, it isn’t like he’s totally used to this. Three years still isn’t enough time for someone like him to revert his worldview of normalcy to the hell-scape they’re a part of now. Often, he finds himself looking at storefronts and imagining how they’d look surrounded by people and laughter and normal stuff. Not zombies, not desecrated pavements, not cracked windows, and ghost-town exteriors.

He hadn’t told Shawn the real reason why he had tipped that grocery store back in Sudbury. It isn’t because he was being a nice person—part of it might have been, but the real reason was because it felt normal to leave a tip at a store for service done. He’d automatically done it because that kind of life was what he’d ingrained into himself. He’d wanted to feel some semblance of regularity to balance the insanity he was forced to undertake—taking his wins where he could, in a way.

Clenching his hands on the wheel, he reverts back to his usual repetition: for Sky, for Sky, this is for Sky. He glances at Shawn, slumped in the passenger side, eyes shut, fingers tapping on the truck’s side. All this is for Sky.

(He can’t deny, though, it has been kind of, sort of, maybe cool traveling with Shawn, even if he’s more than weird.)

So lost in his thoughts, Dave notices the clear exit pathway right as they pass by it.

Crap.

He slams on the brakes.

The truck screeches in protest, so loud it’s a wonder Shawn doesn’t wake (he must really be tired) (all the better for Dave and the state of his sweaters). Cursing under his breath, Dave pulls the truck into reverse until they reach the exit before doing a quick turn onto the road.

The turn, itself, is smooth, but as they pass the sign for the exit, there’s a heavy bump that jolts the entire truck and something creaks in a way that doesn’t sound good at all.

Dave is so not risking his death—undeath, whatever—by getting out to see what they just ran over, so he forces the truck to limp its pathetic way down the rest of the exit roadway, past a junction, until they reach an empty shopping complex. Throwing the gear into park, the truck emits one last mighty puff of something concern-invoking before shuddering to stillness.

For a long moment, all Dave can do is sit stock-still, clammy palms opening and closing on the wheel. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, then throws an unimpressed look at Shawn’s slumped form. “How the hell are you not awake after all that?”

Seriously, isn’t Shawn supposed to be a light sleeper?

Sighing, Dave reaches over and nudges his shoulder. “Wake up, dude.”

No response.

“Dude! Wake. Up.”

Shawn mutters something unintelligible under his breath. His brow furrows and his hands—which Dave just notice are twitching—spasm slightly.

Dave’s seen the signs. Hell, he’s experienced the signs in the past. Noah had them for a long while repetitively back when they first joined Dave’s old bunker. Heavy breaths, fluttering behind the eyelids, twitching fingers, lack of response. Nightmare.

“Shawn!” He says loudly, gripping his shoulder and shaking him hard. “Get up, dude, you’re having a—”

It all happens so fast. One second he’s partially hunched over Shawn, the next, he’s pressed against the wheel, Shawn out of his seat and over him with one hand clenching the wrist Dave was holding his shoulder with; his eyes are wide and manic. 

Belatedly, Dave yelps.

Shawn’s eyes clear and immediately he retracts his hand, pushing himself against his seat. “Uh…sorry? About that?” He pokes at his toque. “Weird dream.”

“Nightmare,” Dave corrects. “You can say it, you know. Everyone gets them.”

Shawn doesn’t reply. From the look in his eyes, it’s clear whatever the nightmare had been about, he thinks he shouldn’t be having them.

When the silence stretches, Dave clears his throat.

“We’re here,” he waves a hand uselessly at the large building outside. “Just to grab some gauze and other stuff for that,” he nods at Shawn’s shoulder, “and any other injuries we get which will definitely happen sooner than later.”

“Sounds more like you’re telling than asking.”

“I’m not asking because you’ll try to stick it up and get that thing worse than it probably already is.”

He expects more arguments, but Shawn’s eyes are far away as he shrugs. “Watch out for shufflers,” he says, though it’s half-hearted as though he’s already in another world. His fingers tap quicker on the armrest, eyes lazily scanning the perimeter of their parking spot.

Frowning, Dave hops out. “Well, see you then.”

Shawn doesn't react for a moment, then blinks when Dave pointedly clears his throat. “What—oh yeah, see you, dude. Don’t take too long, the sun will be setting soon and that’s when the hordes are most active.”

And there’s the Shawn I know.

“Yeah okay, man, I get it. Sunset: bad. Just stay put, we don’t need that shoulder more messed up than it is.”

The trip to the store doesn’t take long, what with Shawn’s warning prevalent in Dave’s mind as he scours the aisles for handy medical supplies. Only stopping to pick up a fallen basket that’s halfway charred and littered with burn marks that he’s not going to think about, Dave picks up loads of gauze, some antiseptic, bandaids in stacks, and other bits and ends. When he passes by the counter, he wavers, but decides not to give a tip this time around—he’s already short on cash, and who knows what sort of bribery some of the hooligans they might run into would want.

Obviously, not the zombies; they’d eat the cash which would be a waste of paper. However that does beg the question of certain zombies remembering the importance of money from their former human selves; Dave knows his father, if he were a zombie, would one hundred percent still love money despite having risen from the dead.

Thinking about his father often leads to not-so-great moods, so Dave shelves that thought process before it can go further, and hurries back to the truck, thankful to whoever is watching above that he doesn’t run into any zombies.

“Finally!” Shawn groans when Dave jumps back into the driver's seat. His grumblings increase when Dave pulls out the gauze, antiseptic, and wipes. “I’m telling you, this is totally a waste of—”

“Remember, the zombies.”

Shawn groans again, louder—his customary response to Dave's reminder—but shrugs off his orange vest and pulls down his sweater with his good arm, wincing slightly as the fabric scuffs his shoulder.

Oh.

Oh yikes.

Now Dave’s always wanted to work somewhere within the medical field, just not specifically in the medical field —out there front and center, seeing all the blood and other disgusting diseases and germs. He would rather be backstage, so to speak; maybe working disease control, pathology, or epidemiology; doing research on the bacteria that spreads the diseases he doesn’t want to be up close and personal with—that way he could help prevent outbreaks and find cures. As somebody who despises germs, it seems only natural to him that his passion would be a line of work that prevents the rise of them.

To put things short, he never wants to see the sight he sees when Shawn’s shoulder is revealed to him.

“Oh, man,” he mutters, holding his breath to stop himself from puking. Even then his eyes water at the sight of the clotted blood on the wound, the yellowish-green something that looks highly concerning, and the stench emanating from it that could rival any zombie cologne. The wound itself doesn’t look too deep, thankfully, but there is definitely bruising and the marks made probably from the zombie’s fingernails are what Dave suspects is causing the pain and smell.

“Shit!” Shawn reels away from where he, too, had tried to peer down at his own shoulder and see. “Shit! Is it infected? Are the cuts deep? Fuck, if they’re deep, I’m in big, big trouble, dude, check—”

“And this is why we don’t hold off on injury-handling,” Dave tells him. “No, it’s not deep, just light scratches—I’ll have to clean them though, and wrap up your shoulder. It’ll hurt, fair warning.”

On the contrary, Shawn’s shoulders slump in relief. “Nothing can hurt more than the process of being turned into a zombie.”

Dave shrugs. “If you say so.”

Shawn doesn’t react much when Dave tells him to raise his arm, save for a twitch that Dave only notice because he was staring right at him; but when he starts to dab the antiseptic and wipes, Shawn grits his teeth so hard Dave’s own jaw throbs in sympathy. He tries to do it quickly—something about seeing Shawn, who’s normally so contained when it comes to showing signs of pain, makes Dave desperate to get it over with so they can continue on their way and Shawn’s shoulder can go back to normal—but with a wound as messy as this one and with distinct lack of proper care for the past two or three days, going quick isn’t the most efficient option.

Shawn isn’t the only one suffering through it; Dave holds his breath and mentally plugs his nose as he tosses the wipes out the truck window and works on gingerly wrapping the gauze around Shawn’s shoulder, circling the material under his arms over his shoulder, over and over until the roll was almost finished and Shawn’s shoulder looks like a puffy cloud. 

“Done,” Dave sighs, leaning back.

“Finally!” Shawn gives his shoulder an experimental shake that Dave swats him for.

“Don’t make any unnecessary movement, doofus, don’t you want it to heal quicker?” He shakes his head. “I tried the best I could do, but I only alleviated it temporarily. I don't know how long it will take to heal with only the stuff we have.”

Shawn’s eyes find him, and for the first time since they stopped, his eyes look a little brighter, more like his usual self. “Thanks, man.”

“Yeah, no prob.” Suddenly aware he’s been leaning in Shawn’s space this whole time, he scrambles back to sit properly in the driver's seat. “But you’re sure as hell not driving.”

To his immense surprise, Shawn only shrugs bemusedly. Seriously, did one injury and one nightmare mess him up this bad?

Dave turns the key into the ignition with the full intent to get this show on the road, that hopefully making progress for a bit and avoiding the hordes would lift Shawn’s spirits.

Well, that had been the plan.

“What?” asks Shawn when nothing happens. “What’re you stalling for, dude?”

“Um.” Dave turns the key again. The truck stutters in response. “Okay, so don’t freak out, but something might be wrong with the truck.”

“What?! ”

“I said not to freak out!” Dave turns the key more vigorously. “It’s not my fault!” Fuck, his sweaters are going to get slaughtered.

“You messed up the truck? Our only mode of transportation? After I kept telling you to be careful?”

Dave taps the wheel, thinking. “It could be from the zombie I accidentally ran over. Or when I revved a bit too fast to get to the exit.”

“What?!” Shawn repeats, more incredulously. "That's it, where are your clothes—"

“Shouldn’t have been sleeping so heavily, Mister I-Am-A-Light-Sleeper,” Dave snarks back. It’s a bit of a low blow, especially since Shawn had hardly gotten a proper night's rest since leaving the bunker, but there’s no way Dave’s taking all of Shawn’s annoyance—plus he needs to protect his clothes! It’s not his fault the truck is a hunk of junk in the first place!

Shawn crosses his arms, seemingly forgetting about Dave’s recommendation to not move his injured shoulder. “Not fucking cool, dude.”

“It’s probably something minor—maybe an engine problem or gas.” Dave goes to turn the key again, as if, unlike the last five times he’d done it, this time it will work, but Shawn smacks his hand away.

“Stop turning the ignition, man, you’ll make it worse.” He rubs his temples, scowling. “Alright, wise guy, where do you suggest we find a handy-dandy mechanics store in a wasteland like this? Across the street?”

The question is definitely phrased rhetorically and with a large dose of sarcasm, but Dave looks out the window anyway, scanning their surroundings. Fine, if Shawn doesn’t want to be the mature one in this situation, he can make do.

“This is a town, dude, there’s got to be a mechanics place or an auto body shop somewhere, and if we can get stuff from stores, I bet we can get spare parts for the truck and figure out how to fix the shit.”

Shawn’s crossed arms tighten, his brows furrow more, but he isn’t firing a fast retort so Dave takes it as an agreement.

“I’m sure there are some places to look if we pass that bit of woods,” he points up ahead. The shopping complex appears to be wedged between the highway exit junction and a small forest; Dave reasonably supposes that if they pass through the woods, they will get to the rest of the town. Why the complex is in such a weird freaking location, he’s lost on; some things are just so dumb they cannot be explained.

Shawn switches his gaze from the slowly darkening sky to the truck to the woods, pondering the chances of getting eaten alive, before sighing loudly. “Let’s make this quick. I don’t feel like becoming zombie food.”

Duh. Who does?

They hop out and, despite closing the doors quietly, the sounds seem to echo like a foghorn.

Both freeze.

No sounds other than the whistling of the wind.

“Okay let’s make a run for it,” Shawn whispers. They sprint to the treeline, casting one glance back at the motionless truck in the parking lot before diving into the woods.

Almost instantly, the air grows thick and the trees cloud the weakening sunlight. Dave rubs his arms, his sweater doing little to block the sudden chilly winds. Every tree feels like a zombie is hiding behind it, and Dave nearly jumps out of his skin when a bird chips from somewhere far away.

Get it together, he scolds himself. Or before you know it, you’ll be as paranoid as Shawn!

Speaking of Shawn, the other man is wired and tense, but the distant look in his eyes hasn’t dispersed. It’s like his mind is in two different places at once, and Dave doesn’t like it solely because that makes him the more paranoid one out of the two—which isn’t usually how their dynamic works. Plus Shawn’s the one with the keen senses; if he misses the sounds of a horde and they get eaten alive, Dave will personally hunt Shawn down as a zombie and kill him.

A shudder wracks him, unrelated to the chilliness. Don’t think about the grimy zombies. You’re really on a roll today, huh?

“We should split up,” says Shawn abruptly, cutting through the silence.

Dave frowns. “Split up? But won’t that be too dangerous? Easier for zombies to catch you and all?”

“You still have that knife with you, right? That super sharp one, you said?”

Instead of telling the truth—which is that he hasn’t taken out that damn thing from his backpack, which is currently sitting in the truck—Dave says weakly, “yeah, of course…”

“There’s your ticket to beating any zombie. Just gotta watch out for traps.”

“Wait what do you mean…traps?” Dave trails off, looking behind him and seeing no sign of Shawn. “Wow, he’s really out of it,” he mutters. As well as having keen senses, Dave’s learned that Shawn has an overall keen perception of things; so it’s a testament to how distracted he is that he hadn’t even noticed Dave’s fumbled lie.

As mentioned before, Dave’s no stranger to nightmares; he knows how debilitating they can be. Back at one of his previous boarding schools, when things were at their worst and he had no one else but himself to rely on, he’d been plagued by nightmares, all a distorted version of the reality he faced in the daytime, and it had nearly eaten him from the inside out—matter of fact, some aspects of them still remain wedged in him like shards of glass. He knows how bad the human mind can turn certain events and memories, its affinity toward picturing a darker reality, but he’s in no position to help anyone with their own demons.

He has his own mission to complete, his own problems to face; he’d learned from a young age, in the midst of a family who’s self-reliant, that one has to face their shit on their own for maximum effect. Because there’s no one else you know or trust more than yourself.

He hopes Shawn follows the same kind of mentality; ruminating over these things often leads to bad consequences. They can’t risk getting distracted like this and being eaten alive. Even now, Shawn wouldn’t dare consider splitting up. He’s cleverer than that when it comes to these sorts of things. Again, Dave wonders just what exactly had been in that nightmare for Shawn to be so—

A shout rings through the woods, like a flare. Dave only has time to register that it sounded like Shawn before he’s off, ducking under branches and pushing aside shrubs with his feet, attempting to track down where it had come from.

Throwing caution to the winds, Dave shouts, “Shawn?!”

Another yell resounds, closer. Over by a clearing past some more branches.

Fearing the worst, Dave closes his eyes, berating his lack of foresight to bring that stupid knife with him, and charges through the branches into the clearing, ready to scream his head off as zombies converge on him or die somewhat less pathetically than cowardly running away.

He braces himself but nothing happens for five seconds. 

“Dude,” comes Shawn’s voice. “What the heck are you doing standing there with your eyes closed? Lend me a hand here?”

Hesitantly, Dave opens his eyes.

The sun is still shining (albeit not as much as it was ten minutes ago), the trees are still intact, everything looks in place with not a zombie in sight.

Then Dave focuses on the sight in front of him and his breath leaves him in a strangled wheeze of surprise and amazement.

“Stop staring at me like that and get me down,” Shawn says irritably from where he’s literally hanging upside down, one leg caught in a rope looped around a high tree branch. “Fucking traps,” he mutters under his breath, and continues to mumble curses as Dave slowly approaches.

“What the fuck,” is all Dave can say, taking in the insane scene before him. “What happened to focusing on our surroundings?”

Shawn ignores the latter question, his face reddening, whether from the blood rush or embarrassment, Dave has not a clue. “Snare trap. Quick and easy to alert for intruders. I make these all the time, but this is the first time I’ve ever been caught in one.”

A sudden terrible thought comes to Dave. “Please don’t tell me this is one of your traps.” He doesn’t know when Shawn would’ve found the time to make traps and lay them out in the woods, but Dave doesn’t put it past the guy.

But Shawn just sniffs, affronted. “Of course not! I would never double-knot like this. It’ll be a pain to untie. But since this isn’t mine that means…”

“...It's someone else’s,” Dave finishes. “But they won’t hurt us, right? We’re all on the same side.”

Shawn clicks his tongue, looking pityingly at him. “Oh Dave, you sheltered soul. That’s what they want us to think.”

A rustle comes from behind Dave, and he whips around. 

Nothing. The trees are still.

“Uh dude…?” Shawn whispers. “A little help before we get company?”

I guess it’s nothing.

“Must’ve been the wind,” says Dave, turning back to the matter at hand. “Um, don’t worry, man, I’ll get you out of this and we’ll be moving in no time.”

“Use the knife,” Shawn insists.

“Um yeah, about that…”

“You didn’t bring the knife?! Dude, what the heck? What if we were ambushed? Hell, we could still be ambushed, who knows whose trap this is!”

“Jeez, sorry for not wanting to cut myself by accident with that thing! Hold on, I can climb up the tree and try to untie the knot. Or maybe you can just give me one of your supply of knives and I can cut you down.” He nods decisively at that. “See? That's a good plan. Like I said, you’ll be out of this thing in no time flat.”

From behind, comes a new voice with a distinctly Australian accent: “you sure about that, mate?”

The last thing Dave sees before a sharp hit to his head and everything fading to black, is Shawn’s eyes widening in alarm at something over his shoulder.

When Shawn comes to, the first thing he hears, even as his vision belatedly adjusts, are voices.

“Who are they, man? Who the fuck did your guy catch in his trap? We can’t just bring any straggler with us, we already had enough problems with the other one tagging along.”

Another sound, like someone’s clearing their throat, interrupting the rant. But that doesn’t deter whoever is speaking; in fact, it incenses them.

“And when is that boat gonna be ready? We’ve been twiddling thumbs for weeks, if a horde catches us here, I’m cursing you until my last breath—you and your stupid inventions, we could’ve swam across the river like normal people, but no one listens to my great ideas around here. Because you’re Jesus fucking Christ, aren’t you, pal? Can you fucking respond for once in your life? I look stupid, it’s like I’m arguing with myself!”

A second voice, this one less nasally: “You already look stupid, you don’t need B to help you with that.” 

“Fuck off, Pasta Boy.”

“Just because I’m Italian doesn’t mean I like pasta, and I’m not a boy—I'm twenty-one.”

“Well, do you?”

“Do I what, dirtface?”

“Like pasta, moron.”

“....Whatever.”

Deciding that he’s had enough of listening in to whatever this is, Shawn readies himself to pretend like he just woke up, when the pressure against his right side begins to shift, and he realizes belatedly that it’s a person.

As the person mumbles incoherently, sounding disoriented and moaning in slight pain, Shawn comes to the second realization that it’s Dave.

He can’t help the pulse of relief at hearing the other man; from his voice, he sounds okay, not hurt, but Shawn can’t be sure nor does he trust the place they’re in, which means he has to open his eyes and figure their situation out.

A sharp inhale comes from across them.

“No way,” whispers one of the unfamiliar voices—the second one that isn’t nasally. “What are you doing here?”

Next to him, Dave catches his breath, and Shawn forces his eyes open.

He takes note of several things at once; the dingy-looking storage room they seem to be in, lit up by dim lightbulbs; the hard texture of the wooden chairs he and Dave are sitting on; the boxes scattered everywhere, acting as tables and other pieces of furniture, even beds, Shawn notices eyeing a large one with pillows and a blanket atop it; the pipes above them, meaning vents, meaning breathing allowance, meaning also a place to escape if need be; and the closed double-doors at the very end of the room.

He hears drip, drip, drip and smells the dampness of rotting wood.

He notices something else too—something more crucial: he isn’t tied up, and neither is Dave. And his weapons are with him. Whoever these people are, they must either be super amateurs or not expecting fighters.

Before he can do something like lunge to his feet, a shape in front of them steps into the light, angling it so that they can see their captors in all their glory.

There are three of them. The first one Shawn sees is tall and gangly with long limbs; his hair sticks up like a startled rooster, and he seems to be the one reasonably adorned out of the three in an apocalypse-survival-outfit; Shawn’s eyes track his hand that’s in the process of placing something—a fedora?—on one of the boxes. Why does he need a hat for the apocalypse?

He also notices that the guy is staring wide-eyed at Dave, disbelief and amusement warring across his face. Dave, for his part, is ramrod straight in his chair, determinedly not meeting the eyes of anyone in the room. His fists are clenched, his jaw locked.

A scoff comes from the second guy, shorter than the first but more stocky, and with a shock of freckles on not just his face but all over the rest of him from what Shawn sees; his ginger hair is slicked back with a couple strands escaping to curl around his head, there’s a slight scruff on his underjaw, and he seems to be the least reasonably outfitted for the apocalypse in just an open trenchcoat, scruffy jeans, and a white undershirt with a shark-tooth necklace resting on top.

He’s smirking, sly and intrigued, in spite of his previous words, at their blinking faces. One scarred hand idly touches the handle of an ax larger than Shawn’s, strapped to his hip. A silent warning.

“They’re not threats, dumbass,” the guy says to the third one still standing over the box-table with the light. “His—er, what is he called again?” he calls turning his head sideways.

“Alters,” says the first guy with an eye-roll.

“Yeah, that. He caught a bunch of kids in his trap. They literally look freaked out about us. What a waste of time. You dont need to do the whole interrogation schtick.”

The third guy straightens up. He’s larger than the other two and somewhat tall; his dark eyes are neutral as they sweep over Shawn and Dave; his stance is relaxed, and even though he also wore a baggy jacket similar to the second guy’s, Shawn gets the feeling this guy’s jacket is filled with odd bits and ends to help them survive. This guy certainly looks capable of making stuff, with his tapping fingers and the way he’s molding a stray piece of wire into some intricate shape as he watches them.

“Manitoba just makes the traps, Scott," says the first guy. "He doesn’t care if the people we catch are threat or not. He’s just happy they’re working.”

The second guy, Scott, scoffs again. “I almost got caught in one of those while taking a leak. Tell him to chill the fuck out. Between mine and his, we won’t be able to set foot outside without getting caught.”

“Why don’t you talk to him when you get the chance to? I’m sure he’d love to hear your valuable opinion.”

“You know he doesn’t like me, and the feeling’s mutual.”

“What—” Shawn rasps, clears his throat, and starts again. “Who are you?”

“What’s it to you, pal?” sneers Scott. “Who are you?”

“Well, we know you’re Scott, so we’re not really talking about you,” Dave retorts, looking up with a deadpan expression at a flushed Scott.

“I knew we should’ve just laughed at your pitiful attempts to get him,” Scott nods at Shawn, “down, and left you to your death. Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I?” he snaps at the third guy, who rolls his eyes.

“Don’t zombies just eat you alive and you turn into an undead creature like them?” ponders the first guy. “So the whole dying stage gets skipped.”

“Actually,” interjects Shawn, “in order to become part of the undead, you have to be dead, at least for a short while. So no, when you’re eaten alive by a zombie, you die for at least half a second after your heart stops, then the zombie saliva in your system revives you as a zombie.”

Dave wrinkles his nose and mutters “gross.”

The first guy stares at Shawn for a long second, enough for Shawn to brace himself for an attack. He should’ve known his extensive zombie knowledge would bite him in the ass.

Then, to his major surprise, the guy laughs loudly. He turns to the third guy, clapping him on the back. “Looks like you've got some competition, B! He’s like the zombie encyclopedia to your inventive mind.”

B tilts his head, appraising Shawn in what appears to be a whole new light. Shawn gets the feeling he doesn’t talk a lot, but it’s all there in his facial ticks, body language, and expressions.

“So that’s Scott and you’re B,” Shawn lists, turning back to the first guy. “Who are you?”

“Mike,” grumbles Dave. “His name is Mike.”

Shawn blinks, looking from Dave to Mike. “You guys know each other?”

“Know him?” Mike grins. “We were in the same high school. This guy came to me for kickboxing lessons.”

“Shut up,” mutters Dave, a dark red flush creeping up his neck.

“Because he wanted to impress his crush who’s an athlete, so he watched loads of action movies and thought kickboxing would be most attractive.” Mike snickers. “He didn’t even make it past the second lesson.”

“Shut up!” Dave kicks the nearest box at Mike, who sidesteps while still laughing. “I thought Sky would’ve liked it, okay? I was just a freshman, give me a break. She looked up to your girlfriend so I thought you’d be an easy ask.”

“Yeah, I bet she’d have loved it watching you flail around while sparring a kid because he wiped his spit on his glove and you didn’t want to touch it.

Dave groans. Against his better judgment, Shawn snickers. Dave glares and aims his next kick at him—fortunately for Shawn, he misses.

"Why kickboxing, dude?" he says, snorting. "Apocalyptic survival skills are a way better, more useful technique."

"I'd stop you right there and argue your case," says Mike. "But considering the world we're in, I'll give you that point."

Shawn shoots Dave his best smug look.

"Oh yeah?" challenges Dave. "And how many girlfriends have you had, Cassanova?"

Shawn gestures to himself. "This guy's got no time for love, dude."

“As touching as this reunion is,” drawls Scott—Shawn nearly jumps, he forgot he’s there— “can we ask them what their business is traveling through our woods and send them on their way, Multiple Mike?”

Mike aims his own glare—more deadly than Dave’s was—at Scott, who merely shrugs innocently. “I’m getting to it, Scott,” he responds tightly, before turning to Shawn and Dave. “Though he does have a point, as small-brained as he is—”

“Hey!”

“—What are you guys doing around here? Don’t you have bunkers? And you,” he points at Dave. “I never thought I’d see you hanging about on the surface. Are you crazy, man?”

Dave opens his mouth, probably about to say something beautiful and heart-wrenching, but Shawn cuts in: “he’s on a mission for love, ” he says, making sure to add as much sarcasm and incredulity as possible into the last three words.

Dave’s glare intensifies. Shawn cocks an eyebrow at him. What? They’re losing daylight, they can’t waste any more time.

Scott snorts, covering his mouth with one fist, biting down on it like every single insult in his mind will come spilling out if he doesn’t. 

B blinks slowly.

“Um, say what?” asks Mike.

In the end, they’re forced to explain—or rather, Dave does most of the talking with Shawn adding stuff here and there. About Dave finding Sky’s bunker location, the consequent trip he undertook to travel across the country in a zombie-infested surface world, and his run-in with Shawn who’d saved him from a horde; how they’d stayed together for a short while in Shawn’s bunker before the zombies tracked them down and they were forced to be on the run and travel in an impromptu road trip to the (un)death.

“So yeah, that’s all, basically,” finishes Dave. Shawn, nodding beside him, thinks that just hearing it all hashed out in words makes this entire situation seem stupider than he initially thought.

He doesn’t say that aloud, though. He’s learned that Dave can be kind of touchy about stuff relating to Sky.

Scott has no such qualms. “Wow, you guys are way more dumb than I thought."

Even B is wincing, like he agrees with his orange-haired companion.

Shawn burns with a mixture of shame and resentment; it’s not his fault he’s dragged into this mess, doing something crazy like this; normally he won’t be caught dead on the surface for this long. Seeing these older traveling companions judge him for something that wasn’t even in his control makes his skin itch, and his bad mood takes a steep incline that he tries to tamp down for the sake of them getting out of there quickly.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dave fires back, eyes blazing right on cue. The only time Shawn’s seen so much life in the guy.

“What, you think your girlfriend will hug and smother you with kisses after you go running after her like some lovesick moron after two years ?” Scott scoffs. “Be real, pal, you’ve got no chance.”

Oops. Scott has no idea what he just unleashed.

Dave’s lip curls, and he sweeps a once-over that looks so judgemental that Shawn winces. “No need to get love advice from you .”

Scott’s eyes narrow. “What’s that supposed to mean, Twigs?”

“You look like you’ve never experienced love in your entire life. Get real, pal, there are more important things than just surviving.”

Shawn’s breath leaves him in a whistle between his teeth. Damn, that’s bound to hit hard. 

Scott’s quiet for a full twenty seconds—Shawn counts—before advancing on them, lips pulled back exposing a crooked front tooth that, for some reason, makes him look more terrifying in that one moment. Shawn tenses, ready to jump up. Just when he’s positive they’re going to die at the hands of an actual human and not a zombie, a brown-skinned hand shoots out, intercepting Scott’s warpath.

“Okay, let’s calm down, guys,” Mike says, awkwardly chuckling while elbowing Scott away. “Scott, chill, man. Dave, no one’s saying shit, relax, it’s okay. Everyone just…stop picking fights with each other. We’ve got a common enemy: the zombies, not fellow humans.”

Scott whips his head around at Mike, and Shawn waits for the blow-up. But it doesn’t come. Instead, Scott swats Mike’s hand away, growls something unintelligible, flips Dave off with both fingers, and slouches over to his original position, calling over his shoulder “we are not letting those two dipshits tag along, got it?”

Mike shakes his head, watching after his traveling companion. When he turns back, Shawn expects to see exasperation and anger at Scott, but while there is exasperation and annoyance in Mike’s eyes, there’s something else as well that he can’t exactly label. Something different. 

Shawn doesn’t bother questioning it; these guys probably have a complicated relationship. Plus he’s already got other things to worry about.

“Well,” Mike crosses his arms. “We know a thing or two about invasions and flying solo. Our bunker got invaded and we all had to make a run for it. The three of us were traveling with a bigger group, but we got separated. Scott and B are the only ones from my bunker who I know survived—everyone else…” he trails off, biting his lip.

“It’s a good thing you guys separated when you did,” Shawn tells him, matter-of-factly. “Traveling in groups during the apocalypse is a dead-sure way of being shuffler food. They’ll pick you all off one by one, weakest first, because you guys are in a larger group with more people to handle. It’s best to work with two or three people—solo is most preferable though—”

Dave elbows him harshly. Shut up, his eyes say.

Mike cracks a smile. “You really are good, dude. Hey, what’s your name anyway?”

Shawn shoots Dave another smug look that the other rolls his eyes at. “Shawn.”

“Well, nice to meet a zombie expert, Shawn. With all your knowledge I doubt any zombie will get to you.”

Shawn’s shoulder twinges in reproachment.

B knocks against the table, signaling something with his hands.

“Right!” Mike says, translating. “B says that we’re also going to the same bunker—the one on the west coast, the safest bunker known in Canada, yada yada.” He casts a quick glance at Scott before posing the dreaded question: “why don’t you guys tag along?”

No, no fucking way. Shawn’s about to say so when Scott beats him to it. 

“What did I fucking tell you, Mike?”

“They might need help,” Mike says coolly without looking at him. “I know Dave, I’m not going to kick him or his friend out on the curb because Dave was right about you and love.”

“ Oh really? ” Scott hisses. “What do you know about my experiences with love? I’ve had a girlfriend before.”

“Hardly counts as a relationship, you guys kept going back-and-forth, it was like you guys were each other’s rebounds for your own relationship, it was weird as fuck.”

“Why the hell do you care? Don’t talk about me like you know me, Mike, fuck off with that shit.”

“I know you well enough to say that you know jackshit about love.”

“Oh, and what about you and Zoey, huh?”

Mike’s lips thin. “That’s different.”

“So it’s different when it’s about you, but when it’s me, I’m this hateful soul that can’t feel love?” He scoffs derisively. “Stop playing hero, Multiple Mike, you’re as bad as the rest of us. If anything, B’s the only nice one here.”

The offhand compliment flies over B’s head, too busy ping-ponging between Mike and Scott, watching them with trepidation.

“Wait, what happened to you and Zoey?” Dave interrupts, clearly not realizing he was cutting between the build-up to some sort of moment.

It takes a second for Mike to reboot, but when he does, he focuses his full attention on Dave, ignoring Scott’s stare burning holes into his back. “Zoey and I broke up a month into the apocalypse. It’s fine, don’t worry about what Scott’s saying, it’s not as bad as he’s making it to be. We just want different things, we’re still friends.”

“Why haven’t you talked to her at all, then, if you’re still friends?” Scott sneers.

“I know where she is, doesn’t that count for something?” Mike says through gritted teeth. “It’s not like the apocalypse is an open segway for communication.”

“Whatever. I don’t give a crap what you and Zoey are like, I don’t give a crap about anything about you. All I want is for those two morons to not set foot on our boat.”

Something flickers in Mike’s eyes at the words, his jaw clenches, and Shawn feels like he’s missing something pretty important, something pretty obvious. But he’s busy processing a different part of Scott’s statement.

“You guys have a boat?”

His awe gets a wan smile out of Mike. “Yep, B’s almost done with it—just the finishing touches. About tomorrow or so, she’ll be set to sail across Lake Huron and Lake Superior to Thunder Bay. It’s gonna be awesome!”

Over Mike’s shoulder, B preens, smiling with modest pride.

Shawn switches plans immediately. “Yeah, sure, we’ll join you.”

Dave blinks at him. “We will?”

“Heck yeah! Traveling over water is the perfect way to evade zombies! We’ll cover distance and not have to worry about the undead.” He pauses, frowning. “But, our truck is still on the highway—I can’t really leave it behind…”

B waves a hand airily, gesturing to himself and jabbing a thumb toward a pair of large closed double doors at the very back. 

“B says he’s got it,” Mike says. “There’s a ramp for the truck to drive up, and there’s plenty of room on the back of the boat for it.”

“Aw, yeah, thanks, man!” Shawn shoots B a thumbs-up that the older man returns.

“Huh, alright then,” Dave says. “Guess we’re joining you.”

“Until Thunder Bay,” Shawn adds. “Groups are dangerous, remember?”

“Sure thing, dude,” Mike spreads his arms, “it’ll be a party.”

Scott pushes himself off the wall and storms out of the room, slamming the door shut loudly behind him.

Mike eyes him, one end of his mouth down-turning. B gives him a pointed look that he translates easy enough. “Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll talk to him,” he mutters, dropping his arms.

B nods approvingly.

Mike scratches the back of his neck. “Alrighty, how do you two feel up to helping with preparations for departure? Gotta pull your own weight if you wanna hang around.”

Shawn hops to his feet. “Sounds solid, man. What do you want us to do, we’re in top condition.”

“Inaccurate,” Dave drawls from his seat. “Mike, for the love of God, can you please check Shawn’s shoulder? I did what I could, but I doubt he'll let me change the gauze, and infections are a reasonable concern, you know.”

“Dude, what the heck?!” Shawn looks betrayed at his traveling companion. "You didn't even ask to change it! What if I said yes?"

Dave looks unconvinced. "Oh really? Would you?"

"Well, not anymore! Betrayer!"

Mike snorts. “Oh yeah, this is gonna be so much fun.”

Chapter Text

“That is not a boat.”

Shawn tilts his head up, up, up, taking in the wide sails, the smooth paint job, the sheer length of the damn thing, and the only thing running around in his head is B, Mike, and Scott had severely underappreciated this hulking mass of a thing by calling it a boat.

This thing can be labeled as many other names; yacht. A fucking cruise ship, even. But the word boat does not begin to fit the weight of this method of transportation sitting as proud as its creator in the storage unit of the storage unit (and yes, that’s as confusing as it sounds, but Mike advised them not to think much about it, and Shawn’s learned to not give value to things that shouldn’t matter in an apocalypse anyway).

“You cannot be calling this a boat,” he says turning his eyes onto B who, despite his size, looks tiny in comparison to the not-boat towering over him. “That’s just wrong. ”

In response, B shrugs but there is a glint of mischief in his eyes when he looks back at Shawn.

“Oh man, don’t even—don’t tell me you started calling it a boat?” Shawn flaps his hands as though doing so will encompass just how indignant he is on this yacht’s behalf. “It’s like a fucking cruise ship, man. A boat is a tiny, probably unsafe and rickety, old thing— this is too ginormous for it. Dude, you’re gonna put my bunker to shame with your cool stuff.”

At that, B grins—his version of a laugh. Shawn has begun to notice closely the actions and expressions on the other man’s face and connect them to the possible reactions he’s giving. So far, given how B hasn’t thrown him out yet or crushed him with his huge freaking yacht, Shawn thinks he’s doing good.

“Any way I can help, man?” he calls up as B climbs up the ladder to the ship’s deck.

B hops onto the deck and pokes his head over the edge. He points at his work table and signs something with his hands.

Wrench.

“Gotcha.” Shawn hurries over to the table littered with maps, papers scrawled with equations (most of them were crossed out), tools strewn about, and a sad-looking hamburger sitting precariously at the edge. After scouring the area for half a minute, he spots the wrench next to a large map of Canada with several red X’s marked across it and chucks it as hard as he can in B’s direction.

The older man catches it easily, but the look he gives Shawn is surprised. He signs something else: you know ASL?  

“Oh, yeah, duh, ‘course I do. My ma and I learned just about every language there is to know—I’m a bit rusty on a lot of them, but ASL is one I have down pat. What if you need to be quiet during an apocalypse? How will you signal your companions for something without speaking aloud?” He brushes a hand over the map of Canada, pushing down the twinge of sadness that rears its head whenever the topic of his mother comes up. “ASL is where it’s at, man.”

B tips his head to one side, his expression unreadable. Suddenly it clears and he shoots Shawn a wide smile. I know right? He signs.

“Like, obviously, the most efficient method in a world where the slightest noise or light could trigger a zombie invasion, is to be quiet, but does anyone ever listen to this piece of rational advice? No! ASL? What—you want us to learn another language using hand gestures? Yes! That’s exactly what you should do if you want to fucking survive!” Shawn continues to rant, missing the amused look B sends him before he ducks down to check the planks of the ship’s connectors. The only signs he gives that he’s still listening to Shawn is the occasional head bob whenever he pops up and when he points at Shawn with emphasis as though saying yes, exactly that!

Not that Shawn even notices; once he gets into the grove—especially about the dumbassery of most of the population when it comes to preparing for the apocalypse—nothing can deter him. Leaning against the table whilst inspecting the map, he jumps from ASL to travel methods during the apocalypse (“water travel? Amazing, dude! You’re, like, as good as me about apocalypse survival!”) to how keeping it simple and easy is the best way to go.

“I know people say there’s no easy road to success,” he says, pulling his toque down so that he can fiddle with it because damn he’s so in his element, his hands need to be doing something. “But personally, when it comes to flesh-eating, brain-devouring undead, the easy road is success. Why waste time doing something unnecessarily hard when you can choose the less bumpy road and come out of it alive ?”

Finally, after what feels like hours (although Shawn can’t tell; there are no windows in this storage unit), B scales back down the ladder and lands next to Shawn with a light grunt. Sticking the wrench into one of his many jacket pockets, he starts to scoop up the materials on his table and stuff them into a large carry-on bag that Shawn hadn’t even realized was there.

You’re really off your game today, he chides himself.

“Ship ready to go?” he asks out loud. “We should probably leave soon.”

After heaving as many things into the bag as he can, B nods. Grab the files next to the chair? 

When he hoists it over his shoulder, it sticks out like a pufferfish. 

Shawn moves toward the wear-and-tear office chair all by its lonesome a couple of feet from the desk. As he hefts the stack of files into his arms, one falls to the ground. 

“Shit!” Setting the stack back on the chair, Shawn goes to pick up the papers from the ground. One page stays stuck stubbornly to the leg of the chair even as he pulls at it experimentally. It takes several hard tugs before the paper comes free and he brings it up into the light to look for any tears.

It’s a birth certificate, worn at the edges. The name reads Beverley.

Huh? Why is there a birth certificate for Beverely hanging around here? Shawn thinks back to the introductions he and Dave had been given some hours prior. None of the names are remotely close to Beverely.

There’s Mike, Scott, and B…

B for Beverely? Shawn guesses, right as the certificate is snatched away with such vigor that he gets a paper cut.

“Ow, dude, the heck?” he sticks his finger into his mouth, sucking on it before the scent of blood can hit the air properly. When he turns to glare at B, he stops midway; the older man sticks the certificate back in the file, underneath ten other papers so that it is well-hidden; his dark eyes are unreadable, but Shawn isn’t an observer of the human (and inhuman) populace for nothing: he can see, clear as day, the tenseness in B’s stance and the way his broad shoulders had stiffened. It’s like he was waiting for some sort of rebuke, something to explode, and Shawn realizes belatedly that he’s waiting for him to blow up and ask a barrage of stupid questions.

Well, that just won’t do. Shawn’s seen his fair share of narrow-minded people—hell he’s experienced that sort of narrow-mindedness at him before; back then, he had his ma as a fallback, he knew that no matter who came at him teasing and taunting about how he doesn’t look like a boy, his ma would always be there to support him and raise him to his feet. He didn’t need to be nervous about how the rest of the world perceived who he really was, not when the people who mattered didn’t give a fuck about it.

Point being, he had someone as a support system. Shawn doesn’t know much about B’s life pre-apocalypse, but he’d be damned if he lets someone else be apprehensive about their identity.

“It’s cool, man,” he raises his hands, inwardly cringing at how lame that sounds. Like every heterosexual jock he’s met before he became homeschooled. “I mean—I don’t give a fuck about any of that. It’s yourself, your identity, not mine.”

B doesn’t reply. His eyes stay trained on the file hiding the birth certificate.

Shawn tries another tactic. Taking in a deep breath, ready to open some wounds, he says, “besides, I’d be a hypocrite if I did give a shit.”

At that, B snaps his head up, watching Shawn intently like he’s a complex blueprint. But Shawn keeps going.

“My name wasn’t Shawn when I was born—and, I don’t know, I just knew like a dog-eared page in a manual that I kept coming back to, that this wasn’t me. This name, this body, this mentality, it didn’t feel like me. It felt like another person—and I didn’t like that. I felt set apart from the kids my age, I felt like I was missing something, and sometimes looking into the mirror was a chore.”

His voice trembles a little when he gets to his part: “my ma...she figured out something was up before I even knew what the matter was. But she waited for me to piece everything together, she didn’t want to rush me or seem like she was forcing me or anything. And I did connect the dots when I was, like, ten or eleven, and we worked together—my ma and I—to help me feel like myself. And God, when I changed my name to Shawn, it was the best moment of my life; it felt like I was getting somewhere, like I was painting parts of my identity across the canvas.” He taps his fingers on the fabric of his toque. “Sometimes it was hard, a lot of people don’t understand, sometimes even my body rebels against me. But those were just temporary; I stopped giving a fuck about everyone else, because this is me and if they really want to be around me, they won’t give a fuck about anything that makes me happy and comfortable in my own self.” He presses his toque against his chest; even with two layers on him, he pictures the surgery scars like he was looking at a mirror while shirtless.

“So yeah. I’m sure as hell not gonna give flack to someone who has done their own journey. Also I’m pretty sure my top surgery started the apocalypse,” he adds. “I told my ma I’m fine with wearing a binder, but it’s like she’s got hyper-intuition or something, she knew I wanted that surgery, and like a month after it, the apocalypse starts—I mean, come on!”

To his relief, B cracks a smile at that, one that grows the more Shawn ranted until finally he’s wearing that same wide grin that says he’s laughing his ass off.

His smile is contagious, Shawn feels his own mouth lift until he, too, is chuckling—the first time he’s done so in about four years. “We good, man?” he asks, holding one fist out for B to bump.

The other man forgoes the fist and claps him on the back. His expression says enough: we’re good.

Shawn laughs. “Great, because you’re the only person from what I can see who takes this shit as seriously as I do. I need some solidarity.”

Apocalypse buddies? B signs.

Shawn’s about to respond with the affirmative when he remembers Dave, their time spent together at Shawn’s bunker that had lessened his feelings of loneliness, and the wacky shenanigans they’ve gotten up to as a duo so far—the way Dave had saved his ass more times than Shawn expected. He may be a dunce when it comes to all things survival, but Shawn can’t deny sometimes they make a pretty good team.

So he mentally changes his answer and says to B: “temporarily.”

Much to his confusion, B simply looks amused and knowing as he agrees with a signed temporarily. (Shawn can’t begin to fathom what the older man is looking all-knowing for, it’s not like he said anything life-changing.)

Before he can think much about it, B changes the subject, pointing at Shawn’s finger which he’d removed from his mouth in order to speak properly. I will clean that cut. Sorry.

“No problem, man.” As he follows B back to his workstation, Shawn signs, and thanks.

B’s smile warms.

Between the hustle and bustle of quickly packing everything into the ship, Dave doesn’t get to touch base with Shawn after Mike bandages his shoulder and B sweeps him away for ‘maintenance help’ as Shawn had put it.

He does get to catch up with Mike, though. Last time he saw the guy, it was three years ago during high school and, well, that’s an embarrassing experience in and of itself.

Dave has a lot of questions to ask. Like what Mike is doing with two strangers instead of his usual group of friends, or if he’s still friends with that nerdy guy, Cameron (Dave’s learned not to mistake size for capability, he won’t be surprised if Cameron created a fancy robot suit to go against the zombies), or if Mal still has that gung-ho tension with that guy he always talks about that he spent juvie with who Dave hasn’t met and is still skeptical about (but he wouldn’t dare say that in front of Mal, he values his life, thanks). Sure he wants to know how the people from his former life are handling this crazy apocalypse, but more than that, he wants desperately to ask these normal questions so he doesn’t have to think about the undead for a little bit.

Unfortunately, his mouth has never been all that adept at listening to his brain filter before speaking: “What happened to you and Zoey?”

Well. Guess they’re going the romance route first.

In the middle of stuffing several pairs of combat boots and a trenchcoat that looks like the one Scott wore, Mike pauses for a split second before continuing on like usual. “Oh, we split. Soon after this shitshow started, would you believe? It was all mutual,” he adds hurriedly at Dave’s furrowed expression. “I’m not bent up about it, seriously. Zoey and I are still friends, no matter what Scott may say.”

Dave wants to ask about Scott, what Mike’s deal is with him—they have something going on that Dave can’t exactly put his finger on—but he settles on a more pressing question: “But why?”

To his surprise, Mike looks amusedly at him. Huh. Maybe he’s right and this breakup hasn’t affected him like Dave expected him to be. “We just want different things, dude. It’s chill.”

Chill? Man, if Dave were in his shoes, he would’ve been freaking the fuck out, wallowing in self-pity, bemoaning what had gone wrong. He would’ve been inconsolable. Especially a pair as tight as Mike and Zoey, it seems impossible that they split. And Mike’s reason had explained absolutely nothing.

He can’t imagine something like that happening to him—he doesn’t want to—and his resolve to reunite with Sky hardens more.

Mike claps him on the shoulder. “Love is a strange thing, Dave. Speaking from experience here. Never thought I’d be where I am right now, dealing with Scott, of all people—”

“You two know each other?”

The older man barks a laugh. “That guy? Hell, we were rivals—or specifically, he was all up in my face during all those sports games back in high school. I wouldn’t expect you to know, you only attended the gymnastics stuff for Sky, but Scott used to go to our rival school. He bugged a lot of my teammates, sure, but he paid extra attention to me—and I, to him, eventually.” Mike shakes his head, for some reason finding that funny. “Classic, classic. Should’ve known from the start.”

Well, that makes even less sense than the Zoey explanation. 

“Uh, sure, that makes total sense,” Dave mutters under his breath, but not quiet enough for Mike snorts.

“I forgot how fucking obtuse you are sometimes.”

Before Dave can get properly offended, the door swings open and Scott strides in with hardly a glance at Dave. “You ready or not?” he asks Mike brusquely, earlier argument clear as day in his defensive stance and competitive tightening of his shoulders under the coat.

Mike doesn’t rise to the bait, instead transferring the amused expression he gave Dave to Scott, though it’s laced with hints of that same fond annoyance Dave saw before. “Just about,” replies Mike. “You can try to be a little nicer. I am currently packing your assortment of trenchcoats after all, I can easily leave them behind by mistake .” He widens his eyes mock-innocently.

So those are his coats! Dave eyes the closed suitcase he knows is full of them. Man, those two must have really gotten past their whole rivalry thing if Mike’s packing Scott’s coats.

“Then I’ll accidentally snap your crossbow in half,” Scott retaliates, stepping closer to Mike, who returns the favor until they’re nose-to-nose.

The tension in the air cranks up to a full hundred, and Dave squirms a bit. Was it always this hot?

Seconds tick by, maybe it’s minutes, who knows. All Dave does is that neither man appears to have moved a muscle, simply glaring at each other with a heat that can rival the sudden air in the room.

Hesitantly, Dave scooches toward the open door. “Uh, I’m just going to…head over…there?”

No response. Seriously, what is so important that they’re too busy boring holes into each other’s eyes?

Honestly, Dave doesn’t want to know, so he skedaddles the hell out of there, slumping against the wall of the blessedly cooler main room of the storage unit. Weird, he thinks with a bewildered head-shake. 

A light cough makes him look up.

The third guy, B, looms over him, head tilted, surveying Dave bemusedly.

“Um,” Dave pushed himself up from his slumped position. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “The room is sort of…occupied?” 

Occupied? Seriously, way to make it weird!

However, B chuckles and shakes his head, bemusement melting away. He looks as though he’s dealt with this plenty of times, and Dave really can’t help feeling bad for the guy. Imagine dealing with that sort of stifling rival tension all day!

He clears his throat. “Is the ship ready?”

“Is it ever ready!” comes a familiar voice and Shawn pops out from behind B. He grins wildly, and Dave is reminded jarringly that this is the first time he’s seen Shawn smile so big. It’s not a bad look on him. “Dude, that boat is not a boat, it’s a fucking cruise ship! It’s like the Titanic!”

B rolls his eyes in exasperated fondness. Whatever those two had been doing while Dave was with Mike, it seems like they bonded pretty well.

That isn’t the only thing Dave notices.

“You got hurt? Again?” He asks accusingly, eyes fixed on the bandaid on Shawn’s finger.

“It’s just a papercut!” Shawn defends. “B patched it up!”

B raises his hand like they’re taking roll call or something.

“Is it deep?” Dave frets. “Because there’s a significant risk of infection when a cut is deep and especially in a situation like this, there won’t be adequate medical treatment, and infections are nasty—”

“Relax, dude! It’ll heal. What’s up with you and infections?”

“Same as what’s up with you and zombies,” Dave retorts. “They’re both dangerous. I’d even say infections are more, because at least you’ll know when a zombie is going to attack you.”

“Zombies are way more dangerous!” Shawn argues.

Behind Dave, the door creaks open, but he’s too busy frowning heavily at Shawn who looks far too at ease despite the possible danger he could be in. “They both can kill you, how many times do we have to go over this!”

“Can you two dweebs not act like a married couple?” Scott drawls from behind. Dave jumps. He’d heard distantly the door opening, but the fact that that meant Mike and Scott were watching the whole debacle had eluded Dave.

On cue, both Dave and Shawn began sputtering.

“We’re not—”

“I don’t do the dating stuff—”

“I have someone—”

“Don’t—”

“We weren’t—’

“Okay, we get it, jeez, goddamn!” Scott flaps his hand, effectively cutting through the two of them. Dave notices Mike and B exchange surreptitious smirks, but he has no idea why.

“We’re not dating,” Dave grumbles.

“And we don’t act like that,” Shawn puts in. “A married couple, I mean. Do you know married people are more likely to get eaten? Because they always stay back for each other—”

“Can we get on the damn ship?” Scott interjects again, more impatiently.

Shawn huffs, muttering something about “people not listening to the truth”, but no one else heard in the chaos that followed. Mike and Scott hefts the many cases onto the ship (which is fucking ginormous, Shawn is right! Dave spends two minutes gaping up at it before Mike nudges him up the gangway), and Shawn and B fiddle around with the ship schematics, doing elaborate techy engineering stuff that Dave is surprised Shawn knows. 

For his part, Dave tries to help out wherever he can, but after a greased container leaves disgusting marks on his palms, he makes a quick exit to the sink standing in the corner, spending the remainder of the time scrubbing furiously at his hands until his hands are red raw and he is sure he can smell the cheap brand of soap from them a mile away. He takes a few moments to relax his breathing, using the excuse that he’s wiping his hands with the rough-textured towel hanging next to the sink, before walking back to the others.

Mike claps his hands. “Everyone all set?”

“Oh man, traveling over water, this is so cool, man!” Shawn gushes. “Whose brilliant idea was this anyway?”

Scott puffs up. “Mine, actually.”

B scoffs, and Mike rolls his eyes.

“Actually, if I remember correctly—and I do —you said it as a condescending joke that the rest of us realized was a good idea and implemented.”

“Whatever, Mikey, either way it was my idea first, you guys just tagged along to it.”

“Not really your idea if you didn’t even mean it in the first place, Scotty.”

Jesus fucking Christ. While rolling his eyes, Dave accidentally shares an exasperated look with B who’s in the middle of a facepalm.

Shawn clears his throat. “Uh, no offense to anyone, but does it really matter whose idea it is as long as we all…you know, survive?”

For a split second, Dave is positive Scott is either going to deck Mike or deck Shawn and he and B are going to have to deal with a bloody aftermath; but instead, the redhead only growls something that doesn’t sound pleasant under his breath and storms up the gangplank.

They watch him disappear over the ship, in silence.

“What a ray of sunshine,” says Shawn at last.

“You get used to it,” Mike mutters, before hoisting himself up on a dangling rope and grinning down at him, a mockery of a pirate in those movies Dave’s younger sister, Viola, adores. “All aboard!”

Shawn and B search out Shawn’s truck and, after some tuning, are able to drive it back to the hideout with no conflict. Shawn reverses the truck into the storage area belowdecks, while Mike puts on his fedora so Manitoba can front and help dismantle his traps—something that Scott takes great offense to, especially when Manitoba tries to dismantle his traps too. (“ I’m the designated trap-maker here, Aussie, don’t fucking touch my shit or I’ll rip that hat off!”)

Manitoba only chuckles and smirks a dark, challenging smirk.

The following trap-dismantling chaos can only be labeled as a contest. As Dave watches the two men dart between the trees with practiced ease and silence, mentally he shakes his head at how immature they’re acting. In fact, with the way things are going, he can almost pretend they’re going on a cruise or a trip overseas by boat.

But then he catches glimpses of B’s grim face or the bandage wrapped around Shawn’s shoulder or the sorry state of their shelter that certainly isn’t hotel-worthy, and all those happy thoughts fly out the window.

Right. We’re running away from freaky zombies, and the world is crumbling around us.  

As if his brain needs the reminder when they finally wheel the platform the ship sits atop out of the storage compartment and onto the desiccated roads. B had created another crazy-cool contraption that allows a giant robot arm to push the platform forward, controlled by the joystick in his hand; he and Dave stands on the ship, B concentrating on the arm, Dave concentrating on not throwing up at the sights of blood, guts, decapitated heads, dismemberments, and organs littering the area like holiday decorations. Maybe sometime in the far future, if they ever do come back from all this, there will be a holiday: Happy fucking Apocalypse!

He turns away from the view.

Mike and Scott keep pace with them on the ground by driving a pair of scooters they’d hotwired from a nearby pizzeria that looked more like a set for a horror movie than a former hub for family and food. Anytime a zombie decides to sniff around, they leave no room for them to think—can zombies think? Other than the usual brains, brains —by slashing or stabbing or even, at one point, thanks to Shawn and his crossbow, shooting a zombie who had looked like it was preparing to jump from the window it was crouched on. Talk about desperate—imagine being willing to smash your face on the ground just for some disgusting brains. Can’t a zombie diet be more…sensible? Like rocks or leaves or anything non-human.

Great, he’s about to throw up again.

Shawn pops up next to him, eyes wild in a way Dave hadn’t seen these days. This time, Shawn looks alight with fervor; despite the same expression, it’s a stark contrast from when Dave had seen him standing in front of his truck, headlights illuminated, facing a horde on his own with nothing but his anger. 

“Isn’t this awesome?” he asks Dave.

“No, not really.”

Shawn steamrolls past him, having gotten used to his ‘pessimism’. (Dave insists time and time again, it’s called being realistic.) “I wanted to be down there with Mike and Scott, you know? But, they benched me! I mean, come on, I just have a twingy shoulder and a stupid papercut, that’s literally it.” He groans loudly. “They’re missing out on my excellent zombie expertise.”

If Dave’s being honest, Mike and Scott look like they’re handling things just fine. He had expected the two to be shaky working together due to the numerous stand-offs they seem to get into, but surprisingly, they work in near-perfect tandem, aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and having each other’s backs. Twice, Dave nearly gasped when Svetlana fronted and executed some impressive gymnastics to lure some of the zombies Scott hadn’t noticed; several minutes later, Scott returned the favor when Mike was close to being overwhelmed and he’d lunged off his scooter to whale on the zombies long enough for Mike to gather his bearings. Currently, as Dave looks down the ship, the two share Mike’s scooter, arguing over who should drive.

Shawn follows his gaze and flails. “Look at them! They’re arguing right where the undead can eat their brains out!”

Dave goes on to say that they probably know how to handle themselves given how arguing seems to be their main dynamic. He doesn’t get a chance to, however, when B pats Shawn’s shoulder reassuringly. He gestures something with his free hand and Shawn sighs resigned.

“Yeah, guess you’re right, B. Can’t get more injured than I am.”

B squeezes his shoulder and shoots Dave a conspirational smirk that Dave returns belatedly as he connects the dots that the gesture was sign language and Shawn knows sign language.

Not that Dave cares, it’s just an interesting piece of knowledge to file away. Probably learned the thing thinking it’ll help ward off the apocalypse or something.

Guess you’re wrong about that, buddy. Something about Shawn being actually wrong about something apocalypse-related strikes Dave as funny and he turns back to look over the ship to hide his small grin.

They reach the docks quicker than expected. Mike hops down from his scooter, Scott following grumpily still grouching about losing their argument. “Okay folks,” Mike calls up. “We gotta do this quick before any more of those nasties show up. B, a little help?”

Shawn perks up. “Oh, I can—”

“We don’t need the help of your puny arms,” Scott interrupts.

Shawn’s eager look dissipates a little before returning with an alarming brightness as he leans so far over the ship’s rail that Dave instinctively grabs the back of his newly cleaned vest. “Actually I don’t see you being the one with the insane amount of undead knowledge nor are you someone who knows knick knacks of engineering and ships, so—”

But Mike is shaking his head too. “Shawn, you’re injured, man. If you strain that shoulder more, it might not heal effectively, You’re the zombie expert, you know walking around with an injury is a sucky move.” He eyes Scott. “Although Scott could’ve worded that a bit nicer…”

“Pfft. You’re losing your touch if you think I’m ever nice, especially to pint-sizes.”

Mike rubs his forehead, muttering something Dave can’t hear but he guesses is something along the lines of “ God help me.” He looks back up, “Shawn?”

“Fine,” Shawn grumbles, flopping against the railing and then wincing as his shoulders smack against the wood.

“Doing great, dude,” Dave tells him sarcastically.

“Shut up.”

As they trade jabs, B scales down the rope ladder, and together, with the help of their robot arm (who did most of the work, no lie) the three push the ship onto the water with a large splash. Droplets splatter Dave’s new change of clothes.

“Oh, you’re kidding me!” He looks down at his sweater in dismay.

Shawn does a strange cough that sounds suspiciously like a stifled snort.

Now it’s Dave’s turn to scowl. “Shut up.”

Shawn only smiles in response. Dave wants to berate him, but he can’t find the energy. He isn’t lying when he says he hadn’t seen Shawn smile at all like that. It makes him feel a little bad going to pop that bubble. Like this, he can imagine Shawn as one of those loner guys from Dave’s old high school, a man uncaring of the world around him and its perceptions but with a smile as secretive as…well, as something. The comparison eludes Dave.

Is this what being friends feels like? Dave hasn’t had many friends in the past, so navigating the deeper emotional aspects of all this is as much new territory for him as it probably is for Shawn (the guy has eaten Ramen every day for three months straight, thinks showering might cause his brains to be eaten, and he’s an apocalypse geek; obviously he won’t have had many friends).

Shawn blinks. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

  There’s only one way to respond to that: rolling his eyes, Dave says, “there are lots of things on your face, man. Did you even try to clean up?”

“Hey, at least I changed into cleaner clothes!”

Dave’s retort gets cut off before it can make its way out of his mouth when the ship tilts alarmingly to port. The two of them latch onto the rails, and Dave hopes this isn’t the day he dies. Luckily, the ship settles, and just like that they’re actually on the water, bobbing slowly away from Sudbury. B’s robot arm flings him onto the ship, and he drops Mike and Scott from his tight grip. 

Scott groans from his place on the ground. “Man, do you always smell like machine oil?”

Do you always smell like dirt? Dave thinks to himself.

A thank you would suffice, B signs.

“What’s he saying?” Scott grumbles to Mike, who rolls his eyes and kicks Scott lightly on the ankle after rising to his feet.

“Anchors ahoy!” he crows, spreading his arms. Then he frowns. “Or—wait is that how the saying goes?”

“Good grief,” mutters Scott.

“Hey, look, I’m just trying to lighten the mood! Something that you seem to be allergic to this whole time.”

“It’s called getting my head screwed on, dumbass, try it sometime, maybe you’ll get somewhere.”

“I’ll get somewhere? I’ll get somewhere? Coming from the guy who I’ve seen wolf down dirt like a starving man.”

“Dirt is a healthy balanced meal, y’know! Back on the farm, my mami and papi would totally agree with me.”

“Are they always like this?” Dave whispers to B.

The older man nods solemnly and signs something Dave really can’t translate (he wishes Jaydha was here, she’s an ace at languages, including ASL) but from the look on his face, Dave gathers enough information: he’s annoyed but fond. An expression he’s beginning to see often in B when it comes to Scott and Mike.

For some reason, Shawn’s words come to mind from back when they lived at his bunker: bunkermates have each other’s back—most of the time. You’re stuck with those people for who knows how long, you’re bound to get used to each other’s company, or else the zombies will pick you off easy peasy.

Dave has no clue what B’s past life was or how he initially viewed Mike and Scott when they all met, but it’s obvious that, despite the arguments and the disagreements, these three have each other’s backs like Shawn’s apocalypse guidebook instructs.

Suddenly a yearning curls in his stomach and it takes him a minute to realize what it is: homesickness. He misses his old bunker and its chaos. What he will give to be back underground far away from the surface and its dangers, listening to Owen ramble about some weird shit or other while he makes scrumptious food, or sit in peaceful silence with Noah in their shared room doing their own things; hell, he even misses Eva and Lightning’s crazy exercise routine, and the Drama Brothers’ cacophony of rehearsals that get so loud everyone in the bunker can hear them! That’s a sure sign that he must be going bonkers.

But in his backpack is a walkie-talkie, and he had promised Noah to call every once in a while…

“Hey.” Dave scratches his arm nervously as he looks up at B (jeez, why is that man so freaking tall?). “Are there any, uh, private spaces in this ship?”

B’s face forms an expression that needs no sign language to translate. Dave hurries to rectify.

“It’s for a call! It’s…not for anything weird or whatever. I just want to…call my old bunker. See how everything’s going, catch up.”

Over time, his old bunker had become his new version of normal in this crazy world; talking to them might be what Dave needs to reign himself back to reality.

B’s face softens and he nods, pointing to a wooden door. He signs something and Dave has never wished more that he knew sign language. Fortunately, Shawn has perfect timing.

“He says that the storage area downstairs is the only private spot.” When B signs some more, Shawn adds, “he also says you can use it for however long you want, but don’t mess with the supplies.”

Dave nods. “No touching the supplies. Wouldn’t dream of it.” Before he slips past the two men to the door, he turns back. “Thanks, B.”

B smiles. When Dave turns back, his eyes meet Shawn’s who looks him over in concern; the question is unspoken and Dave finds to his immense surprise that he understands it perfectly (since when has he gotten good at reading enigma cryptid Shawn’s face?). Are you all good? His eyes say.

Dave nods again, hoping his own speak for themselves. Yeah, I’m good.

Shawn relaxes and turns back to looking over the railing—probably seeing if there are any zombies around, even though he had been the one to tell everyone zombies can’t swim. 

What an idiot, Dave shakes his head while moving toward the door, scooping up his backpack as he goes. 

(After entering the storage compartment and pulling out his walkie-talkie, he realizes that the thought’s tone had felt a little annoyed but fond.

Fucking bonkers.

Thankfully, this time his thoughts go back to their normal cynical tone.)

Dave fiddles with the dial of the walkie until he can hear static and he’s at the channel Noah had told him to go to reach the bunker. It sounds like ordinary radio sound—crackling with pieces of different conversations, though he can’t tell for sure if any of the voices are his former bunkermates.

Here goes nothing.

He clears his throat. “Um, hi?” It comes out as a rasp; he coughs and tries again, louder: “hello?”

There’s a dip in the static, an anticipatory silence that Dave presupposes as though whoever is on the other end is waiting for him to speak again.

So he does: “um, it’s Dave.”

The walkie-talkie explodes into noise.

“DAVE!” That’s definitely Owen, and, oh yeah, he’s definitely blubbering—Dave feels bad for whoever the poor soul he’s wiping his snot all over. “Dude, little buddy! You’re alive!”

“Um, yeah?” Were they expecting him to die out here? (Not an invalid assumption, but still rude. ) Owen sounds a little too relieved.

“Guys, get over here! Dave’s on and he’s alive! Isn’t that awesome?”

Yup, they were totally expecting him to have died.

Eva’s gruff voice proves his point right away. “Damn, I thought you’d dip on the first night.”

Dave frowns at the walkie. “Give me some credit.”

Eva snorts. “Sure, Twigs. Who’ve you roped into helping you out this time?”

Well, now that’s just offensive! “What makes you think I roped anyone to help me? I’m a survival expert!”

Noah’s drawl cuts through. “I did not just hear you, David Jha, say you’re a survival expert.”

Dave’s initial relief at hearing Noah’s voice is overshadowed by his indignation. “What if I did?”

“I must be hearing things,” Noah replies dryly. Dave hears him call out to someone in the distance. “Hey, Courtney, maybe you should add auditory hallucinations to your list of apocalypse-induced crises.”

Courtney’s voice from far away says something in return that does not sound all that pleasant toward Noah. Dave can’t decipher the exact words because at that moment a gaggle of voices overlaps one another.

“Dude, you’re here! You’re not zombie chow!”

“Did you bite a zombie? Can I bite a zombie?”

“Izzy no—”

“Apparently your average looks are enough to let the zombies pass without much fanfare. Can’t say I was surprised. Now if it were me, on the other hand—”

“Dude, Justin. You can’t be saying you want to fuck a zombie.”

“I never said that, that’s fucking disgusting! I’m saying that one look at my blinding smile will have the undead feeling a little…alive, if you get me?”

“Gross, dude—”

“You kept a cutout of that supermodel and kissed her every night, Cody, shut up—”

“Do I even want to know what I just overheard?”

“No, Trent, you do not. Except your boy toy is being a weirdo.”

“Harold, no—”

“DAVE! BRO, YOU’RE ALIVE! Brody, he’s alive!”

“Bro, he’s alive! Holy shit, man! Apocalyparty!”

“Apocalyparty!”

“Shut up, for gods sake, you are not throwing another party or I will rip your fucking cowboy hat into shreds, Geoff!”

“Jeez, okay Heather, chill.”

“Where are you, Dave? Are you following my list?”

“You haven’t been bitten anywhere, have you?”

“Uh,” Dave’s head spins as he tries to keep track of what’s happening. “No, I haven’t.”

Leshawna’s voice is filled with relief. “Thank the Lord.”

“It’s because of my sha-awesome exercise regime!” Lightning’s voice brags.

“And mine too,” Eva cuts in.

“Oh…yeah, yeah, of course. Sha-teamwork.”

Noah’s voice rises above the babble. “Where are you, Dave?”

“Um.” He was going to say Sudbury, but given that he has no idea how long they’ve been sailing, he kind of doesn’t know. “Somewhere on Lake Superior. We’re sailing to Thunder Bay.”

That opens another round of questioning.

“Thunder Bay? Little buddy, you’re on a roll, I’m so proud!”

“Good, you’re traveling on water. I’ve been doing some research—you know, as a CIT, we’ve had to train in the case of an apocalypse, and I obviously remember my training. Zombies can’t swim.”

“Damn, we should’ve put our bunker on the water.”

“It would sink if we did, Geoff.”

“Oh yeah, right on, Bridge.”

This time Eva’s voice overlaps the rest, purely because it’s loaded with smug curiosity. “We?”

Ugh. Of course, Eva would latch onto that to prove Dave wrong in their stand-off.

“Fine, so there is a guy…”

And so Dave ends up explaining what he’s been up to; starting from nearly getting killed (“I knew you wouldn’t last a day,” said Eva) and Shawn saving the day (“ohhhh maybe he knows if zombies can be bitten. I've always wondered if it's like reverse psychology with them!” Izzy interjected), to staying at Shawn’s bunker until they were overrun, the little shenanigans along their journey, and now, to sailing on a boat with three strangers who are all going to the same bunker he is. 

“Huh,” says Trent. “Neat coincidence for Shawn to be there to save your ass.”

“He seems to have nearly as much mad skills as me,” Harold adds sagely.

“Well, you better stick to him like flypaper because he’s your only shot at surviving this mess. You wanna see your girl? Stick to the zombie-encyclopedia.”

“Wow, Leshawna, that sounds almost like something I would say,” Heather says in mock-surprise. Dave can imagine her widening her dark eyes dramatically. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

“If I’m starting to sound like you, then all hope is lost,” Leshawna retorts. “By the way, Dave, stay sharp, I’ve been hearing rumors on the walkies that the west coast has some…interesting incidents surrounding it.”

Dave’s stomach swoops. “Interesting, how?”

“Yeah, how, Leshawna? Like the Bermuda Triangle?” Cody puts in, bewildered.

“I got no part in this, y’all, but I heard there’s been some strange disappearances and some things that aren’t normal. Just stay safe, Dave. Don’t want you losing it all when you’re so close.”

Strange disappearances. Things that aren’t normal. He chuckles weakly. “I mean, this whole situation is far from normal…”

Leshawna sounds deadly serious. “This stuff is even more weird. I dont know what to make of it, but just…eyes peeled, okay?”

Great, more stuff to keep him up at night. “Got it,” he says tiredly.

“What I want to know,” says Heather, “is why the rest of us are just hearing about this from you right now? We’re your bunkermates? Shouldn't we know this stuff, oh I don’t know, before Dave?”

“You’re kidding me—”

“Answer the reasonable question!”

“Listen, girl, I don’t know how great your smarts are, but I’m a thousand percent sure we’re not on the west coast nor are we traveling there anytime soon.”

There are some murmurings of assent there, before Heather cuts in. 

“But still, shouldn’t we have been informed of this before? How long have you been hiding this from us?”

“Because I didn’t want this to happen! Everyone’s getting all tense over something that might not even hit us!”

“Alright, you two, enough. Is now really the time for this?” Bridgette interjects. There’s the sound of twin huffs from both women before something slams and there’s the screeching of a curtain rod. “Aaand Heather just stormed off. Great.” Bridgette sighs, “sorry about that, Dave. Things have been…tense.”

More murmurs. Static crackles.

Dave really doesn’t want to know, he has enough to worry about. But against his better judgment, he reluctantly asks, “is everything alright?”

There’s quiet for so long that he thinks the signal must have gone out. Then Bridgette says “yeah, everything’s fine here.”

"All dandy!” Geoff agrees. Dave bets he’s waving his hat around for emphasis.

It’s obvious that things aren’t fine at the bunker; the tension Dave can feel even with everyone dogpiling to talk to him (he’s surprised, he hadn’t thought he was this popular among his former bunkermates; matter of fact, he’s more surprised that people know his name ), and then there was the argument between Leshawna and Heather. That isn’t anything new, those two disagree about almost everything, but it was the way they argued that's suspicious. It was like they were trying to hurt each other verbally—have they always been like that? Dave can’t remember. What happened to bunkermates having each other’s backs?

Maybe he should’ve spent more time with his former bunker, gotten to know them a bit more enough to decipher between truth and lie.

And that’s my cue that Shawn is totally affecting me. He has to get his head in the game! There was a valid reason why he wasn’t close with his old bunker—Sky. Oh, and the crushing knowledge that he’s now a part of the end of the world and coming to terms with that. But mainly Sky.

Dave hadn’t had time for anything else, and he didn’t regret it because it got him to where he is now: on the move and making progress toward seeing the girl he loves. His old bunker understood that. So why the hell is he feeling all sentimental, so suddenly?

In need of a distraction and maybe to help soothe the (irrational) guilt stewing in him at his former bunkermates strained voices, Dave reaches into his albeit small pathos reservoir. “So what’s been going on while I was gone?” he asks, aiming for false cheer, but instead his voice just cracks.

Thankfully, no one on the other side mentions it. They latch onto the change in topic with as much fervor as Dave.

First off, Geoff and Brody talk animatedly about how while out on a supply run they swear they saw a couple of zombies attempting to surf (“I’m so proud of them, learning our culture,” Geoff sniffs); they’re quickly overtaken by Owen who jabbers on about one thing or another (the only thing Dave catches is that he experimented with a new recipe, and his stomach growls longingly); Ennui and Crimson do the equivalent of gushing as their monotonous pitches become slightly less monotonous when they tell him about a bunny they found in the woods that apparently the zombies are too scared of (they named him Loki and Ennui informs Dave that Loki is currently sitting on his shoulder; Dave says hello to the scary rabbit); and on and on it goes, different stories overlapping one after the other. If Dave thought his head was spinning before, it’s nothing compared to now as he tries to keep track of who’s speaking and what they’re saying so he doesn’t come off as a moron whenever he gets an opening to respond.

Just when it feels like he’s in over his head, there’s a knock from above and Mike’s voice travels down: “Dave? We’re almost there.”

Relieved, Dave calls, “coming” before turning his attention back to the walkie-talkie. “Uh, you heard the man. Almost there.”

“Yeah, man,” says Trent. “Play it safe out there, okay?”

“Follow my list!” Courtney calls.

“But don’t follow it too much, you’ll have a stick up your butt!” Gwen adds loudly.

“Hey!”

“Bye, little dude!” Owen blubbers over what sounds like Courtney and Gwen messing around and giggling. “I’m so proud of you. You inspire everyone!”

“Okay, Owen, let’s not get too crazy,” Eva scoffs. “The guy’s just being a lunatic traveling across the country. That’s not inspirational, that’s idiocy.” When she speaks next, her voice is louder like she’s pressed the bunker’s radio close to her mouth: “don’t you dare die out there, wimp, got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” Dave replies weakly. No matter if she’s miles away from him, Eva still has a way of making his knees feel like jelly—and not in the cutesy romantic way.

“Get out there and bite those zombies!” Izzy cheers. "Get their saliva samples and make a zombie cure!"

(Dave almost throws up right then and there.)

“Get out there and don’t do that,” Bridgette corrects. “Be careful, don’t get bitten.”

“That would suck,” Cody agrees.

Yeah, now that he’s out here, he’s going to make sure he doesn’t get bitten. Not when everything’s at stake.

After a couple extra minutes of goodbyes, finally, Dave pushes down the antenna of the walkie-talkie. The sudden silence is oppressing, so he makes his way up onto the deck, ready to feel the wind in his face. 

Upon opening the door, the first thing he gets instead is a splash of water to his face and suddenly he regrets everything.

Sputtering, he wipes at his face and inwardly bemoans the sorry state of his sweater after getting water on it for the third time during their short journey.

“Your fault, dude,” Mike says next to him, clearly holding back a laugh. “Why’re you standing so close to the mortar?”

Indeed, Dave sees that the spinning mortar is directly below him. The water pinwheels as it drives them steadily through the water and splashes directly onto the spot Dave is standing on like an idiot.

“Yeah, yeah,” he huffs, pushing past the other man. The scene on the other end of the deck, close to the front—the stern? The bow?—is more or less the same as when he’d left it. B is fiddling with his remote; his robot arm invention extends past Dave with a pretentious air that shouldn’t even be possible given it doesn’t have any human features and sweeps up the water from the mortar; Scott and Shawn are on the lookout post, arguing about something that Dave assumes is zombie-related or who should be on watch first.

They act like everything happening around them is normal. Adaptable. The usual.

Dave places his hands on the opposite rail, far away from the mortar. Mike comes up beside him, and together the two of them stare out over the horizon; glimpses of dilapidated buildings and silent roads flash by past the waterline; then there are the zombies, shuffling along, barely looking out at them, focusing on catching their latest food.

Four years. This has been the world’s new normal that they’ve been forced to accept for four years. And no one has a clue how it started. Not that Dave really cares about an apocalypse’s origins, but it would be nice to know so he can give them a kick up the ass. Thanks to you my normal has fallen apart.

“Crazy, isn’t it?” Mike murmurs, eyes on the sun flitting behind the horizon. “That this is how life is now.”

“Yeah.” Dave wants to say more, about how awful it is and how he wishes to go back to before—the real normal; but his chest feels tight and his heart is beating twice its pace, especially when he looks out at the sunset—so ordinary in this otherworldly dimension. Pangs of nostalgia hit him like never before. He thought talking to his bunker would alleviate the constant pain lodged in the back of his heart like a parasite, but it seems to have made it worse.

I want everything to be normal again. If a genie pops up right this second, he knows with every fiber of his being that will be his wish.

But this is your normal now, answers another voice that sounds annoyingly like Shawn again. The past is a dangerous place to get distracted by. Especially with zombies vying to eat your brains.

Easy for you to say, Dave retorts bitterly before remembering he’s arguing with an imaginary voice in his head. Shawn adapts quicker than a chameleon, this apocalypse is his playground, he’s in his element. For Dave, he just wants his life—as imperfectly perfect as it was—back again. But the voice in his head is right (and no, he refuses to refer to it as the Shawn-Voice). 

Dave’s dad would have said something similar. Focus always on the future. The past has been done, now think of what could make it better. Self-made-man Ved Jha took the business world by storm just by following that motto. If Dave is to walk in his footsteps and ever be as successful, he should do the same. Focus on what he can make better; like reuniting with Sky, and traveling across the country when everyone else is too scared to. A self-made-man in the apocalyptic world.

Maybe his dad would be proud, maybe he’d be shocked like everyone else. Honestly, Dave doesn’t know—his dad and he were never close. Viola liked to say what he had for his dad was hero-worship disguised as familial love, and Dave had been coming to terms with that jarring realization when the world literally ended.

Look to the future.

Dave clenches the rail, the wood digging into his palm, but he hardly feels the pain. This is my normal now. He repeats it over and over, cementing it into memory. 

This is his normal now, and he’s got to deal with whether he likes it or not.

Chapter Text

It’s after he shoots his second arrow that Shawn snaps.

“I definitely need more weapons.”

Up on the lookout post, Scott peers down. Shawn can see his smug smirk from here, and it makes him want to climb up there and try to toss him off like he’d attempted a half hour ago. The two of them had tussled on the lookout post that's only big enough for one person until B had rapped sharply on the pole and Shawn had nearly tumbled right off due to the force (much to the barely concealed glee of Scott).

“You didn’t stock up on arrows?” Scott calls down now, sounding entirely too full of himself, the git. He doesn’t have to worry, he's a melee fighter, he has his fucking ax with him, and only a moron would lose an entire ax in the middle of an apocalypse. (Shawn's own ax bumps against his thigh in silent assent.)

B nudges Shawn, and when he looks at him, he signs he lost his first ax. This is his second one. Mike got it.

“Stop talking shit about me!” Scott yells down. When B only responds with a deadpan look, Scott groans loudly and exaggeratedly. “So I got ambushed. So I lost my first ax. Big deal, we’ve all lost weapons in the middle of ambushes!”

You threw yours, B signs.

“It was an ambush, not a tea party, smart-aleck,” snaps Scott.

“Man, throwing your one and only weapon at a horde is, like, the second craziest thing you can do,” Shawn tells him.

B cocks one eyebrow. What’s the worst thing?

“Running right at a horde thinking you can fight them all off,” Shawn says, thinking back to his first encounter with Dave. Man, he still has not a single clue how either of them made it out of there intact.

“Scott’s done that too,” comes Mike’s voice from behind. He approaches them, arms swinging casually, Dave at his side with his customary furrow between his eyebrows. “He ran right at the horde thinking he was Braveheart or something,” continues Mike, “right before they overwhelmed him and he threw his ax at them.”

Like a moron, B adds.

“That was two damn years ago,” snarls Scott down the post. “Leave it alone!”

Mike smiles sweetly up at him. “No thanks.”

Even from down here, Shawn can see Scott’s face flush such a dark indignant red that his freckles disappear. As Scott begins to hurl insults down at Mike who returns the favor with great enthusiasm, Dave sidles up to Shawn.

“We almost there yet?” he asks lowly. “I think I’m getting seasick—is it possible to be allergic to saltwater?”

Shawn can feel B’s amused look as he replies, “Not sure yet. B’s the navigator though.” He pauses, thoughtful. “Ninety percent of the human population gets seasick and now that number has probably risen due to the decline of humans. You’re fine, dude, just don’t look over the edge.”

Turning, he sees Dave’s slightly green face. “Dude, I literally told you not to look—“

“It’s not that,” Dave mumbles. He moves past Shawn, focusing straight ahead at the horizon, determinedly not looking down. 

Shawn blinks after him, bemused. He turns back to B. “What was that all about?”

The older man shakes his head. Scared him. 

“How?” Shawn protests. All he had said was some basic statistics and a way to reassure Dave. 

Humans. Statistics.

It takes Shawn a second to connect the dots. “Oh.” Of course, bringing up the decline in the human population would make Dave feel worse when it would have made Shawn feel better. He’s lived with the man for months, and traveled with him; obviously, that was what had rattled him. “Well he should learn to get used to it, it’s been years, man. The apocalypse ain’t going anywhere!”

B nods solemnly. But before he can raise his hands up to sign a response, a particularly loud shout comes from where Mike and Scott stand.

“Are they stupid?” Shawn mutters. Arguing so nonchalantly in the middle of a body of water—which granted is a safety zone from walkers, but that doesn’t mean they won’t alert unwarranted attention that can fuck them up when they reach land.

B doesn’t need to sign to show that he definitely thinks the affirmative. Striding over, he raps sharply at the back of Mike’s head earning an affronted yelp from the man; he then glares up at Scott, daring him to talk or he’ll receive the same treatment. Maybe B has done it before because Scott stays wisely silent, the corner of his mouth downturned sullenly.

While the three older men debate about the logistics of arguing openly in the middle of an apocalyptic city, Shawn shifts over to Dave who’s been staring at the same spot on the horizon for long enough that Shawn knows he isn’t really seeing it. 

He cast around for something to say. It’s almost like Dave’s call changed his mood so Shawn decided to start there. “How was…you know…” he nods down at the walkie held loosely in Dave’s hand.

Dave looks down at the walkie in mild surprise as though he hadn’t realized he’s still holding it. “Fine,” he says absently.

Right. Okay. So they’re doing this apparently. Well, Shawn tried, and he knows from experience that pushing won’t lead anywhere so he switches topics.

“While you were down there, B mentioned something about a group of people who peddle weapons. You think you’re finally up to handling the apocalypse with a weapon, personally, I think you should,” he adds before Dave can reply. “Who knows what is waiting for us and…”

And I can’t keep doing the protecting and defending for the two of us. 

The convenience store and the city hall office were strokes of luck. It’s not like everywhere they go, there will be heavy books or shampoo bottles for Dave to wield against the undead.

“I don’t know…” Dave trails off.

“Oh come on, man, you need a weapon to survive or the zombies will eat your brains out easily!”

Dave huffs, irritation flickering in his eyes, darkening them more as he snaps, “I’ll think about it, okay?”

"Wow imagine having an attitude for being advised of efficient ways to survive,” Shawn mutters loud enough for Dave to hear. 

The dark-haired man's mouth ticks downward and Shawn is so ready to shoot another retort back; he’s done being the solo man in this duo—Dave may be handy, sure, but not when it comes to the most important thing currently: defending themselves from the shufflers! 

He doesn’t know what would’ve happened at that moment; maybe they’d have fought right there on the dock of B’s ship. Nerves are fraying anyway and they’re both wired up in one way or another. However before either of them can do anything, Mike’s voice cuts through.

“He’s got a point, you know, Dave.”

Shawn crosses his arms. “Yeah, I do.”

Dave responds with just a pointed glare at Mike who props himself up with his elbows on the boat’s rails next to Dave. “Listen, if you’re planning on getting all the way to the west coast you’re going to need a hell of lot more than just your wits and sheer luck—and Shawn,” he amends. “Although Shawn knows what he’s doing, he…”

“I won’t be around all the time, dude,” Shawn finishes. No use beating around the bush, this was a zombie-eat-human world, he knows there’s a slim chance they can make it to their destination alive. “So you need to know your shit.”

“I know that,” says Dave curtly.

“Do you?” Shawn retorts, patience fraying. “Because it doesn’t seem like it.”

 “I saved your ass back in Toronto!”

“Only by pure luck. There won’t be books and shampoo bottles wherever we go, man.”

“Big talk for a man who would’ve died.”

“Says the guy who can’t even hear the word zombies without pulling out his hand sanitizer bottle.”

“Okay, enough,” Mike steps between them, hands up like any second they’ll turn on him. “You just gave me and Scott shit for arguing, don’t you guys start too.”

He’s right; arguing will get them nowhere, but the rational part of Shawn’s brain had insisted on making his stand; to get through to Dave that what he’s doing (or lack of doing) is going to lead to him getting his brains eaten out. The fact that that insignificant part of him had so easily overtaken the part that he’d carefully cultivated from his ma freaks Shawn the fuck out. He turns, staring down at the waves lapping the sides of the boat.

Mike’s still talking, angled to Dave now. “It’s been years, man, you gotta get used to this life.” When Dave doesn’t respond, Shawn speaks up, playing his trump card when it comes to Dave. 

“Your girlfriend won’t be too happy if you make it to her half-mangled. She’d want you to defend yourself.”

Dave watches the horizon, his pallor still tinged green accentuating the more the boat swayed on the waves; his eyes are dark, rimmed red from lack of sleep, and his hair, despite his best efforts, is still a bit tousled. His hands clench the wood, seemingly uncaring (or unnoticing) of any splinters digging into his skin. Shawn watches him carefully, wondering if this is the day he’ll witness Dave snapping. Mike looks like he’s thinking along the same lines.

But then his shoulders slump. “Yeah, I guess,” he mumbles, not meeting either of their eyes. 

That’s all Shawn needs to propel the conversation forward into productive waters. “Is there anywhere we can get weapons?” he asks Mike. “B said something about a place that sells them—where’s that?”

“Oh, he was probably talking about Zoey’s place,” Mike snorts. “I dont know about peddling but she and some of her friends do sell weapons they come across while out on supply runs.” He scratches his chin. “Hey, B!” he calls over his shoulder. “Remember if we had to pay for Scott’s second ax?”

Out on the lookout post, Scott yells something unintelligible.

“Not asking you, Scott!” Mike shouts back without missing a beat.

“You heard what he said?” Shawn asks, impressed.

Mike’s lips curl into an ironic smile. “Not one word, but I can guarantee it wasn’t anything nice. Especially when it’s about Zoey.”

“Zoey, like your girlfriend?” asks Dave.

“Ex-girlfriend,” Mike corrects.

“Right, yeah.”

“Anyway, Zoey’s not like that. B’s probably messing around. Last I heard, she and her friends hand out weapons to people who need them. We got Scott’s ax that way before we split off from them.” Mike’s hand drops down to his side, his gaze full of nostalgia. Shawn and Dave exchange looks with raised eyebrows. 

Shaking his head, Mike goes on, “Their camp is located further south—close to the US border. It’s crazy but the zombies don’t bother them as much.”

Shawn leans forward, interest immediately piqued. “Not at all?”

“Well, they lurk around, but when we were there, something about the aura of one of her friends, it puts off the zombies, makes them more docile.” Mike shrugs. “I don’t know what to make of it either. It’s weird, but hey, it has an edge.”

Dave wrinkles his nose. “So Zoey’s friend is a zombie whisperer?”

Trust Dave to see a negative to Mike’s words. Then again, Shawn isn’t feeling too uppity either; someone who can calm down zombies has to be connected to them in some way—and he isn’t keen on dealing with a commander of zombie hordes. A Zombie 2.0, so to speak.

“Hey, they’ve been doing loads of help using that ability,” Mike says defensively. “Their hope is to prevent most of the zombies here from infiltrating the States.”

If Dave’s not going to do it, then Shawn has to point out the obvious: “That’s a great idea, except how exactly is a group of humans supposed to do that?”

Mike shrugs. “They’re doing it. I don’t know if the news was a prominent thing in either of your bunkers, but the midwestern side of the States hasn’t gotten as much of a hit from the undead as everywhere else. That’s close to the area where their camp is located.”

Huh, well I’ll be damned, this is beyond the strangest thing Shawn has ever heard—and he’s seen the people who believe Mothman exists. “So let me get this straight,” he starts, “your ex has a friend who is a zombie whisperer and she and her friends are selling weapons while standing guard over the border, trying to push back hordes of the undead? And they’re doing it with no problem?”

Mike’s brows furrow. “I didn’t say anything about the last part, but everything else is pretty much yeah.” His face lights up. “You wanna go there? It’s on the way to our route to the coast—actually, it’s one of our stops to rest and catch up. You guys can get your weapons no sweat. It’ll just be a couple more miles on the water.”

Perfect! That’s a great plan. More time spent on the water away from land and the zombies, and an easy route to an armory for some weapons to stock up on. Mike is a godsend, Shawn has to admit, and he’s about to say so and agree when he catches sight of Dave’s face—or rather spots the greenish tinge to his skin and the way he clenches the boat rail, though this time Shawn knows what it’s about.

Mentally kissing the easy (and safe) route goodbye, he sighs and says, “Nah, man, just drop us off at Thunder Bay, we don’t want to intrude on your supplies.”

Dave and Mike goggle at him. “You want to stay on land and hitchhike to Winnipeg? Because that’s where their camp is and it’s a hell of a long trek.”

“Yeah,” Shawn injects as much confidence into his answer as he can muster. “Staying in groups for too long can impact not just the zombies, dude, but also our rations. It’ll cause tension amongst group members. You guys aren’t prepped for two extra people—Mike, I’m serious, man—” Shawn adds when he sees Mike open his mouth to protest, “—so the best thing would be to drop us and our truck off at Thunder Bay and we’ll take it from there.” He glances at where B and Scott stand, farther away. “You and your group have a cool thing going, we don’t really fit into it.”

Mike is still gaping at him, but Shawn sees out of the corner of his eye that Dave’s shoulders have relaxed a tad and his goggling has switched to something akin to gratefulness…which eases Shawn’s worries about making the right choice a little too. Just a little.

(The voice in his head that sounds like all the stuff his mother’s taught him is crying hysterically. He ignores it just this one time. Besides, he’s got a point, doesn’t he? Realistically, it makes sense!)

“Well…if you’re absolutely sure,” Mike says, trailing off questioningly.

“Very sure,” Shawn assures him.

“Yeah,” Dave speaks up for the first time. He isn’t facing Shawn, but he’s moved closer; nothing too obvious but obvious enough for Shawn’s well-trained eye. “We’ll be fine, Mike.”

“I don’t like this,” Mike mutters.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, I don’t either, Shawn thinks.

“It’s the best option,” he says out loud.

A cowbell sounds from close to the bow, followed by Scott’s nasally drawl: “Land ho!”

Mike rolls his eyes. “I said that one time, and he never lets it go.” He moves toward the rest of his group, Shawn and Dave falling behind.

At first, Dave doesn’t say anything, and Shawn is content to stew in the agony of choosing a path that would likely have him killed, but then:

“Why did you tell Mike you wanted to travel by land?”

The response leaves his mouth before his brain comprehends what’s being said: “Because it’s best for both groups.”

Dave doesn’t look convinced. “They have weapons—and a boat. You keep saying weapons and water travel are good.”

So Dave has been listening to his spiels occasionally. Go figure, Shawn thought he just tuned him out. “Yeah, but group travel is horrible work during an apocalypse, come on man, we already went over this. Besides, what good will it be if I travel with a bunkermate who can’t keep his food in on boats?”

“So it was because of me.” But Dave’s voice isn’t accusatory or guilt-ridden; there’s a touch of satisfaction in it that has Shawn bristling for no good reason.

“Actually no, it’s because who knows if your puke will attract the shufflers so much they’ll learn to swim. Imagine getting your brains eaten while on the water.”

With that, he power-walks away, gratified by the reteching noises behind him. Obviously, hearing Dave on the verge of puking (and nudging him in that direction) isn’t the best course of action while on a boat with three other people, but some innate instinct within Shawn wanted to remove that tone of voice from Dave. It’s a tone that leads to dangerous things—like blind trust, which the apocalypse doesn’t have a surplus of.

(He doesn’t entertain his second thought, which is that it scared him a little; has he used that same sort of voice to Dave before? Why would he place trust in a man who can’t even defend himself properly against the undead?)

He saved your life.

Due to dumb luck, he argues. Worst comes to worst, Dave will be absolutely shitty in a fight, and Shawn isn’t willing to risk an ounce of blind trust on that. His brain is already being weird, he doesn’t need to add more fuel to the fire.

“There we are,” Mike says when Shawn joins the trio at the bow. He points up ahead. “Thunder Bay.”

When Shawn follows Mike’s finger, all he sees are rocks. Giant chunks of cliffside eroded from decades of water bordering it. Then he notices the specks of buildings farther inland—though still close to the water. The closer they get, the more he sees that the buildings are chipped, falling apart, and graffitied. Yet another ghost town, although this one looks more intact than the others they’ve seen.

Mike, Scott, and B’s boat stops with a bump by the shoreline next to an outcropping of weathered rocks. B throws down the anchor and lets the gangway fall with a muffled thump connecting the boat to the sand.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stick around?” Mike asks, shading his eyes as he stares at the deserted shoreline. “We can make do with the rations.”

“No we can’t,” says Scott, scaling down the lookout post and striding toward them, trenchcoat flapping ironically more intimidatingly than his scowl. He crosses his arms. “You told them till Thunder Bay, and this is their stop.”

Mike sighs. “Scott…”

“We’re not picking up every goddamn stray we find, Mike, I’m tired of your heroic shit. They can handle themselves otherwise they wouldn’t have fucked around and found out on the surface.”

B pats Mike’s shoulder comfortingly, and the lankier man sighs again, more drawn-out and defeated. When he turns to Shawn and Dave, one section of one eyebrow is tugging upwards unintentionally, making one brown eye wider than the other. Somehow that just makes him and the entire situation all the more serious.

“Play it safe, okay you two? Work together, make it to the west coast, don’t let the zombies fuck you up.”

Dave nods determinedly like he does whenever the west coast is brought up, as though the words will allow that girl he likes to see him being all brave. Shawn nods too, but with less conviction. He’s starting to realize that maybe his rashness got too ahead of him. That boat is looking awfully safe and sound compared to the eerie silence of Thunder Bay.

It’s a bit of a rush for the next five minutes. Dave shoulders his pack, Shawn makes sure his crossbow is set to go; B and a reluctant Scott supply them with a stock of arrows—not a whole lot but enough to see them through for the next several miles. Meanwhile, as he reverses Shawn’s truck onto the sand, Mike highlights the pointers of Thunder Bay—apparently, he had family there. Shawn hangs onto every word.

B sidles up, nearly startling Shawn, and slips something into his vest pocket. When Shawn shoots him a look of confusion, he only replies with a thumbs-up and a hefty pat on both Shawn and Dave’s backs—the latter nearly pitching forward from the strength of it.

They walk down the gangway to where Mike is standing by the truck. Cracking a wan smile, he claps Shawn on the shoulder and nods at Dave. “See you on the flip side, buds. Don’t do stupid shit.”

“Have fun on your mission for love,” Scott sneers over the side of the boat.

“Better than you,” Mike shoots back without missing a beat (or looking over his shoulder at the boat). Amidst Scott’s loud complaints and sputtering, he says, softer, “hope you get your closure, Dave.”

“Closure?” Dave repeats, but Mike doesn’t hear, too busy shouting at Scott to “shut the hell up, goddamn, you’re so dramatic!” before giving them one last smile and jaunty salute and bounding back up the gangway. Shawn and Dave watch as B hoists the anchor back up and the boat slowly pulls away from the shoreline, taking any prospect of the easy way out with them; the outlines of the trio onboard waves until they’re too far away to see. Then the boat is swallowed up in the late-evening darkness.

They stand there, staring at the darkness hovering over Lake Superior. The only sounds are crickets beginning to chirp. The air starts to chill, Shawn can feel it seeping through the sleeves of his sweatshirt.

Looks like it’s the two of them once again. 

“Welp!” He rubs his hands together. Dave hasn’t moved. “Let’s get into the truck,” Shawn tries again, and this time Dave shifts his gaze from the water to him, the irises blending in nearly with the growing darkness around them. “I wanna get out of town by nightfall.”

They do not make it out of town by the time night comes along. The stars wink into existence, one by one against the clear sky; the buildings turn into shadowy figures akin to zombies lurching toward them; and Shawn’s shoulder has started twinging from three straight hours of nonstop driving in the same position.

Just one more mile, just one more mile. 

The sign they pass reads in chipped lettering: townline 5 miles!

“Don’t tell me we’re driving five more miles.”

“Dammit, you read the sign too?” Shawn groans. He hoped Dave was asleep or that it was too dark to read the sign. 

  He feels Dave’s incredulous glare searing holes into his arm. “We are not driving five more miles in the dark.”

“We? Man, I’m the one doing the driving!”

“And I’m the one who has to deal with your ass after doing stupid shit like not giving your shoulder time to heal and driving in the night where those creeps could jump this hunk of metal at any time and we wouldn't know.”

“There are so many things wrong with that sentence, but mainly my truck is not a hunk of metal,” Shawn aims a scowl at Dave to which the other responds by flapping his arms at the windshield. 

“The road, the road!”

“Relax, we won't crash.”

“Guess what, scientists said the apocalypse wouldn’t happen, and look what we’re dealing with now.”

“Jokes on them I knew they’d be wrong ten years ago!”

Dave stares at him. “Do you realize how insane you sound?”

“To the ears of the ignorant, truth is insanity,” Shawn replies, quoting his mother’s favorite line that she pulled out whenever the other kids made fun of him.

“Well you can keep your insanity to yourself, we’re pulling over for the night.”

“No way!” Shawn protests. “Dude we gotta make headway!”

“Your shoulder says otherwise.”

"Dude! How can you even tell it hurts?”

“One: you’ve been stiffening up subtly for the past hour. Two: if I didn’t know before, now I certainly do since you all but told me.”

“Dammit!” He honestly cannot believe he fell for a cheap trick like that—and Dave didn’t even have to try! Maybe Shawn really is tired. When is the last time he’d slept properly?

“You know sleeping out in the open is a call for free brains for the zombies,” he informs Dave, just in case.

But Dave shrugs. “I bet you’ve zombie-proofed the truck.”

Well, fuck, he has. Shawn’s running out of arguments. “But we need to make headway…”

It sounds feeble and he knows Dave knows it too, for he gives Shawn a pointed look, back to being the usual Dave. “What we need is sleep. It’s past midnight,” he points at the digital clock on the dashboard that reads 12:16 in the morning. “We can catch a few hours, you rest up that shoulder, we’ll start driving first thing tomorrow.”

When Shawn still doesn’t look completely convinced, he squares his shoulders like he’s going to say something wild. “I can take the watch as long as you let me sleep the whole way when we start driving again.”

Hold up, what?!

Shawn’s aware his mouth is hanging open. What the hell happened to the Dave he knows? That Dave won’t be opting—without being asked first—to take watch and keep himself awake. 

Dave’s face is thrown into shadow but from the shifting around, Shawn gathers he must be beyond embarrassed for the two of them. That snaps Shawn out of his daze.

“Fine. But just for an hour or two. Who knows how long you can stay awake.” He has no idea if Dave’s pulled all-nighters before and he isn’t going to test and see right this moment. 

Dave rolls his eyes.

Shawn steers the truck to the side of the road. No parking in alleyways or junctions that can prevent a hasty escape if they end up ambushed. The open space around them is good for fights and escapes, however, it also leaves them an easy target. He can do with some trees but Thunder Bay doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of forests.

The side of the road squelches as his truck parks itself atop it, Shawn chalks it up to possible zombie guts or even a decapitated zombie head. He sure as hell isn’t going to check and see.

Cranking his seat all the way back, he settles more down comfortably and turns his head to where Dave sits watching him. “If you see any zombies just holler. I’m a very light sleeper.”

“Oh, trust me, I know,” is what Shawn thinks Dave says; but that moment is also when he lets his eyes lazily slip shut, and just like that he’s out like a light.

This time his dreams aren’t full of zombies or blood and gore. They’re full of his mother.

Like snapshots on a projector, he sees the moments with her he wishes he could relive if only to see her face and smile again. The memories flash by; the time spent making their bunker, writing the guide to surviving the apocalypse, the serious talks that dissolved into tickle-fests whenever Shawn came to her about the bullies, the weekend hikes when the sun was shining and his ma laughed at the world. Each moment fills his heart with an aching glow.

Then the last memory—of her in the bunker smiling down at him—corrodes, blackening at the edges, the sunlight around them morphing into darkness as his mother’s smile twists into a grimacing leer with bloodied gums and rotting teeth. She reaches out to him as he stands rooted to the ground, her cracked fingernails so close to his neck he can practically feel them grazing his skin. He shudders and looks up; her face has changed, most of the skin decaying to show white bone underneath, her hair missing in chunks, one ear gone. 

"Look what you’ve done,” she hisses, her voice gravely. “This is what you’ve done to me. Why didn’t you help me? Why aren’t you listening to me?”

“No…no…” he mutters, his words growing louder as he strains away from her grasp. “Get away…”

“You don’t listen to me. Listen to me, listen to me!”

“Get AWAY!”

“You could do better if you LISTEN TO ME!”

“SHAWN!”

He jolts upright, head whipping around, panting. His arm is raised, poised for an attack, before the rest of his body catches up. 

The truck’s interior is still dark and so is the sky—he guesses he must have slept for about an hour maximum. Dave’s silhouette is pressed against the passenger side door, eyes flicking warily between Shawn’s raised fist and his face, his own arm outstretched to shake him again. 

Fuck!

Humiliation courses through him. This is, what, the second time Dave has had to witness him in the throes of a nightmare—and the second time Shawn would have tossed the guy out of the car through the windshield if he hadn’t gotten a hold of himself in time and realized it was just a stupid dream.

A nightmare, a voice that sounds like Dave reminds him. The blood in his veins curdles more.

Dave clears his throat, but Shawn doesn’t want to hear what he has to say. The truck has gotten suddenly constricted. He needs to get out and breathe some fresh air, get away from this tense atmosphere that’s been prickling at the both of them since the boat ride. Zombies be damned.

“Stay here,” he mutters, patting his ax between them so Dave can see he has a weapon just in case (not that Shawn believes he'll use it), before he picks up his crossbow and hops out of the truck. Without waiting for a response, he slams the door shut and trudges out into the open, half hoping for a zombie ambush so that he can let out all those dark inner thoughts piling up in his mind like crudely stacked blocks.

The only sounds are the crickets and the distant sounds of waves lapping against the shore and the cliffsides. They’re parked at the edge of a road that wraps around one of those cliffs, trees swaying below him when he peered over the edge; rocky outcroppings jut out on both sides in front of him so that it looks, in the dark, like they swallow up the road. 

He lets his crossbow hang loosely in one hand and exhales deeply. He can understand why his ma loved to hike and go camping; there’s something serene about the outdoors, something that the cities and their tall buildings can never recreate. It’s the same reason why he loves to sleep outside in the trees.

His mother would have pointed out the stars above him, said something about their constellations, and then brought it back to the apocalypse and how the stars would watch over them.

Guess you didn’t watch over the both of us, he squints up at the sky, his eyes prickling. Quickly looking down and wiping at his eyes, he pulls out his phone with its somewhat cracked screen and old features. Flipping it over, he carefully peels off the case; in the space is some spare change, a stick of unopened gum, and a creased photograph.

He picks up the photograph. It’s of a woman in her mid-thirties, light brown hair in a bob with a bandana over it, a half-smile pulling up lightly freckled cheeks; her long-sleeve shirt, orange vest, cargo pants, and hiking boots are practical but subtly fashionable. Shawn never cared for fashion, but his mother liked to indulge in style here and there. He can tell how long ago this picture was taken because that orange vest was his dad’s—his mother stopped wearing it when she fully stopped talking to his dad, years after the divorce.

He has no idea whether his dad is alive. Maybe Shawn should call him.

“Um, hey.”

Shawn jumps a foot in the air and whirls around midway. His hand is behind him, reaching for his crossbow when he sees that it’s just Dave standing with his hands in his pockets, looking so out of the ordinary from how normal he looks in the midst of this crazy world they’re in. 

“You were taking a long time,” Dave says in explanation. His eyes move to the photo in Shawn’s hand. “Is that your mother?”

The bluntness of the question is refreshing, Shawn can’t lie. It pulls him mostly out of his funk. “Yeah it is,” he replies, angling the photo more so that Dave can look at it properly. “My dad took it.”

“Is he…?”

Shawn shrugs.

“Where were you?” Dave breathes out, staring at the photograph.

Shawn shrugs again. “I think my dad was holding me. I was just a baby.”

“Oh.” Dave inspects the photo for a second more then looks up. "She looks nice. You have her eyes and her hair."

"Yeah, so I've been told. I have my dad's everything else in terms of appearance." A feeble laugh bubbles up his throat, it doesn't come out, but he feels a bit more unwound than he was five seconds ago.

The prickly tension between them appears to have loosened a little, much to Shawn’s relief. Dave digs around in his pocket, pulls out his phone, and taps on his camera roll. After some scrolling, he shows his phone screen to Shawn, leaning toward him so that under the smell of dirt, Shawn catches a whiff of the facewash Dave uses. 

“That’s my family,” Dave points out each one as he flicks past photo after photo. His mother is a casually elegant woman with a head full of curls and almost always in some sort of style; her face is softly angular, her eyes are far away, even looking at the camera, she seems to be somewhere away from the grounds of reality, her own heaven. (“She’s a painter, she’s always imagining things, possibilities.”) Shawn notices from the photos that she has an absurd number of dresses. 

Dave’s older brother, Gabriel, is tall and broad-shouldered; most of the photos show him leaning against a convertible that Dave elaborates is his racecar. (“He has a different convertible for casual goings.”) Gabriel smirks at the camera, a hidden conspiracy and tattling of the life he lives prevalent in his eyes that look similar to Dave's and their mother’s. 

Jaydha, his older sister (and the oldest sibling) looks most like his dad, Dave says; her face is proud and austere, her eyes are shrewd and sharp, she holds herself with a straight-backed posture that shows exactly how she managed to nab a position in her career that allows her to speak to significant politicians and government officials. Shawn can tell she takes zero shit.

There is a lack of photos of Dave’s father. The only ones Shawn sees are within the family photos where everything about him looks poised and practiced.

Then Dave swipes to the next set of photos. “That’s my younger sister, Viola—the youngest of the family. My mother named her,” he says and Shawn’s stomach drops.

Long black hair, wide dark eyes so familiar to Dave, the widest smile Shawn has seen thus far amongst Dave’s family but it’s tinged with a playful cockiness; she’s clearly one of the more popular girls, an athlete too Shawn notices from the load of photos in which she’s standing in some sports uniform or other. He also notices the many photos Dave has of her. Out of everyone in his family, only Viola and Gabriel got the prestige of taking over Dave’s camera roll.

That makes Shawn’s stomach roll more. He feels dizzy, staring at the picture of the girl—Viola, Dave’s younger sister— who Shawn has definitely seen before. 

The memories flash before him, a sick replay; them meeting up by chance on a supply run for their individual bunkers; she had brought up the idea of working together, covering more ground quicker, he’d agreed—it had only been a year and a half since the apocalypse began, he’d do anything to get back to his bunker quickly; they’d scoured a grocery store at the edge of town, fought some zombies together, everything had been going fine; he’d indexed the checkout lanes, hoping for some leftover energy drinks, she’d gone to the back, the employee section would have more in-stock that hopefully hadn’t gone bad already; he’d let her do her thing, they were just temporary allies, she could handle herself, he wasn’t obligated to go with her.

Then he’d heard the screams. He hurried to the back, stuffing two packs of energy drinks as he ran, and saw her on the ground, one bloody arm stretched out toward him; her eyes were already starting to glaze, the zombie wearing an employee’s uniform digging away into the back of her head, he could see everything. It had been all of Shawn’s nightmares personified, he’d stood there frozen. She was staring back, on the edge of death, mouthing something he couldn’t hear.

He’d shot them both with his crossbow and rushed out of there, not bothering to retrieve his arrows.

Hell, Shawn wants to puke. The image of her brain is stark in his mind. It melts into Dave’s confused face as he looks at him, the stars over his head, the truck is sinking, Shawn is sinking, everything is falling apart. But he has to say something. 

“Shawn? What’s wrong?”

“She’s dead,” he whispers.

Through the haze, Dave’s bewildered expression stiffens. “What?”

“Your sister,” Shawn says every word like a gavel. He forces himself to meet Dave’s eyes, watches as the pupils in them widen then his entire face drops. “I…I saw her, we were on a supply run and decided to team up to cover more ground, her idea. She went to the back of the store, and I heard her screaming…but when I got there…”

He shuts his mouth, better to leave the details ambiguous, he doesn’t feel like scarring Dave further.

For his part, Dave doesn’t say anything which serves to worry Shawn more than if he’d come at him screaming and hurling insults. The man in front of him stands, limp, his hands dangling lifelessly by his sides, phone loose and about to fall out of his grip; he looks lost, the grief of the news not computing. His eyes are blank, distant, they’re barren. In ways the silence is darker than any hurtful words Dave could have said. Shawn has no idea what’s running through the guy’s mind; he’s just thankful he hasn't brought Shawn's ax with him otherwise he has a slight inkling Dave would have taken it to Shawn’s head, travel partners be damned. 

He’s about to say something, some shitty words of comfort that he’s horrible at, when his eyes slide back over Dave’s shoulder to where his truck is.

Wait a minute…

It hadn’t been Shawn’s imagination. The truck really is sinking!

“My truck!” he shouts. 

(A small part of him considers maybe not wailing about his truck—and half-pushing Dave aside to get to it—in the middle of such a serious moment, but it’s stuffed down by the panic of losing his mother’s truck.)

“No, no, no!” He skids next to it, his arms flailing as he searches for anything to grab hold of to try and pull up from the apparent quicksand next to the fucking road—is this town crazy?

“It’s a swamp,” Dave says; apparently he’d followed Shawn to the truck. Now he stands to the side, his eyes are still empty, his voice is dull, but at least he’s talking. “It’s not quicksand, I know that’s what you’re probably thinking. Thunder Bay is already by the water, and with the lack of human regulation, there are more wetlands. The wet grass next to the road must have made the pavement looser.

“Does it look like I care for the terrain lesson, man?” Shawn snaps. He twists his hands, then places them on the underside of the part of the truck that holds the tire closest to him, and he heaves. He puts all his strength into it until he’s sure he can feel a vein about to burst; all he can see is his mother’s face, alternating between the smiling one in the photograph to the ravaged zombified mess from his nightmare. You could do better.

“Shawn, it’s not going to come up.”

“You don’t know that!” Shawn yells, grunting, straining, his arms bursting into pain, his shoulder protesting, his head swimming, he can feel the sweat tricking down the side of his head. But the truck continues to sink. 

“For fucks sake,” he hears Dave grumble, before a pair of hands grab his waist, and tug him away with surprising strength. 

Shawn struggles viciously in his grip. “Let fucking go !” He hears Dave grunt when he smacks his ankle with his sneaker, but Shawn hardly cares. His eyes are fixed on the truck, everything else is pale in comparison. He can’t lose the truck, he can’t, he can’t—

“Snap. Out. Of. It,” Dave’s curt voice is inches from his ear. “It’s stuck in the swamp, you and I can’t pull it out.”

Like Dave will willingly get in there and help pull it out with him. Shawn’s shoulders slump.

True to word, the truck remains there, wheels fully submerged along with the lower half of it; there’s only enough space for them to quickly grab their backpacks before the swamp envelops it entirely.

Shawn does that, and Dave is more than happy to let him trump into muddy water to grab their packs and toss them to where he stands a healthy distance away. When the packs are safe, Shawn runs a hand down the side of his truck, his throat closing up. Another part of his ma that he has to walk away from. The nightmare of her face stands out in front of his eyelids as he rests his forehead against the dirt-streaked metal. 

How had he not noticed?

I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. I love you.

This time when they walk away, Shawn makes sure not to look back. However, each step invokes more and more dread into him; how on earth will they make it to the west coast without getting their brains eaten out now?

Wordlessly, Dave hands him his pack and Shawn takes it in equal silence. There’s no need for words, there are none to say anyway. The rubberband between them that has been starting to loosen has wound up again, tighter than ever.

They walk for less than an hour, entering one of the many woods littering Thunder Bay, before Dave puts a halt to that by stating he didn’t keep watch for them to ignore the fact that he hasn’t slept right in over two days, and promptly sets up an impromptu camp right where they stand. Shawn, not willing to travel alone among the trees and too stunned by what happened, reluctantly follows suit. At least now he can only see woods and no shadow of the road they’d left behind. 

While Dave slumbers, curled up facing away from the mini-camp, Shawn rummages around in his pack and pulls out ingredients for a quick snack—a bag of chips, some trail mix, and an energy drink. He eats them quickly, so as not to attract shufflers (it’s common knowledge that their sense of smell is heightened when Bitten, and he’s not going to risk getting eaten out because he wanted to eat some fucking trail mix). When Dave wakes up, he adds canned beans to the meal spread out. Shawn wants to ask him what the fuck he’s doing when he starts a small campfire and begins heating up the damn things, but the look Dave levels him with before he can open his mouth sends Shawn mentally reeling.

It’s a look full of unspoken—none of them positive. Yep, Dave is definitely mad at him.

Shawn’s mad too, and upset, he’s feeling a lot of things and nothing at all. There’s an ugly feeling in his stomach. It doesn’t help the tension.

After packing up, they set off once more, trekking through the woods, keeping a close eye on the trees in case any walkers are hiding behind them (Shawn does more of the ‘keeping a close eye’ if he’s being honest). Thunder Bay would be a nice spot to chill and hang out, maybe, in another lifetime when things aren’t so zombie-infested, its forests are quiet and breezy enough that despite the sun in the sky and the humidity in the air, Shawn doesn’t feel it under the shade of the trees. Beside him, Dave traipses silently, his hands on the straps of his pack; he looks younger than he is in that position that Shawn gets the insane urge to call out his name, say something stupid that he knows will have Dave furrowing his brows and frowning the way Shawn knows him as. This silent, contemplative Dave keeps throwing him off.

It’s when the sun is high above the sky signaling mid-to-late afternoon that words begin to sprout between them.

“Look,” Dave points ahead. “A stream.”

Indeed, there is a thin stream with a set of rocks jutting out of it. The stream splits off in either direction; the one on the left leading uphill in a steep incline peppered with more rocks and trees; the one on the right leading downhill with fewer trees. They exchange tired yet relieved glances—a stream is a good thing, it can lead to another town or neighborhood.

“Okay, so obviously we should take the right,” says Shawn briskly. “It’ll be easier to follow the stream and we’ll still have coverage, best of both worlds.”

He thinks that’s that until Dave speaks up, “Why not the left one? It has got loads of trees and shelter.”

Shawn can’t believe it. This guy has lived with him for months and it’s like he’s retained nothing from Shawn’s advice. “Dude, choosing the easier path is always the solution—I mean, duh, if it’s too easy that’s another story, but this is just the right amount of easy! We could go down and find someplace to crash for the time being while we make a plan.”

But Dave’s already shaking his head. “The downhill makes it seem way too easy. If we choose the left route we can go uphill and maybe find some higher ground.”

“And then what? We’ll throw a fucking party on the edge of a fucking cliff?”

Dave’s eyes narrow. The rubberband between them stretches impossibly tight. “You’re talking a lot of shit for someone who was crying because their truck got stuck in the mud.”

Really? Really? Oh, that is it.

“Not like you would have helped me try to pull it out anyway, with your beef against mud and any dirt. This is the apocalypse, man, you have to deal with this shit not whine about it.”

Just like that, the rubberband finally snaps.

“At least I know shit about the terrain I’m on. I say the left route is best otherwise we’ll be losing a lot more than your old truck. At least I don't run away from people who might need help.”

“My truck is not old,” is the only thing Shawn can retort, the rest of Dave's words prick him like needles. He's self-reliant, but the way Dave spits it out with that scowl Shawn feels like a coward. He crosses his arms. “And terrain is nothing when you dont know shit about zombies. Picking danger willingly is moronic,” he quotes the sentence in another of the chapters in his ma’s apocalypse survival guide. “If there’s an easy route then take it.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that when a zombie is waiting for you down the hill because they could sense you were tromping around miles away.”

“And you keep saying what you think after you fall over from that steep incline and crack your head on one of those rocks!”

They stare at each other, breathing heavily. It’s a wonder no deadies have wandered by with all the ruckus they’ve been making. 

“Then I guess this is it,” Shawn says at last.

“I guess so,” Dave says.

“We’re splitting up.”

“Sounds great.”

They don’t move.

Dave backs away, moving to the left path, his face shuttered. “Let’s see if you survive on the path you take.”

“Don’t worry about me, let’s see if you make it up there. Try not to let any of the dirt touch you,” Shawn shoots back, half-turning to his chosen path. 

Dave’s face twists. “Fine!”

“Fine!”

The pieces of the rubberband tension fall between them as they storm off in opposite directions. Believing the path they chose is the best option, neither of them breaks stride, merely wondering if the other is looking back as they split ways.

Chapter Text

The sun has touched the horizon, sending rays of multicolored lights of the sunset when Shawn spots gravel through a gap between some of the trees.

A road! Or a path or anything, but at least it indicates former civilization. Which means hopefully a place where he can rest up and gather some supplies before continuing to hit the road until nightfall.

Hard road, his ass! This is totally the easy road and he feels more and more smug about it as he pushes carefully through the trees (keeping an eye out for walkers all the while) and the glimpses of the road get closer.

Take that, Dave, he can’t help thinking smugly before the rest of his brain catches up, and the triumph evaporates.

Man, he wishes Dave could at least try to get that Shawn is the more knowledgeable expert on the situation they’re dealing with. Things would have been far simpler then and he won’t have to deal with the odd silence that he’s gotten averse to since bunking with Dave. 

The Shawn from a couple of months ago would have been horrified at what he’s thinking, but it’s cold, unfortunate fact. In the bunker when Dave was around, there was some noise—whether that be cleaning sounds, Dave complaining about his newest temporary vendetta, or Dave humming lightly when he thought Shawn couldn’t hear him. Even if there wasn’t any noise, there would always be some other form of the five senses that told Shawn he wasn’t the only living being in the vicinity—the smell of cooking, the smell of disinfectant, the sight of books stacked atop the coffee table crate, Dave’s sweater folded on one of the beanbag chairs.

Being with Dave was like everywhere he went, it was lived in. With Shawn everything merely just a habitat, but for some reason with Dave in the picture, it became a place with their signatures on it. All apocalypse knowledge misgivings aside, over time, Shawn grew to appreciate that. He hadn’t realized it but it also allowed him to take a breath. Yes, it was the apocalypse, yes there are zombies, but Shawn and Dave are humans too and humans like to live as Dave showed in his unique ways.

Now, everything feels too vacant. Like a gap next to him needs to be filled both internally and externally. It’s quite Dave-shaped.

“Goddamn,” Shawn mumbles, stopping to adjust the handle of his ax on his belt, using it as an excuse to breathe out slowly. He needs to get his head screwed on straight. Dave chose his path—it may not be the best path, but Shawn can’t call him back now, there’s no time for that. This is the apocalypse, not some daisy-chain circle.

Survival of the fittest, and all that shit.

Still, as he hops over a fallen tree trunk, queasiness settles in his belly—and not just because on the other side of the trunk, he sees a decimated woman (a hiker, most likely) with half her face ravaged and groaning up at him.

He slams the end of his crossbow into her skull, squashing it flat.

Focus ahead, one step forward, don’t look back, he repeats his mother’s mantra. It was how she got through every crazy event in her life, and it will be how Shawn gets through his life as well. He looked back when they left the bunker and they almost died, he’s not looking back again—it’s too risky, and he rather stay alive with his brains intact, thanks very much.

Pushing past the last few trees, he hops over the tilted fence separating the woodland from the road and lands lightly on his feet atop the pavement.

One look to either side tells him he’s standing on what is definitely a road—at least what would have been a road if there were any cars. The empty pavement stretches on either end, on until it seems to touch the horizon. Trees line both sides, and if it isn’t for the bloodsplatters and the occasional upturned car dotting the road, it would have looked like an ordinary empty stretch of road.

Hm, now which way to go…

Both directions look promising, he isn’t sure which way can lead him to a town—maybe it’s a wraparound and he’ll end up reaching the same place no matter which direction he takes. There isn’t any way to tell for sure and standing here contemplating it isn’t helpful. The sun is already partway down the horizon.

So he enacts a tried-and-true method of decision-making.

Eeney….meeney….miney….mo!

He chooses the direction to the right, and sets off.

Wind rustles the leaves strewn all over the road. He takes care not to step on any of them; crunching leaves can alert zombies and given the state of this road, there’s a chance some can be hiding about waiting to ambush him at the slightest noise. 

He’s proven right two seconds later when he passes a car turned on its side and hears a gurgling sound that has him pulling out his crossbow and whipping around in a fluid motion. A pair of unblinking milky eyes is the only warning he gets before the thing lunges at him from the recess of the car’s interior. 

But Shawn’s prepared. He has no one to distract him this time, so with one swing (that makes his shoulder prickle just a little) he hefts up his crossbow and bullseye! The zombie falls on its side, skidding forward an inch or two, an arrow lodged in its skull.

See? Shawn tells the part of him that can’t stop thinking about dark hair and dark eyes. It’s better to be alone, dumbass. Get your head together, it’s life or death!

He creeps up to the motionless figure and bends down to grab his arrow. It takes a while—zombie skulls are way more resilient than The Walking Dead makes it seem—but eventually he tugs it off, stumbling back from the momentum.

The arrow’s tip is covered in brain matter, but thankfully it doesn’t seem to be broken. As he wipes it haphazardly on his sweater and sticks it in his backpack, he resolves to somehow make it to that place Mike said his ex-girlfriend sells weapons at. Doesn’t matter if there’s a creepy zombie-whisperer, Shawn needs more ammo. Even if he has to drive all the way there by hot-wiring car after car.

Huh. That does sound doable. He can do that once he resupplies his stock. There are lots of cars just lying around, it’ll be easy to nab one, hell why didn’t he think of this before?

Because you had your mother’s truck, moron.

Oh yeah. Thanks, brain.

Just when he dedicates himself to concentrating on not dying and not on Dave, his brain goes y’know what else we should think about? Your ma’s truck that you left behind.

Shawn sighs, shoulders slumping. It’s like he’s leaving every part of her behind while on this mad journey that he didn't even want to go in the first place. First the bunker, now the truck. What if—and this is one of his biggest fears—he loses her too? The memories, the things he recalls she used to do, her laugh, her smirk, the glint of mischief in her eyes, the way she talks so passionately about the untold. He wants to commit all that to memory permanently, in honor of her, but even now if he thinks too hard, he swears he’s forgotten the exact timbre of her laugh.

And the memories of her he does remember, they twist and shift into mutilated half-dead versions of her. He doesn’t want them to be tainted by her being a zombie; chances are she would have ended her own life before being Bitten, but that doesn’t stop his brain from conjuring up every single irrational scenario where the images of her smiles change into rotted teeth and bone showing underneath flayed skin.

It’s gotten to the point where he can’t stand to think about the one person he doesn’t ever want to forget. Monty, his former best friend’s physical features has already partially faded to mere blurs, but Shawn’s mother and Monty are different people. He can’t just forget his own mother. But he can’t just keep imagining her as a zombie either.

He may have stood there like a pillock for another hour if not for the sudden chill in the air drawing him back to reality—and the speckling of stars in the sky. If he needs to make some headway before night really falls, he better find a town to restock from and get going pronto.

No time for memories and what-ifs.

“Give your head a shake, Shawn,” he whispers to himself fiercely.

Shouldering his backpack farther up, he continues the long trek down the road as the darkness slowly casts elongated shadows of the cars, lurking at the sides as Shawn passes; he can’t tell if they resemble cars or potential zombies lying in wait, but at this point he’s so wired with paranoia that he’s numb to the fear. 

All he knows is that something about this area just screams danger, something strange and unseemly is hiding, waiting; it only heightens when he finally crests an incline and spots a ghost town on the other side of the hill.

Although he can only see specks from where he stands, something about its atmosphere doesn’t sit right with him. Like he’s in one of those slasher films and he’s creeping into the territory of the maniac on the loose chainsawing people into pieces.

Yeah, okay, buddy, that’s only in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The only killers around here are the shufflers. Get the supplies and leave!

Motivational speech finished, he trots down the hill, the chill in the air coupled with his paranoia causes him to speed up until he’s practically sprinting down by the time he reaches the first building. There’s no sign indicating the name of the place, but given that he can’t smell the water anymore, he makes an educated guess that this isn’t Thunder Bay. 

Dave would have known, he’s the geography expert.

Which brings him to the fact that Dave took their map—the half of it they had and the drawn half he was close to completing when they split. Great, unless Shawn finds another method of direction, he’s screwed. He hopes the cars he’s planning on snatching up to drive to Winnipeg have a working GPS. It’s not like he needs to go to the west coast now, he can just dip in any old empty bunker he comes across—or maybe one of those smaller bunkers in central Canada. Those are close enough, staying up on the surface is basically tempting fate, Shawn has no interest in doing that for longer than necessary. He’s not the dumbass on some funky mission for love.

For now, Shawn's on a mission for nourishment. Treebark and ramen can only take one so far. Dave took their shared trail mix too—the nerve!

He looks around, cataloging the escape routes and, more worryingly, the lack of the undead. Don’t get him wrong, he loves when the undead don’t hang around and make his life harder, in fact, he prefers that one hundred percent, but in a world where the undead are such a common sight to see, entering an area where there is so few of them is disconcerting. Like going to a punk concert and seeing no punks. It doesn’t make sense, and in this case, if it doesn’t make sense, it’s something worth being worried about.

The farther he walks down the main street, the more unease creeps down his spine. Dust and dirt litter the pavement, occasionally being lifted into the air by the wind; the buildings slump forward, backward, and to the sides, parts of their bricked foundation missing or eroded; an ominous creaking sound rings the air every so often—most likely from squeaky door hinges, though what it does is merely serves to ramp up Shawn’s nerves even more. Yet amidst all this, not a single soul—living or undead—shows themselves. He sees dead people though, plenty of those—bodies array the sidewalks and road in various forms of disfigurement. But whatever created such a scene of death is nowhere to be found.

That’s heavily concerning.

Shawn’s zombie radar is pinging off the charts. It skyrockets when he rounds the corner of a convenience store with most of the letters ripped apart and comes face-to-face with half a horde.

This was SUCH a bad idea! is the only thought running in circles around his brain as he turns tail and sprints the fuck out of there. Moans and groans ring behind him, echoing up into the darkening sky with its shades of dark pink and purple; Shawn is just a blur of a shadow in the gloom, sprinting with his backpack thumping against his back. Without stopping, he switches out his crossbow for a more melee weapon—his trusty ax. Just in case it comes down to a fight.

(He’s just glad it isn’t a full horde, outrunning that shit in his state will be near hopeless. He might as well sign his will and hack his own brains out before he can get Bitten.)

 Nearly stumbling over a loose section of gravel, he lets out a hoarse yelp at the feeling—he swears it, a ghost of a touch—of hands clawing at his white sweater (white is really pushing it, more of a dirt-and-blood-stained artwork at this point). Putting on an extra burst of speed, he charges back down the road, ducks into an alleyway, and waits, heart pounding, panting, his back pressed to the wall with his ax clutched to his chest. 

He waits—and hopes—he can make it out of this alive and brains in place.

The zombies linger, groaning in confusion at their free meal vanishing before their eyes. Despite not being able to see them, Shawn can hear the noises—they’re close, too close for comfort. Mentally preparing a list of possible ways he can get out without any shuffler saliva on his person, he tightens his hold on the ax’s handle as the moans grow louder.

Okay, okay. What to do, what to do. Obviously, he needs to stay alive. How will he achieve that? His eyes travel around, taking in his immediate surroundings for anything useful.

A dumpster—oldest trick in the book to evade zombies is to go dumpster-diving. If you smell like one, you’re equivalent to one: he knows his mother wrote that down in her apocalypse guidebook. Shawn wants to get it out just to refer back (even though he has basically the entire thing memorized) but who knows if one move can alert the zombies of where he is. Nope, no risking it.

What he can risk though is taking a bath in trash. It’ll double as a solid hiding spot from the zombies and a good camouflage technique. Two birds with one stone—though in this case it’s ten zombies with one dumpster!

Dave would hate it, Shawn imagines the disgusted scrunch of the other man’s nose and the undiluted horror in his eyes before he shakes the thought away. Dave isn’t here, no point wondering what he would think. Shawn certainly has no qualms with going for a deep dive in trash. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.

Readying himself and hoisting up his ax, Shawn spares the mouth of the alley a quick glance—he spies the silhouettes of the zombies approaching—before booking it to the dumpster. He flips open the cover, wincing at the sharp screech it makes, and dives inside without preamble. He flips the cover shut just as the first walker rounds the alleyway, throwing him into semi-darkness. 

From what he can see, the inside of the dumpster isn’t as bad as he expected. Due to the lack of human activity, there unfortunately aren’t a lot of trash bags for him to use as an extra cover in case the shufflers open up the dumpster. Matter of fact, the only things he can see are just one or two small trash bags (maybe he can use those—it’s better than nothing), a banana peel in the corner, and the stench of waste.

None of that bothers him. He can live with the smell, and the trash bags that've been sitting there for god knows how long. He’s undergone far worse during his apocalypse training. So Shawn hunkers down for the long haul and waits.

It only takes a minute or two. The moans grow louder, the sounds bouncing off around the alley walls. He can’t pinpoint how many are close by but from the sounds of it, he guesses a whole damn lot.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

He’s fucked. God, he’s zombie dinner! They’re gonna cut him open and feast on his brains like a hecking buffet!

Should’ve taken the other path, huh? Then you wouldn’t be in this mess, murmurs a smug voice in his head that sounds awfully a lot like Dave.

Too panicked, Shawn can’t even divert his attention to telling it to zip it. (And if he likes hearing a semblance of Dave’s voice even if it’s just a figment of it in his head, that’s fine, okay then, no comment.)

Scraping comes by the dumpster, something bumps against it causing Shawn to involuntarily scoot back until he’s pressed against one of the trash bags, his hands clenching his ax so tightly his fingers have gone numb. There’s so much more moaning it reverberates in his mind.

This is it, buddy. You’re done for. Zombie chow. Best say your last words. 

He knows for a fact though that he isn’t ever going to be in a situation where he’ll get Bitten. It’s what his ma and he agreed on: in dire circumstances—and only then—if things aren’t looking so hot, don’t be zombie food. Take yourself out of the running before that happens. No matter how. Anything that’ll make your heart stop beating and your brain stop functioning—do it before the zombies get to it first.

Shawn’s weighing his current options as a last resort—a grisly death via his ax blade or a quick stab-and-go to his skull and his heart with an arrow—when all of a sudden a loud shrieking penetrates the air, so loud it’s like Shawn is next to the creature making it. Instinctively, he pulls his battered toque farther down to cover his ears.

The zombies surrounding the dumpster get the worst of it, having no way of protecting their ears. Shawn can hear the uptick in disgruntled moans and groans; holding his breath, he waits for them to rip off the dumpster cover in a renewed frenzied rage. He needs to refer back to his mother’s guide—he’s pretty sure loud noises make the undead more angry.

But wait…the sounds seem to be getting quieter? So is the shuffling. As though the zombies are walking away from the dumpster.

Why? It goes completely against what he knows.

Bewildered and unsure of what to believe, he stays there, concealed, promising himself that it’s only for another few minutes. This dumpster is his safety zone. He has no clue what’s waiting for him out in the open. Maybe the thing that made the loud sound is hanging around to ambush him.

Few minutes turn into a half-hour. Slowly, his eyes droop shut. The next time he opens them, weak sunlight is trickling in through the gaps between the dumpster cover. 

Crap. Had he really slept the whole night?

He’s so behind schedule. He was meant to be far away from this confusing town by this time. Yet here he is snoring away inside a dumpster. He’s just lucky he didn’t get surprised by an attack. He’s on his own now, he can’t afford to sleep like a baby.

(Even though he does feel more refreshed.)

Rubbing his eyes before rummaging in his pack, he takes out a half-eaten granola bar and polishes it off. Then he proceeds to stick his hand back in the pack; all he can feel are his arrows, an extra sweater Dave forced him to take from the bunker, and mostly weaponry. Not that much edible food—the only ones he feels are ramen packets.

Fuck. He wants to get out of this town but he really really needs the food resupply. He can’t risk leaving a perfectly vacant area where there may be available food. Not when there’s a high chance the next unimpaired town may be more than several miles over.

Firmly, he sets his toque straight. Time to get some food and then get the hell out of here ASAP.

Sounds like a solid plan. Crazy but solid, just the way he likes it.

Hoping against hope that whatever made the shrieky noise isn’t waiting for him to pop out, Shawn cracks the dumpster cover open. 

No one in sight. The coast looks clear.

He crawls out, landing with a startled oomph on his side with his backpack to his chest and his ax nearly lodged into his palm.

Overall, not the smoothest landing. Shows that he really does need his energy supply. Unfortunately.

Shawn hates that he just knows that if he was here, Dave would be rubbing his admittance in his face. The audacity of the man to stay stuck in Shawn’s brain despite thinking Shawn was wrong about which direction to go. Come on!

He also hates that he’s still thinking about Dave. Apparently, a nice night’s rest only serves to make him think about the guy more, which is absurd. 

Nope, he’s not going to be thinking about Dave or what happened today. It’s a new day, bright and sunny, and he’s going to make use of it by being on the move.

With that thought as fuel for his motivation, he sets off, backpack situated on his back once again as he holds his ax over his shoulder. Now that the sun is up, he can take in his unwilling pitstop.

He was right yesterday: the town is completely barren. Flies buzz in the air, hovering over slumped bodies, undeterred by the guts spilling out or the missing organs. Out of all the organisms, the flies appear to be most pleased with the turn of events the world took. Now they can have their pick of a variety of corpses and carcasses.

The buildings glare at him, blinded by the blazing sunlight ricocheting off their broken windows as their doors swing in the faint breeze. Overall, the setting gives off a very stereotypical southern or western old town, according to Shawn. If he wants to, he can imagine himself as the outlaw stepping down the middle of the main road, his shoes creating clouds of dust with every step. He can imagine himself running a lone finger down the handle of his ax and saying in those raspy voices he heard in the Wild West movie clips he came across while binging conspiracy videos: “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

Obviously, because he’s got a goal in mind, Shawn does not imagine any of that. Not one bit, no siree.

Lost in his thoughts (which hold no Wild West reenactments, naturally), Shawn nearly misses the gas station until he’s just about passed it.

Perfect. A gas station has one of those convenience stores. He can be in and out with the bare essentials in less than thirty minutes.

The gas station, itself, looks worse for wear, but Shawn isn’t choosy. The quiet is getting to him again, he keeps expecting to come across the same group of zombies, ready for an encore. He passes the empty fuel tank stations and beelines for the door of the convenience store at the end of the lot. 

The glass is completely shattered. Shawn pushes the door open, taking care not to step on the shards littered on the ground on both sides of the doorway. Inside, the place looks even worse than it does on the outside if that’s even possible. The counter has marks of blood streaked all over it so that it resembles a twisted art painting made by a preschooler; the shelves in most of the aisles are tipped over, products strewn about all over the floor. The lights don’t work, so he has to rely purely on the sunlight filtering through the cracks in the lopsided blinds of the windows. He steps through dirt and grime composed of unidentifiable substances as he moves deeper into the small store. It’s strange how something so small seems so big, but the gravity of what had probably occurred in this store—the death, the blood, the chaos—makes the store seem greater than its size. More horrific too.

Shawn may be desensitized to the apocalypse, but that doesn’t mean his stomach doesn’t roil a tad whenever he kicks aside stringy ropes of guts or a broken weapon. At one point between two fallen shelves, he saw a hand poking out—he didn’t know whether it was connected to a body, and he didn’t bother sticking around to find out.

Even he has his limits.

He stops only to pick up any fallen packaged food and snacks, otherwise keeping a wary eye out. Slowly, his pack starts to fill to the point where he’s satisfied with his findings. Just one more aisle to go.

Squeezing between another tipped-over shelf, he finds himself facing an array of cleaning supplies. His heart gives another mournful ache, he doesn’t have the will to tell it to pipe down. He can’t deny it—Dave would have loved this shit. Untouched cleaning supplies just waiting to be taken, it would’ve been a free-for-all for the guy. Shawn wishes, stupidly, that he can take some disinfectant and scrubs and bring them to Dave.

This is getting ridiculous, Shawn wishes he can just switch off the part of his brain that won’t stop bringing Dave up when he needs to concentrate. See, this is why he doesn’t need company or friends or travel buddies, they’re only distractions in the end.

Against his better judgment, though, his mind travels. If Dave survived that steep incline, hopefully, he’s rested up and started anew his journey to the west coast. Dave sure as hell wouldn’t continue walking after that climb, he’d say something about getting some rest and making headway in the morning. 

And that’s the best-case scenario. Worst case…

He’s lying in a ditch somewhere because his unathletic ass fell while climbing and he cracked his skull open or he broke his neck or zombies are converging on him or…

Or nothing! Shawn’s got to stop doing this! Dave probably isn’t thinking so much about him right now…if he’s still alive.

Shawn stands there with a funny feeling stretching and compressing his chest when, out of the corner of his eye, a shadow flits from behind one of the fallen shelves.

In an instant, all thoughts fly out the metaphorical window. He has his hand back on the handle of his ax, dropping his pack as he whips it around, scanning the empty aisle.

He almost calls out who’s there like a moron.

Eyes fixed on the spot where he saw the movement, Shawn creeps forward, ax braced in front of him. When he’s mere feet away from the spot, he presses himself against the one upstanding shelf and watches the floor…waiting…

On cue, the floor flickers with the shadow of whoever—or whatever—is on the other side of the aisle.

Zombie, it’s got to be one. What else can it be?

Quietly, inhaling and exhaling, he prepares himself for a fight to the death (one way or another) and spins around the corner, his ax raised high above his head, a warcry building up in the back of his throat.

Only to freeze at the sound of actual shrieking and the sight of a hunched figure flailing around while staring unblinkingly at him. A guy, maybe a year or two older than Shawn.

Shawn catalogs the signs of zombification—greenish pallor, dry skin, pale pupils, jerky movements. Obviously whoever this may be is a zombie, but the way he stares up at him, his gaze darting from Shawn’s face to the ax and back again, signifies a type of intelligence and awareness that Shawn hasn’t ever seen before in the undead.

Then, as if things aren’t crazier already, the thing opens its mouth and actually speaks. Well, it’s croaked-out gibberish with hints of actual words, but it’s speech nonetheless as opposed to the grunts of the other zombies Shawn has come across in the past three years.

“Hng…a-x.”

“Uh.” Shawn has no idea how to respond to that. Is a zombie trying to communicate with him? That’s crazy talk! Zombies can’t communicate, it’s the oldest rule in the book—zombies don’t have the mental capabilities nor the capacity for human speech. That dies out as soon as the Bite takes hold of them.

But this one in front of him is proving all his theories wrong.

“Yeah, man,” Shawn says at last. He doesn’t move though, this entire situation is so fucking bizarre. “It’s an ax. So unless you skedaddle, I’ll cleave your skull through with it because you’re not eating my brains!”

The zombie tilts its head, its pale gray eyes tracking Shawn’s ax-arm, seeming not to have understood most of what he said.

"Hu...man?"

"Yep, that's me. Completely human."

Quick as lightning, its arm shoots out and instinctively Shawn moves to plunge his ax down on it until he sees what it’s doing.

It grabs a bottle of water that looks rancid from sitting in the heat for so long, though the zombie presents it to Shawn like an award.

Okay, so he’s getting gifts from a zombie. That’s fine. Shawn can humor it—anything for his brains uneaten. 

“Thanks, I guess?” he takes the water bottle.

The zombie’s lips stretch upwards into a wide smile, its mossy teeth in full display. Then it settles properly against the shelf it was hiding behind, stretching its legs out and gnawing on a fallen container.

“Uh, what are you…”

The zombie growls at him. Shawn backs away, his hands raised, ax tight in his grip.

“Okay, sorry, yeesh man, eat your plastic.”

Without needing to be told twice, the zombie continues its mission to eat the container. Shawn surreptitiously scoots around it to grab his backpack then backs away until he’s fetching up against the counter at the front of the store. He doesn’t take his eyes off the zombie who seems to not even care about Shawn or the threat of his ax. 

When it doesn’t look like the thing won’t randomly attack him, Shawn takes time to properly survey this unusual stranger.

Its skin is greenish and dotted with marks, it’s wearing a ratty green hoodie that’s seen better days (not that Shawn can judge), a pair of ripped blue jeans, and green hiking boots. A blue toque sits haphazardly on its head, partially covering messy and partially ripped-out strands of brown hair.

His mother’s words come back to him, persisting: don’t interact with zombies! They’ve lost all capabilities of human interactive abilities. You will only get yourself killed or worse.

It’s one of the bolded and underlined rules in her guide to surviving the apocalypse that sits like a silent accusation in Shawn’s backpack. Man, he’s really been mucking up all the rules in there, hasn’t he?

But the guy—er, the zombie—has a toque! People wearing toques or any sort of beanies are okay in Shawn’s book (although he should really think about rectifying that condition with other requirements like don’t be a zombie).

He decides to bite the bullet. If the zombie turns out to be fully feral, Shawn has his ax at the ready. Right now, he’s too curious to walk away from this crazy situation. A zombie who can talk? Seriously?

“What’s your name?” he calls out.

The zombie pauses in its chewing. It looks up, eyes blinking slowly. Several grunts escape its mouth along with some recognizable words: “Er… zeke!”

“Zeke?”

The zombie nods eagerly, its pale eyes lighting up at the sound of its name.

“Well, uh, hey Zeke. I’m Shawn.”

Zeke tilts its—his—head. “Shon.”

“No, uh, it’s Shawn. There’s a ‘w’ in there.”

“Shwon?”

“No, it’s Shawn, as in—ah, never mind.” What is he even doing, teaching a zombie how to pronounce his name? Zeke will probably forget it in the next five seconds.

…Strange that Zeke remembers his own name though. Normally zombies don’t remember anything about their former human lives.

“You’re a strange fella, huh?” he muses aloud, watching Zeke finish chomping down on the first container and move on to the next one. “Where did you even come from? Wait…” he recalls the shrieking noise from last night—similar to the noise Zeke made when Shawn had leaped at him. “Have you been following me?”

Zeke shrugs.

Huh. He has his own zombie bodyguard, now Shawn’s seen everything.

“Well, uh, I better get going.” He shifts, moving toward the door. “I have a long day ahead of me and I wanna make some distance before nighttime.” He scratches the back of his neck. How does one end a conversation like this? A simple goodbye seems too dumb. “Good luck?”

Wow, that sounds even worse.

However, before he even has the last word out, Zeke is scrambling to his feet. His eyes are blown wide and he’s shaking his head. 

“What?” Shawn can’t think of what can possibly be so bad that it makes a zombie look like that. “What’s the matter? Is it the town?”

Zeke shakes his head. He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut, frustrated. He jabs at somewhere off into the distance. Then at himself.

“You…want to go over there?”

Zeke points at Shawn, then at the same spot, then at himself.

“You want to take me over there?”

That gets Zeke nodding again.

“Wha—why? I don’t need another rest stop, dude. I gotta get moving.” Besides the whole ‘zombie taking human to his secret lair’ is a bit too suspicious. Shawn can tolerate a talking zombie at most, he’s not going to follow said talking zombie to his doom.

“Yeah, no thanks,” he says. “I’m good where I am. No offense but I don’t run with zombies and…you’re a zombie.”

Zeke definitely looks offended. Shawn’s quick to add, “Nothing on you, man. I just really gotta hit the road. I have my supplies,” he pats his backpack, “I don’t really have a reason to hang around, dude. I’m sure your crib is neat but…” he shrugs.

Zeke’s shoulders slump as he pouts. He doesn’t attack Shawn for disagreeing with him, so Shawn takes that as his cue to leave. Best to get out while everything’s cooled down.

However, he’s only made it three steps to the door when he hears the soft patter of footsteps. 

He turns. Behind him, Zeke offers an overly innocent gaze.

“Dude. You can’t come with me.”

The innocent face turns into a surprisingly nice set of puppy eyes.

“Dude.”

Zeke ups the ante, even fiddling with the ragged hem of his hoodie. Clearly, he isn’t taking no for an answer. For whatever reason, he won’t leave Shawn alone. Maybe that’ll change when they reach the place Zeke was talking about. It looks like it’s en route to where Shawn is planning on going (wandering aimlessly, feeling the direction of the winds, until he finds some semblance of location) so he supposes he can let Zeke tag along until then.

Shawn sighs. He can’t believe he’s doing this. Actually allowing a zombie to walk with him. No self-respecting apocalypse trainer will dare think of doing what he’s going to do. 

But he’s been doing a lot of crazy stuff lately—crazier than his usual.

“Well, Zeke. Guess we’re hitchhiking together then.”

Zeke’s smile widens. Somehow despite his misgivings, Shawn feels an innate sense that he did the right thing.

Chapter Text

Dave is so not having a good time.

He’s having pretty much the opposite of a good time. He’s having the worst of worst times. Unfortunately, he has no one to blame but himself.

Bad enough he has to climb miles of uphill terrain where one misstep can lead to a deadly plummet, when he actually reaches the top, there’s not a town in sight. He’s been following this goddamn stream like those survival videos he watched in Shawn’s bunker said, yet there’s no fucking civilization to be seen.

What a bunch of lying losers.

He takes a break to work up more energy by eating the last few energy bars Courtney hounded him to store in his backpack, and a pang of nostalgia comes over him as he sits there against a tree trunk, his clothes dirty, his face grimy, his spirits at a desperate low, eating a candy bar and lamenting the turn his life had taken.

Truth be told, he went into this with the mind of a naive, sheltered person—believing that somehow he would make it to the west coast, find Sky, and do it all in less than a month’s time. Now, it’s been more than three months, he’s in the middle of Canada with a half-drawn map and—

The map!

Stuffing the rest of the energy bar into his mouth, he digs around in his backpack until his hands close around a familiar crinkle of paper.

Yes!

Elated, he pulls out the map he’d painstakingly been working on since Toronto. Half of it was pristine and clear—the part of the map from Toronto that he and Shawn nicked from the City Hall. Compared to that, the other half was more of a scribble; handwritten, obviously, and with quite a lot of erase marks and scribbles—the latter courtesy of Shawn who had tried to correct Dave with his geographical knowledge that involved more of the ‘what locations are most likely to have bunkers?’ or ‘what areas would be, logically, less zombie infested?’ types.

Dave had let him do his thing, mostly because he wanted the heads-up too. He hadn’t paid too much attention to it, though, under the assumption that Shawn would be there anyway to provide his zombie knowledge.

God, how wrong he was.

The thought of Shawn and looking at the scribbles the other made on the map, his untidy scrawl a stark contrast against Dave’s neater (more legible) handwriting, Dave expects to be justifiably mad at Shawn for not just writing all over the map Dave had goddamn worked his arse over but also disregarding Dave’s (perfectly reasonable, he wants to say, but from the looks of it, things don’t seem that way) suggestion to follow the stream; instead all he feels is hollowness expanding in his chest, to a lesser degree but still somewhat similar to when he had heard the news from Shawn about Viola’s death.

Viola.

The hunger pangs within him subside at the jarring realization he hadn’t been able to properly feel since Shawn broke the news to him.

His sister is dead. Then, as though his mind really needs to hammer it in, it goes a bit further with that thought process: his strong, sporty, witty, younger sister is no more. She was dead for who knew how long and he hadn’t bothered to find information of her well-being. Why? How? What brother will do what he had—or hadn’t done?

Dave will be the first to admit he isn’t the world's best brother—younger or older. He had a large case of Middle Child Syndrome, literally and figuratively. He’s just there, smack in the middle of their dysfunctional family, nothing special making him stand out the way his siblings do, and often he prefers it that way. Better being on the sidelines and ordinary than in the spotlight and extraordinary. For ninety-nine percent of the human population (even as low as it is now), the word extraordinary has a lot more positive connotations than to him. 

Extraordinary doesn’t mean special, it doesn’t mean amazing. All that glitters isn’t gold is one of Dave’s brother Gabriel's favorite sayings and while his older brother’s words may have been spoken sardonically, Dave took it to heart—for it was true. Being in the limelight doesn’t mean a life full of glitter and gold, but only people like him—surrounded on nearly every angle by shine that makes his eyes burn and underlying messiness covered neatly by fame and prestige—will ever truly understand the bitterness of being unordinary even in an extraordinary way.

He never got the hang of why Sky wants to be famous so badly—still doesn’t, as a matter of fact. It was one of the things they had been discussing when the apocalypse started up and when Sky had noticed something unseemly about the couple in the car next to theirs (hint: they were zombies, and that was when Dave’s mind was truly scarred for life).

It’s his luck that the people in his life thrive on the prospect of standing out.

His family lives the high of fame, they shine like they are born to and maybe that’s true, maybe Dave is the disjointed puzzle piece; but when he thinks about it, that just simply can’t be true, at least not completely. He thinks about his parents with their tense, stiff relationship—the kind he vows to never ever have; he thinks about his older sister who travels to countries far away not just because it’s her job but because it provides her a reprieve, how she was hardly around even before the apocalypse; he thinks of his older brother who argued so much with their father for being unordinary in a way that wasn’t acceptable in the family and ripped himself away from their family tree as a result, who spews his philosophical jargon at odds with his humorously cynical tone, who, like Dave and everyone else in their family, inherited their father’s simmering, boiling, manic rage paired with both their parents’ careful control. 

And finally Viola…

Dave packs up his leftovers, tying them up with a double-knot in a sealed bag so as not to attract visitors of the undead kind and to prevent spills in his pack. He sure as hell won’t be eating tonight, not when all he can picture in his mind’s eye is his little sister’s fierce dark eyes, her quirked smirk full of mischief, her braided hair as dark as his own. Viola Jha, always on the move, constantly bouncing around to something or another so as not to stay too long in her thoughts, their aunt (Dave’s favorite family member purely because of how normal she was compared to everyone else) used to frequently say it about her. Viola had been the one to get Dave as proficient as he is in tree climbing after all those contests he indulged in her. She was the one to help pull him out of his funks whenever their parents fought or when things got too stifled at the dinner table.

She helped him out in more ways than one, and all he’d done in return was not look back and see if she needed any help. God.

Dave’s throat tightens, a tangy aftertaste hits the back of it, curdling his tastebuds. The meager helpings of food he had roils. He’s sure he’s about to puke, but funny enough the thought of his (former) travelmate pushes it aside.

Shawn was the last person Viola saw (and despite his tumultuous emotions, Dave can’t help feeling grateful the other man hadn’t let his sister run around as a zombie). But that also means Viola could have been right there, maybe a few miles away from Dave, and he hadn’t known.

No. He hadn’t bothered to know. He’d lived his out-of-sight-out-of-mind delusions in his old bunker, refusing to brave the surface for three years, and all that time he simply assumed his siblings would have far better chances of surviving the apocalypse than him. Because they shone like they were born to, didn’t they? For Dave, he had to work to both stay on the sidelines and shine in his own way.

Which is a pretty damn stupid excuse now that he’s sat down and thought about it. He believes Sky shines like no other too, yet here he is risking his neck over and over to get to her. Why is his family any different? Why can he mention them in passing like he had to Shawn back in Toronto, but the prospect of seeing them again has his stomach twisting up into knots?

(The answer is there, Dave can sense it at the tip of his tongue; something about discordous dynamics, anxieties, underlying unhealthy coping mechanisms, and the lack of a significant proper father figure—but his brain shoves that away like it always does. If he faces that knowledge, especially sitting messy and mussed on the forest floor, he may just lose his mind. Everything he’s worked hard for, every pretense he’s concocted into a reality, will crack down the center.)

(So he pretends he doesn’t know the reason. As always.)

The memory of Shawn’s face returns. Hazel-green eyes wide, hints of shamefacedness before he saw his truck sinking in the swamp (Dave is still ticked off about that, no matter if Shawn isn’t around to see it; wasn’t he—their companionship—more important than a dumb truck?), the way he scratched the scruff at his chin, his voice and the way it pitched raspily when he spoke Viola’s name along with that dreadful truth.

Struck by a sudden agonized resentment, Dave wishes to find Shawn, grab him by the shoulders, and demand why he hadn’t protected her. Why did you let her die? 

But you didn’t even check to see if she was alive all this time, a voice that sounds like Gabriel counters in Dave’s mind. (Which is annoying because Gabriel is the one to have walked out on the family.)

Besides Viola was the least family-oriented of them all and that’s saying something. Obviously, the last thing Dave would have thought was to check and see if she was…alive…

Goddamn even in his head it sounds pathetic.

A crackle of leaves has him jerking back to reality, one hand over his pack, the other holding the map close to his chest as he eyes the expanse of growing darkness warily.

Two minutes later, he considers that maybe it would’ve been a more efficient precaution if he took out the knife the Goths gave him rather than sitting and cradling a backpack and a map like a doofus. He’ll be easy zombie food this way. However, nothing comes out from behind the trees; no decaying flesh and bones assault his nostrils and eyes; no undead reaches for his brains.

Dave exhales. It’s just the wind.

He gingerly pulls out the knife from his pack though, just in case. He’s on his own now, alone against the clumps of zombies up until the west coast.

Just the thought of his mission now and the sheer gravity of it whilst on a dangerous, zombie-infested surface leaves his shoulders slumping, meager scraps of hope dwindling like kindling in rain. Before, he’d gone into it, naive and foolish, believing he can brave the surface in the name of reaching Sky.

Now?

Dave recollects Shawn saving his ass from the zombies, them racing for his truck under the night sky, the desiccated teeth of a zombie so close to biting his neck, the stick with the thing’s jaw on the other end, the zombie from City Hall and the one at the grocery store. He recalls Shawn’s multitude of tips about evading the undead, and he remembers his primary reaction (other than being weirded out): heck I’m really unprepared for this.

Shawn would’ve never let him live it down if he mentioned it, so Dave had kept quiet, but the thought lingered. He didn’t give much attention to it back then because Shawn was there with him, but now all alone? Yeah, Dave’s feeling those hopeless thoughts pretty vividly.

Mike told them not to fight and that’s exactly what they did. And now Dave’s pipeline dream of getting to Sky’s bunker is practically nonexistent. He’ll be dead or worse within less than a day, let’s be honest.

If Viola couldn’t survive the surface, what chance does Dave have on his own?

I’m sorry, Sky, he thinks miserably, slumping father against the tree. I can’t make it.

He’s stuck in between—too far away to go back to his bunker, too far away to get to Sky’s. Man, he misses his old bunker; everyone there might rub it in his face but he’d give a lot to be back there, listening to Noah playing video games as a lullaby, instead of being out here in the damp wilderness, bleary-eyed and utterly drained.

He doesn’t know what to do, which way to go. For now, he sets aside a couple of minutes to blink up at the gap between two trees showcasing a patch of the sky and its stars. Letting himself relax, his thoughts and emotions bouncing everywhere like ping-pong balls, Dave continued blinking at the sky, each blink slower than the one before, the mantra of I can’t do it echoing in his head until the next time he blinks his eyes open, it’s bright out.

A few seconds pass while he blinks up at the glaring sun, uncomprehending. Then the conclusion hits him: he’d slept the whole night here?

If it were Shawn, he would have leaped right up and herded Dave along, constantly moving, waving off the notion of eating food for energy. 

All Dave does is continue staring at the sky, his everything muddled. His thoughts were haywire yesterday and his emotions more so, now they were as murky as the swamp that took Shawn’s truck. 

In the limbo between dreams and reality last night, he assessed his current situation and the consequent actions that needed to be taken. When he woke up, the decision is stark in his mind.

He needs to get out of here.

He’s not cut out for this kind of saving-people stuff. Sky will just be yet another thought he will mope over, his bunker mates will just have to deal with it.

Dave hates that they were right all along when they said he’s not ideal for a trek on the surface, he hates that he’s proving himself, his heart, wrong by deciding to turn back. He so desperately wants to get to Sky’s bunker, see her face light up in recognition and appreciation that he’d come for her, and all would be right in the world again. (Well, not totally; there would still be the zombies, but with Sky by his side, Dave’s positive he can handle millions of undead groups—no, hordes, that’s what Shawn says.)

Instead, he’s groggily rubbing his eyes while rummaging in his pack, bemoaning the fact that he will never see Sky again, bemoaning how much of a loser he is, bemoaning the fact that his pack has no edible food except for ramen packs that he has no idea when Shawn managed to stuff in while Dave wasn’t looking. Honestly, his whole life is a shitshow, what is he thinking?

He recalls one of his more vivid thoughts last night: If his sister couldn’t handle the surface, what chance in hell does he have? He’s absolutely nothing like her.

Grumping, Dave stands and hitches his backpack over his shoulders. Although when he makes to turn around and head back the way he came, he pauses, an unwilling thought wriggling its way through the fog of sadness.

How can he go back the way he came? He’d been walking aimlessly all through yesterday with no sense of direction, and even if he does miraculously find his way back to the road he and Shawn left, how on earth could he travel back to his bunker? He doesn’t have a boat like B to ride across Lake Superior and Lake Huron, which means he would have to take the longer route on land—meaning more risk of getting eaten by zombies.

And even if he does somehow get across the lakes, he would have to walk all the way back to Ottawa. Hours and hours of walking with barely any food, only a knife for a weapon, and the great expanse of the surface as his companion.

His heart pangs, despair sweeps over him once more, threatening to drown him. For some reason, he recalls the word Shawn said in Toronto’s City Hall— kolega.

Friend. Companion.

Shawn considered him a friend. Who knows what he thinks of Dave now. All because of a stupid stream.

Maybe it’s the state of mind he’s in, but on top of thinking about Sky, he hopes Shawn made it out of this horrid forest and is alive out there. He hopes Shawn found someplace to stay, that he’s actually eating some food, and that he scrubbed himself clean at least (that man has some serious hygiene problems).

But the way they worked seamlessly together, their dumb bantering, even Shawn’s concerning amount of affection for his truck—Dave can’t believe he’s thinking it, but he misses the guy.

When Dave comes back to reality, it’s to two things; one, the burning in his eyes that he scrubs away; two, the hoarse snarling directly behind him.

He freezes.

Barely breathing, slowly, he turns ever so slightly.

There’s one right there. He can glimpse its shadow behind a tree with a thicker trunk, a pair of white eyes bear down on him unblinkingly.

Dave takes a step back…right on top of a twig.

(He’s starting to wish zombies ate twigs and branches instead of humans, that would have made a lot of things simpler.)

The resulting crack that rings through the air is probably louder than any starting gun.

Fuck my life, is all he has time to think before the thing lunges.

With a scream bubbling up his throat and while stuffing the map he hadn’t realized is still crumpled in his hand into his pants pocket, he whips out the Goths’ knife—nearly cutting himself with its sharp blade—and takes a wild swing at it.

The zombie screeches, a scratchy cut-off sound that has the hairs on the back of Dave’s neck standing up; liquid runs down his arm which he notes with detached nausea. He doesn’t stop to deduce if it’s his own blood or the zombie’s, when the zombie is distracted by the attack, Dave whips around and books it the hell out of there, running like a madman, his backpack bouncing against his back, his hand still dripping with whatever liquid clenching tightly on the knife’s handle. He runs and runs until a stitch cramps his side and he’s forced to skid to an abrupt halt, nearly slipping on some dead leaves.

Muttering curses in between wheezes, Dave leans forward, placing his hands on his knees to catch his breath—and nearly stabs the blade of the knife through his knee. He tosses the knife onto the ground, staring at it as though it’s personally offended him. There is red staining its gleaming blade and, on inspection, he sees the same red painting the skin of his hands and coating his fingers. 

This time he doesn’t hold back when he throws up into a bush.

It’s after he wipes his mouth clean with a napkin that he remembers the zombie he was kind of running for his life from. Huh, that isn’t really supposed to be something he should forget.

Straining his ears, he braces himself for an ambush—maybe it’ll bring some of its friends for an easy meal. But the forest remains silent, no sign that there was a zombie within its bowels in the first place.

Dave decides not to think twice about it. He’ll count life’s miracles when he gets them. He can leave the overthinking and paranoia to Shawn wherever he may be.

A wave of exhaustion brings him to his knees. He rubs his temples, he can feel the burnout seeping through his bones, twisting his face. The thought comes to him again like an unwarranted visitor with news he can’t deny: what is he doing?

Surprisingly, it’s not Sky’s voice in his head that gets him temporarily invigorated. It’s a cacophony of voices, one after the other, rebounding within his thoughts, all of them of his old bunker mates. Owen cheering him on for his mission for love; Eva and Lightning with their, er, aggressive encouragement; Courtney with her list that he still hasn’t properly looked at; and his friend Noah who knows Dave may not be cut out for this kind of stuff, but was still willing to humor him anyway.

They all believed in him in some way, even when knowing how much of a wuss he can be. They know him and they still encouraged him.

And then comes Shawn’s voice, mixing in with Dave’s old bunker mates, a lilt of hoarseness, a glimpse of an accent, the way he spoke intrigued Dave; like Sky, he can listen to Shawn all day by picking out the mannerisms and puzzle pieces in his voice that makes up Shawn; the expressiveness and way he molded the words into wonderful shapes of their own. For Dave, everything is the same and he feels his voice expresses that view; but for people like Sky and Shawn, it’s as though he’s hearing different aspects of the world just through their voices. 

It was beautiful—which isn’t a thought he associates with Shawn—and he hears it now in his mind as though the man, himself, is standing right next to him.

Get your head screwed on straight, man, what are you doing moping around? You’ll be zombie chow in no time! They’ll buffer you up and turn you into a full-course meal.

Funny enough, that thought said in Shawn’s panicked voice makes Dave laugh a little. Man, he really is going crazy.

But it does clear his head just a bit—as though those inner voices are the pinpricks of light in his fog of despair. He’s made it this far against all odds, he can’t turn back now. Like Owen said he’s on a mission for love, and he won’t stop until he completes it. 

And that won’t happen until he sees Sky, until he tells her everything he’s been meaning—and wanting—to tell her all these years.

She’s counting on him and he, himself, is counting on him too.

He shakes his head in an effort to clear away his previous moping and scans his surroundings.

He’s definitely lost, that’s for sure. He ran with no idea where he was going, his only thought was to get away from the zombie. All he can see are trees on either side, although these ones aren’t as tall and imposing; Dave can spy more of the sky, its pale blue cloudless hue peppered only by puffs of wispy mist that look like smoke—

Hold up.

Smoke?

Yes, that’s definitely smoke trailing up into the sky. From where he can’t see yet, but with a quick check on his phone’s compass, he sees it’s coming from due north. There’s a path through the forest, if he follows it he may reach whatever is causing the smoke.

Smoke means possible shelter.

Possible shelter can mean a place to rest up. And Dave doesn’t bother denying—not that he wants to—that he needs a break after everything that’s happened.

First thing first, though, he picks up the knife and follows the sound of water until the damned stream that started all this comes into view. Dropping his supplies, he revels in scraping as much of the dirt and grime off his face and limbs. Each time he spots a patch of dirt falling into the water, his shoulders loosen and his mind clears even more. Finally, his chest stops feeling so tight and most of the dirt is off his body. 

That’s so much better.

As much as he wants to, bathing is off the table, he’s not going to risk going around naked while zombies are around, that will be embarrassing, so, for now, this will have to do. Plus there’s no guarantee how clean the water is—he can hardly see his reflection when he looks in it. Maybe the place the smoke is coming from has a shower he can use—with clean water.

It’s a pretty faraway hope, but he hopes it nonetheless.

He doesn’t eat either, he’s not going to make a fire and attract more of those creepy crawlies just so he can eat some cheap ramen. He hopes whoever resides at where the smoke is coming from understands his plight.

Resolved, he hoists back his stuff and resumes his walk through the forest. This time he doesn’t pay mind to the stream—which soon vanishes from his sight, replaced by trees—he’s focused fully on his phone, making sure the needle doesn’t stray from north. For long hours all he sees are trees, trees, and more trees, and he’s just about lost hope that maybe he imagined the smoke and that he started to hallucinate due to the stress. 

But then he sees it through a gap between two trees: a road—and on the other side of it, what looks like a lone house with smoke puffing out of its chimney.

Dave can’t believe his luck. Honestly, he was just about ready to write off the whole thing as an intricate hallucination, but no, it’s real! An actual house with smoke from its chimney, meaning someone is in it!

Maybe his luck is finally turning around!

Scrambling over a log and hurrying to the treeline, each step faster than the last, he bursts out onto the deserted road.

If it was Shawn, he would have immediately taken note on how deserted the road is— too deserted, his paranoid ass would say.

But Dave isn’t Shawn (which he thinks is pretty great) and the only thing in his line of vision is getting to that house!

He staggers across the road. The house has an unflattering yellow paint job and is a rustic ranch-style type—maybe around two stories maximum with fields on either side of it, though weeds and grass have overtaken much of it. Dave mounts the wraparound porch with peeling white paint, taking care not to touch the handrail in fear of getting a splinter (more likely than not considering the looks of the chipped wood); he approaches the closed door, a wilting wreath hangs on it—a minimalistic symbolism of what their world has come to—and doesn’t waste a second before knocking. All he can think about is the prospect of warmth, food, a place to rest his legs and his mind.

The door opens, revealing a middle-aged woman, looking first in confusion at him; once she realizes he’s, in fact, not part of the undead, her weathered face splits into a wide smile. Lines etch the corners of her eyes, her hands that twist up her stained apron are calloused, her hair is held up into a scraggly bun, but the smile she hits Dave with is so bright that he’s momentarily blinded.

“Oh dearie, look at the sight of you!”

“Uh…” Dave looks down at himself. Although he cleaned up, the walk through the woods following the trail of smoke had attracted more dust and dirt onto his rumpled and already dirty sweater. His shoes are a mess, his face feels sweaty and disgusting. 

“Yeah, um, sorry to intrude ma’am, but can I—”

“Of course, you can stay, dear, come on in!”

Huh. Okay then. Sure there’s a common rule about being wary of strangers, but what can possibly be worse than zombies? A sweet lady who sympathizes with his plight? No way. 

She ushers him inside, steering him by the shoulders into a musty hall. Normally he would hate anyone touching him without permission—especially a weird lady who smiles too big for an apocalypse—but right now he’s so relieved, she can hug him and he won’t mind. In fact, he may just hug her back.

She’s watching him with a look in her eyes, a sort of appraisement. She must not have many guests or visitors here in general—and not just because of the apocalypse. Imagine living in the middle of nowhere, with fields and weeds as your only friend. Dave had felt an inkling akin to it back in the forest with only trees as his company; he may be a bit of a loner, but he doesn’t want to be a hermit for his whole life. That’s just weird. He can’t imagine willingly hanging around here.

However, hermit or loner or whatever, she’s a living person. And all living people have a common enemy: the dead.

“I thought you were one of those zombies,” she says, as if on cue, leading him down the hall. Dave passes an empty, forlorn coat rack, and when he walks through the doorway, he’s in what looks like a small living room, a kitchen, and a dining area conjoined into an open floor plan space. A rickety-looking wooden staircase marches up into the darkness of the second floor.

“Well?” the lady watches him take it all in. “My little abode before the hell on earth, and now it’s my sanctuary.” She waves him to take a seat at the dining table. “Some of you lot come by here, you know—travelers and such. Fools I say to walk out in the open on the surface, but what do I know!” she titters, bustling to the kitchen. “I just admire the dedication. You all are dedicated fools, but you all are also living and I accept living folks into my doors.”

“Uh, thanks,” says Dave, more than relieved. She seems nice, he can see her as someone who would let him knock out on her couch or something. The place doesn’t look too messy either—a little cluttered here and there, lots of newspaper clippings of a teenage boy grinning toothily at the camera, but he’s seen worse both at Shawn’s bunker and in Izzy’s designated space at Dave’s old bunker. A little clutter is nothing compared to the horrors he’s seen up close these past couple of months. If it means getting a free meal and a place to rest, he’ll take clutter hands down.

In agreement, his stomach growls loudly.

Dave’s face reddens, and he stutters out a response, but the lady steamrolls over him.

“Oh my, oh my, you must be starving!” A gleam appears in her brown cow-like eyes. “Lucky you, I am splendid at food in a pinch! I was just making my famous banana bread when you popped up.” She hustles to the kitchen where he hears the sounds of an oven door opening over her chatter; seconds later, the sweet smell of baked goods wafts toward him and he very nearly salivates from it. He hasn’t had baked goods in years (excluding Owen and Noah’s Sunday Bake-Offs, which are interesting to watch and exude yummy results but still never felt the same), and when the lady hurries back to the table, carting a large platter on which the raised form of what looks like the most delicious banana bread sits, Dave comes this close to crying.

Finally, food that isn’t canned beans or packets of ramen noodles.

This is actual food! 

So worth partaking in that race for my life through those woods.

“Here you go, dearie!” she beamed. “Have at it! It’s bigger than I intended, and I do need help getting through it all.” She pats her hair, sheepish. “Stress baking is unfortunately still a guest in my life, even with most of the world gone. How about I get you a plate? You look as thin as a rod!”

Dave nods quickly, too busy staring at the plate of bread. “I’d love that, thanks so much.”

“Of course!” she returns, carrying an assortment of plates. “You remind me of my son, you know,” she continues over her shoulder as she moves back to the kitchen. Relieving the weight of his backpack from his shoulders, he leans it on one of the legs of the nearest chair before taking a seat. He can hear more clattering of plates and the smell of food increases—as does the growling of his stomach. “He’s such a lovely young man, he should be here soon, I can introduce you to him.”

Frankly, Dave isn’t so sure how welcoming the son will be of a stranger hanging around in his house eating his mum’s banana bread, but those thoughts trail off when she walks out holding a plate of what’s got to be absolute heaven.

Steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes, a tofu dish, and a tall glass of water.

Dave wonders if he died in the woods and this is God in disguise because there’s no way this is real.

“What—” he stumbles over his words. “What is—”

The woman’s face softens more, the light of the crackling fireplace throwing it into warmth. “When was the last time you’ve had a proper meal?”

Dave opens his mouth, but no answer comes forth.

“See? This is what surface travelers deal with—no nourishment. You need a hearty meal to fatten you up.”

He blinks. “I do?” Fatten you up seems like an odd combination of words, but he figures that’s just her way of speaking.

She sits down across from him and cuts a small wedge of banana bread for herself. “My son is as skinny as you, it’s astonishing, I feed him as much as I can and he never seems to grow out of it. At least for you, it makes sense, you’ve been rolling in the dirt for god knows how long, but my boy?” she tuts. “At this point, I’m considering giving him second helpings.”

She pushes a giant piece of bread onto his plate, and he digs in, casting around for something to say. She just keeps staring at him; people who watch other people eat never fail to annoy him, and it’s worse when he’s the one subjected to it. “Is your son scavenging?”

“Oh yes!” she brightens. “He’s out looking for food, you know how it is, such a nasty place it’s become, he says he can handle it, but I worry for him.”

“Mhmm,” Dave hums, swallowing the steamed vegetables before going to town on the mashed potatoes. “He seems nice?”

“Very much so!” It's like the floodgates opened at the mention of her son. The woman gushes about how kind and considerate her boy is, how timid and hopeful he was as a child, how much of a strapping young man he’s become. “He’s like you, I think—quiet, keeps to himself, bit of an introvert. He never used to go out much before the world turned to hell,” her voice rises in a lilt of an accent at the word hell. “He liked to stay in the fields, tending to the crops, and staying in the shed.”

“Shed?”

“We call it that, it’s really more of a barn. Somewhere back there.” she waves a dismissive hand at the window behind her that looks out into a view of fields slowly turning pinkish-red by the setting sun. “I hardly go in there these days, too many memories and all. He likes it there though, so I let him be. We all cope differently, don’t we?”

Dave pauses in the middle of meticulously picking out the meat from the burger with a napkin. He flicks his eyes up to where she sits, head bowed, eyes void of its brightness.

“I’m…sorry,” he says awkwardly.

Exhaling, she wipes at her eyes, then forces a smile. The brightness in her eyes returns but now he notices it isn’t as prominent. “Oh tosh, dear, why are you? Now go on, eat up, don’t pay mind to little old me, I’m just rambling.”

Dave eats the burger and is halfway through his piece of banana bread, eyeing the rest of it on the platter which she notices. 

“Seconds?”

“Oh no, I mean, only if you—”

“Nonsense, I made it, I can dish it out!” she cuts another large wedge and places it on his plate. “It makes me so happy to see others enjoy my food, go on.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He inhales the first piece and is on his way to do the same to the second when she insists he sits on the chair by the fire with her.

“I haven’t had company in years,” she sighs, her face darkening again into something Dave can probably decipher if he isn’t feeling so full and content. But then her face clears again. “It’s nice to talk to a living person.”

“Your son is there,” he reminds her.

“Yes, naturally, but it’s just been the two of us out here.”

Dave slouches in the chair she all but pushes him onto. He places his plate on his lap and takes small bites this time, savoring the taste for as long as it lasts. “Nice place,” he says for lack of a better conversation topic.

She preens, proud. “Been in the family for generations. But enough about me, what’s your story?”

He shrugs. Full and sated as he is, he still doesn’t feel comfortable sharing details about everything that led to this moment. “Left my bunker, going to see the girl I like.”

She claps her hands to her mouth, her eyes huge. “Oh, a journey for love!”

“I guess.”

“That’s so beautiful.” she wipes at her eyes, then pats her brown hair which has fallen slightly out of its updo. “My husband would have adored hearing your story if he were here. He was such a romantic.”

“Yeah?” Dave props his chin on one fist. The lulling atmosphere, the heat of the fire against his shins, and the food start to make his eyes droop. He hopes she doesn’t mind if he takes a quick nap on her chair.

“What’s your name, dear?” she asks, even her voice sounds distant.

“Dave,” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes. He should ask her for her name too, it’s the polite (and obvious) thing to do, but he’s just so tired. He hasn’t had a semblance of this kind of warmth in years. “Do you think I can sleep for a short while?”

“Of course!” her tone sounds incredulous as though she can’t believe he asked such a thing, but there’s something else partially veiled that he can’t pick out. Regret? But why is she feeling regret? “I just need you to do something, if you don’t mind.”

Yeah, something is definitely off about her voice. With some difficulty, Dave pries his eyes open, setting the plate on the side table.

She was standing—when had that happened?—her body blocking out the fireplace, casting long shadows on the dusty carpet. The stains on her apron are level with his gaze, prominent against the white background. Her eyes stare unblinking at him.

Something isn’t right. He shakes his head to try to clear away the laziness, but even that movement takes more effort than he wants to exert.

“Uh, yeah, what’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Oh, nothing’s wrong, exactly, but you must understand I do this with everyone who I invite to my place. It’s nothing special, really, just a tit-for-tat. My son will appreciate it.”

The accent in her voice has become more significant, turning down on certain letters. Her weathered face doesn’t look quite as warm anymore. Dave struggles to sit, discomfort warring with his lethargy as he tries to figure out what’s going on.

One thing’s for sure, something’s up with this lady, and he doesn’t want to stick around to play therapist and find out. His radar pings, distant but persistent.

“Um, actually I think I should be on my way—”

“You’d understand, I think,” she says over him, “A journey for love, and all, you’d understand the things one does for someone they care about. It’s not my fault, it was the stupid zombies, they ruined everything, they took everything from me—but I wouldn’t stand for that. I won’t let them ruin my life altogether, I have my son no matter what he’s like and I will do anything to keep him. You understand, don’t you? Why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

Dave has not an ounce of an idea what’s happening. He wants to snap at her but she’s been so nice, he doesn’t have the heart to be mean to someone like that, even though she’s really freaking him out.

“I really think I should be leaving—”

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere, dearie.” She surveys him in that uncomfortably eager way she’s done the entire time. “Shame, you’re still quite skinny, I tried for my poor son, but I suppose this shall do”

What?

“Uh, what?”

“A favor, dear, I need you to do something for me. Everyone else has always been so defiant about it when I asked them to, I had to force them to do it, but I trust you would understand. I hope you do.”

Slowly, he gets to his feet. “What are you on about?” He tries to back away from her, the back of his shins hits the table. Off-balanced, he almost tips over. She watches him struggle with vague amusement.

“A simple request, actually, dear. I just need you to get in the oven.”

It’s close to dusk and they still haven’t reached whatever place Zeke lives. At this rate, Shawn’s close to going as feral if not more than the actual zombie (half-zombie? Part-zombie?) accompanying him.

Zeke, for his part, seems unconcerned about the darkening sky—of course, he doesn’t need to be concerned, what with being a zombie and all. He trots alongside Shawn, keeping pace with him surprisingly easily. Occasionally he’d sniff the air or pause with his ears pricked, but then whatever he heard must have not been interesting for he’d shrug and continue trailing after Shawn.

One point during the late afternoon, Shawn broke into one of the trail mix packets he snagged at the convenience store, while Zeke’s eyes lit up at the sight of a slumped shape on the road in front of them. He bounded over, moving from two legs to all four limbs until he was practically on top of the motionless shape, and that was when Shawn put two and two together.

“Oh, dude, really? Right here?”

Zeke looks up, a piece of something hanging from his mouth. He shoots Shawn a look that states without needing words: that’s your food, this is mine, deal with it, before diving back in to gobble some more of intestines and flesh.

“That’s disgusting,” Shawn tells him, feeling vaguely like Dave. He has the urge to wrinkle his nose too. “What even is that? An animal or a…?”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, he doesn’t want to. Zeke may be an outlier in the data of the undead, but he’s still a zombie. And zombies have their specific tastes—like that of human brains.

Zeke ducks back down while Shawn maintains a healthy distance, eyes never wavering even though he really wants to look away. Just because he let Zeke hang around him doesn’t mean he trusts the guy. He may be nice for a zombie, but who knows when he’ll snap and attack Shawn for his brains? Nope, nu uh, Shawn isn’t going to risk it. Even if the sight is gross as heck, he isn’t looking away, not even for a second.

When Zeke finishes his four-course meal, he lurches back to Shawn, his eyes gleaming happily—like an overexcited zombie puppy. Sometimes it’s difficult to see him as a brains-eating monster…until Shawn witnesses the moments when Zeke eyes a corpse for far too long (and with too many hungry rumbles in his chest), or when at one point Shawn caught Zeke staring at him with an indescribable expression as though fighting a primal urge within himself, or when Zeke tried to eat some of Shawn’s trail mix to no avail—zombies can’t digest human food, it is strictly out of their diet.

Stuff like that helps Shawn come back to reality pretty quick.

They left the lifeless (and nameless) town a couple of hours ago, now it’s the two of them and the open stretch of road leading to nowhere—although whenever Shawn mentions that, Zeke shakes his head vehemently and keeps jabbing his finger at the road ahead of them. After the third time, Shawn gets the message: wherever their destination is, it’s on the way.

But when the sun starts to creep toward the horizon, his doubts begin to creep up too. “Dude,” he says to Zeke who’s sniffing at a tree. “I said I gotta get moving before the sun sets. And you said it won’t take that long to get there.”

Zeke growls.

“Yeah, yeah, I used the word ‘said’ liberally. You know what I meant.”

Zeke huffs, but picks up the pace. Shawn hurries in his wake, then frowns at the sound of rustling by the trees in the woods bordering the road on either side.

Still running, Shawn turns his focus on the trees. He squints. Something appears to be moving within the shadows.

Shawn’s hand darts to his ax right as a blur lunges toward him from the trees. His hands move instinctively, bringing the ax down hard against the zombie’s skull. It’s too disfigured already for him to get a read on who it could’ve been when it was human—not that Shawn necessarily wants to, it’s better to let things stay in the past. It’s a zombie now, that’s what matters.

The ax slams against the zombie’s already partly mashed-in skull, Shawn sees a bloodied mark that looks like a shallow stab wound on its neck; taking advantage of that, he aims his next attack at the neck, slicing the blade sideways.

Panting, he watches, satisfied, as the zombie’s severed head thuds to a stop at his feet.

Tried to get a fast one on me? No siree, he thinks savagely as he wipes the viscus of the shuffler on its slumped body, staining its bloodied shirt even more so. When he looks up at the feeling of eyes on him, he catches Zeke staring unblinkingly at him. The same kind of stare any other zombie has, even if Zeke is different. A shudder runs down Shawn’s spine. 

Zeke tilts his head. His toque falls slightly in front of his eyes. His human eyes. Not vacant or lifeless, there are emotions swimming in them as vague as they may be. 

Shawn resists touching his own toque which is probably dirty as hell since the last time he washed it was…well, definitely not in the recent past.

Dave would give him so much shit. Then dump an assortment of laundry stuff and fabric cleaners in his arms and order him to get to business. 

Stop thinking about him!

Shawn sighs, rubbing his face, probably smearing more dirt on it but who cares? “Are we almost there?”

Zeke tilts his head up, eyes falling lazily shut. In an instant, they spring open and he nods before dashing down the road.

Shawn races after him. Despite having only eaten a packet of trail mix and half a bottle of water, the wind rushing past his face as he runs is a comfort his body can never tire of. He matches Zeke’s pace without breaking a sweat, and they don’t break pace until the trees on one side of the road clear out revealing a large area of barren land that, based on the videos he used to watch as a teen, would likely be the perfect stereotypical description of the United States’s state of Iowa.

Literally, nothing is going on. A whole grand vision of nothingness. Nothing upon nothing. From all the movies he watched, that’s basically Iowa, isn’t it?

He turns to Zeke who’s watching him raptly for his reaction. “You live…in the fields? The grass?”

Zeke’s face falls a little and his mouth twists into a pout that would be adorable if he isn’t a zombie. Looking like he can’t believe Shawn can be this obtuse, he leads the way, cutting through the grass with Shawn following, confusion blending into his unease until the shape that he initially brushed off as a particularly large blade of grass comes into more detailed view.

It’s a barn. At least it looks like one. Its silhouette was medium-sized but hulking; as it grows closer, he takes in some more specifics.

The outside is red with peeling paint; rotting wood littering the area surrounding it; there only appears to be one door which hangs off its hinges as Zeke ambles past it with Shawn trailing behind, his disquiet mounting with every step.

This is, like, the ideal spot for a horror movie scene—in this case, perfect for Zeke to make do on his undead inheritance and gobble Shawn up for dinner.

The inside of the barn is as eerie as the outside. It’s dark for one, and the only things in it are bales of hay (one of which looks like it’s been slept on), a ladder leading up to a higher level where a skylight shines the pale light of the growing night onto the barn floor. He steps forward and hears a crunch that has him looking down instantly.

Bones.

Lots and lots of bones, littering the ground and the hay bales.

Shawn decidedly does not pull a Dave and throw up, but he comes super close to it.

Zeke picks up one of the bones and idly gnaws on it, seemingly unaware that his living human companion is on the edge of a coronary.

He whips out his crossbow without thinking. Zeke blinks, startled at the weapon trained on him.

“What do you want, man?” Shawn asks slowly. “Because this place is creepy as hell and it feels like you brought me in here like a lamb to slaughter. Except I’m not going to be a lamb.”

Zeke opens his mouth, croaks out: “fri…end” then points at Shawn. He looks so betrayed that Shawn almost believes him. Almost.

“Bullshit. This is crossing a line.” He moves back a step, finger poised on the trigger, tensing when Zeke stands up straight. “You’re not getting my brains, dude.”

Zeke’s already shaking his head. “No brains,” he rasps. He waves the bone in his hand at Shawn, then gestures to the litter of various types of bones around him. “Look.”

Shawn wants to snap that he’s looking, been looking this entire time and that’s why he’s getting out of here. But something in Zeke’s cracked eyes gives Shawn a pause. It isn’t the look of a satisfied zombie, it’s something else. A combination of expectant and concerned. 

It feels like Shawn is one of those detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Zeke is his newest case. There are some dots lying about which he probably needs to connect but he doesn’t know how.

First question: “Where did these come from?” he nods at the bones.

Nervousness crosses Zeke’s face. He points out of the barn, over Shawn’s shoulder. Looking back, Shawn sees nothing but grass.

Okay…not helpful.

He clears his throat, posing the next question more hesitatingly: “Are these…human bones? Live humans? Formerly live humans?”

The nervousness cranks up a notch, washing out all of Zeke’s other expressions. Slowly he nods, three times.

A weight drops in Shawn’s stomach. Now it’s his turn to look betrayed; he knows he shouldn’t be, that the oldest rule in the guidebook his mother made is to never interact with the walkers, but something about Zeke had struck him as a messed-up form of solidarity.

God, he’s so stupid! Don’t trust the zombies, of course, he just had to trust a zombie.

“So this is what you do?” he says, voice shaking from emotion or panic or both. “You lure the living in here with your big eyes and the fact that you’re not a fully transformed zombie, and then you pounce and eat them up and use their bones as chew toys?”

Zeke shakes his head, eyes wide, pleading. “No!” he exclaims, voice reedy, scratchy, a hint of human under the feral. 

He steps forward, tries to say something that only comes out as a half-growl, and freezes when Shawn cocks the trigger.

Silence. The only sound is the breeze and the crickets.

Shawn opens his mouth, and a shout echoes like a gunshot into the air. Somewhere distant, but it has both his and Zeke’s heads turning in its direction.

Neither of them speaks. They just wait, but no other sound hits the air. They turn back to watching each other warily, waiting for the other’s next move.

Shawn’s finger trembles on the trigger of the crossbow. His instincts scream at him to put an arrow into Zeke’s head, get rid of the threat, one less zombie in the world, yada yada. But Zeke’s human eyes push against Shawn’s innate instincts. 

Then there’s the matter of the shout they heard. It sounded strangely familiar, the pitch of it reminded Shawn of a certain memory…battling a horde…hearing a scream from behind…

His breath stutters on its next exhale. Something’s terribly wrong, he can feel it. He doesn’t dare to hope or think…but if his intuition is correct then…

He waves the crossbow at Zeke. “Yeah, so that shout? I’m gonna check that out. You stay right here so I can bash your skull in when I come back.”

Solemnly, Zeke nods. His hands twist in the pocket of his hoodie.

With that promise made, Shawn drops his pack by the entrance, spins around and sprints out of the barn in the direction of where he heard the sound. Desperately, he prays to a god he doesn’t believe that he isn’t running himself in circles. All he sees are grass, grass, and more grass to the point where he does start to believe he may have gotten himself lost (which would be super embarrassing), but thankfully, after a couple more steps (and after dodging the sudden shape of a motionless beat-down tractor), the shape of a house comes into view, as decimated as the barn, but Shawn doesn’t give a shit about that. He’s on a fucking mission.

The door is unlocked, he throws it open, entering a hallway with a flickering light at the end. His shoulder, which was getting better, protests the movement of his quick strides. 

Shawn hardly feels it over the pounding in his chest when he enters the next room and takes in the scene before him.

There’s a woman with her back facing him, she has on a dusty pink bathrobe with an apron that’s seen better days over it; her hair is falling in scraggly strands from her hairdo. She’s advancing on the person halfway up the stairs, pressed against the banister in bewildered terror.

The person Shawn never thought he would see again after they split ways.

He wants to laugh, hysterical and relieved. A strong sense of deja vu sweeps over him, causing him to move farther into the light.

“You really gotta stop getting caught in crazy-dangerous situations while on the stairs,” he calls out.

The both of them whip around but Shawn only has eyes for Dave whose face goes through a myriad of emotions before ultimately settling on surprise and relief. The tightness in Shawn’s chest releases its hold. Dave is alive—in danger, yes, but alive nonetheless. Being in danger is fine, they’ve both been in dangerous situations more times than not this past few months.

But he’s alive, and from the looks of it, he’s okay. 

Shawn doesn’t realize how worried he is until the feeling dissipates, leaving him ten times lighter, and he moves toward the stairs like a string attached. When he reaches the bottom, looks up at Dave’s worrying furrow, the words escape him:

“You’re running away from a lady? A sweet lady who looks like she knits holiday sweaters?”

Dave sputters. His cheeks flush. “A lady with a knife!”

Scoffing, Shawn turns to where the woman is standing, silent, likely confused by this turn of events. “Aw come on,” he says as he does, “there’s no way she has a—oh shit she has a knife. Why is she holding a steak knife?”

“Because she wants to eat me.”

That makes Shawn do a double-take. “What?”

Dave’s knuckles are white against the banister, he looks like one move will topple him over the edge. Surreptitiously, Shawn edges up two steps, closer to him. He can’t trust the guy to not fall. “She told me to get in her oven. I think that’s a solid indication.”

“Dude, why even—?” he can’t wrap his head around it, and the eager scowl on the crazy lady with the butcher knife’s face isn’t helping matters. “She’s not even a zombie and she still wants to eat you? That’s just poor taste.”

“I’m going to take that as you thinking it’s poor taste to eat humans—which is the more reasonable route of thought—and not that it’s because she was going to eat me specifically.”

The explanation is right there on the tip of his tongue; how humans, nowadays, are classified as both dead and undead, so Dave’s sentence was quite broad. But Shawn lets it slide this time. “I’m just surprised you’re discussing cannibalism with a straight face,” he says, casually, distracting Dave.

It kind of works. A flicker of a wry smile crosses Dave’s face. “I’m kind of past the shock factor, don’t worry it’ll hit me in a bit.” A pause, then a reluctant admission: “Also the food was pretty good.”

The food? Man, what even is this Hansel and Gretal shit? “She made food?”

“What, I was hungry! She baked banana bread!”

“She made banana bread and you didn’t stop to question why?”

“Not everyone’s as paranoid as you, I just wanted the free food. I thought she was being nice.”

“In the apocalypse, niceness is overrated. Please don’t tell me you ate the meat if there was any.”

“Um, I’m a vegetarian, of course I didn’t. Why would you care if I ate the—“ Dave stops, face slackening in realization. “Oh.”

The lady interrupts, face twisted in confused annoyance. “Are you two quite done or do I have to wait until you get through more of your ‘hi hello’ to get to the good stuff?”

Honestly, Shawn forgot she’s there, which is all the more concerning. He’s pretty sure he should be aware of a crazy lady wielding a steak knife. 

Also, Good stuff? He moves up another step, feeling Dave’s heat against his back now, as well as the puff of breath at the back of his neck as the other man mutters the same thing Shawn thought.

The woman appears not to have heard—or maybe she doesn’t care. “The first one was skinny,” she mumbles under her breath, but in the small space, her words are like a shout, “but the second one…it was like a gift from God. They both might not fit, I’ll have to make do with one and give the other one to—”

“Hey lady,” Shawn interrupts loudly. “What’s your deal? The food supply isn’t too scarce right now, you don’t have to resort to cannibalism.”

At that, her head snaps up. “Me? ” she says incredulously, then chuckles. “Oh no no, dearie, you two aren’t for me. You’re for my boy.”

“Her son,” comes Dave’s whisper from the step above him.

What?

Shawn’s eyes track the contents of the room; the living with its deceptively cozy atmosphere; the fireplace crackling; the kitchen with the sink full of plates (probably the food Dave mentioned); the dining table with the edges slightly burnt; the fridge with several photographs stuck to it by magnets.

His eyes zone in on one of the photos—a young man in his late teens when the picture was taken, with a toothy grin, holding a pitchfork proudly, and wearing a familiar toque.

Zeke. It’s Zeke.

Like clockwork, Shawn recalls the expression on Zeke’s face in the barn, the array of bones littering the floor, the solemness in Zeke’s expression when Shawn told him to stay where he was, the way he tried to say a specific word in response to Shawn’s accusation but couldn’t.

The dots finally connect in a puzzle Shawn can’t believe is real.

“You’re…Zeke’s mom?” he stammers in a question.

As though the mention of her son’s name is a gavel, she slumps, but her hand on the knife remains steady—clear indication that she’s done this same spiel before multiple times. Shawn’s nervousness picks up a notch. “My boy…” she whispers, rambles basically. “He doesn’t deserve it, he didn’t deserve it, any of it. They ambushed him, he just wanted to take a look at his beloved fields, but they bit him, and now he’s alone. He’s always been so alone, never mingling with others his age, and now he has no one…but I’m still here,” she adds, jaw clenching, head raising. “I’m always going to be here for my boy, for anything he needs, I won’t hold back. He wants a place to himself? He has the barn. He wants food?” her eyes lock on them, “he’ll goddamn get his food. I’m not losing another.”

The look in her eyes is steely but manic, far past the concept of seeing reason. Shawn inches back, feeling Dave’s hands creep from the banister to gripping his shoulders. He wants to look back, to see the other’s face, but he doesn’t dare take his eyes away from the threat at hand.

Zeke’s mother moves closer to the stairs, with each step she takes, they inch backward, stumbling up the stairs. Shawn’s ax is the only thing between them and certain death.

“I’m doing this for him, all of it for my boy,” she keeps muttering, eyes darting around. Then she freezes, her gaze fixed diagonally past them. “Ezekiel?” she whispers, almost wonderingly, as though it’s the first time she said his name.

Shawn and Dave follow her gaze. On the other side of the kitchen window, a familiar green-tinged face stares at them, mouth open, nose pressed to the glass, his eyes look terrified—not for him, Shawn realizes, but for them.

His mother interprets the expression completely different. “Don’t worry, baby,” she coos almost frantically, “Mama will have your dinner—and dessert—sent to you right away!”

Zeke’s eyes widen, which Shawn realizes, too late, is a silent warning.

He feels a rush of air on his left side. He turns too slowly.

One second he’s spinning around and witnessing a close-up he really doesn’t want to be subjected to of Zeke’s mother’s wild-eyed face; then his vision twirls sideways as she shoves into him, at such a close range that his ax is practically useless. Piekło, the woman is strong as fuck, just one push from her and Shawn goes stumbling back, his free arm flailing for a handhold. He grabs the banister just in time and stops himself, bent awkwardly backward over the stair rail like he’s doing an invisible limbo.

Somewhere in the room, Dave is screaming something unintelligible. Zeke’s mother is saying something too, screaming something at Dave in return, but Shawn’s head spins as vertigo makes its appearance. Everything feels like it’s underwater, he struggles to right himself, his stomach aches from where the lady had elbowed him like nobody’s business.

Head pounding, he hoists his body back into an upright position, keeping a firm hold on the banister so that he won’t slip down the stairs. He can still hear the screaming, but it sounds far away—and not just because of the dizziness, it actually sounds like it’s moving farther away from him.

That gets Shawn’s mind kicking into high gear. He shakes his head hard, his vision coming back to him slowly. When it does, he sees that he’s alone; a cool breeze has entered the room, meaning only one thing.

Leaping down the last few stairs, his ax is already back at his hip (long distance: he needs another, more efficient weapon) when his feet hit the floor, already on the move as soon as he lands, racing out the doorway and into the hall. His hunch is correct, the front door is wide open. Under the twilight sky, he can see two figures making slow headway in the direction Shawn came from—where the barn is. One of them is struggling and shouting, the other determinedly yanks him along uncaring.

Bursting out of the house, Shawn moves without thinking, instincts slipping over his thoughts like a well-worn coat. He runs, as fast as he had back at the fire escape when he met Dave, as fast as in the City Hall, as fast as when he left his house three years ago, the fastest he has ever run. He pulls out a knife from one of the pockets of his baggy cargo pants, aims at the figure pulling the other one in her wake. She may not be a zombie, but she’s still a threat.

Shawn lets the knife fly.

In a moment that stretches like an age, the knife shoots straight and hits true into Zeke’s mother’s arm.

The roar of pain that echoes is so loud he’s positive every zombie in town must have heard. She staggers back, the dagger wedged in her flesh. Her grip on Dave slackens. For the first time, losing precious weaponry or the zombies isn’t important to Shawn right now. He lunges, arm outstretched, reaching, grabbing…

Dave’s hand, reaching out to meet his, latches on, the warmth of his skin sending zaps of fire racing up Shawn’s nerves as he falls into Survival Mode. First mission complete, now to get rid of the crazy lady who wants to kill them and cook them in her oven.

Dave seems to have a similar train of thought for he’s the one to tug Shawn along as they race back to the house, cutting through the long grass. Behind, they hear cursing from Zeke’s mother. Zeke, himself, is nowhere to be seen.

They tumble inside and immediately Shawn slams the front door shut. They lean against it, panting, shoulders touching, the presence of a sane living human being a source of comfort to each of them.

“Why’d you run to the house?” Shawn asks.

“I panicked, okay?” Dave wheezes. “You’re the one who followed me.”

“Because you were holding my hand!”

In that moment Shawn realizes they’re still holding hands. He lets go quickly, his face burning for some reason.

Dave doesn’t even notice, his eyes dart around, his breaths come in short gasps. “Are we going to die? Getting served as zombie food?” He tugs at the ends of his hair. “I knew this was too good to be true.”

“No freaking way, I’m not turning into zombie chow!” They just got reunited, he isn’t going to let a wacko mama ruin it. With renewed vigor, Shawn’s eyes track the hall. Just a lone coat rack, nothing special. His eyes move to the doorway on the other end, the glimpses of the kitchen and living room he can see from his vantage point.

Wait a minute…

He recalls the crackling fireplace, the bottles of whiskey on top of the fridge. An idea starts to form, crazy but that’s how he rolls.

“Oh my god,” Dave is blabbering. “We’re actually going to die, I’m sorry I argued with you, I just needed to get that off my chest before we get cooked to death—”

“Hey.” Shawn turns and grabs his face with both hands, knocking their foreheads together. Something in his chest stirs a little at the apology, but the circumstances can’t be any worse for it. “Hey, look at me.”

On the other side of the door, Zeke’s mom had caught up to them at last. She pounds at the wood, rattling it against their backs. But Shawn focuses on Dave’s shaky breathing, his clammy forehead pressed against Shawn’s, his wide eyes fixed on Shawn with a level of trust that Shawn hasn’t seen on anyone’s face when it comes to him. 

“I got a plan,” he continues slowly. “It’s going to be crazy, it’s going to be really fucking mad, but you gotta trust me, okay?”

I won’t let anything happen to you is at the tip of his tongue and he very nearly says it but stops at the last second.

Dave’s eyes watch him for a few seconds before he nods, quickly, jerkily. “I’m expecting crazy and really fucking mad, at this point,” he sighs. “What’s the plan?”

Shawn smirks. “What do you know about molotov cocktails?”

Dave’s face pales. “No, no fucking way.”

“It’s our best bet, dude.”

“We will most definitely die!”

“Didn’t I say you gotta trust me on this?”

Dave exhales. “Okay,” he whispers reluctantly.

Unable to stop his grin, Shawn lets go of Dave’s face, his hands feel strangely cold when he drops them to his sides. To feel some sort of pressure in his palms, he touches at his crossbow. “Grab as many alcohol bottles as you can, we’re going to burn down the fucking stairs.”

One of the rules in the guidebook Shawn and his mother made had a rule bolded Take The Stairs—Then Burn Them. It’s a hardcore fact that zombies can’t tolerate fire as much as they can’t water. They’d gotten the chapter idea from a beloved book they used to own— The Zombie Survival Guide, a classic favorite that explains the ways to fight and thwart zombies when the apocalypse comes around. Every apocalypse expert has one.

In one of the chapters, it said that if they were ever trapped with a zombie or several and there were stairs, to climb the stairs and then literally burn them. You’d be on higher elevation from the undead, and there’s less likely chance they would risk getting burned and pursue you. It’s ingenious, Shawn’s mother added it into their own guidebook on the spot.

Now, Shawn and Dave may not be facing a zombie, but the danger is still very real, and chances are most humans have an aversion to getting burned too. He just hopes Zeke’s mother isn’t totally crazy.

As though nothing had happened, they fall into their easy tandem, splitting off at the end of the hallway—Dave to the kitchen, Shawn to the living room. When Zeke’s mother puts her steak knife to use and starts chopping away at the door, Dave has an armful of whiskey bottles, and Shawn is by the fireplace with Dave's backpack over one shoulder. He fidgets impatiently as Dave hurries over. 

“Come on, come on,” he hisses.

“I don’t want to break them,” Dave retorts, picking his way between the easy chairs. As soon as he reaches Shawn’s side, Shawn grabs the first two bottles. But before he can light them up in the fireplace, the front door crashes open. Zeke’s mother shrieks in victory.

Dave drops the rest of the alcohol bottles, they clatter all over the floor, some breaking into dozens of pieces. 

“Up the stairs.” Shawn herds Dave to the bottom step, to which the other man looks questioningly at. “Just climb them,” Shawn insists. He waves the two bottles in his hands. “I can handle the rest.”

Zeke’s mother appears at the doorway. Her face is streaked with dirt, and she’s breathing heavily; despite the growing patch of red pumping slowly from her arm, there’s a twisted motherly grin on her face when she sees them. Her knife glints wickedly.

“Come now, all that chasing for nothing?” her grin widens. “Give up, there have been others who’ve fought worse than you and ended up in my oven.”

“You know,” calls Shawn, as he nudges Dave, an unspoken insistence to climb up the steps. “You don’t have to go through all the effort of baking living humans to give to your son. Zombies aren’t picky.”

“Seriously?” Dave hisses in his ear as he steps backward onto the bottom step. “Are you trying to get us killed quicker?”

But Zeke’s mother chuckles. “Trust me, I know. But I prefer them not to struggle when I give them to Ezekiel. Makes his life a lot easier, ain’t it?”

“His undead life, actually,” Shawn says on autopilot. His right foot creeps onto the bottom step, he stays there balanced. “Because, he’s a zombie, not a living human being.”

A few steps above him, he hears Dave's facepalm. Zeke’s mother’s eyes narrow, her lips curl into a terrible snarl.

“I’ll kill you first, zombie upstart,” she decides before rushing forward. The shards of broken glass digging into her feet only deter her a little, but enough for Shawn to shove at Dave and yell “Go go go!” before scrambling up the stairs after him, moving backward so that Zeke’s mother is within his sights at all times.

They’re almost on the second floor, mostly covered in the shadows. From this view, Zeke’s mother looks like a specter, the firelight casting an eerie shadow against the walls on the stairs’ sides. As they continue moving up, so does she, a mix of a satisfied grin and snarl that doesn’t look human, believing she’s caught them.

“What are you going to do with those?” she asks mockingly, nodding at the bottles in Shawn’s hands. “A last drink before death? Oh, how sweet.”

Shawn doesn’t reply, just watches with narrowed eyes, counting the steps in his head.

Just one more…just one more…

“Come on,” coos Zeke’s mother again. Her foot hovers over the next step. “It’ll hurt just a little, then you won’t feel a thing.”

“I’m going to puke,” Dave moans.

“Don’t,” Shawn replies lowly.

Zeke’s mother smirks. She takes the next step.

Like water, Shawn moves. Placing one of the bottles under his arm, he pats his pocket, hoping, praying that it’s still there…

Yes!

He pulls it out, his ma’s trusty lighter that he’s treasured close to him since her death. He’d been waiting to put it to use other than the occasional smoke. Now is the perfect time, worthy of his ma.

Holding it out so that Zeke’s mother can easily see, Shawn flicks open the lighter and brings the flame to the first bottle of whiskey.

Zeke’s mother’s eyes widen, her mouth drops open. She moves fast, skipping two steps in her haste to prevent the disaster Shawn’s going to kickstart.

She’s a second too late.

The bottle catches on fire like two friends with the same interests. Shawn’s hands throb in burning pain within seconds. He flings it with all his might not at Zeke’s mother, but at the step she’s standing on—just two below theirs.

As soon as the bottle makes contact with the carpet, Shawn whips around. He doesn’t bother to see what he knows is already happening; the fire, the searing heat, the explosive burning. 

“Move!” he shouts at Dave who stands frozen. One push from Shawn jerks him back to the present, and he rushes up the last few steps with Shawn on his heels, the flames biting at the soles of his shoes. At the top of the stairs, he sets the second bottle on fire and flings it down. It vanishes into the smoke; a second later comes the muffled telltale crash of breaking glass. Through the gap between the flames, he sees that most of the stairs have already practically fallen apart, a carnage of burnt wood and ripped carpet.

Taking the stairs, then burning them, he thinks in grim satisfaction as Zeke’s mother screams in pain and another burst of dark smoke floats up to the ceiling. The entire lower floor is a haze, an inferno of flames, he can hardly see a thing.

A brown arm tugs him back into the temporary safety of the silent upper landing. The same arm jabs a finger at Shawn’s pants leg which had caught on fire. Shawn pats it down quickly. 

“We can’t stay here,” Dave shouts in his ear above the mayhem. “We’ll die of asphyxiation.”

More or less exactly what Shawn is thinking too, but Dave worded it better than his teeming thoughts can hope to. Shawn nods, taking in their surroundings.

So far it’s quiet and the air is clear, but not for long. Sooner than later the fire will spread up to here—they need to escape before then. 

There’s a terrible crashing sound from behind them which makes them jump. Where the banister had been are only indents in the wall, the fire laps at the stairs, in a couple more steps the second floor will be in flames. 

Shawn and Dave back away from the steps. Shawn sweeps a quick look around, stuffing away his panic. The landing is cramped; two doors lead into what he assumes are bedrooms. There’s a large window directly across from them. He approaches it while Dave meanders to one of the bedrooms.

Dropping Dave's backpack below the window, he rolls his shoulder absentmindedly, inspecting the window. A layer of dust lines the frame. The lock is jammed shut but with a little wedging of one of his crossbow’s arrows, it breaks apart from the rest of the window, falling to the carpet. Shawn pushes at the glass, letting it screech open. There’s no mesh frame so, unceremoniously, he sticks his head out.

After dealing with all that fire and heat, the cool air is a blessing against his skin and blistering hands when he places them on either side of the window frame and hauls himself onto the tiny ledge below.

He’s partway up the roof, he can see the ground many feet below; a scuffed driveway he hadn’t noticed, and several dead flowers slumped pitifully at the stoop. Above, shingles fleck the roof, leading up and up.

Gingerly, Shawn places his weight on the closest one. When it doesn’t budge, he calls through the window: “Dave?”

A distant: “What?”

“Come up here, check this out.”

“Hang on.” Shuffling, a muffled thump, and a slew of curses before Dave’s head pops out, his hair mused and a streak of ash on his cheek. Shawn’s chest expands, he can’t lie he missed the sight of this guy. 

“I think I found our way out.” He gestures at the shingles on the roof. 

Dave cranes his neck around, then huffs and scrambles out of the window, straightening up next to Shawn. The ledge is so small that even by being the farthest they can get, their shoulders and arms still brush. 

“You want us to…climb to the top of the roof?” Dave inquires, skepticism evident in his tone.

“We use the shingles as hand and footholds. Then we go around the back and jump. I saw how tall the grass is, our landing will hurt but not a lot.”

Dave goggles at him. “Are you crazy? What if we break our necks on the landing?”

“You see any other way out of this?”

As if on cue, a burst of smoke billows out of an open window downstairs. Shawn’s neck tingles. He wants to get out of this place pronto; although he likes to believe it, he isn’t completely sure the molotov cocktails had put Zeke’s mother out of commission.

“There has to be another way!” Dave protests. Apparently, he reached his quota of trusting Shawn. “I’m not falling to my death, that’s insane.”

“You know what is more insane? Being the main course for a zombie meal!”

Dave scans the ledge, looking for anything, but to no avail. He turns back to the window. “Okay, then we go back inside and think of another plan.”

“And that is more insane. We don’t have the time for that, you said it yourself—Dave?” The other man stands frozen, staring at the window. Suddenly, he stumbles back, falling into Shawn who catches him. “Dave? Amigo?”

Breathing heavily again, Dave scrabbles at Shawn’s sweater without looking. He points at the window. 

Shawn looks, and immediately recoils.

The partially burnt face of Zeke’s mother leers at them, she’s already halfway out of the window onto the ledge. The fire and chaos must’ve masked her movements or else Shawn is positive he would’ve heard her.

"God, this lady just won't die," Shawn curses.

“Shit,” Dave is whispering. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“Get back,” Shawn whispers back, which is better said than done considering how small the ledge is. He subtly tries to nudge Dave away from both Shawn and the woman’s line of sight. “You jump, I can take her.”

Dave gives him a look that says clearly how terrible and moronic and crazy he thinks that idea is. Shawn doesn’t get a chance to respond to it for in the next second, Zeke’s mother attacks.

She must have lost her knife in the chaos, but that doesn’t leave her defenseless. Her nails are razor sharp and they scratch at Shawn’s vulnerable skin with stinging pain. He scrabbles for the handle of his ax, but as soon as he swings it up, she smacks his arm; his feet skid on the wooden surface, teetering dangerously close to the edge; his hand spasms and his ax goes flying in the air, Shawn can’t see where it lands. 

Rage settling over his stomach and chest like a hard stone, he swings his crossbow low, causing her to jump and stumble too. They’re dancing a limbo on the edge of the ledge, the dark shadowy ground yawning up at them. The anger decorating both their faces stark, the fire touching their features into that of monstrosities. He can feel sweat building up on his forehead, her smile is the only flash of white on her blackened face. 

They lunge again; her gripping his chin with long, calloused fingers; him clawing futilely at her, hitting her on the shins with his crossbow.

“I suppose if I throw you off here, you will be too deformed to move and Ezekiel will be able to have his dinner.” She muses. “It’s so late, though, this might as well be his late-night snack.” She looks disappointed at him, as though Shawn is at fault for not staying still and allowing her to feed him to her son in a timely manner.

The memory of the teenager in the photograph with his toothy grin and how older and forlorn he looks now with his greenish skin and surrounded by the bones of the people his mother killed for him, the memory of Shawn’s mother and the last words she said to him, the memory of Dave’s warm hand gripping his tight and his fists hauling Shawn back away from danger and into the circle of safety, the memories collide one after another on repeat, blurring out the face of Zeke’s mother.

“You say you do it because you love him,” he says. “But loving someone doesn’t mean torturing them by not letting them have a say in their own life. Loving them isn’t supposed to be selfish.”

Zeke’s mother frowns, the earnest light in her dimming. That’s when Shawn strikes.

He swipes out her legs from underneath her with his crossbow. She lands hard on the ledge, dazed. He doesn’t waste a second, raising the crossbow up high before bringing it down against her head.

She doesn’t move, blood trickling onto the ledge from the side of her head. After around two minutes of watching her to make sure she doesn’t get up, he’s convinced she must be truly knocked out.

A sigh escapes him, making him cough as though the smoke is still in his lungs. He turns his back on Zeke’s mother, moving first to the shingles then, on second thought, to the window. He opens his mouth to call out for Dave, wondering if he’s still around or if he actually listened to Shawn, but all that comes out is a raspy shudder of breath.

Stopping, he takes a knee, focusing on his breathing.

He hopes against hope that somehow Dave managed to get out. He doesn't know how, maybe Dave really did brave the jump. The second floor is full of smoke and licks of flame now. At least one of them had a surefire way of escape. Shawn can’t blame him if that’s what Dave did, though it was nice to see him again even if it was just for a little bit.

Allowing himself to follow that bittersweet train of thought, he doesn’t comprehend the shout by the window until it’s nearly too late.

“Shawn, look out!”

He starts, jerking up. There are rapid footfalls behind him, growing closer and closer. Without looking back, he picks up his crossbow and strikes out as he turns.

Zeke’s mother, who he was so sure had been unconscious a minute ago, looms over him; blood running down the side of her face, burnt and unhinged, her fingers shaking as she shoves against his crossbow—the only barrier between them. Shawn’s knee throbs from all the weight he’s putting on it, he blinks the sweat out of his eyes.

“You…don’t…understand…anything,” she breathes out, straining closer. One tooth is missing, he notices for the first time, and he wonders if Zeke has ever tried to eat her before—back when killing people and serving them as zombie food likely wasn’t her top agenda. “You don’t know …the things I do…that I do for…”

She stutters, blinking rapidly. His arms tremble. Any second now, he’s bound to let go…he has to think of a backup escape plan; maybe he can let go abruptly, use her weight against her, and jump off before she has time to recover. The landing will be ugly but nothing he hasn’t faced before—

Metal flashes under the light of the half moon, something triangular and thick in her hand heading straight toward him, and Shawn can’t move, panic rooting him to the spot, watching, waiting, unable to do anything in his current position, bracing himself to either jump or exert all his strength in a desperate attempt to push back. 

All of a sudden, she freezes mid-movement her eyes cross. Her hands drop. So do the rest of her. Bewildered, he lets her fall to her knees, revealing Dave standing behind her, holding a shape that looks like a bat of some sort. The entire scenario is akin to that of an avenging angel that Shawn’s breath leaves him momentarily.

His black hair is still a mess, there’s more ash on his face, his arms shake even as his lips are curled up, he hasn’t changed since the last Shawn saw him around five minutes ago, yet when he descends upon Zeke’s mother, whacking her over and over viciously with the bat—a baseball bat, Shawn realizes—something hits Shawn like a wrecking ball. Something horrifying, insane, crazier than him. Something dangerous, that can ruin everything.

Something that makes his heart race, ache—and not just due to the exhilaration of their current situation. It’s as though he’s finding out for the first time that he has one in his body, thumping for in ways he never understood.

It’s like the curtains have opened, at last, revealing something. And now that it’s revealed, he can never unsee it again. A permanent, constant reminder of his doom.

Dave hits her with the bat again, determined, terrified, and brilliant. As she staggers closer to the edge once more, he looks over his shoulder, brown eyes spearing into Shawn. “What’re you waiting for?”

Shawn leaps into action, even as his thoughts are still reeling. He grabs up his crossbow and assists Dave in hitting Zeke’s mother repeatedly, the two of them alternating between strikes until Shawn gives a particularly harsh smack and Zeke’s mother loses her balance.

Everything slows down. She flails, arms reaching out for a handhold that isn’t there, eyes wide and desperate. Dave’s gasp next to him is aborted, strangled; even in a world like this, even facing people like her, he still cares about the old-time notion of life and death. Shawn, for his part, is blank, processing; he simply watches as though from a great distance as time speeds back up and Zeke’s mother falls out of sight toward the yawning shadowy ground.

A silence that lasts for an hour. Then a thump. Then nothing.

Shawn and Dave exchange quick glances. They peer over the side of the ledge.

The moon shines a vague spotlight on the motionless form of Zeke’s mother on the driveway, the blood pooling out from behind her head painting the white pebbled stones red. The smoke from the lower floor floats over her, turning her into an eerie silhouette, the kind in ghost stories. 

“Holy crap,” murmurs Dave, and there’s a touch of upset in his voice. 

Shawn looks at him leaning over the edge, clenching the handle of the bat, his shoulder pressed against Shawn’s, smelling of sweat and smoke and a lavender eucalyptus scent that’s only Dave. His lashes flutter, his slim fingers twitch, Shawn itches to press further into his warmth.

Here they are, stuck on the roof of a burning house with the dead body of a person they were forced to kill below them, and her zombie son prowling the perimeter of the estate. They’re worse for wear and probably lost all their supplies too.

Yet all Shawn can focus on is Dave, and all he can think is oh.

Oh god no.

Chapter Text

Somehow, they make it down the side of the highest part of the roof without any serious injuries. Shawn doesn’t speak much except to direct Dave to follow where he places his hands and feet in certain gaps until they reach the top of the roof.

Dave’s more than fine with that. The shock factor has definitely hit him at this point. He doesn’t think he can muster out anything but weak, incomprehensible gibberish, even if he wants to talk. All he can see when he closes his eyes—even if it’s just for a millisecond to blink—is the image of that woman—some guy called Ezekiel’s mother—lying sprawled on the stones in front of her house, blood casting a halo around her head; he pictures the view he saw at the window of her face mangled and burnt, skin stretched tight in some places and missing in chunks in others, showcasing the white bone underneath, speckled with veins. 

They killed a living human being. A crazy living human being, yes, but she was alive—before they took care of that.

Dave imagines what Shawn would say: she’s a living human being who wanted to kill us, so it was justified—self-defense, practically.

To be honest, he can’t imagine Shawn saying something that reasonable, but either way, the thought relaxes Dave a little—enough so that when he adjusts his koala grip on the chimney in an effort to not fall off the roof, his hands aren’t clenched as tightly.

She was a wacko—now that is something Shawn would say, Dave reasons—and if she hadn’t died, they would have been dead or worse. There was literally no other option. 

Yet whenever he recalls that dreaded moment when he saw her burnt face glaring at them from inside the window, Dave can’t suppress the shiver that runs down his spine. He’d told Shawn, all simple-minded and ignorant, that the living must have one common enemy—the dead; hell, he had thought that too when he knocked on the door of this blasted house, but, in his excitement of getting shelter, he hadn’t recollected Shawn’s response.

That’s what they want you to think.

Even in the middle of a wasteland apocalypse, the living cannot ally with each other; there will always be at least one person who goes their own way. Dave and Shawn caught a lucky break when they got mixed up in Manitoba’s traps, but this time? Not so much.

It’s a painful reality check. This is what you’ve to deal with now. Person against person—now with the addition of dead people too.

Humanity just can’t ever be simple, can it? Oh, there’s a zombie apocalypse, let’s all team up and face the undead together. Nope, not in the books of homo sapiens.

Glancing over at Shawn, who’s muttering to himself and pacing the length of the rooftop with an agility that has the bottom of Dave’s stomach swooping, Dave wonders if he ever thought the stuff Dave is currently thinking when he saw the dead body of that lady. Probably not. If there’s anything Dave knows about Shawn—other than his zombie paranoia—it’s that the guy is good at keeping a barrier between what could have and what couldn’t; if he finds out what Dave is thinking, Dave’s sure he’d be surprised. The thought of feeling guilt—even if it’s just a touch of it—over killing Ezekiel’s mother may have never crossed his mind; he likely already pushed the death aside as a hard necessity, focusing instead on a way to get out of the house.

Speaking of which, from the way Dave has to occasionally hop from one foot to the other, he deduces that the fire must have all but taken over the second floor. Any second now, the roof may give out, and they both will plummet to a fiery death. There's no way Shawn’s crossbow or the baseball bat Dave acquired from one of the bedrooms will be of any help against a house fire.

He opens his mouth to ask Shawn what’s up when the other man turns to him, a light in his eyes that has Dave instantly wary.

“I got it,” he declares. “We jump off the roof.”

“Right,” drawls Dave, his snark off the charts, most likely due to the stress. “And we’ll both become twin splatters on the ground to match the—the—”

Dammit, he can’t even say it. Hell, he can’t even look around the front side of the roof to where the body lies.

Thankfully, Shawn doesn’t pay attention to his stumble. “Remember what I said, dude?”

Actually, Dave had been busy panicking for his life to register anything Shawn was telling him on that ledge, but the last thing he wants is to indulge in a battle of snark atop a mostly burning building, so he shrugs and lets Shawn do his thing.

“It's all about the soil differences between both sides of the house; the front side is more rock-based sediments, it’ll be a rough landing if we land properly there at all. But the back of the house,” he gestures over the side of the roof he’s facing, “is more grassy and dirt-packed. It’ll soften our landing.”

More like softening the act of breaking their necks if they land a centimeter wrong, but they really don’t have time to dispute it because at that moment, a chunk of the roof a couple of feet down crumbles away. If Dave peers down the chimney (which he did once by total accident), he can smell the smoke so potent he can practically taste it.

In other words, time is running out. 

Shawn appears to realize this, too. Without preamble, he jumps off the roof.

A yell builds up in Dave’s throat as Shawn falls out of sight. Inching slowly with bated breath, he rounds the chimney and peers over the edge of the roof. 

Before Shawn hits the ground, he curls into a ball, executing a neat tuck-and-roll on the grass. Within half a second, he’s up on his feet, shooting Dave a thumbs-up.

Gritting his teeth, Dave takes in the grass, the dirt, and how far away they both are from him. That height can easily kill or seriously injure him, but Shawn made it look so easy. Of course, he did; this kind of stuff is always simple for Shawn. 

Several bricks from the chimney tumble down the roof, then plummet into a circle of flames as the part of the roof close by his sneakers caves in. Dave stumbles away, nearly losing his balance and falling over the edge. Below, Shawn shouts something he can’t decipher and beckons frantically. 

Now or never, a part of Dave thinks with resolve. I’m so going to die, wails the other part.

Tightening his hold on the bat, he jumps, tripping as half the roof falls away at the same time.

For a long moment, Dave is weightless, suspended in the air. He can feel the heat against his shoes, his shins, searing into the cargo pants he borrowed from Shawn. He can see the sky, thinks about reaching out and touching the stars—they look so close.

Then he plunges downward.

A sound rips from his throat, somewhere between a scream and a gasp; his stomach lands around his thighs, the kind of feeling right after hitting the peak of a rollercoaster; he’s pretty sure his chest is pressed to his rib cage; his eyes water involuntarily. Belatedly, he recalls Shawn’s tuck-and-roll; Dave doesn’t need to see what he probably looks like—flailing about like a headless chicken and certainly nowhere near as efficient as Shawn was. He doesn’t even want to look down and see how quickly the ground is rising to meet him. 

Just as fast, he stops, and a gasp escapes his throat from the sudden change.

A pair of arms had caught him, wrapped around his waist, holding him in place.

Dropping the bat, His own hands instinctively reach up to grip the shoulders connected to the arms, feeling the ridges of bones underneath the material of the sweater. When he glances down, it’s to see Shawn’s eyes already looking up at him. Something flashes in them, so rapidly that Dave considers he might have imagined it. 

Shawn coughs and turns away. “See? Easy peasy, nothing to it. You almost fell down with the roof doing all that worrying.” Something unreadable enters his tone, but his hold remains gentle and steady until Dave’s got his footing on the ground. Once he does, the weight of Shawn’s arms disappears, and the other man is marching around the side of the smoldering house, calling briskly over his shoulder, “Once I find my ax, we should definitely get moving. All this ruckus will have caught the attention of every shuffler in the area.”

A bit thrown off, Dave only hums noncommittally, stoops to pick the bat back up, and trails after, focusing on placing one foot in front of the other without toppling. He gives a wide berth around the burning house, and embers and pieces of wood fall around him, sending sparks into the grass. 

“We need to get out of here,” Shawn is muttering when Dave catches up. “This whole house is close to turning into an inferno, and we can’t put it out, and we’re surrounded by dry grass everywhere.”

While patting at his pants, Dave muses if Shawn will knock himself back to reality long enough to consider maybe taking a break after the craziness they just underwent, but that’s a stupid, nonsensical hope. Nothing throws Shawn off, and tonight he seems to be more restless than usual—Dave chalks it up to the fact that they’d basically assisted in murdering a lady straight out of Hansel and Gretel—but Dave’s on the verge of losing his mind. He’d been hoping for a nice shower at least, when he saw the house, but now he’s dirtier than this morning and his spare change of clothes is in—

He stops dead. “Oh no.”

Shawn’s still walking, completely unaware of the turmoil that had just cascaded into Dave’s brain. After several more steps, he turns to Dave, about to ask something, and frowns at the empty, Dave-less spot beside him.

“My backpack,” Dave breathes out.

Shawn half-turns. “What’re you on about?”

“My backpack,” repeats Dave louder, and oh god, this is the cherry on top. He needs to get back into that damn house, fire and all; he can’t lose his only connection to Sky.

Shawn’s brows furrow, then his eyes widen when he gets what Dave’s coming at. “It’s in the house, Dave, we can’t go back in there, it’s suicide. You’ll get burn—Dave? Dave!”

His calls go in one ear and out the other as Dave wheels around, moving on autopilot, stumbling back through the crackling grass, barely avoiding the burnt patches where pieces of the house had fallen. He needs that bag, and he’s not going anywhere until he has it in his hands.

For the second time in less than fifteen minutes, a pair of arms wrap around him—one around his chest, the other around his waist, all but hauling him back. As his bat thumps to the ground, Dave struggles frantically to no avail—Shawn’s grip is as strong as ever. That doesn’t stop him from losing his head a little (in his defense, it’s been a taxing day).

“Let go!” he demands, louder than he intends, but he doesn’t give a shit right now. “I—need—to get—back in—there!”

“No, you don’t!” Shawn grunts, keeping him in place. One of the shingles of the roof—now blackened beyond recognition—lands a couple of centimeters from them, sending a small shower of sparks onto their shoes. Shawn curses, Dave hardly notices.

“I do!” he protests fiercely, straining against Shawn’s hold. When that doesn’t work, he decides to play dirty. If Shawn won’t understand, then Dave won’t try to make him; he just wants the guy to let him go.

Freeing one of his hands, he digs his nails into the back of Shawn’s hand—the one around his chest—and he digs them hard.

With a muffled yelp, Shawn loosens his grip around Dave’s chest, but before Dave can make a break for it, his other arm tightens, practically pressing him to Shawn’s chest. The heat of the burning house washes over his face.

“Are you crazy?” Shawn shouts in his ear, so loudly, so unexpectedly, that Dave momentarily ceases his struggling. “You can’t go in there, you’ll get burnt to a crisp, it’s too fucking dangerous.”

“But Sky—“

“If you really like her, then you won’t need a fucking walkie to feel motivated to see her! Just the thought of her will have you moving.”

Dave wants to say and ask so many things. A thousand different emotions collide in his heart, turning his nerves to fire. He turns in Shawn’s grip, his mouth already open to chew him out for some reason or other.

Shawn’s face is shuttered, his eyes fierce; the kind of look he wears whenever he’s facing something out of his element but worth fighting—usually a horde of zombies. In this case, though, it’s just Dave. Ordinary, human, alive Dave, so why is Shawn looking like he’ll fight the fire in the house itself if it means getting Dave to see his perspective? Since when does he care that much?

The words waiting in Dave’s mouth shrivel up. His mouth clacks shut. His shoulders slump.

When he meets Dave’s eyes, the fierce light in Shawn’s eyes dampens into something akin to...frustration? Annoyance? Probably about this situation as a whole, God knows Dave certainly is.

"You good?"

"I guess," Dave mutters. 

“We should be making distance anyway,” Shawn moves on brusquely, words clipped, abrupt; his expression does a one-eighty. Dave doesn’t know what’s happening. He feels like he's getting whiplash several times in a row. Maybe Shawn has been thinking about what went down on that ledge, too. “Gotta get away from the fire.”

His hands pull away at the same time, as if rehearsed, a rumble of thunder sounds in the air, and the sky opens up, sending a quick drizzle that turns into moderate rainfall within seconds.

Pretty sufficient distraction. Unable to help himself, Dave arches an eyebrow at Shawn, who looks like his hopes and dreams just got crushed.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he mutters.

Dave decides matters have to be taken into the hands of the reasonable—in this case, him. “First, we’re going to get ourselves cleaned somehow and rest up in that shed thing that the lady said was somewhere behind the house—“

“I know what you’re talking about,” Shawn sighs. 

“—Then when the sun is out, we’ll make distance. Is this a solid plan or is this a solid plan?”

“That’s a trick question.”

“Not if there’s only one right answer.”

Shawn throws his hands up, now looking exasperated. “Fine! Even if we may get ambushed by walkers, whatever, because hygiene and rest are more important, huh?”

“Yes, they are,” deadpans Dave.

“That was sarcastic.” Shawn’s shoulders slouch. “Alright. We'll stay the rest of the night in the barn. My pack is in there, ‘long as Zeke didn’t eat it or anything. But first thing in the morning, we’re out.” He points at Dave. “And don’t think about going in there, your backpack is unsalvageable.” Regret creeps into his eyes, bellying the exasperation. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

Dave turns back to the house, which doesn’t look all that much like a house any longer. Between the fire and now the rain, all that’s left of it are hunks of wood, charred and steaming, the smoke rising up to touch the night sky. Finding Dave’s backpack in that mess—if it isn't already burned to a crisp—will be near impossible, and frankly, Dave doesn’t feel like tempting fate further.

Shawn’s words come back to him: if you really like her, then you won’t need a fucking walkie to feel motivated to see her! Just the thought of her will have you moving.

Dave never expected to get love advice from Shawn, but he can't deny that Shawn did prove a fair point. He likes Sky, and he doesn’t need the walkie connecting to her channel to prove that. Just the thought of her makes his stomach swoop; that’s more than enough proof. His old bunker won't care that he didn't check in; he wasn't that important anyway; and yeah, Noah will be pissed and sad, but he'll get over it. 

Biting his lip, he exhales, long and slow. His shoulders unclench. “Yeah, okay, I won’t.”

Shawn squints at him.

“What?” Dave says defensively. “I mean it, you’re right, I don’t need the walkie to get to Sky.” I do need a nice, clean change of clothes, though. 

He had a spare in his backpack, ugh. 

Something flashes in Shawn’s eyes, and for an inane moment, Dave thinks he’s going to say something mindblowing, but then he nods. “Let’s find my ax and get the hell out of here. This place creeps me out. I feel like I’m in a slasher movie.”

Great, now Dave’s thinking about that too—as if things aren’t bad enough already. He pushes his wet bangs out of his eyes. “Sounds awesome to me.”

The rain is more of a help than a hindrance in allowing them to round the corner of the house without worrying about any more of the fire. Shawn sloshes ahead, heading for the front of the house, where he informs Dave he’d seen the ax fall due to Zeke’s mother smacking his hand. Dave lets him do his thing, as he picks his way gingerly through the wet grass and dirt, making sure the dirty splashes of water don’t end up all over his pants. However, by the time his feet crunch on the tiny pebbles littering the driveway, he’s more than disappointed to see that the bottom half of the fabric is soaked in mud.

Too busy hopping from one foot to the other as he attempts to wipe at the worst of it with his sweater sleeve, he doesn’t register the shadow on the ground—nor the second one flitting about it—until he’s a mere few feet away. Once he does, his stomach drops.

The one sight he hoped he would never come across tonight lies right before him. The body of Ezekiel's mother.

The moving shadow hovering over the dead body stops at the sight of Dave. Only flashes stick out, coming and going as it moves—a blue toque similar to Shawn’s, a ratty hoodie, scraggly hair (if he can even call it that), wide white pupil-less eyes; the pale green face that he recognized as the same creature who’d been staring into the house at him and Shawn has Dave feeling ill.

Against his better judgment, he murmurs, “Ezekiel.”

In the thick silence, the half-whisper—spoken mainly to himself—rings like a shout.

Ezekiel looks down at the body of his mother, then back at Dave. The zombie steps forward, involuntarily Dave steps back.

Ezekiel frowns. He turns back to his mother, points at her. His mouth works, a series of rasps leaving him first before, to Dave’s utter astonishment, actual words come through: “D…Dead?”

Clenching his baseball bat, Dave slowly nods. He really wishes Shawn were around here; he can use some zombie-surviving expertise. But Shawn had disappeared by the time Dave made it to the driveway; probably up ahead, trying to locate his ax.

Ezekiel’s lips purse. Dave waits for him to fly at him, nails out, teeth flashing, ready to tear into tender flesh. His heart pounds.

Instead, Ezekiel reaches out and pats his mother’s cheek, almost regretfully. Dave stares, then jumps at the sudden voice from behind.

“Don’t even think about it!”

Ezekiel leaps a foot in the air, which would have been kind of amusing if he isn’t a literal undead creature baring his teeth in instinctive defense against Shawn, who storms out of the shadows of the trees, his acquired ax—he must have found it wherever he was poking around—raised and trained on the zombie.

Stuck in the middle as an unwilling participant, Dave raises his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on now—”

“Get the hell away,” Shawn hisses, focused completely on Ezekiel.

Dave expects the zombie to snarl or lunge at them, except Ezekiel looks actually hurt at Shawn’s brusqueness. He raises one trembling green-tinged hand, and Dave involuntarily flinches, but Ezekiel only points a finger at Shawn, mouthing something that Dave has to squint to understand.

“F…Frie…”

Shawn, on the other hand, has no qualms about hearing what his zombie friend has to say. “You led me here.” He steps closer. “You nearly got me killed.” Closer, he’s practically at Dave’s shoulder by now. “You knew what was going to happen, and I—god, why did I think trusting a zombie was a good idea? It’s totally against the apocalypse survival guidebook!”

“Excuse me?” Dave interjects. Because, okay, voluntarily getting in the middle of this is a bad idea, but he’s thoroughly offended. It’s like that night when Shawn left him for dead outside his bunker all over again. “What do you mean by ‘me’? I was stuck in that mess too!”

Shawn’s eyes flit to him, just the barest glance, probably for half a second, but Dave sees something strange in their depths. The green-hazel is a shade darker, and he can’t tell if it’s because of the darkness of the night or something else entirely.

It has to be the night, what else can it be?

Ezekiel is shaking his head, whipping it side to side almost frantically. “No,” he rasps—probably the only word he can say without trouble. “No, no, no.”

Shawn’s gaze has already left Dave—leaving Dave bewildered and even more offended at the fact that the other man doesn’t even deign his words with a response—fixing once again on the trembling Ezekiel. Ignoring Dave’s affronted huff, Shawn raises his ax higher, his face going steely, the stubble on his chin thrown into sharper light under the half-moon, and Dave’s struck with the knowledge that Shawn’s around the same age as him. He’s nineteen, and here he is about to wedge his ax into and kill the only friend he probably has had other than Dave. 

(Yeah, the so-called friend is a zombie, but Dave has a funny feeling about this one. He doesn’t tend to follow his instincts, but something about the way Ezekiel watches him with pleading eyes as though Dave can stop Shawn somehow hits a chord.)

(He knows why, deep down, although he tries not to think about it; the way it reminds him of how he had looked at his older siblings or, most especially, his mother whenever his father got mad at him. As though they can stop everything.)

Even though there’s a high chance that an attempt at holding back a Shawn who is on the cusp of zombie-murder will lead to absolutely nothing and still a dead zombie, Dave can’t help what he does next.

“Wait!” he says loudly, darting in front of the ax.

Immediately, Shawn’s eyes clear, and once he sees it’s Dave’s chest he’s pointing the blade of his ax at, he jerks it back, raising it to prop on his shoulder. “Dave,” he says through gritted teeth, forced calm, “move away, that’s a—”

“I know what he is,” snaps Dave, “I’m not an idiot. But you need to chill out, can’t you see he isn’t trying to eat your brains out?”

“Since when do you defend zombies?” Repositioning his ax, he squints one eye as he tries to get a good angle at Ezekiel, who, Dave can hear behind him, is making these weird but pitiful sounds. “Move—out—of the way, Dave, or else you’ll be zombie chow!” He wedges his free shoulder into Dave’s in an effort to get him to stumble aside. “Never turn your back on a zombie, you dumbass—”

“He’s—not going to—do anything, you are the dumbass!” Dave grunts, shoving back. “Now stop shoving me and just listen!”

“You won’t understand—”

“Oh, really? I won’t understand?” Dave pushes himself onto his toes, so that they’re nose to nose—not that Shawn has many inches over him in the first place. Shawn’s eyes cross to meet his. “Then pray tell me why the apparent zombie, a creature who is so undead that they cannot register living human emotion and vocabulary, is trembling like there’s a fucking earthquake happening and—” he raises his voice when Shawn opens his mouth, “—trying to say something about you being his friend.”

Something flashes in Shawn’s eyes then, a split-second hesitation, but in a blink it’s gone, and he pushes harder against Dave. “Zombies. Can’t. Make. Friends.”

“Zeke.”

The hoarse rasp comes from closer than Dave expects. Involuntarily, his shoulders tense, which is all Shawn needs to push him away and hoist his ax until it’s aimed between Zeke’s eyes. The zombie had crept closer during their back-and-forth, his calloused, grimy hands stuck with random things that make Dave shudder, are still raised up in a part-surrender, part-placating motion; his eyes are wild, panicked.

“You’re a zombie,” Shawn breathes out. His hands minutely shake. 

Ezekiel does the abrupt head-shaking thing again that has Dave worried his head will fall off. Slowly, one shaking finger touches his own chest, moving past the tatters of his green hoodie. “Zeke.”

Dave has no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but he does know that something about this just isn’t right. This isn’t killing a mindless zombie, this is someone—something—with a mostly working mind. Shawn may be okay with killing living people as well as the undead, but Dave’s reached his quota for tonight.

“Shawn…” he breathes out.

The moment hangs. Shawn’s ax stays raised, aimed at Ezekiel, who doesn’t move from the position he’s in. Dave prepares to cover his eyes—he can’t handle seeing another killing, he’ll snap.

But then, miraculously, the blade of the ax drops just a bit. Enough to make Dave’s hopes rise and for Ezekiel’s eyes to brighten. 

“Argh!” Shawn slams the ax to the ground, tossing it to the dirt. Not good apocalypse etiquette, Dave wants to say, just to get under his skin a little like their dynamic usually is, but Shawn’s back is too stiff, his hands are balled into tight fists, he’s breathing like he ran three miles; Dave can’t see his face—not that he needs to, the body language is more than enough. Whatever happened today has affected Shawn, too.

Clearing his throat, Dave steps forward, attempting to channel his inner Shawn. “We should find shelter.” Now that the chaos has passed, he takes more note of the rain and the way his hair and clothes plaster to his skin. Innate panic bubbles up; he cannot catch a cold during the apocalypse. 

No one replies.

Dave clears his throat again. “Ezekiel?” The zombie jerks his head up, luminous eyes bearing into him like headlamps, “Do you, uh…”

Thankfully, Zeke gets the memo. He nods—just as frantically as his head-shaking. Pointing up ahead, he trots past them, heading into the tall grass.

Without a second thought—or much of a first thought either, to be honest—other than to wait for him to grab his ax, Dave reaches out and snags Shawn’s wrist. Swallowing down the bile rising up at the feeling of grime and sticky substance coating the other man’s sweater sleeve, he focuses on the warmth of skin-on-skin contact to ground himself before muttering, “Come on,” and speeding after Ezekiel, a surprisingly silent Shawn pulled along with him in his wake.

Not that Dave really cares about that much in the present moment; he’s just glad beyond belief to have Shawn by his side again. 

(Besides, Shawn gets quiet every once in a while; it’s nothing to be concerned about. This apocalypse thing makes it easy for people to get into their thoughts.)

[ *** ]

Dave had his misgivings about the whole ‘let’s follow the zombie hybrid’ plan (even though it was his idea in the first place), but he thought ‘hey if Shawn trusted this guy—to an extent—then he can’t be that bad.’

Then he sees Ezekiel leading them into the hulking shape of a barn-like structure in the middle of long grass, and suddenly, every Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie Viola and Gabriel made him watch on Halloween to get him out of his shell comes rushing back. He remembers that, hybrid or not, Ezekiel is a zombie—meaning a creature that eats humans like Dave, and he wonders if he’d done the right thing preventing Shawn from killing the guy. 

Never mind that he’d seen the wild panic in Shawn’s eyes that was different from the usual wild panic he typically showed when dealing with crawly zombies; never mind the fear and betrayal in Ezekiel’s cracked irises as he trembled at Shawn with a crossbow to his head; never mind the fact that apparently between Dave and Shawn’s spat and the whole cannibal showdown, Shawn and this zombie creature had become friends of sorts (which Dave still can’t wrap his head around when it comes to Shawn) and if Dave let Shawn kill the guy it’d be a traumatic experience for all three of them; never mind all of that because right now their lives are at stake. Thanks to Dave’s change of heart, they’re going to die by being eaten alive in a barn.

He doesn’t realize he was squeezing Shawn’s hand until the hand squeezes back and Shawn’s voice is close to his ear, rasping, “ow, dude?”

“That’s a barn,” Dave hisses back. “Why is he taking us to a creepy barn?”

“You’re the one who didn’t want me to kill him.”

“Because he’s your friend!”

Dave waits for Shawn to protest, to talk about his weird apocalypse survival guidebook again, but the other man falls quiet once more. 

Before Dave can panic further about possible death, Ezekiel stops at the door and turns. His green eyes fix on them, and Dave resists a shudder at the blatant lack of wholeness in them. “Friends?” Ezekiel grunts. 

“Yeah, sounds great, as long as you don’t eat us because you’re a flesh-eating monster,” Dave babbles.

“Brains,” mutters Shawn.

“What?”

“They focus primarily on the brains, dude, get your head on straight.”

“Seriously? That’s what brings you back to reality?” Indeed, Shawn does look more like his usual self than he has been for the past couple of minutes. His eyes have cleared, and he’s back to scanning their surroundings. His hand has loosened its grip on Dave’s.

“No brains,” Ezekiel promises before grinning to showcase brittle teeth that have Dave actually shuddering, and turning to trot into the barn’s dark interior.

Dave points at Shawn. “If we die in there, I’m blaming you.”

Shoving his wet bangs back from his face, Shawn frowns, repeating, “You were the one who didn’t want me to kill him.”

Damn, he really isn’t going to let Dave slide by about that. “You are the one who made friends with him! Who makes friends with a zombie? Certainly not you, Mister Apocalypse Expert.”

“As enjoyable as this standoff is,” Shawn says, his voice indicating anything but, “aren’t you more worried about getting pneumonia from standing in the rain, Mister Disease Expert?”

Dave reels back, almost slipping backward on a puddle and some wet grass. It’s hard to get a read on Shawn’s expression with much of his features concealed behind the shadows of rain clouds, but in their time spent living and traveling together, Dave has gotten more adept at sensing certain tones from Shawn’s speech patterns. 

Funny enough (not really), Dave can’t put a finger on the kind of tone in Shawn’s voice right then when he said that. Stilted, robotic almost, like he wanted to get the conversation and any interactions between them over with. Dave thought he was happier that they were reunited back at Ezekiel’s house; they had literally taken down a semi-cannibalistic, crazy lady together. As insane as it sounds, Dave is starting to really think they may be a better team than he initially thought. When they took down the zombie at the convenience store, when they fought the other zombie in Toronto’s City Hall; they have a good rapport going, and Dave thought Shawn thought the same.

Apparently not.

Dave’s stomach sinks lower. The urge to push back his wet hair from his face for something to do with his hands is strong, but the reminder that his hands are likely wet with other unhygienic substances is stronger. So he settles for switching his gaze between Shawn’s unreadable hazel-green eyes, stark on his darkened face, and the depths of the barn interior Ezekiel had gone into. 

Maybe this is some form of karma. Back in one of his boarding schools, he had renounced friendship with his one and only best friend out of fear for a reason he’d rather not think about right now, and then promptly convinced his father to make him switch schools. Maybe Shawn really wishes they hadn’t been reunited, and Dave had been reading this entire situation wrong the whole time. 

Maybe Shawn thinks they don’t make much of a team.

Teams have nothing to offer in an apocalypse except easy brains for the picking. 

“Fine,” Dave says at long last, and honestly, he’s just exhausted. He feels like he’d lost everything in the span of one night. His only connection to Sky and his old bunker, his supplies and rations packed with love and support from his old bunkermates; now his friendship with Shawn feels off, and with how long they’ve been walking around in the rain, Dave won’t be surprised if they catch an early death that is not zombie-related. The only thing he has on him is one half of a crudely drawn map of Canada, an ultra-sharp knife that can cut his finger clean off in one wrong move, and a bloodied baseball bat. At this point, he just wants to sleep and hope that maybe tomorrow will be better.

Stepping closer to the barn entrance and expecting Shawn to follow, he pauses at the lack of footsteps, turning to see Shawn exactly where he’d left him, staring at Dave like the rain is blurring him out, and Shawn just needs to see.

Frankly, Dave’s seen a lot of weird looks from Shawn, but this has got to be the weirdest.

“You coming?” he asks, tilting his head over his shoulder at the barn. Having Shawn by his side will make spending the night in a creepy old barn a thousand times better. Dave’s no coward, but he certainly has enough rationale to know that blindly following a half-zombie or whatever into a barn that looks like the home of every chainsaw-wielding maniac may not be the wisest of ideas—especially considering the situation they’d just left.  

Shawn opens his mouth and some light flashes finally in his eyes, cutting through the center of all that unreadableness, and Dave waits, hoping that whatever funk Shawn’s in is set behind him now; that they’re back to normal and things are going to be okay. He hopes, and he hopes, because he needs that shred of normalcy right about now.

“I’m gonna spend the night outside.”

Dave blinks, then blinks again. He pulls himself together before he can keep on blinking and standing there like a fool because what the hell?

As though from a distance, he hears himself responding: “What? Why?”

“Uh, duh, so I can keep watch in case any zombies come along.”

Okay, yeah, Dave knows Shawn’s quirks and habits, he gets it, he does! He understands that in his apocalypse training, Shawn used to scale trees and then sleep in them because apparently zombies can’t climb trees, and it’s a good survival hack, so it’s killing two birds with one stone. But Shawn told him, way back when his bunker was still intact and Dave was living in it with him (it feels like so long ago, has it only been just a couple of weeks?), that it’s too risky to tempt the zombies by hanging out on the surface. Taking shelter is priority, he’d lectured like Dave gave a shit about the logistics of zombie survival, and not that he just wanted to stay alive. No matter where, as long as it’s away from the deadies. 

So why is ultra-zombie-expert Shawn, who lectured Dave about the dangers of sleeping in trees, suddenly willing to risk his neck to do exactly what he preached not to?

The thought reverberates back like a boomerang: maybe Shawn thinks you guys don’t make much of a team. Maybe he wants to stay away from you. 

And okay, okay. They’ve both been through a heck lot in the past couple of hours, so maybe Dave should logically let Shawn go and do his thing because, after all, he has a better chance of surviving any zombie attacks than Dave; but the thing is—and it’s a damn big thing—Dave is worried. He already nearly lost Shawn in two different situations within the past forty-eight hours; he can’t lose his grip on the other man again. He doesn’t know where the sudden desperation comes from, but all he knows is that if Shawn leaves again, Dave may actually die. He’s not cut out for this shit; he needs Shawn’s level zombie-whisperer head to help him push through and find Sky. They’re traveling buddies, for fuck’s sake. Why is talking to Shawn suddenly so difficult?

“Didn’t you tell me that sleeping in plain view of zombies is a terrible idea?” Dave argues. They’re in the rain, but he wants Shawn to keep talking; he wants to remove all traces of that odd, unreadable blanket over his eyes, and bring some sort of emotion that tethers Dave to the reality that they’re both still human. “What the hell is so bad about sleeping in an actual barn with a freaking roof over your head? Are you seriously planning on holing it up in some tree in the rain?”

“Does it matter?” Shawn replies, distant, vague, and Dave wants to slash his tone to pieces. “I’ll still meet you tomorrow morning, don’t worry about me leaving you behind or anything.”

Yes, it does matter! Dave wants to scream. His hands twitch, an aborted movement to grab at his hair and pull. Shawn’s his friend. Not just a traveling buddy or companion or bunkermate, but a friend.

His voice wavers. “I don’t give a damn if you leave me behind or not.” —A half-truth— “That’s not why I’m fucking worried about you.”

At that, the distance in Shawn’s eyes screeches to a halt. Dave can catch up now, try to figure out what’s eating at this man’s head. An emotion flickers, fighting the distance to be seen; one that has Dave pulling up short because why is Shawn so surprised? Does he really think Dave doesn’t care about him?

Something else accompanies the surprise: more of that strange panic. Shawn opens his mouth, but then a raspy voice sounds from inside the barn.

“Come?”

Helplessly, Dave watches as Shawn’s eyes shutter again. “I’ll keep myself safe, don’t worry,” he mutters, so low Dave only hears him over the rain because he was waiting for Shawn to speak. 

Wait—

Shawn peers around Dave, watching Ezekiel as he continues talking to Dave: “Keep that bat with you. Can’t trust any sort of walker.”

Wait—

“But that barn is creepy as all hell—” Dave protests weakly. 

Shawn dismisses the concern. “In the apocalypse, one good thing is you won’t be seeing loads of Leatherfaces. Who has time to be a serial killer when brain-eating creatures are walking around?”

Neither of them mentions Ezekiel’s mother, who pretty clearly fitted that bill. 

“I’ll come wake you up when it’s dawn. The quicker we leave this place, the better.”

Wait, hold on—

Shawn turns on his heel and, from one second to the next, is gone, swallowed up by the night. The only sign of his leaving is the movement of the long grass growing steadily farther away in the direction of the trees bordering the property. 

Shoulders slumping, Dave turns back to the barn. He nearly jumps out of his skin at the glowing pair of eyes peering at him from out of the darkness. Then comes a familiar rasping noise, and Dave remembers their undead company. The same undead company that’s going to be sleeping in the same vicinity as he is.

Ezekiel’s eyes watch the long grass left swaying in Shawn’s wake, the question obvious despite his inability to phrase it.

Dave sighs. “Shawn wants to spend the night outside on watch,” he lathers the last word in heavy sarcasm. Ezekiel blinks at him owlishly. “So, I guess it’s just going to be me staying with you in here.”

He hopes Ezekiel doesn’t pick up on the uncertainty in his voice. Can zombies sense fear? Dave’s misgivings about this entire situation rise.  

Ezekiel doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with Shawn’s sleeping choice; with only one more glance at the grass, he nods jerkily in understanding before giving Dave a toothy smile (too toothy, Dave’s gut complains) and gesturing in a sequence of flailing motions to come inside. This time, Dave follows, letting Ezekiel lead deeper inside, past bales of old hay, the bones which Dave tries very hard not to focus on, until they reach a corner on the far side of the barn.

Ezekiel points at it. The motion says enough. Apparently, this is Dave’s assigned place to sleep. Ezekiel even arranged a few bales of hay into a makeshift bed and pillow; an old flannel throw that has definitely seen better decades, let alone days, lies on top to use as a blanket.

“Uh, thanks, Ezekiel.”

The undead half-zombie-thing (Dave makes a mental note to ask Shawn about the correct terminology for the guy first thing tomorrow) gives another one of his jerky nods.

Letting out a noisy exhale, Dave flops down on the haybale. The prickling sensation of hay pokes through the fabric of his pants, but he’s too tired to give a damn. 

The weight in his right arm brings him back to the bat still in his hand. His weapon.

His fingers are tight around it, the digits practically molded into the wood. Dave pries them apart with some difficulty, the bloodstains leaving him choked with breath. He had killed someone with this bat.

At the feeling of eyes on him, he glances up. Ezekiel hasn’t moved away like Dave assumed he had; instead, his eyes, which were focused on Dave, move to the bat on his lap. He tilts his head.

“What? Haven’t seen a murder weapon before?” Dave asks irritably. Probably not the best method of conversation, considering he killed Ezekiel’s mom with this bat, but Dave’s emotional quota has been reached and breached by this point.

Turns out maybe Ezekiel’s emotion quota is shot too because rather than getting all offended like Dave expected him to be, the half-zombie simply points at the bat in dare Dave say excitement?

“Uh—”

Ezekiel rasps some more gibberish before scrambling away.

“...Okay then.” Would be awesome if there’s someone with actual communication abilities around here. 

A little bit of guilt trickles in as soon as that thought passes his mind—just a little, though, because Dave’s had it up to here with today. His mixed annoyance at the world and his tiredness at…well, the world too swamp over every other possible emotion.

Though he’s pretty sure that Shawn would have no problem understanding Ezekiel. Instead, the dumb zombie-whisperer left him behind to, what, hug a tree?

It’s in this moment more than ever that Dave actually notices just how insanely weird the people he’s surrounded by are.

“I’ve got way too much normalcy in my blood to be dealing with this,” he grumbles.

Then again, in the apocalypse, all normalcy flies out the window—and believe him, Dave’s tried to act like stuff is normal. 

So, really, is his ‘normalcy’ even seen as ‘normal’ anymore? Or is his ‘normalcy’ the new ‘abnormal’ considering their circumstances?

Wow, what a time to be philosophical. As if he hasn’t got enough things to think about.

So lost in his thoughts, when Ezekiel pops up over the haybale directly in front of him, Dave flails ungainly and emits a short but sharp yelp that the half-zombie shushes him about.

“Shhh,” he emphasizes, waving his arms as he does so. “Bad zombies. Bad, bad, bad.”

Right. Because Dave needs a literal part-undead creature to tell him the obvious.

“I know, I know,” he huffs. Patting his soaked pockets, he pulls out the small container of hand sanitizer—halfway done by this point; Dave wonders (no, hopes) if Shawn will let them take a pitstop at a store so he can stock up—and squirts a considerate amount on both hands, rubbing his palms so hard he can feel the germs dissipating. As his hands rub, his shoulders slowly loosen. Once he’s done, he finally gives in to the urge to run his now-clean hands through his hair, pushing back his wet bangs, feeling parts of his hair stick up as it dries. 

The exhaustion tugs at his mind once again, but Ezekiel is holding something in his arms, staring at him with expectation.

“What?” he asks—more like sighs, actually.

Undeterred, the half-zombie hops down from the bale of hay, trotting closer to Dave, who instinctively scoots a little farther back on his seat of hay until his back hits the barn’s wall. Ezekiel pauses, then drops a box by Dave’s thigh.

Dave stares at it, then back at Ezekiel, befuddled. “What’s this?” he asks finally when it’s clear the half-zombie isn’t willing to offer details.,

In a fit of childish excitement, Ezekiel waves a hand at the box in what can only be described as undiluted eagerness. So undiluted that Dave has to duck yet again to avoid a flailing limb from smacking him in the face. He has no clue what sort of diseases a zombified Ezekiel may be carrying, partially undead or not, and he is so not keen on finding out the hard way.

“Okay, okay, I’ll open the thing. But if it turns out to be a severed limb or a bone licked clean, I will throw this at you and sleep in the rain.”

Part-lie. He isn’t going to risk pneumonia by sleeping in the fucking rain. He’ll probably just puke all over Ezekiel as karma, and then sleep by the barn door; at least there if he screams, there’s a higher chance of Shawn hearing—like he had miles away when Dave was stuck in that horrible woman’s house.

Okay. Thinking about the crazy cannibal woman they killed is not helping the matter of his churning stomach.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel rolls his eyes, still bouncing on the balls of his feet. Dave’s vividly reminded of a kid waiting for their sibling or cousin to open the gift they’d gotten for them. This time, his stomach twists for a different reason; Ezekiel doesn’t look much older than Dave and Shawn; he hopes the guy got to experience a normal childhood before everything went to hell.

With a whole lot of trepidation, he thumbs open the cover of the box. Inside is an assortment of…

“Nails!” Ezekiel beams.

“Nails?” Dave echoes, confused. “What do I need nails for? I’m no handyman, plus it’s not like we have anything to fix.”

Other than whatever the fuck is going on with Shawn. Although as much as he wishes it to, that isn’t something so easily fixed with nails and a hammer.

Ezekiel rolls his eyes again, but this time the action obviously states that he thinks Dave is dumb as fuck—which Dave naturally takes great offense to, okay? Because he’s fucking tired and back to being hungry, and here is this zombiefied guy giving him the same kind of judgmental look that Dave’s old classmates at his boarding schools loved to give too. It’s a little too much.

“Okay, you tell me then, smart guy. What do I do with this?” he shakes the box of nails for emphasis.

As though explaining easy multiplication to a middle-schooler, Ezekiel points at the nails, then at the bat. He repeats the motion several times. 

Dave sits, nonplussed. “You want me to fix my bat…with nails? But it’s not even broken, just bloodied beyond belief.”

Ezekiel actually facepalms. He jabs a crooked finger at the nails, picking one up before stabbing it unceremoniously into the meat of the bat, ignoring Dave’s startled shout.

“Holy shit, warn a guy that you aren’t going to chew his head off when you wave that thing around—” Dave snaps—but then he pauses, staring down at the bat. At the nail embedded in it. Slowly, the dots begin to connect.

“Ezekiel, I must admit, you may have an actual human brain in you—uh, a brain that is wholly yours and no one else’s that you took—I actually don’t know if zombies can do brain transplants or if it’s just your diet or—you know what? Forget all of this, let’s just stab some nails in this thing.”

The zombie grins wider, showing off his rows of mossy teeth.

It takes a while. Dave isn’t as physically adept as someone like Shawn or even a zombie like Ezekiel, and it can’t have been more obvious when the nails he attempts to bury into the bat simply fall off with one experimental swing; Ezekiel scoops them up like a kid getting a prize and goes to town stabbing Dave’s pitiful attempts all over the large end of the bat, making various sorts of gleeful noises as he does. Finally, when the box of nails is three-quarters empty, the rain starts to let up into a mild drizzle, and the clouds scatter to show the moon high in the sky, Dave sits up on his knees on his hay bale bed and swings his new-and-improved nail bat.

“This could do some real damage,” he appraises. Shawn will definitely love this; he’ll call it a modernistic, inventive weapon made to bash in zombie heads or something along those lines. But then he’ll still demand Dave keep extra knives with him because he’s also a paranoid worrywart.

(Dave is too—a worrywart, that is—but at least he’s worried about sensible things. Kind of.) 

(Yeah, sure, nowadays worrying about apocalypse-related stuff is sensible too, but he’ll hand the zombie worrying over to Shawn—someone who actually knows what he’s doing.)

Ezekiel hums in agreement, watching Dave enact some casual baseball swings with wide eyes, and Dave’s struck by the normalcy of it all. Two years ago, he wouldn’t have ever thought he’d be friends with a zombie apocalypse survivalist who sleeps in dumpsters, acquainted with a weird (and freaky) zombie guy, and thinking a bat with nails in it is cool. 

Mike and Shawn’s words come back to him like a persistent itch. Treat the apocalypse as your new normal.

If he wants to get to Sky, he can’t be regular old Normal Dave anymore; he needs to step up his game and try to survive, too. Shawn’s help can only take him so far. What will happen when they inevitably part ways? 

Dave’s chest compresses at the mere thought of it. Thinking about him and Shawn parting ways sours his mood further. Suddenly, the novelty of having a cool new weapon wears off, and he plops back down on the bale of hay. A yawn overtakes him not a second later.

“Hey, so I’m gonna hit the hay—pun not intended. Don’t eat me in my sleep or Shawn may kill you, and I won’t stop him—because I’ll be dead.” Or worse. 

Ezekiel nods solemnly.

Giving the guy one last pointed glare, Dave sets his nail bat aside a couple of feet away from him, just in case another cannibal family member of Ezekiel pops by or in case Ezekiel, himself, vies for a midnight snack. Rolling over onto his back, he stares idly out the ragged hole in the ceiling near the center of the barn, watching the stars flicker and brighten. Nearby, he hears the sounds of shuffling as Ezekiel makes himself comfortable in his little nook.

Dave’s sore, he’s dirty, he’s sticky with drying rainwater and sweat; he’s got some soot and ash on his face and arms from his dive off the burning house; his heart is aching for reasons he’s much too tired to comprehend; and he’s hanging out in the same vicinity as a zombie. 

Things can get way worse. But for now, Dave sets aside his pessimism—at least for a couple of hours. He can continue being a pessimist—rather a realist, as he likes to say—when he’s awake and more or less refreshed.

He doesn’t know how long it takes exactly, but somewhere between one second and the next, Dave’s eyes droop shut on the twinkling stars.

His last thought is that he hopes Shawn found a nice dry place to spend the night.

[***]

Viola stands before him, rotting, black hair plastered to her face, blood pooling out of a gash that had cleaved half her head open, exposing brain matter and sinew. Her eyes are vacant, lifeless, but they bear into him. Her mouth twists into a smile that distorts her disfigured face. He can hardly recognize her.

When she tilts her head to one side, staggers one step forward, suddenly she’s Sky. The blood and brain matter are gone, replaced by a pensive frown and those dark eyes he fell in love with. But she looks at him like she doesn’t know him, like he’s something to be pitied. 

Dave, what are you doing here? I don’t have time for you. Her voice—the same voice that has helped him through many panic attacks now wears him down to his knees—echoes over and over and over and—

Stop, he thinks, clasping his head, screwing his eyes shut. Make it stop!

When he looks back up, Shawn stares back at him. Dave staggers, biting back a yell.

This Shawn looks like a zombie.

Dave can only gape at the thing Shawn wishes least to be, and a mess of feelings rocks his body like a hurricane with no buoy—because in all this, Shawn is his buoy, but Shawn is also the one staring at him, looking like a zombie. Greenish skin, one eye and clumps of hair missing, the same vacant expression Viola had; when he points a finger at Dave, he notices his fingernails have been pulled clean off. 

This is why we shouldn’t stick together, Dave, he says in the same echoy voice as Sky. This is what happened to me because I helped you.

As the words swirl around him, echoing louder and louder, making Dave’s head throb, Shawn’s face twists grotesquely; a glint in eyes that look too green, and his mouth opens, letting out warbling noises like Ezekiel—

Dave gasps, eyes flying open as he jerks in his bed, his body sweaty and rigid, his hands twitching in small, aborted movements.

Around him, the barn is still dark. Hay digs into his skin through his clothes. Snuffling sounds come from Ezekiel’s corner. Some of the stars have disappeared.

It takes a while for his body to relax. When it does, Dave doesn’t sleep again for the rest of the night—not that he tries to. Every time he dares close his eyes, all he sees are the people he cares about undead and Ezekiel’s warbles blaring in his mind.

[***]

When Ezekiel pads out of the barn, Dave is already sitting on a large rock near the barn doors, knees pulled up to his chest, eyes faraway on the grass—like he has been ever since he deemed the sky looked light enough that it was a suitable time to pretend to wake. Shawn's pack is propped against his legs; he'd found it leaning against the wall close to his sleeping spot in the barn.

Ezekiel makes an inquiring noise at the sight of him.

Assuming it’s due to him being up earlier than the literal zombie who barely needs sleep in the first place, Dave shrugs. “I’m used to Shawn’s schedule,” he says, only a bit guilty for using Shawn as an excuse. Better than telling the zombie that he can’t sleep because every time he does, he pictures his sister, his maybe-girlfriend, and his closest friend's faces peeling apart at the bones.

At the mention of Shawn, Ezekiel’s eyes brighten, and he warbles excitedly, waving his arms around. Wincing, Dave shies away from the grimy limbs covered in unidentifiable substances. There’s only so much dirt he can tolerate, even in the apocalypse; however, he draws the line at random, weird dried liquid—not blood, Dave’s mind repeats like the lying liar it is—from creatures who eat brains for their meals.

“Where’s Shawn? I don’t know, man,” he tells Ezekiel. “Knowing him, though, I bet he’s doing alright.”

That doesn’t prevent the niggling concern. Although it currently isn’t raining, the wet grass and the sounds of distant thunder he heard last night indicated a heavy storm must have passed. Dave hopes Shawn found proper shelter; if he gets sick, they’re both done for.

Ezekiel must have been thinking along similar lines, for he scans the plains and narrows his pale eyes at the distant shadows of the treeline skeptically. Dave doesn’t need a translator to decipher that. You sure about that? Ezekiel’s expression says.

Pursing his lips, Dave turns to the trees as well. Traveling with Shawn informs Dave that the other man knew his tricks of the trade when it comes to apocalyptic survival, but then even someone outdoorsy like Shawn would’ve understood the gravity of spending the night outside in the middle of a storm. Why hadn’t he stuck around in the barn with them?

Ezekiel grunts again.

“I don’t know, man,” Dave repeats, exasperation tinging his tone. Deciphering Shawn can be just as hard—if not harder—than understanding Ezekiel, honestly.

Frowning at his unhelpful response, Ezekiel scoops up a stray bone and chews on it idly, like how a rancher would chew on a strand of wheat. 

Dave wrinkles his nose.

Shawn is bad enough; if Ezekiel comes along with them on their journey to the west coast, Dave may just go mad. He’s already gone through enough, having to watch the zombie go about his morning routine. Morbid curiosity creeps up as Ezekiel finishes chomping however much he can on the old bone before tossing it aside, stretching and vanishing around the side of the barn; the curiosity turns quickly into bile crawling up his throat when Ezekiel reappears, lugging behind a lump of something that Dave has a bad feeling is also something that had been previously alive.

Ezekiel grins widely at him, his mossy teeth in full display, before he goes to town on the carcass, tearing and gnawing at the bones. Dave’s pretty sure he can taste the vomit in the back of his throat when Ezekiel offers a chunk of…is that partially-decomposed flesh?

Good god, nope. He is booking it out of here before he pukes all over the grass. Or has a panic attack. Or both.

“I’m, uh. I’m good.” He gestures a thumb feebly in the direction of the trees. “I need a walk.”

Ezekiel tilts his head, shrugs, and shoves the chunk into his mouth, chewing noisily.

The bile creeps farther up Dave’s throat. He doesn’t know why he vouched for the zombie in the first place when Shawn wanted to put an arrow in his head, but he was sorely regretting every second of that moment now. Phantom tingles race up and down his own arms as his eyes catch on gore and blood splattering on Ezekiel’s green-tinged skin while the other ate.

God, he needs his walkie-talkie. He needs to listen to the station he’d heard Sky on. He needs a breather, to hear her voice and soothe the tightening in his chest the longer he watched Ezekiel eat—

But no. He can’t. Because his goddamn backpack is probably in chards in the mostly burnt-down house they’d just left. Everything, his only tether to the surface, his connection to Sky. All gone up in smoke.

This time, Dave wants to puke for a different reason entirely.

How can I make it now?

You don't need a walkie if you care about Sky, Shawn's words remind him.

Yes he does. Yes he fucking does, and now that walkie is gone.

His head spins; the gravity of the situation hits him full-force with the strength of a freight train: He’d lost his link to Sky. 

Taking a step back, he stumbles over a patch of wet grass and nearly slips. Thank god, he doesn’t; he’d rather not add ‘streaks of dirt and grass on his clothing’ onto his list of Horrible Things That Have Happened To Him This Week.

Ezekiel makes an inquiring sound at him.

“Fine,” Dave grits out as his head begins to pound. His chest squeezes, each exhale pushing out of him with far more effort than five seconds ago. Panic attack, his mind supplies. Which means he needs to get the hell away from Ezekiel and this fucking barn with its bones and discarded half-eaten sinew pieces, and get away from that fucking house now composed of ashes and smoke and burnt wood and god, his backpack—

“Be right back,” he mutters, feeling pretty silly for informing a zombie of his whereabouts, but normalcy, the way he knows it, is out the window at this point. Ignoring whatever response Ezekiel makes, he pounds to the woods, his shoes slapping against the wet grass, the sounds grounding him from floating away in his head. 

Mike’s words about a new normal come back to him, and Dave wants to scream; he wants to pull out his hair; he wants to break down and fall on his knees right there on the rain-soaked ground, dirtiness be damned, and cry and cry and cry until his body shrivels up. 

This isn’t just a new normal; this is a fucking night terror, and slowly, by slowly, Dave is sure he won’t be able to cope much longer.

[ *** ]

Shawn spends the night holed up in a tree, using the leaves as meager cover from the rain.

When he wakes up from a confusing series of dreams featuring his ma as a zombie chiding him for letting his feelings get the better of him, and Dave sneering at him while turning away and pushing him into a horde of walkers, it’s to see the sun shining in his face and his sweater soaked with rainwater.

Groaning, he stands on the branch he was slumped on and stretches, cracking his joints and twisting his neck from one side to the other. His shoulder twitches, the pain from his scuffle with the zombie from Toronto still apparent, though having receded over time. He makes a mental note to ask Dave to fix up one of those first aid wound dressings; that shit works like a charm, as much as he hates to admit. 

Dave will probably give him the biggest ‘I told you so’ look if Shawn tells him that to his face. “Survivalist, and you don’t know the first thing about leaving a wound open and vulnerable? Think about the infections!” he’d probably say.

Shawn groans again and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, as though the sensation will also push back any Dave-related thoughts. Last night had been a cocktail of unwarranted feelings—Shawn never really experienced them before; his apocalyptic survival took precedent over anything else, and having seen the crumbling of his parents’ marriage, he wasn’t in a hurry to dive into frivolous matters like love.

Certainly not like Dave, who’s keen on being the Prince Charming to his girlfriend across the country—romantic enough to even brave the shufflers.

Even his name brings back the memories. Dave throwing that heavy tome at the zombie in Toronto and saving his ass; Dave whacking the zombie at the convenience store with his basket, and saving his ass a second time; Dave standing over Ezekiel’s wackjob mum with a baseball bat, shadowed by night and fire, full of panicked determination, and saving Shawn’s ass a third time. 

But his brain also conjures up the images of their time together back at Shawn’s bunker, this time shedding a more domestic light on them. He remembers seeing Dave for the first time on that fire escape that started it all; he remembers watching the other man scratch at his dirtied arms until he was sure blood would show. Patting his pants pockets, he feels the outline of the hand sanitizer bottle Dave gave him.

Friend.

That should be what Shawn associates Dave with. It’s the safer choice.

He removes his hands from his eyes—clearly they weren’t helping—and exhales, all tired and defeated—and not just because of the lack of sleep. 

Compartmentalize, the part of his brain that sounds like his ma reminds him. Feelings won’t have time in the apocalypse where death is around the corner—or right in front of you.

Shawn considers himself an expert at compartmentalizing. He pictures taking his feelings about Dave, the changes in them, the tipping of their dynamic’s balance scale, and gently folding them up in a large box in the far corner of his mind. He makes sure to leave space to add in any new thoughts, because he sure as hell knows there will be more. Especially after the revelation he had yesterday.

Dave’s none the wiser, too; the other side of his mind—the one connected to his heart and, consequently, to Dave—adds. He’s got a girl.

Shawn’s just setting himself up for heartbreak if he pursues this further. Why fuck with a perfectly in-sync dynamic because of his emotions?

So, next best thing: compartmentalize.

Once he’s sure his head has cleared enough, he shifts the branches draped, still, in colorful autumn leaves aside, and he takes in the view he hadn’t gotten a proper chance to look at last night.

Not exactly a forest, though a bit larger to be considered simply woods. Most people won’t care to differentiate between the two, but Shawn notes the lack of density amongst the trees and the size of it based on how far he trekked in his daze last night. Sure, there are trees all around him—mostly barren and bare-branched with their leaves scattered on the ground—but they’re thin and spread out enough that he can catch a glimpse to his right (where he came from) of a gap between them, leading to an opening to where he noted the barn was. The sun is high enough to make him squint as he scales down the tree he slept on and lands with a soft thump on his feet. 

First, nourishment. Then, he’ll return to the barn and face Dave, who’s probably either disapproving of him disappearing like that or grossed out about having to deal with Ezekiel without backup. Or both.

Probably both.

Scouting the area brings him to a bush of wild berries. An experimental glanceover and tentative sniff tells him that, thankfully, they aren’t poisonous. 

He scoops up a handful and is about to shove them into his mouth before taking some back to the barn for Dave when a rustling from behind stops him dead.

Without missing a second, he whips around, brandishing his ax, prepared to stab the eye—or eye socket—of a walker.

Behind him, Dave yelps, practically jumping out of his skin. “What the fuck?” he shouts, high-pitched, loud. Shawn winces and instinctively glances around.

“Shh!”

“You almost brained me with—” his eyes bug out, “your ax? Seriously?”

For a guy who lost all his possessions in a fire they created to thwart a crazy mother, Dave looks surprisingly well. Sure, there are some circles under his eyes, but he isn’t half-eaten, which is great (Shawn had some misgivings about letting him and Ezekiel sleep in the same vicinity without protection, but his confusing emotions were too much for him to handle). Some hay sticks out of Dave’s hair, which Shawn can’t help but feel endearing humor abou,t considering Dave is the last person to have hay in his hair. He won’t even need a mirror; he’ll just figure out somehow that his appearance is a mess; Shawn’s seen the phenomenon firsthand.

Last night must’ve really been fucking with him then.

Humor fading, Shawn reaches out on instinct and plucks the piece of hay from Dave’s hair. His fingers brush surprisingly soft black strands. 

Of course, they are. Somehow, in this hellscape, Dave obviously will focus on haircare as well. The guy relies on familiarity, on his version of normalcy. Shawn flashes back to Dave’s fallen shopping basket at the convenience store, full of sanitizer and wipes, and the zombie he had killed in the shampoo aisle.  For the first time, he remembers that all that effort to keep his sense of self, his sense of normal, is gone now. Burned to ashes in the house they left. His backpack.

Suddenly, Dave’s bedraggled appearance makes more sense.

Shawn resists the urge to let the strands of hair slip between his calloused fingers as he draws back and tosses the hay strand away. He resists the urge to wrap his arm around the other man’s shoulders, to tell him it will be okay.

“Uh, thanks,” Dave says into the sudden, thick silence.

For a split second, Shawn pauses, believing—with a bolt of panic—that he accidentally said those words aloud. “For—for what?”

Dave cocks an eyebrow, nodding at the hay strand on the ground by their feet. “I haven’t been able to fix myself up this morning. So, yeah, thanks.”

Shawn blows out a breath. “Yeah, uh. Yeah, 'course.”

The silence between them stretches. The birds chirp above. Their little bubble remains stagnant and edging on awkward. Dave shifts his feet, confusion and hesitation warring on his face. Has it always been so easy to read his expressions?

Yes, whispers the voice connected to his heart. Especially for you.

You’re not making any sense, Shawn retorts back at it, before silencing it along with the memory of Dave’s hair between his fingers in the large box in his mind he dubbed his Dave Box.

Casting about quickly for a change in topic—anything to get rid of this awful, unspoken thing he doesn’t ever want to think about—Shawn remembers the berries in his hand. He shoves them to Dave. “Eat these. I’ll get some for myself. Then we can head back to the barn and plan how we can move forward.”

Dave’s hand is warm as he scoops the berries from Shawn and, without an ounce of distrust, chews on them thoughtfully, savoring the flavor.

Purposefully, Shawn turns around, faces the bushes; his mind whirls as he plucks some berries for himself.

He trusts me, he thinks, a warm ball of light blooms in his chest. Dave is far from a trusting person, so to see him eating those berries without a second thought, to place his life in Shawn’s scarred and scabbed hands, invokes a certain kind of vibration in tune with his heartbeat.

Immediately after, he pushes it away. Compartmentalize, move on. Get in the Dave Box.

The apocalypse doesn’t have time for attachments.

Bad enough, he let himself have a friend—the buddy system is good in a pinch, he had rationalized at the time—but this is wading into dangerous territory.

The memories of the raw panic he felt when he saw Dave being dragged away by Ezekiel’s mother still linger beneath his skin, unable to be shoved so easily into the Dave Box. Shawn had never felt such an emotion to such a degree in his life. As though, in that moment, he would do anything to get Dave away from that woman. While he’d run toward them in the still night, raising his crossbow, his view had shifted from seeing her as a human to one of the undead—a threat.

He remembers thinking Thank God, when she fell off the roof; remembers not feeling anything basically when they peered over the edge at her broken body; remembers feeling numb even as Dave had gasped at the fact that they’d killed a human being.

A human being who was far from one, reasons the hardened, apocalypse-survival part of his mind—the larger part. She would have shoved you both in her oven.

Still a human being, though, argues a smaller, third part that sounds oddly like Dave.

We both killed her. That will just have to be something they shoulder together.

He wonders if Dave felt a bit of relief as well. Probably not; he hadn’t even wanted to look at the body.

“You, uh, want to sit down and eat?” he asks, and then promptly wishes to kick himself. They don’t have time to sit down. They have to move.

These emotions are making him soft. Compartmentalize, he tells himself over and over, as Dave shoots the ground a look, scrunching up his nose.

“The dirt’s all wet from last night’s rain,” he says. “I don’t feel like walking around with an assprint of dirt and my clothes more messy than they are now.” He shudders at the thought.

“Right, right. Uh.” Damn, why is it harder to form words around Dave than it was yesterday when they were running for their lives? “Reckon we should head back now? Ezekiel’s gonna be waiting, and we should, y’know, be heading out on the road by now.”

Thankfully, Dave doesn’t notice anything amiss in his stilted tone and his awkward movements when they trek back to the barn. If he does, he gives no indication, too preoccupied with lamenting about his lost backpack as they hop over a fallen log. “I don’t know how I can hear Sky now without that walkie-talkie. At least we still have the map.”

“You sure Sky will be happy to see you?” Shawn asks before he can stop himself.

Dave stops in his tracks. The silence hanging over them is thick with tension. Shawn kind of wants to kick himself again. Great going, he chides, you reunite with the guy, and what’s the first thing you do? You try to piss him off again.

“Why won’t she be happy to see me?” Dave asks finally, genuinely flummoxed, as though he can’t fathom the idea that his maybe-girlfriend won’t be all that thrilled to see him and rekindle their affair in the midst of an apocalypse.

Ugh, Shawn is horrible at this kind of shit. Really, it’s his fault for bringing this upon himself. He should’ve kept his mouth shut, but a strange gnawing feeling had begun to spawn in his chest when Dave mentioned Sky. Funny, Shawn would’ve recalled feeling something this…painful before, but nope; even when Dave had talked his ear off at Shawn’s bunker about seeing Sky again, Shawn hadn’t ever felt this kind of primal need to make Dave frown when he thinks about Sky.

Stop it, he tells his heart, annoyedly. Dumb organ always being more trouble than it’s worth.

Dave’s still looking at him, waiting for an answer. He flounders. “Uh, well, y’know it’s the middle of the apocalypse, dude, there are zombies everywhere, and it’s been years. Don’t you think Sky would be busy with her own bunker instead of…you know?” You, he wants to say, but he’s not that much of a shitbag.

He expects Dave to snap, to shoot back one of his whipper-fast retorts and have everything they’d rebuilt last night crumble again. To his surprise, all Dave does is scoff, like the mere idea of what Shawn proposed was absurd.

“Sky loves me, I love her. Pretty sure—no, actually, I’m a hundred percent sure that if you love someone, you won’t ever forget about them. That’s how love works, dude. They’ll always be first priority. I bet she’ll be just as excited to see me as I am to see her—which is why we need to hurry, time is running out, man.”

Quickening his pace, Dave leaves Shawn in the dust, back to babbling about Sky and his ‘quest for love’ and how “this is definitely a good idea, Shawn, you won’t get it” and the strange new part inside Shawn wants to bite back again. 

First priority? Oh, you don’t know the half of it. He wants to shake Dave and say it all right to his face. Dave may have slept like a decently cared-for baby last night, but flashes of dreams and of last night had flickered like a stop-motion film behind Shawn’s eyelids, hindering any notion of sleep. All he could think of was the house crumbling to pieces with them both on the roof; facing against Ezekiel’s mother; of Dave’s frenzied determination as he’d saved Shawn’s life again with the most mundane fighting weapon ever. He’d remembered the swooping feeling in his gut when Dave had half-leapt, half-fallen off the roof and landed directly, like it was meant to be, in Shawn’s arms.

He remembered hating how much he loved that horrible swoopy feeling. How he simultaneously craved and despised it.

He was turning into a cliche. That thought had been the final nail in the coffin to keep him awake for the rest of the night as the rain fell in torrents atop the large leaves of his half-hearted shelter that was a particularly tall tree. 

Compartmentalize, compartmentalize, COMPARTMENTALIZE.

Mentally slamming the Dave Box shut, with his head pounding, Shawn catches up to Dave in a few long strides. “Yeah, guess you’re right,” he replies. “Not really the love expert here anyway. I’ll leave that foolishness to you.”

“Love is not foolish,” Dave defends hotly as they trample a couple of bushes. “It’s beautiful, and magnificent, and ethereal, and… awe-inspiring.” His eyes take on a glassy sheen. “I never thought I could experience this type of love—now I don’t think I can live without it.”

Shawn hides a snort—but barely. Beautiful? More like a freaking death wish.

Thankfully, before he can hear more of Dave’s lovey-dovey crap, they push past the last of the trees and reenter the open fields. Ezekiel’s barn looms a couple of yards beyond, and standing in front of it is the zombie of the hour himself, holding a—what the hell is that?

Immediately, Shawn’s hand is on his ax, ready to hurl it straight into Ezekiel’s eye, friend be damned. But then Dave’s delighted, “My bat!” brings him back.

“Your what?”

Proudly, Ezekiel holds out the baseball bat Dave used to beat Ezekiel’s mother. However, when Dave takes it and experimentally swings it around a few times, Shawn notices a couple of distinguishing differences—namely, the nails lodged in the meat of the bat. 

“You…have a nail bat?” he asks faintly. His voice is a bit clogged in his throat, because there’s something…interesting about seeing Dave handle an apocalyptic weapon with ease. Has he played baseball before? Swear to whatever god is up there if Dave says he didn’t, Shawn may have a stroke.

Compartmentalize!

“The Goths’ knife freaks me out a little too much, but this one’s right up my alley.” Dave hefts up the bat, smiling a crooked one full of quiet pride and satisfaction. “Ezekiel came up with the nails idea, isn’t it great? Now I got my own weapon too—make the apocalypse my normal, and whatnot.”

“Yeah…” Shawn trails off and coughs. “Sure, the bat looks great, dude. Glad to see you have something you’re sticking with. I was getting tired of covering your ass all the time.”

Dave sputters offendedly. “I’ve covered your ass too!”

“Not as much as I have yours,” Shawn reminds him.

“Oh, fine. We’ve covered each other’s asses. Happy?”

Shawn grins. “Mostly.”

Shooting him a dirty look in response, Dave turns his attention to the bat—the nail bat. “This is useful and all, but how are we even going to get there?” Despair fringes his words. He runs a hand through his hair, fluffing it up even more unintentionally. “No transportation, no provisions, all we have is this map.” He pulls out his half of their map. “We’re so absolutely fucked.”

Being a realist, Shawn has to agree. The odds aren’t looking too good.

Their zombie friend’s pale eyes flick back and forth between them before his face lights up. He waves his arms in a motion Shawn interprets as follow me! before rushing back through the long grass in the direction of the house.

Next to Shawn, Dave winces, clearly harboring similar misgivings about being anywhere near the place that nearly killed them.

“There’s no one there,” Shawn assures him. He hefts his crossbow higher up his shoulder, pats his pockets, and nods at the bat Dave holds loosely in one grip. “‘Sides, if there is, we can get rid of them easy.”

Too late, he realizes how that must sound, considering they had technically done exactly that to Ezekiel’s mom last night. But Dave’s shaking his head and muttering, “This is stupid,” before hurrying after Ezekiel. Bemused, Shawn follows on his heels.

What had that been about? 

Was Dave referring to their little altercation as stupid? Or his—very reasonable considering the circumstances—wariness of Ezekiel’s house? Shawn shakes the thoughts away, forcing himself to focus on one thing only: the dude they’re running after, who is also a member of the undead. That’s more important than whatever the hell Dave meant.

Ezekiel lopes ahead of them, past the barn and the charred remains of the house. He leaps over the still body of his mother, while Dave and Shawn cautiously skirt around it. Exchanging looks, they hurry over to where Ezekiel stands before a structure that appears to be built haphazardly—a blue tarp held up by four metal poles, and under that tarp sits something that makes Shawn unable to believe their stroke of good luck.

Dave’s eyes widen. “It’s…”

“A motorbike,” Shawn finishes, stunned. “I thought these were the first to go when the apocalypse started.”

Ezekiel puffs out his chest, pride evident in his posture. Not mine, he seems to convey. 

The bike appears to be in great condition; sleek black paint that’s only a little bit chipped, white stripes criss-crossing the sides; the leather on the seat is a bit cracked, but that seems to be the only issue Shawn can see with it. Attached to the bike is a sidecar of the same color and design.

Ezekiel is still staring at him pointedly. Shawn gets the message, and his hopes lift.

“You want us to use this?”

Ezekiel bobs his head.

“Whoa, I–I don’t know what to say, man.” It’s clear Ezekiel must trust him a lot if he’s handing him a bike he obviously loves a bunch. A flicker of guilt passes through him when he recalls the words he'd thrown at him last night. “Thanks.”

“We’ll take good care of it,” Dave adds. Shawn shoots him a look that the other returns with a raised eyebrow. As much as he wants to promise that, since when have they ‘taken good care’ of anything they’ve owned thus far?

To their surprise, Ezekiel shakes his head at them and flails his arms, gesturing first to himself, then to them, and finally to the bike.

“Uh…” Dave glances at Shawn, who shrugs helplessly.

Ezekiel gesticulates again, more insistently. Jabbing a half-rotted finger at his chest, then at the bike.

Shawn squints at the bike, then at the zombie. “You…want to come with us?”

Dave scoffs. “There’s no way that’s what he’s saying—oh my god, that’s exactly what he’s saying.” He gapes at Ezekiel, who’s nodding his head enthusiastically. “No way, no freaking way. You’re a zombie.”

The enthusiasm seeps out of Ezekiel; his shoulders slump, and his mouth twists into a pout. Shawn’s heart twists along with it. Dave has a very, very fair point—traveling with a zombie right there by your side is like tapdancing in Hell and tempting Satan to get pissed: in other words, a really bad idea. 

But…his thoughts and his emotions are still jumbled from last night’s revelation. His heart is still in the middle of rebuilding all his emotional barriers, and Ezekiel’s puppy-eyed look isn’t helping matters. So he blurts out, “Alright.”

Dave stares at him. “What?”

“He’ll stay far away from you, dude,” Shawn assures him. “Besides, who knows! Having a walker on our side might help our chances of surviving.” Befriending the undead is nowhere mentioned in the apocalypse survival guidebook Shawn and his mother made, but then again, lots of crazy things have occurred during their journey; he may as well roll with the punches. Plus, a large part of him aches at the prospect of leaving behind Ezekiel after killing his only family and ruining everything about his post-apocalyptic life.

Dave watches him for a long moment, conflicting emotions warring in his dark brown eyes. He opens his mouth, then closes it. Then opens it again. Then closes it. This continues for a minute, while Ezekiel shuffles closer, eyes big and imploring as he wears down Dave's defenses.

"Come on, man," Shawn adds. "He's not going to eat us. I think he's already proven that when you two slept in the barn."

Dave scowls, then sighs. “Fine. Let’s motorcar a zombie with us. But,” he sticks a finger in the air when Ezekiel’s smile widens in delight, “he’s going to be sitting in the sidecar.”