The taste of the smoke was tinged with the coppery taste of blood, and something else that was worse. He glanced down at the pack, slightly crumpled and stained with all sorts of unsavory liquids, lips twitching up into a sneer. When the first effects of the nicotine washed over him, Nick stopped caring about those things. He stared out the barred window as the sky turned crimson, and blew the smoke out at it.
"That shit'll kill ya." The familiar drawl came from over his shoulder, Ellis appearing a moment later to his left. He glanced towards the guy, brow quirking upwards along with one corner of his lips. He was glad to see a matching grin on Ellis's face.
"We're in the middle of a goddamn apocalypse and you're worried about lung cancer? Kid, you gotta get your priorities sorted." Nick slid over on the table, leaving a space where Ellis soon joined him, and took the cigarette when it was offered. He coughed when he handed it back, pulling a face.
"Yeah, still can't stomach 'em."
"Got nothing to do with your stomach." Nick savored the long drag, let the smoke trickle out of his mouth. "Pretty night."
"Be pertier if there wadn't all that groanin' and growlin' if you ask me," he replied sullenly. Nick chuckled.
"Not much different from the sound of the city. It's probably nothing to be happy about but I've sort of gotten used to it."
"Still keeps me up at night."
"Yeah I know."
Ellis didn't reply but Nick felt eyes on him all the same. There was a long pause. He flicked ashes onto the floor.
"I don't sleep much myself." He glanced towards Ellis in the dimming light. "Wondering why I lived. If anyone I know is still alive. I doubt it. But hey. You never know. Wondering if maybe tomorrow's the day. If the four of us'll pull through. Wondering if any of those fuckers out there belong to any of these notes." A vague wave to the empty wall, covered in hasty scrawled messages to loved ones. That was the worst part. Not when they found the lists of the dead with names and dates and sometimes even pictures, but the notes.
I have food and water. Meet me at the mall. I'm still alive, love Mom. I'm bitten. The sarcastic replies to a love note that prove how human they really were after all. Because that might've been that crying screaming banshee of a creature he'd put three shells in before she went down and nearly took Rochelle with her. Or that one that'd latched onto Coach's leg on the ladder and nearly pulled him down into a hundred growling angry mouths.
He realized his thoughts had wandered when he realized Ellis had said something. "Huh?"
"Gonna waste it," he said in the tone of someone repeating themselves, glancing down at the cigarette in his hand. Nick followed his gaze and let out a low curse, flicking away the ash and taking a long last drag of it before lashing the end onto the corner of the table.
"C'mon kid, food's probably ready by now." He slid off the table and moved towards the back of the small shelter where Coach and Rochelle were heating up canned something or other for them, Ellis close behind.