Chapter One
-Day Four Hundred Twenty Six-
"What was your favorite movie?"
"Are you kidding? Clearly 'Zombieland'."
"You fucking suck, you know that?"
"Fine, it was 'Predator'."
"You're such a guy."
Dylan and I lay on the roof of the local market, staring up at the sky. It's a perfect day, sunny and dry with only a few puffy white clouds dotting the endless blue.
It was a tradition of ours to do this after every supply-run. To just relax and play the Question Game for a few minutes. It was our way of saying "good job" and "congrats on not dying between here and the House". For a moment, we feel like normal people.
Then a gurgled moan from the ground brings us back to the reality of the Republic.
I let out an exasperated sigh and slap my arms to the shingles. Dylan doesn't move, so I do it again, louder this time. I can feel him smiling slightly out of the corner of my eye. One of those smiles that gets the butterflies going.
"I'm not getting up to check that out," He says, folding his arms behind his head and closing his blue eyes, "I'm way to comfortable."
I groan again and roll onto my stomach, then to my back again, then again to my stomach, slowly making my way to the edge of the roof. I hear Dylan snort as he tries to silence a laugh.
Poking my head over the edge, I find myself looking down onto the decaying form of an undead Spooker as it claws at the walls. It's trying, but failing, to climb up and get to us, it's next meal. Ooh. Scary.
"'You're one ugly motherfucker'," I say to it in a lame attempt to amuse Dylan. It works, judging from another snort behind me, but I shouldn't be worrying about flirting. I should be worrying about blowing it's fucking brains out. But guns are loud and the last thing we want is a mass of them clawing around the building. Reaching back, I grab my dad's old hunting knife in my hand and hover it over the Spooker's head. "Here little Spooky," I coo, squirming a little bit further out off the roof. It looks up at me and I look down at it, into it's yellowing eyes, barely held into it's skull by it's optic nerve.
Then I thrust my arm downward and bury the knife deep in it's skull.
It slumps and falls to the ground, sliding off my knife. It's blood smells disgusting but I wipe the blade off on my pants anyway.
"Gross," I gag before sliding it back into it's sheath.
"Nice one," Dylan says, rolling up beside me. I jump, having not heard him move.
"Jesus," I gasp, clutching at my chest, "Don't do that."
We look down at the crumbled corpse of the Spooker. It wears what any old Average Joe would wear. Jeans, tennis shoes, a bloodstained Celine Dion concert t-shirt. But there's no holster on his waist, no protective clothing on his person. And judging from the rate of decay, he must have turned in the initial outbreak. There's no point looting his body for anything useful.
"I wanna name him this time," Dylan says, hooking his chin on the lip of the roof's edge. Another tradition of ours. Naming the Spookers we've killed. It helps us to forget they were human once by treating them like animals.
"Go ahead," I say, laying on my back once again, "But be quick. It's gonna start getting dark soon." That's a lie. It's probably about 2 o'clock. But I know Dylan, and he won't move quick enough if he knows otherwise.
"Let's name him...Bucky," He finally decides, looking over at me for approval. It's a terrible name. Fucking horrendous. But it doesn't have to be pretty I guess, so I nod and push myself up onto my elbows. Dylan's already on his feet my the time I sit up completely. I reach up and he grabs me by my forearm, his hands wrapping around the tattoo that is inked in there, before pulling me up. I wobble for a few minutes as the blood rushes from my head, but Dylan's hands grip my arm harder, ensuring I won't fall off the roof on top of Bucky.
There go those damn butterflies again. I look up at him as he towers over me by at least half a foot.
"Thanks," I say, trying to ignore the way the sun halos his sandy, blonde hair. He nods and walks across the roof in a few long strides, stooping down to pick up the two duffel bags full of canned foods and painkillers. Again, I find myself trying to focus on something other than the elastic of his boxers peeking out from his sagging pants.
"Here," He throws me my leather jacket and shrugs his own on to his shoulders. It sucks having to wear thick clothing in 90 degree weather, but the Spookers can't bite through it and I'd rather be safe than uncomfortable. "You ready to go?" Dylan asks, pitching a duffel bag in my direction. I catch it, nod and follow him off the roof, lowering myself to the ground by my fingertips. Dylan grabs me by my waist and helps me down.
'Damnit,' I think, brushing past him once my feet hit the dusty street, 'Stop thinking about him.'
The one guy who makes me worry about whether or not my legs are shaved, or whether or not my hair is clean during the zombie apocalypse, and I end up stuck with him in my group. I shouldn't be thinking about trivial shit like that.
Besides, I couldn't have him even if I could.