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There is a bite mark on his arm. It sits on the backside of his arm, just above his elbow.
There is a bite mark on his arm, and Wemmbu can’t stop staring at it, eyes blown wide in momentary surprise, but he’s not scared yet. When he first caught a glimpse of it just a moment prior, it felt like the bottom of his stomach fell away. Right now, currently, staring at the torn skin and smeared blood, he doesn’t really feel anything.
There is a bite mark on his arm, and Wemmbu is already dead.
There is a bite mark on his arm, and Wemmbu was dead the second the zombie latched on, the second its teeth broke through skin, the second it tasted blood. He hadn’t processed the fresh injury when he had kicked the monster away and cracked open its skull and watched it go still. He had only realized what happened when he turned and saw it in his wavering reflection in a dark storefront.
It doesn’t really feel real. It doesn’t hurt. Wemmbu knows it will.
“Bro.” Egg steps out of the corner store and pulls his backpack on fully, the long body of the hunting rifle knocking against his hip as he buckles the bag across his chest and around his waist. “There was something foul in that back freezer.”
Wemmbu opens his mouth. Closes his mouth. He lowers his arm back to his side and opens his mouth again. Nothing comes out.
“Bro?” Egg asks, his head tilting to the side in concern, pale eyes visibly narrowing before he flicks his sunglasses back into place to protect against the bright, noon sun. It is the last afternoon that Wemmbu will see.
His mouth snaps closed, and Wemmbu isn’t sure what he was even trying to say. Has he ever spoken before in his life? Does he even know what words are? There is a bite mark on his arm, and Egg hasn’t seen it yet, and Wemmbu is dead. His heart rate starts to pick up. He feels vaguely like he’s going to be sick.
Something in his expression must have twisted and betrayed him, because Egg steps forward and reaches out, their gloved hand closing around his wrist. The touch burns. “Bro? Wemmbu?” Egg asks again. “Dude, you good?”
Wemmbu inhales sharply, his lungs desperate for air. His eyes are burning. He’s staring straight ahead at his reflection in the store’s window, the zombie’s body crumpled on the pavement just a few feet away. “I—” His voice betrays him by breaking. “I got bit.”
“No,” he says firmly. "No, you didn’t. Bro, that isn’t a funny joke.”
He shakes his head. He holds up his other arm and kind of twists it so Egg can see the bite. He knows the moment Egg sees it—realizes exactly what it means—because Egg makes a sound like he's been punched. Wemmbu wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what would help make the situation any better. The words keep getting stuck in his throat.
Egg pulls his gaze from Wemmbu’s arm and meets his gaze, his voice suddenly firm. “How long?” he asks. His fingers twitch automatically for his rifle. “When did this happen?”
“Just now,” Wemmbu tells him and fights the urge to cry. Still, his eyes burn. He gestures to the now-dead body.
“OK.” He takes a step away from Wemmbu. “OK.”
“I’m sorry,” he finds himself saying, and now the words are coming too quickly, and he doesn’t know how to make them stop. “I’ll drop my stuff and I’ll leave and you won’t have to see me again or deal with the consequences of this. I’m sorry.” He doesn’t know why exactly he’s apologizing—maybe for fucking up, maybe for letting himself get bit, maybe for killing himself with a stupid mistake—but it feels right. “I’m sorry. I’ll handle this. You don’t need to worry about it. I—”
“Wemmbu.”
He keeps talking, but all he hears is a ringing in his ears. He thinks he’s still saying words and actually making sense, but it could have been reduced to senseless babbling, and he would be none the wiser.
“Bro.” Egg grabs his shoulder, and Wemmbu is startled into silence. “I’m not leaving you.”
Wemmbu forgets how to breathe. No. No no no. "Yes, you are.” He wants to cry, but the tears won’t come. His chest is empty. There is a bite on his arm. “Like this isn’t a discussion we’re having right now. I’m leaving.”
“I’m not abandoning you!”
“And I’m not killing you!” Wemmbu shoves Egg back, choking on air at the expression of hurt that flashes across his face. “Bro, I got bit!”
Egg just shakes his head, uselessly, stupidly stubborn. “I don’t care.”
Wemmbu hates him in that moment. He hates that Egg can’t be selfish and leave. He hates that Egg will doom himself by staying by Wemmbu’s side. His hands curl into fists, anger rising ugly, hot, and choking in his chest. He wants to punch Egg.
“I care,” Wemmbu spits instead. He steps forward, Egg steps back, and something breaks in his chest. His fist connects with the other’s nose, breaking cartilage.
Egg stumbles back with a pained, panicked yelp, his hands flying to his face, blood falling from his nose. It smears across his lips and hands. For a moment, Wemmbu can only see the dead with their bloody, hungry mouths, and then he’s dropping his backpack to the pavement, checking to make sure his gun is still clipped to his belt and he still has bullets shoved into his pocket, and walking away from Egg. He’s going to make sure he doesn’t become the reason Egg dies.
He only gets another block away, footsteps too loud against the cracked pavement, blood roaring in his ears, an awful guilt settling into his chest, when Egg catches up to him and grabs his hand, interlocking their fingers and refusing to let go when Wemmbu tries to pull away. “Let go!”
“No,” Egg says and holds on tighter.
Wemmbu glances over at him, guilt twisting his stomach when he sees the blood smeared across Egg’s face. “Please!”
“No,” he repeats. His free hand slides his sunglasses to the top of his head, and he meets Wemmbu’s gaze, his expression sad but determined. “You’re not dying alone.”
“I can’t kill you—”
Egg shakes his head. “You’re not going to.” His eyes are red and there are tears clumping his lashes. Maybe it was just from being punched in the nose? Please. Wemmbu doesn’t want to be the reason his best friend is crying. “You’re not going to,” Egg says again as he slides Wemmbu’s bag off his shoulder and drops it to the ground. “I’m not letting you run off and put a bullet through your head by yourself.”
Panic claws its way up his throat so violently Wemmbu thinks he might puke, stumbling back with a cry of fear, trying to twist out of Egg’s grasp, pleading and begging breathlessly. “No! No nononono—don’t let me turn into them. Egg, please, no. I don’t—I don’t want it. I don’t want to turn into them. Please, no, please pleasepleaseplease.”
And they’re both on the ground. And Wemmbu is actually throwing up. And Egg is kneeling before him, rubbing comforting circles into his shoulder.
“You’re not turning into a zombie either,” Egg says, his voice calm and measured and firm enough that Wemmbu drags in a shuddering gasp of air. “I won’t let it get to that point. But we have a while before we really need to worry about it. We have until tomorrow morning.”
That’s already cutting it too close, but Wemmbu doesn’t have the stomach to respond. Instead, he just lets himself slump forward until his head collides with Egg’s shoulder. The pavement is digging uncomfortably into his knees. The sun is beating down hotly on the back of his neck. His mouth tastes gross. But Egg is there, and Egg said it's going to be OK, and Wemmbu wants to believe him. He chooses to believe Egg.
“Twenty hours,” Egg tells him, his voice soft. “Maybe a bit less. But roughly twenty hours.”
“OK—” Wemmbu realizes he’s crying and he hates it. He kind of wants to shrivel up and die right there, right now. His arm is starting to hurt, and his mouth really does taste bad, and everything is just—he's not dying. He’s dead. And this just feels like some attempt at pretending the inevitable won’t happen. But he’ll go along with it for Egg, always for Egg.
Wemmbu watches as Egg ties off the bandage and tucks the loose ends into the wrappings. He straightens and bends his arm, testing his range of motion. It makes the muscles burn. There is an ache in the bone there. Weirdly, his pinky is going numb, but it still bends properly with the rest of his fingers.
“Good?” Egg asks, twisting to pack away their first aid supplies.
He doesn’t know why Egg wasted the good, clean gauze and bandages on him. He’s already dead. He died an hour ago when he got bit. Still, Wemmbu nods and lowers his arm. "Yeah, bro, I’m good.” He’s lying. He knows this. Egg knows it too if his raised eyebrow is anything to go off of.
Egg nods and turns his attention back to the fishing rod lying next to him, the line stretching out across the water. The lake they’re at is small, quiet, and empty, surrounded by a ring of trees, sitting in an old, overgrown park. Wemmbu doesn’t think they should even be on the old dock that's stretching out across the water, but Egg had argued it was the best place to catch fish. The whole “catching fish” part isn’t going great. The line had been the first thing Egg had set up when they got there—Wemmbu got another minute where he didn’t have to acknowledge the bite yet—and so far it’s been completely still. Wemmbu flops back with a heavy sigh, lying on faded, warped plastic, and stares up at the sky. It's bright blue and cloudless, the sun hanging high and hot in the expanse.
“Bro,” Wemmbu said just to break the silence, lifting one leg up from where it had been dangling off the edge of the dock and kicking at Egg’s knee. “Bro, this is boring as fuck.”
Egg lets out a hum and shrugs. “It’s relaxing. Not my fault your attention span doesn’t exist.”
He squints against the sunlight. The back of his shirt is damp with sweat. The lack of wind is doing nothing to combat summer’s heat. His eyes burn and for a moment Wemmbu lets himself believe it's because of the bright sun. His arm hurts. He knows it's only going to get worse. For a while, time stops existing. His eyes slip closed and he tilts his head up to the sky. His knee presses against Egg’s thigh, and he can faintly hear the other breathing. It's peaceful. It's quiet.
“Bro,” Egg huffs out, sounding so annoyed that Wemmbu opens his eyes. The sun has slipped a little lower in the sky. In the bright light, Egg’s hair seems to glow white and he’s pulled the longest bits back into the smallest, fluffiest puff of a ponytail Wemmbu’s ever seen. There’s still so much hair curling against his forehead, around his ears, and down the back of his neck.
“Hm?” Wemmbu pushes himself upright. He makes it to his elbows and has to stop there, the world suddenly spinning around him. His mouth is dry. There’s a throbbing between his temples. "Ugh," he says very intelligently.
Egg’s head whips around so fast it looks like it hurts. Then his gaze lands on Wemmbu and his shoulders slump. “Hey bro,” he says, rummaging through Wemmbu’s bag (rude) and pulling out a canteen. “Water?”
His mouth tastes gross. His tongue doesn’t fit correct behind his teeth. His molars itch. He pushes himself further upright, snatches the canteen, and takes a slow sip, swirling the water around in his mouth. It tastes weird. Still, he swallows it with a grimace before closing the canteen and handing it back.
“You good?”
“Bro,” Wemmbu sits up fully and bends his legs, letting his forehead fall forward against his knees. “Bro, you can’t let me fall asleep in the sun like that. Like bro, everything hurts now.”
Egg just scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Bro, I’m not your babysitter. Next time just don’t fall asleep like that.”
He flips the other off before taking a deep breath, feeling it rattle in his chest. It reminds him of whenever he got sick with a bad cough. It reminds him of the awful rattle of a dying person or the dead themselves. It scares him, and something must shift in his expression because Egg scooches around to face him fully.
“It’s going to be OK,” Egg says, and they both know it's a lie because Wemmbu has been bit, and that is a death sentence. There is a reason why putting a bullet through an infected person’s head is the merciful option. It’s what Egg should have done; he should have taken his rifle and shot Wemmbu the moment he realized what happened. Wemmbu should have been quicker with his own gun instead of just letting Egg pull him back from that ledge. But he hadn’t been thinking quickly enough. Instead, Wemmbu has let a couple hours pass, and he’s still breathing. He’s not alive. He was dead the moment he got bit, but he’s still breathing when he shouldn’t be.
"Thanks, Egg,” Wemmbu says drily just so they aren’t sitting in silence, but it feels like the wrong thing to say. He’s not sure what the right thing would even be. He switches topics. “Have you caught anything?”
Egg actually pouts. “No.”
“Bro…” He lets his legs lower, no longer holding them to his chest like they’re his only lifeline. It makes breathing a bit easier. His arm—the muscle the zombie had sunk its teeth into—tingles with pain when he folds his hands into his lap.
“There’s like nothing biting,” he says as he packs up the fishing pole. “Like I get that it's the middle of the day, but still, bro, that’s just rude.”
Wemmbu hums along in agreement, only half listening to Egg’s yapping. He curls and uncurls his hand. His pinkie is still numb. His ring and middle fingers are tingling. Pins and needles had taken over more of his palm. It’s uncomfortable. It's not painful yet. The rest of his arm hurts, and that is an ache he feels in his bones. Egg getting to his feet startles Wemmbu out of his thoughts, and he follows Egg, his knees cracking loud enough that his friend snorts in laughter. Wemmbu shoves him in retaliation, swearing at him. It just makes Egg laugh louder and then they’re standing on the dock, laughing together and shoving each other around, making fools of themselves, and for a moment Wemmbu could forget that he was already dead.
When they leave the park, they only have to walk a block or two before they reach the river, and there they take the scenic route through the city, along the waterway, walking on the massive, overgrown retaining wall separating the water from the crumbling concrete jungle. There’s no sign of the dead; it’s nearing the middle of summer and in the middle of the afternoon, and most creatures, living and dead, have huddled down in the cool shade to wait for the dying day to bring cooler temperatures. It means that Wemmbu isn’t watching out for wild animals as closely as usual as he walks along the cracked path running the length of the wall. Maybe it's for the better; his legs are shakier than usual, and when he turns his head too quickly, the world spins around him. It's nauseating. He knows it's because of the bite. He knows it's because he’s infected and slowly dying—No. He’s already dead. He died just a few hours earlier.
His gaze is pulled to the massive, rusting bridge spanning across the river, and he’s stuck with the sudden urge to jump from it. From somewhere deeper in his chest comes the desire to live. It's unfamiliar and cruel and hungry and not him.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Egg,” Wemmbu says, and Egg glances over at him, his arms out to keep his balance on the low concrete barrier separating the path from the retaining wall. “Bro, I—” He’s hungry. He’s really fucking hungry, and he hates it because Egg is right there and he—
"Bro, you good?” Egg asks, sounding so concerned that Wemmbu could easily burst into tears right then and there.
“Twenty hours is pushing it,” he tells Egg instead of admitting to the ugly hunger gathering in his stomach. His arm hurts. He can’t feel his hand. He’s nauseous. And there is an itch in the back of his mind—it doesn’t scream or beg; it just silently urges him to sink his teeth into the soft, unprotected flesh of his best friend’s neck. He tastes blood. He relaxes his jaw, and his tongue stings where his teeth had dug into it.
Egg frowns as he stares at Wemmbu before nodding. “OK. We’ll figure it out.”
Wemmbu doesn’t think he’ll make it to dawn. He wants to. He wants to keep living but he is already dead and he cannot drag Egg down with him. That is a level of cruelty that he cannot fathom. He just nods back and starts walking again before Egg could say anything. His hands curl into fists, his nails biting into the callused skin of his palms. Ha. Bite. He’s going to throw up.
“Are we heading back to the base or just wandering around?” Egg asks after a few more minutes of walking in silence as they pass under the rusting bridge. “Because, like, I could do both, but I want to know if you have something specific in mind.”
Kill him. Please. Put the gun against his head and fire a bullet through his skull. Don’t let him turn into a monster. Please. Instead, he shrugs and lets out a noncommittal hum. “I was just walking, bro.” Anything to get rid of the sudden restless energy.
That makes Egg huff and roll his eyes. “Brother.” Somehow he sounds so exacerbated by Wemmbu. "I’m hungry; let’s head back.”
"OK, bro,” Wemmbu scoffs. But they still veer off the walking path, hop the fence to get onto the equally cracked and abandoned street, and weave their way through the city away from the river, sticking to the middle of clear roads, avoiding the shadowy coolness of hollow buildings or the piles of crashed cars that provide easy cover. The zombies may be too stupid to understand puzzles or follow smoke or properly open doors, but they are still animals that understand the concept of lying in wait for prey to come wandering past. It's why the only dead someone should ever trust is one without a head.
They get halfway to their base when Egg pauses, leaning against a planter and swinging his bag around to pull out his water. “We need to come up with some better method of traveling than just walking around once it gets properly hot,” he says as he sips from the canteen, staring down the street.
Egg will have to do that. There’s no more “we,” because Wemmbu is already dead. He’s dead. He leans next to Egg, his arms crossed over his chest. “Mhm.”
Without thinking, Egg offers him the bottle, and Wemmbu shakes his head quickly, pulling out his own water and taking a slow sip from it. “Nah bro, I’ve got my own. Besides, it's been a bit. Cross contamination or something.”
“Hm.” Egg tilts his head to the side, and his expression hardens like it always does when he’s thinking. “I don’t know if anyone’s actually tracked its progression. Like we don’t know how long it takes before you’re infectious.”
Wemmbu raises an eyebrow at him.
He just shrugs. "Like, we know it's roughly twenty hours between initial infection and death theoretically, but that's it.” He looks at the sun and then his watch, which Wemmbu is pretty sure is broken. “We have roughly sixteen hours left.”
He isn’t making it sixteen more hours, so instead of answering, Wemmbu pushes off the planter and starts walking home. He hears Egg’s footsteps on the pavement behind him, but his friend doesn’t try to say anything. Sixteen hours. Less than that if the pain in his arm and numbness of his hand and hunger clawing his stomach are any indication. Fuck. Less than sixteen hours left to live. He wants to throw up.
Egg grabs his hand, and it’s warm and it’s grounding and it lessens the panic swirling in Wemmbu’s chest enough that he can drag in a shaky breath. His eyes and back of his throat burn, but it’s not fear. It feels like someone is ripping his heart out of his chest, peeling away layers of tissue and snapping ribs to get to the beating organ. And it shouldn’t even be beating because Wemmbu got himself bit, and he should be dead. Egg should have let Wemmbu shoot himself. Egg should have shot him.
Egg squeezes his hand, and something in Wemmbu’s chest snaps. He wants to rip free and run. He wants to abandon Egg; he still has his gun and a couple bullets. Wemmbu could make it quick and as painless as possible and far, far away from Egg. But Wemmbu doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he squeezes Egg’s hand back and keeps walking steadily.
Their base is the second floor of one of the smaller apartment-only buildings that separate the stores with apartments above them from row homes. The stairs leading up to the front door have been taken out so nothing can get up there that way. Egg pulls on the rope to unfurl the rope ladder out of an open window. (The very first time climbing up it was nerve-wracking; Egg had been shaking and Wemmbu thought he might throw up from how much his stomach was twisting into knots but the apocalypse had also just started and they were nearly delirious from fear.) Egg climbs the ladder first and shimmies through the window. Wemmbu thinks he hears his friend let out an “oof” as he hits the floor, and then Wemmbu’s climbing after Egg, the rope bending under his weight but not tearing, biting into his hand but not ripping into skin like it used to. It’s harder than usual with his arm going numb; his fingers still respond, but he’s struggling with his grip strength. Once through the window Egg pulls the ladder up and closes the window most of the way. They’re standing in the apartment’s living room, and sunlight is pouring in through the dusty windows. Home is just out the front door and across the landing. And Wemmbu wants to go home and curl up in bed and hide away from the world, but his arm hurts so badly and he’s already dead. He should leave. Egg grabs his wrist—he can barely feel the warmth of Egg’s fingers against his skin—and tugs him out of that apartment and to their home, pulling the key out of his pocket and unlocking the door. It makes Wemmbu laugh because, of course, Egg locks the door before they leave in the morning even if it's the middle of the apocalypse.
It's their apartment. It’s small and kind of dirty and filled with stuff, and it’s been theirs since they both graduated high school and started college. But it’s not going to be theirs for much longer because Wemmbu is already dead. Soon it’ll just be Egg’s. Wemmbu kicks off his shoes once the door is closed and drops his bag on the kitchen floor, opening the door leading out to the balcony to get some air flow. He hears Egg move through the apartment, most likely opening the windows in their rooms. As he sits down on the couch, he watches Egg move around the kitchen, getting something to eat.
“Hungry?”
Yes. Wemmbu shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I’m good.”
Egg shrugs and finishes the granola bar, dropping the wrapper in the box they’ve been collecting trash in. Then he sits down next to Wemmbu on the couch. “Let me see your arm.”
Wemmbu holds out his other arm.
“No.”
He sighs heavily, slumps further into the couch, and holds out the correct arm, frowning as Egg twists it carefully to see the wrapped bite. Egg is so careful as he unwraps the bandages. It’s only the bottommost layer that has blood on it, the gauze soaking up most of the liquid. He pulls away the gauze slowly. It’s soaked with yellow pus. It smells like something dead. Wemmbu turns his head away and hears Egg’s sharp inhale.
“Go wash it,” Egg tells him, his voice soft and steady.
“There isn’t any point,” Wemmbu protests. He doesn’t want to see it. He doesn’t want to touch it. He knows what the bites look like. He knows how quickly the skin turns black with rot and then white as it dies. He knows how it stops bleeding, but there’s always more pus or rot that leaks from them. He knows how the bruised yellow-green discoloration around them spreads across someone’s skin. He doesn’t want to see it on himself. “I don’t want to risk contaminating any of our water.”
Egg sighs heavily but puts different gauze on it and rewraps it before dropping the dirty gauze into the trash box.
“I’m sorry,” he says as he stares at the ceiling. He feels nothing but a bone-deep pain from his shoulder down. His stomach churns. He has the sudden, violent urge to hurt something.
“I know.” Egg sounds so sad that Wemmbu is left blinking back burning tears.
He doesn’t cry, but it's a near thing, and his breathing isn’t steady. But he doesn’t cry, and Egg mercifully ignores the shakiness of his voice when Wemmbu does speak. “Can we do something else? Like anything, bro, instead of just sitting around waiting for shit to happen?”
“Yeah,” he says and gets up. “Of course.”
Egg pulls out the bin with their games from the closest. They play a few rounds of Uno, and Wemmbu curses Egg out when he’s forced to pick up sixteen cards. They play bullshit, and Egg still scratches at his face whenever he lies about his cards. And it’s nice and it’s easy, and Wemmbu can almost forget that he’s dead. It’s harder to ignore later when he’s struggling to keep his grip on the cards.
“Fuck,” Wemmbu hisses when he drops his cards again, his hand spasming.
“Bro.” Egg rolls his eyes at him. “I can see your cards, bro.”
He throws them at Egg, swearing loudly but not actually all that annoyed. He can never stay angry at Egg for that long even if there is an ugly, hungry hatred curling in his gut and screaming at him to spill blood. He knows the rages that the dead manage to work themselves into when there are too many of them and too little food. He knows how they swarm and rip into anything alive and warm. He recognizes the start of that hungry rage, and he’s terrified.
“Fuck you,” Wemmbu says, and they both pretend the shakiness of his voice is from breathless laughter and not terror. Instead of talking about it, they pull out a board game. Slowly the sun starts to set, and Wemmbu’s hand isn’t working properly anymore, and breathing hurts, and there’s a sharp throbbing behind his eyes, and he’s so hungry he wants to tear his teeth out.
“You’re cheating,” Wemmbu accuses Egg bitterly when Egg rolls another seven and moves the bandit onto one of his tiles. “You’re cheating. You have to be. You grabbed the weighted dice.”
Egg just laughs and sets the bandit down. “Bro, have you considered that I’m just better at this? Get good.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughs harder before flipping over a card. "Also, I’m at ten points.”
“I—” Wemmbu stares at him for a long moment, his eyes wide and mouth open in shock. “Fuck you! Bro, you have got to be cheating. What the fuck??”
It just makes Egg laugh even harder until he’s gasping for air and clutching at his stomach, his face turning red. “Oh my god, bro. Your face—”
“Fuck you.” He throws the dice at Egg.
Egg starts wheezing.
“Bro, I hate you.”
“Bro’s trying to act all nonchalant,” he says, still giggling as he sits up and throws the dice back. “Bro’s trying to act like he didn’t just blow a fuse over losing at a board game. It’s just Catan, Wem; it's not that deep.”
“Fuck you,” Wemmbu says just to preserve his dignity.
It doesn’t work because Egg rolls his eyes and doesn’t stop giggling even as he gets to his feet. “It’s getting late. Do you want dinner?”
“I’m not hungry.” But he is hungry; he’s starving, and it makes his hands shake as he packs up Catan and sets the box into the container with all their other games. The problem is what he wants to eat. It’s nauseating.
“I’d like it if you still ate something.” Egg goes into the kitchen and pulls out a crumpled box of pasta from a cupboard. It’s one of the last ones that they have. Egg will have to go looting for more food soon. “Even if it's just a little bit.”
Wemmbu doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even bother getting up from where he sits on the floor, leaning back against the couch. He runs his tongue over his teeth and grimaces at the dryness of his throat. His skin is scratchy and hypersensitive. His head hurts. His hands tremble, and without the distraction of their game, he can’t ignore all the early signs of a fever. It scares him. He wants to die. He doesn’t want to hurt Egg. He doesn’t want to make Egg do it.
As he watches, Egg carries the small camping stove out to their apartment’s small balcony and sets it on the folding table out there. He gets water boiling and leans back against the railing, watching Wemmbu. “Please?”
“Fine,” Wemmbu says and pushes himself to his feet, the world spinning around him for a moment. He has to brace himself against the couch with a deep breath. When he looks up again, worry is written clearly across Egg’s expression. He hates it. “I’ll eat something… just not a lot.” He isn’t hungry for human food. He’s not a person anymore. He’s dead. But it’ll make Egg happy.
“OK,” Egg says, his posture relaxing slightly. “Thank you.”
Wemmbu watches as Egg carefully measures out the pasta and adds it to the pot. He watches as Egg stirs it. He can’t tear his gaze away from his friend because he has so little time left, and grief and terror are making his stomach twist itself into knots. He thinks vaguely that he’s going to throw up, but he can’t move. It doesn’t even matter in the end because the wave of nausea fades and he’s left shaking, feeling like a newborn fawn standing on trembling legs.
“Dinner’s ready,” Egg says, his low voice cutting through Wemmbu’s racing thoughts abruptly enough that he flinches. That gains him a concerned look from his friend. “Bro, you good?”
“Yeah.” Wemmbu nods and swallows hard before grabbing two bowls and joining Egg on the balcony. As he watches, Egg serves the food, giving himself significantly more than Wemmbu. It’s still not a lot, but the bowl is comfortingly warm in his hands as the temperature starts to drop with the setting sun. They sit on the balcony and eat in silence, soaking in the last rays of the dying sun, the shadows deepening around them.
“Today was fun,” Egg says as he finishes his last bite. It sounds horrifyingly like he’s saying goodbye. “I had a lot of fun.”
Wemmbu nods and puts his bowl down, the food sitting uncomfortably heavy in his stomach. He’s still hungry. Now he just feels hungry and sick. “You went fishing; of course you had fun.”
“Nah, bro,” he scoffs. “I got to hang out with you. That was fun.”
“You enjoyed beating me in Catan.” The sky is full of stars, and there are animals moving in the darkness, the creatures of the city venturing out into the coolness of the night. “And Uno.”
Egg laughs. “I enjoyed playing with you,” he corrects.
“I had fun,” Wemmbu admits after a few minutes of comfortable silence. He pulls his legs to his chest, resting his bitten arm in his lap. It hurts. His hand is cold, but he can move it even if his fingers don’t respond correctly. “I had a lot of fun.”
His smile is soft. “Even when you lost?”
“I don’t mind losing to you.”
That makes Egg laugh. It makes Wemmbu forget for the briefest of moments that he’s already dead and shouldn’t be there. It’s easier than breathing to lean over and slump against Egg’s side, resting his head on the other’s shoulder. He can feel each steady breath that Egg takes in, but they’re artificially even, like Egg is being very, very careful to not disturb him.
“I had fun today,” Wemmbu says again, his throat burning with unshed tears. His voice shakes slightly, but neither of them comments on it when Egg wraps an arm around him. They just sit in comfortable silence. Wemmbu dozes lightly.
After a while Egg yawns and clears his throat roughly. “OK bro,” he says. “I’m heading to bed.”
Wemmbu rubs the sleep from his eyes, feeling like shit as he glances over at Egg’s watch. Egg presses a button on its side, and the face lights up. It says twelve. Midnight. It’s probably not set to the correct time. But he was bitten at noon, and it's been twelve hours. He really does feel like shit.
“Sleep well,” Wemmbu says as he pushes himself more upright, inhaling sharply when the world spins around him.
Beside him, Egg gets to his feet, his knees cracking. “I will,” Egg tells him, squeezing his shoulder quickly. “You too.”
It’s goodbye. They both know that Wemmbu will not be going to bed, but the truth is too painful to say.”
“Goodnight, Wemmbu,” Egg says as he leaves the balcony, crossing the dark apartment to his bedroom.
“Night Egg,” Wemmbu calls after him.
Egg’s door closes with a click, and Wemmbu slumps forward, pressing his forehead against the cool, metal railing. His body burns and hurts and itches. He wants to bite something. He wants to tear out his own teeth. He feels too hot and too cold and like he’s going to throw up. He waits a few more minutes before pushing himself to his feet, stumbling slightly as the world spins around him. He’s left gagging and breathless and wanting to kill something. It scares him because Egg is just in the other room. Wemmbu somehow doesn’t fall as he steps into the apartment and closes the balcony door behind him. He somehow stays on his feet as he grabs his gun and some bullets. He doesn’t take anything else with him as he leaves through the front door. The dull thud of the lock clicking shut behind him echos throughout the quiet night. There is no more turning back as he slides his copy of the keys back under the door. There wasn’t any turning back the moment that he had gotten bit twelve hours before.
Wemmbu hopes that Egg is asleep. He hopes that his best friend did not hear the door open or close. He knows that it's useless because Egg is most likely awake and straining to hear anything. Wemmbu takes a deep breath of the night air, tasting blood and bile. It's nauseating. Still, Wemmbu lets down the ladder and half-slides, half-climbs down it, his bitten arm refusing to work properly. It's still easy to pull the rope that drags the ladder back into place and out of sight. He wouldn’t put Egg into danger by just leaving it out.
“I’m sorry,” Wemmbu whispers before he turns and walks away from his home, feeling a weight on the back of his neck like someone is watching him. He knows it’s Egg. He doesn’t look back.
He waits until he’s out of sight of the apartment building to pull out his gun and load it with a single bullet. He keeps walking. There is cold terror filling his veins. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to turn into a monster even more. His hands shake. He thinks he’s going to throw up. He won’t join the ranks of the undead putting Egg in danger. He just wants Egg to be safe. It’s the kindest thing he can do. And Wemmbu waits until he’s hopefully out of earshot before he pulls the trigger.