The bar where Francis had spent the first night of the apocalypse was finally dark, the lights dimmed so that the zombies wouldn't be drawn from afar. A man in a military uniform stood at a nearby ham radio in the darkness. The voice issuing forth was urgent. "C'mon bro!" The voice on the radio said. "I haven't been bit yet I have to hide but we can't wait for them to get Nora! Woad said he'd meet us outside of savannah!" The man in the military uniform looked over at two sleeping figures on the ground, one in a vest one in a shirt and tie. "C'mooooon Randy we gotta go! Mercer's a lab jockey she isn't gonna survive down there! She taught us everything we know about combating infectcious disease she's the reason you got promoted to Fort Dietrich we OWE her!"

"Fine Allen fine! I'll leave by dawn." The two men were quiet for a moment.

"You haven't started to turn yet?" the voice on the radio, Allen, questioned.

"no brother, I've been waiting here all week with a couple civvies." The soldier had a sad smile on his face.

"Where are you? your signal's pretty clear." The soldier switched to an aging walkie talkie and pulled on a makeshift chest piece made from old bullet proof armor cobbled together with rope. Then he pulled on a plague doctor mask with an old hood of kevlar scraps attached to the back of it.

"I'm at the Battle Hog bar."

"Oh my god I've been staring at your front door on my scope all night! Don't tell me that silly Bite club sign was your idea."

The soldier, Randy started hooking up an intricate pully system on the roof that ended in the front door. Now the bar would only open if someone cut the rope from the rooftop. He left a backpack full of odds and ends, and a note, by the two sleeping men on the ground and threw a tattered canvas rucksack over his shoulder. "cover me till I'm out of sight." The soldier, Randy hopped over the edge of the bar rooftop, and then landed with a loud growl of frustration on the ground. "There's two civvies in there and since I was bit we can't move together. I'm gonna use green Rs to mark the route I take you use red As. If you drop data Woad said to mark it in music notes."

"Roger that."

"And um... do me a favor, cover the bar from the infected till dawn? Bloods thicker, but I can't ignore my instinct to serve and protect. Not even going into the abyss."

"no problem, I'll watch for your marks. Stay safe brother."

"thanks, you too."

Louis and Francis slept like a pair of rocks, and when dawn showed up Francis found the note and bag of goodies and snarled. "Hey Louis wake up! Randy left!"

"What are you talking abo..." Francis shoved a note in his face.

Louis read the note aloud. "Guys my brother came to get me, my friend Mercer just sent out an SOS from New Orleans. She's the reason I got promoted to Fort Dietrich in the first place I can't leave her. My brother Allen watched the front door on his scope all night and was dialed into the ham radio while he was at it so you weren't uncovered. He's leaving at dawn. I'm sorry... ha... its signed 'first rule of bite club, Randy.'"

"He left us some premo goodies too." Francis started digging in the kitchen for a can of sterno. "I don't know if I hate that he left or not. We got most of the supplies, a bunch of Romero cigarrettes for barter... ah fuck sterno we've only got four cans left."

"Looks like its MREs and canned coffee for breakfast again." Louis sighed. "I can pick off pigeons but I sure as hell don't know how to butcher them." He poured himself a glass of water from the cooler Randy had turned into a filter. The charcoal colored the water a bit but he hadn't gotten sick yet, and if you threw a teabag in you couldn't tell the difference. Not that they had that long to live. The bite mark on Louis arm throbbed, swollen, hot and tender to the touch. He'd kept it clean but... they'd both seen those old movies.

"he left us a book, i hate books you can have it." Francis opened his MRE and shoved "The US Army Survival Guide" across the table to Louis then peered into his MRE. "Scrambled eggs, not horrible, not like granola, I hate that too you know. But if you like it you can have it."

"Why the hell are you so talkative anyway?" Louis was going to miss Randy. He was kind and smart. They were all in the same boat, bitten and waiting to die but not willing to surrender. Not to a fucking flu. Not now.

"I hate being alone." Francis admitted sheepishly. "My buddies all died the first night! Hell my girlfriend is the one that bit me! See? We were making out and everything and I didn't see her turn in the dark and then she bites me!" He pulled aside his collar to show Louis his bite mark. It was almost as angry looking as his.

"Old lady from my office." Louis opened his can of cold coffee and sipped it slowly, a dark look on his face. "I thought about jumping. I really did. I got bit I've seen the old movies. I know that means you turn but... anyway... I won't leave. I got nowhere to go." He could still feel the wind in his face, the terror and exhilaration. Die now or die later? Die now or die later? It pounded in his ears until Louis thought /STOP IT!/ "i thought i was a coward for sticking around." He'd tried so hard to stay positive about the outbreak, till it banged down his door and bite him on the proverbial butt. His nice, ordinary quiet life, work, video games, pistol range. He was even going to enter shooting competitions next year if all went well.

"you aren't, people who kill themselves after getting bit aren't normal and aren't fair to expect us to do the same. although I didn't think about dying when I realized why Sandra bit me. Honestly I thought if we were gonna get overrun why not have one last swingin party. Then when I got tired of hearing the same four songs over and over I went out to loot the local hipster shop for more vinyl and I found Randy!" Francis was plucking chunks of egg from the MRE and popping them in his mouth like popcorn.

Louis just kinda, played with his food, taking a few bites. He still hated himself. He was weak and skinny and slow. He didn't look like much. He didn't feel like much. Louis looked down at the note again. "hey i didn't even realize he wrote us each a note. 'Louis, keep calm and carry on, night never lasts and the sun's warmth will ease your mind, just keep the positive brain juices flowing and keep your head. Francis don't look for people like you when hunting for teammates, look for someone irl you would never talk to, and keep on hating zombies, you two will do just fine.' Well... ma always said look on the bright side, seems like good advice for me... stay positive.. Hey Francis what other goodies did Randy leave us?"

"eh, lets see..." Francis poured the bag out onto the table. "Heeey an anarchist's cookbook too! You keep the survival guide i want this baby. With all this liquer we shouldn't run out of molotovs but i wonder if i can use this to make them worse."

There were a couple of metal mylarized blankets, two signal whistles, a couple TF2 promo tins full of hardware and sewing stuff, duct tape, a heavy canvas tarp and some 550 paracord rope, two hunting knives, plus the tin of sewing stuff had a booklet teaching people how to sew, some cheap rain ponchos so they could stay dry, hand warmers, vasoline, cotton balls, and what was... "The kama sutra? seriously, what did he think we could do with this?" Louis treated the small blue volume like it was going to bite him.

"Duuuudeee! He left us condoms and tingle lube! I love tingle lube!" When francis said he loved something it never boded well. They'd only known each other three days and Louis learned that by the end of day one. Francis snatched the Kama sutra out of Louis' hands. "oooh the congress of the crow, Sandra loved that one. I could make her come so hard! You could hear the screaming two apartments over! Six nine doesn't sound like a poetic name I like the other one better even though I hate crows too, and elevators, and doctors and lawyers and cops... but six nines are awesome even if the name is too much like doctor speak."

"JUST BECAUSE HE LEFT US CONDOMS DOESN'T MEAN WE HAVE TO USE THEM ON EACH OTHER!" Louis felt his face burning like a molotov cocktail at how forward Francis was.

"No you're right, we're all gonna die who cares about condoms? And by the way, you're the one who said something about using them on each other, I didn't bring that up." Francis looked so god damn happy at the prospect of getting laid. The hungry look on his face as he eyed Louis' figure, it made Louis nervous.

It made Louis nervous not because of how Francis physically appeared or the look in his eyes but rather how appealing the idea was. He could still hear echoes in his head of his fellow gamers laughing at him. The number of times someone insulted him with "suck my dick!" when Louis lost, and he'd heard other gamers use all kinds of homophobic slurs as insults towards the losing side, even his own teammates. As appealing as Francis seemed, Louis was having trouble bringing himself to the point where he could go for what he knew he was going to want. "See? your pants even agree with me!"

Louis simultaneously turned red around the ears and paled when he realized his undealt with... proclivities... towards the occasional man were betraying him. He had issues, people used the phrase "that's gay" like it was a bad thing. And it had stuck in his mind once too often. One of the many reasons why occasionally, the normally cheery man was prone to self consciousness.

"Just... just..." Louis felt paralyzed with indecision and shock at Francis' forwardness. It wasn't proper, it wasn't polite! And here he was with a visible hardon in his good office pants. "And you seem like the last person who'd start this... shit..."

"hey i don't discrimenate, sex is sex and sex is good! its the one thing nobody in the world should ever hate!" Francis was leaning closer, and Louis couldn't bring himself to push him away. The world was ending, they were alone, old insults and standards and social divisions didn't matter. Black and white didn't exist, and for him, soon, nothing would exist. As their lips met, Louis saw Randy's equation on the wall, showing how small the odds of three people in one 20 mile area getting a dry zombie bite, a bite where the virus didn't transmit, really were. Odds were astronomically more likely that in a day or two Louis would turn into a zombie. And the thought of dying alone scared him.

Their lips met, and Louis finally surrendered to the human need for physical contact. He wrapped his arms around Francis' neck and tentatively slipped his tongue into Francis' mouth. Francis' enthusiasm nearly resulted in the both of them falling off the barstool and onto the floor. Then he realized that Louis was going more slowly. He felt the man's pulse quickening, but also the sorrow in how he held himself. Francis shoved the lubricant into his belt, grabbed a couple spare towels and a table cloth from the kitchen, and carried Louis up the stairs to the roof of the bar. Francis then spread the table cloth out on the roof, put the folded towels down for them to put their heads on, and started unbuckling his belt. Louis looked around him, quite startled at how exposed they were. But then Francis pulled off his underwear and reached for Louis' belt. "C'mere sexy." He purred admiringly.

Louis didn't take his lips off Francis' the entire time the biker was unbuckling his pants. Then the offending garments were gently tossed away and Francis was unbuckling his shirt, heaping his own shirt and vest in a pile. The morning autumn sun was warm. Louis spread himself out on the table cloth and Francis started kissing his way lower, before taking the tip of Louis' member into his mouth and slowly, languidly pulling the rest in. Louis moaned and arched his hips, but Francis moved with him, hollowing his cheeks to strengthen the effect. The Biker reached up and pulled Louis hands over to rest on the top of his head and Louis gripped the stubble firmly and moaned again. Francis began to use his thumbs to knead first the hollows of Louis hips and then around to the back to his buttocks. Louis felt Francis' slickened fingers slip inside him a moment after that.

"Now relax... it'll hurt if you don't..."

"Swear to god this never crossed my mind to do this in my life." Louis gasped, it pinched a bit, but the lubricant felt good. He took a deep breath, drawing oxygen deep into his lungs and some how just that simple act made him feel better, feel sexier... feel stronger.

"Not me... I don't care what kind of parts I'm fucking I just want to get laid. I hate being alone." Francis purred into Louis' neck. The fingers inside of him scissored slowly, stretching him out. There was that saying about big hands, and it crossed Louis' mind for a moment. And then those large questing fingers were gone. Louis wrapped his arms around Francis' neck. Francis rested his forehead against Louis'. "G'won, you set the pace."

Louis kissed Francis deeply to distract himself from what he was about to do, and slowly lowered himself onto the biker's erection. He knew to be careful, it was possible to hurt yourself doing this. When Francis was fully settled inside him, Louis thrust experimentally down on the intrusion, his breath coming heavy. He felt as though something was gnawing at his chest and lower abdomen, primal and demanding. He thrust down again, using Francis' shoulders as leverage. Each one got a little easier and felt a bit more pleasurable. Francis' pupils were dialated with lust, the taller man reaching his body forwards in an arch so that he could put his face on level with Louis'. He rocked a bit into the thinner man's thrusts, mostly focusing on the dance of lips and tongue.

And then Francis' member brushed a spot inside of Louis that had him howling in pleasure. Remembering the right angle, Louis caught his breath a moment and started thrusting again, bringing Francis up against that one little spot. Louis' vision swum with pleasure, he was so close... so... again Louis howled Francis' name to the open morning sky and his body arched backwards as he came. Francis' eyes drifted closed as the biker gasped out Louis' name and released his own burden, guiding them down to lay on their side on the rooftop. Louis sped up for a few moments, his thrusting erattic as he tried to hang onto the feeling of ecstasy. As they came down from their pleasure, Francis stroked Louis back and head languidly, resting their foreheads together. Louis fell into the deepest most blissful sleep he'd had in a long time. Francis lay awake a while, so happy to have company in a city that seemed completely empty. He dozed off for awhile but was woken up by a voice...

"Hello? anyone there? My friend needs help!"

Francis groaned, not even realizing he'd fallen asleep. The woman's voice sounded young.

"Please, let us in. We don't want to hurt you he just needs something for his wounds!"

"What is it?" Louis blinked awake, still a bit groggy.

"Another person..." Francis stretched, his back and shoulders cracking. he pulled on his jeans, Louis grabbed his khakis and started fumbling to get them on. Francis realized he had a bunch of hickies rising on his neck, so he threw his t-shirt and vest over his shoulder on that side, buttoned up his jeans and went to the edge of the roof.

"yeah?"

The woman down below was supporting her elderly companion. He held an M16 in the hand not gripping her shoulder for support. His chest was covered in blood but Francis could make out a vietnam war veteran patch on his jacket shoulder. "Please let us in, my friend needs help." The woman repeated.

"Uh sure, sorry you kinda woke us up in here. uh, you saw the sign right?"

"I'm a good shot with a pistol I'll take my chances, and him well... you should have seen the zombie that did this to him, hoodie and duct tape and it moved like a flash! I barely got a good look at it. I slammed him with everything I have and he rolled away and took off like a shot. But so far Bill here's been a good luck charm." The woman shivered in fear. "I think we might actually have good odds at surviving this, but that creature. I felt like I was being watched earlier and I'm worried it might be stalking us."

"greaaaat, so now we have to worry about freakin werewolves." Francis grumbled as he untied the rope holding the door to the bar locked. There was the clanking of metal pullies and gears. Louis blushed furiously as he realized the 'evidence' of what they'd been doing was out on the roof in plain view. And it seemed like there wouldn't be any more sex in the sun for a long time either if what the woman said was true. Superspeed zombies in hoodies? It did seem farfetched. But then again zombies were far fetched in the first place. Randy had called it a 'non standard outcome' polite for "we thought it was impossible now we're fucked.' Louis quickly balled up the table cloth, slung one of the towels over his hickies, and then shoved the damn thing behind an air conditioning vent. Francis was already downstairs, grabbing an extra cushion from one of the booths and using it to give the bloodied man's back something soft to rest on.

The woman didn't look like much, young college age, long brown hair, pink tracksuit. Louis opened one of the emergency health kits, soaked a clean rag with some vodka from the bar and started carefully cleaning the old man's wounds. "I'm Louis, you guys?"

"Bill." The grizzled old man hissed as the disinfectant began to work.

"I'm Zoey." The woman grinned, offering a hand to Louis to shake.

"And I'm Francis! Welcome to bite club where we pass the time waiting to turn into zombies, by killing zombies! First rule of bite club is..."

Zoey laughed. "Don't talk about Bite club!" She grinned toothily up at him.

"hey you're sharp, then what's the second rule of bite club?" Francis asked with a shit eating grin on his face.

"Don't talk about bite club SIR!" Zoey laughed, giving Francis a mock salute.

"Heeeeeey now, you'll do alright kiddo!" Francis touseled Zoey's hair happily. "Louis how's it looking?"

"Are you sure it was a zombie that did this? This looks like claws, and the wounds are pretty deep. Not too bad I hope but pretty deep." Louis carefully kept cleaning the gashes.

"his eyes were fucking bleeding under the hood and he had duct tape on his sleeves. I'm telling you, that was no wild animal that was one of THEM." Bill insisted. "Any smokes around while you clean me up? I'm pretty fond of Romeros. I'll trade ya." The man placed a palm sized very well oiled and sharpened folding pocket knife on the table. "Its not a KBar and its not big but it cuts sharper than a lot of pocket knives I've had and it will dress small animals and punch holes in tin cans."

Francis fished a pack of cigarettes out of a box. "you're in luck, the distributer came in the day before the infection hit. This bar's a favorite of mine." Francis cheerfully rattled the pack so Bill could hear it was full. He checked how sharp it was, pricking his finger experimentally on it to see. "Heeey... its small but fierce. Ok mister Bill you got yourself a deal!" They shook on the trade and talk turned to sharing observations about the zombies. Louis and Francis were agape at Bills' description of how he'd been initially bitten. Zoey wouldn't say anything though. She didn't seem to have any bites and didn't want to talk about it.

A day turned into two, and then three. Louis moved his bedroll back into the kitchen for a little bit of privacy and when the other two were asleep Francis would meet him there. "We're not changing are we?" Louis asked one night as their pulse and sweat cooled and the two men basked in a post coitus glow. "We did get bit on the same day right?"

"I think you got bit the day before me but I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. And Bill got it before either of us."

"Why aren't we changing... you saw Randy's equations, could he be... wrong?"

"I dunno, we can't stay this far north forever though. Winter without heat? We'd suffocate ourselves if we couldn't ventilate the bar properly, this place could get really smelly in winter."

"How long has it been? Since we were bitten... since it started... I can't remember."

Francis thought for a moment, drumming his fingers on the Louis' leg to count. "Almost two weeks since the first reports I think..."

"Almost two weeks since first infection." Louis muttered as he fell asleep.