A House, not a Home

A safe house was one of the only places that could guarantee you that for at least a while, nothing inhuman could get at you. Even if those tank brutes were to throw themselves against the door, the only thing that would happen is that the place would rumble and you could kill it from inside before he could damage anything any further. Spitters and smokers were really the only thing that you would have to worry about if they managed to get their goo inside or their tongues wrapped about you through the shooting grills and even then, simply shut it when you get into the room.

Sounds simple enough, right? No idiot could get that wrong.

Then again, there were idiots in the world.

The Southern hick was the last one to stumble into the safe house that morning. They had been running and fighting off zombies all night and they had taken a beating that would not be soon forgotten. He hitched the lock on the door and barred it with a desk before shooting off any stragglers that may have followed the group. A tongue shot out through the grill and wrapped itself around his neck and he knew that he had seconds to shoot the tongue before it would be too tightly wound around his throat and he would be pulled against the door, giving him no room to fight back. He aimed his shotgun at the tongue but it was too late. His eyes were already rolling to the back of his head and he could feel himself going limp. "Overalls!" Nick's voice seared through the darkness and he was suddenly on the ground, panting for breath. His vision slowly returned to him as he wrung his hand around his throat, Rochelle ripping off the tongue from his throat as Nick shot at everything he could from the small room, yelling as he did so. "Sonnova bitch! That thing near did me in!" He managed to gasp out, Coach letting out a snort as he rested his back against the wall and let Nick have at the last zombie, slamming the grill shut and turning to Ellis. "Watch yourself, you damn hick! You want to die!"

"Hey, hey, watch yerself, you nearly got yerself killed by them witch-bitches. Who saved yer ass there? Yer welcome."

It was true that Ellis was the one that pried off and killed the witch when Nick had startled it accidentally. They were in the pitch darkness and their flashlights had become useless after falling into a sewer. They had heard the witch somewhere but agreed to move away from the sound slowly. However, Nick's flashlight had randomly gone off and shone right in the face of the witch. Out of pure instinct, he shot at her and that was what set her off. She let out her horrible screech and jumped the con-man to the ground.

It was Ellis who had reacted first and, following the example of a charger, used his shoulder and rushed at her. As soon as he made contact with her, she flew off him and hit the ground. That gave Ellis enough time to crown her with his shotgun and scoop up the older man and shove him up the ladder.

The young man's eyes fell upon the slash wounds on his abdomen as the con-man slid to the ground and held onto them, his shoulders heaving with trial. "C'mon, now, why dontcha heal up? Need me t'do it?"

"No, I don't need your goddamn help. Just throw me a kit and some pills." Ellis rolled his eyes and yanked his kit off his back and picked up pills from a shelf and threw them at his wounded friend with a crooked grin. "There ya go, princess."

"Shut up, Aylus."

Once more, the hick rolled his eyes and bit his tongue. He didn't want to argue with an injured man, no matter how much of an ass he was. "Ah suppose we're even now. Yeh saved my life an' I saved yers."

"I saved your ass more than once today, kid! Remember that hunter? And then that boomer spit that got you a million and one zombies to come and attack your ass?"

Ellis raised a finger to Nick and was about to protest but Coach had stopped them.

"Would you cut it out? I'm sick and tired of hearing you two morons fighting! Now heal yourselves up and we're sleeping here tonight. I hope you have no objections about actual sleep tonight?

" Everyone went silent, Rochelle holding a hand up to her mouth as she muffled laughter. She couldn't take Coach seriously when he was riled up as he was out of frustration. He was only irritated because his knee had been giving him problems and had to rely on the others to make kills for him. His reputation had been going down the drain. Rochelle, on the other hand, had managed to successfully sport a huge bruised cheek from a tank throwing concrete and barely missing her.

Yet again, it was Ellis and Nick who had managed to take down the beast in a surprising feat of syngergy. She was impressed for only a moment until they began to get attacked by commons and could do nothing about it if it meant taking down a tank. She and Coach had suddenly remembered the guns in their hands and shot at the commons attacking their friends, hoping there would be no stray bullets.

Nick grunted as he pressed a gauze against his abdomen and winced when he poured alcohol over it, as if somehow trying to muffle the pain but it didn't actually work.

"Here, let me have a look at it, honey."

Rochelle almost laughed once more as she moved over to Nick and began dressing his wound. Ellis gave an almost satisfied snort and wandered over to a barrel and opened it up, finding empty cans of beans inside.

"Shoot, someone done come here before us and ate everything! Sonnova bitch!" He kicked the barrel as his stomach grumbled.

"Just be glad we have a place for the night." Coach reminded him, earning a scoff. "There ain't even no kits 'ere! Damn it all! I'm starvin'! We ain't had nuthin' t'eat since…since…"

"I agree with Overalls."

Nick finally spoke through the grunts as Rochelle tightly wound his torso. "We've had nothing to eat for four days now. But whining doesn't solve anything. If there's nothing, there's nothing. We can stop by some houses after and see if we can find anything."

"Houses? Have yew seen houses in a while? We've been marchin' through this shit swamp fer a long time now an' we ain't even on the map no more! Stew'pid. An' with this rain, we can't travel fast. I'm starvin'!"

He repeated himself as he searched the barrel once more in vain. His Southern drawl became even longer and it was a sign that he was exhausted. Nick picked up on it right away. The kid had tried playing the hero the night before in attempt to keep the spirits up by shouting out different puns at each monster. "Ain't you ever been to a doctor?" "Grandmaw?" "Shoot, last time I saw someone that big was at my family reunion when Aunt Marleen brought over sixteen apple pies! Damn, that was good. Ain't nobody could move after that!" (He had been referencing a Boomer they had come across) "Now ain't this a surprise, Ma! Uncle Larry came over for a visit!

" They knew that Ellis had a strange way of trying to get people to laugh, but Zombie-relative jokes at this point in time seemed more painful than funny. Somehow, it seemed as if he tried to fill a sort of void by remembering all the good times he had and trying to treasure them in the only way he could.

"I'm going to sleep. Wake me if you need anything." Coach spoke up finally, stretching out on the ground and quickly falling asleep. Rochelle gave a nod and stood up, looking around and shrugging.

"No med kits here either, so I'll keep mine for now. You okay without one Ellis, right?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Haven't got a scratch on me!"

He grinned from ear to ear at her worry. He had just given his kit to Nick without a second thought, taking for granted that there would be a kit waiting for him in the safe house, but for the first time, there wasn't one.

It was no big deal, though. He hadn't been too hurt and Nick needed it more than him anyways.

A wave of guilt suddenly washed over Nick. He had left a boy without the means to healing himself and without pills or a shot to boot. The pill bottle he had been tossed earlier had been left with only five pills, three of which Nick had just swallowed to numb the pain. If anything, he thought, he could heal the boy when he needed. Have another 'IOU's on top of his head over everything. But that still didn't settle him. The hick's face kept grinning at Nick until he finally grew irritated once more.

"What's wrong, your face stuck?"

"No, yeh just reminded me about a time I was with Keith at a rodeo competition. Hoooo-ee he dared me to sign up as dem clowns that distract the bull. Well, as it turns out, it ain't that easy. You need actual training as if it were there hard. One of dem professional careers, y'know? Well, anyways, I managed to get me a suit at the party store and dressed up like one o'em. Well, there was this one bull called Billy, hoo-ee he ain't like nobody ridin' him! An' when he bucked off him rider, ah was sent to distract the bull. You can only imagine how many stitches I got in my side." Ellis finished his story for once and realized why—Nick had fallen asleep on him and Rochelle had gone to find extra blankets. He gave a sigh and began fiddling with the safety on his shot gun.

Safe, unsafe, lock, unlock, open, close.

"Why don't you sleep, sugar?"

"I innit even tired. Ah'll keep first watch in case them spitter dudes come a'spittin' alright?" Rochelle placed a hand on her hip as she threw him a blanket, not believing him. "We're as safe as we can be here. At least take a nap."

"Naw, heck, did ah ever tell you 'bout the time me n' Keith stayed up for nearly a week straight! Well, sorta, but we used dem toothpicks to hold open our eyelids. Whoo-hoo-hoo doc was pullin' splinters out for a week!"

He laughed as he sat with his back against the wall now, his knees in the air and arms laid over them, his shot gun nestled in between his thighs. "An' did ah ever tell ya 'bout the time Keith-"

"Good night, Ellis. Thanks for keeping watch." Rochelle cut him off, not really wanting to hear another one of his stories how he and his friend Keith ended up in the hospital. She collapsed in a heap in the corner of the room and sighed, closing her eyes and soon enough, falling asleep.

Ellis once again, toyed with the safety. The smile faded from his lips as his mind began wandering to things he hadn't thought about in a while. His Ma and Keith. Not just in some of his stories, but really thought about them. Where were they? Had they become infected? Did CEDA whisk them away? Were they stationed at an evac station? Did they even manage to stick it out at a safe house? Were they hungry as him?

Shoot, his Ma would have a fit if she knew that he was starving. He let out a small chuckle and picked up his hat with one hand and ran it through his tousle of hair. 'Man I miss Ma's cobbler…' He thought to himself, closing his eyes and thinking of all the different foods he used to eat. His grin never disappeared as he held onto a bruised rib and scratched an itch around it. His eyes weighed heavily on his lids until he shook off the sleepiness and looked over at Nick breathing heavily. His wounds had really gotten to him and he knew that it was because he hadn't reacted fast enough. It was all a mistake. Ellis looked around the safe room and saw that there was absolutely nothing left worth taking.

Flip open, closed, open closed. Open—

And then he heard it. The none-too-familiar sound of a spitter.

He grinned and realized that he could stop thinking about things that made him hungry and take out his stomach's emptiness on the Spitter. He pried open the grill and just as he was about to pull away, acid hit his forearm and shoulder. He let out a surprised yell and turned back to see that the others began to wake up. Without thinking, he yanked open the door and pointed his shotgun at the spitter and released the single bullet he needed to kill her into her head.

His nerves began screaming in protest now as the acid burned at his skin. He tried wiping it off onto his pants but stopped mid-brush when the wail in the air signaled something he was afraid of—zombie attack.

Ellis gripped onto his gun once more and began backing away into the shelter, eyes wandering around feverishly to try and find the direction of the horde. One eye closed in pain as he went to try and conceal his corroded arm but stopped, knowing that he needed two hands to use a gun. The acid had stopped eating away at him, but he knew that the damage had been done. His right arm was damaged and it pained him with every muscle he moved in it. It seemed as if he had muscles he didn't know he had. He backed all the way into the shelter door and slowly made a grab for the handle, wanting to silently slip in and attack from the grill there.

Just one turn of the handle and—

He was pushed to the ground and something began attacking his frontside. He let out a yell and shot off his gun into the hunter that had managed to ambush him from the top of the building. He shot at it like a maniac until it slumped on top of him, a horde of commons descending upon him and slicing away at him. He had drawn out his emergency pistol and shot at the zombies surrounding him but the damage they were doing was still the same.

It wasn't until a torrent of bullets hailed upon the horde that had cornered him did he finally manage to stumble onto his feet, clutching onto his gashes and looking at the shelter to see an AK47 firing off round after round into the group of undead. He stumbled backwards a bit and tried to better compose himself and firing off his gun once more.

"Tank!"

Ellis heard Rochelle's voice now, the door swinging open as she charged out with a launcher, pointing it at the Tank that ran directly towards the shelter. She let it go off as Coach, the one who had shot off the AK, released more rounds into it.

Ellis saw that the tank wasn't slowing its assault. His mind raced and he realized that the sweet and caring girl was going to get pummeled if she didn't move out of the way.

On pure instinct, he raced over to her (or rather, limped as fast as he could), and with his good arm, yanked her towards him and out of harm's way. In surprise, she dropped the launcher and her last view before blacking out was of Ellis being shoved up against the wall and Coach still shooting at the beast, Nick throwing his pipe-bomb at the horde before focusing his attention to the tank. With a grim smile, she blacked out knowing that Ellis would owe another favor to Nick.

Ellis on the other hand, was yelling in both pain and fear as the Tank pummeled him over and over again until he could no longer breathe properly.

The grasp around him was suddenly released as it keeled over—dead. Coach had picked up Rochelle's launcher and released it into its back, killing it instantly. Ellis coughed and once again, began to stand up woozily, falling backwards onto the wall.

Coach had run to collect the fallen woman on the ground, Ellis covering him as he did so. His mind was in overdrive as another horde descended upon them, and he knew that they'd attack the door until they killed them, or they got killed. There was no competition on what he chose to do.

He brought his shotgun up once more, his arm trembling as he did, and went to fire but head a dull 'click' instead. Ice frosted his veins as he tried shooting the gun a few more times in vain. He had run out of bullets.

"Christ in a hand basket, when did that happen!"

He cursed silently to himself, using the butt of the gun to shove off a zombie in a feeble attempt to protect himself but his strength had been sapped from him.

"Get in here already!"

Two hands grabbed onto his shoulders and roughly pulled him inside the room, the door slamming shut and Coach had once again, gone at the zombies from the safe zone from the grill. Ellis lay writhing on the ground now, Nick going over his wounds but not quite sure on how to deal with it. Rochelle was usually the one with the healing hands.

"Where are you hurt!"

"Goddammit, everywhere, man!"

Ellis didn't know if Nick was making a joke or actually that stupid and he ctually hoped for once that he was stupid. A joke would have seemed worse than not knowing the evident.

Instantly, Nick remembered the two pills and shoved them down Ellis' throat. He looked around for another med kit and remembered that there were none left—except the one Rochelle wore. His entire body, completely on guard from what, he didn't know, turned to the unconscious form of Rochelle to see that her med kit had fallen during the scuffle and was no longer on her back.

He rushed to the window and pushed Coach aside to see that it was some thirty feet away and being admired by a hunter. It was then he realized his own disability once more.

His wounds had re-opened and blood had begun to seep through his shirt. He grasped at it and winced as he hissed in pain. Coach turned to him, and in one movement, pushed him down and away from the door. He understood what he wanted. In the fasted sprint he had, Coach had managed to run to the med kit, tear it away from the hunter, and make it back in time for Nick to fire a shot at the Hunter and kill him in one go.

Coach shut the door just in time to avoid the onslaught of Zombies. He reached for his Molotov and opened the door once more, throwing it out and barring everything. His attention was now focused inside, Rochelle slowly coming around.

"Easy now, Ro, easy."

She groaned and sat up, shaking her head a bit. With a gasp, she jolted to her feet and looked around. "Ellis! Where's…oh no…Nick!" Rochelle saw one wounded man trying to heal the other and immediately felt a sense of guilt and fear. She scrambled over to Nick to try and assess his wounds but he quickly pushed her away.

"Dammit, woman, help Overalls!" He pushed her away in a slight fit of rage and she began to tend to Ellis with the med kit Coach had given Nick. The boy had managed to muffle his pain now, biting hard into his bottom lip and letting Rochelle wrap his wounds and stitch them shut.

"I'd give you more first aid, but this is all I got…I need to help Nick too…"

She seemed to be on the verge of tears and could barely finish her sentences right.

"This is not happening…this is not happening…"

"Just calm down and fix the damn boy!" Nick yelled, trying to fix the situation but only adding to the calamity. It was only when Coach's firing stopped did she realize that they weren't in danger anymore.

But Ellis was.

He had been slipping in and out of consciousness, muttering half-sayings about his Ma or Keith or some dare in desperate attempt to stay awake but it never worked for more than a few minutes at a time if he were lucky.
"Go on, sweetheart, tell me about Keith again."

Rochelle tried to keep him awake and with her but she could feel heat rise to her cheeks not out of embarrassment, but frustration and sadness. Were they going to lose their companion?

"Did I ever tell yew 'bout the time…me 'n Keith stole a couple a' beers from the brewery…"

He began slowly through clenched teeth. The pain was like nothing he'd ever felt before. They always avoided spit-shit and none really knew how it felt like except for maybe losing a sneaker or two when trampling over it.

But skin contact was a different thing. The hunter had done his fair share, that was for sure, and the Tank bruised him on top of it, but it was the acid that really did him in.

"Keep going, honey."

Rochelle's voice registered in his mind but the acid screamed louder. Darkness eclipsed his vision and he could feel the coolness of a ceramic plate pressing against his skin around the burns. "Feel good?"

Nick's voice. He sounded concerned. Not something Ellis was used to. Or anyone. The guy was good enough deep, deep, deep down inside, but it was different when he showed it.

"Continue the story, baby." Rochelle once again. Damn, she wasn't as pretty as Zoey, but as another living and breathing human female who wasn't infected, she was the next best thing to beautiful.

"I dun' remember what happened…" He lied, his chest heaving with pain as she gently moved about his wounds.

"'Cept it was dark for a few days…"

"No, no, it wasn't dark. Come on, what happened?"

Coach's voice piped in as he began re-patching Nick. Ellis turned his head to the side and saw that his cap had fallen unceremoniously beside him. He was tired. Too tired to care about his prized hat. His chest heaved a few times as he groaned and turned his body a bit, the others beginning to freak out as he held onto his side and remained there.

"Hold still!"

"Dammit Overalls, why the hell are you moving!" He knew that he couldn't sleep. If he succumbed to the darkness, he would more than likely die.

"I ain't…dying here…"

He tried pushing himself up but stopped when Nick dove after him and pinned him to the ground, Rochelle giving a gasp and trying to contain her tears.

"Dammit, Nick, you're bleeding everywhere! Stop moving!"

"Keep Overalls from moving! Damn hick, look at all the blood you've lost!"

Ellis's eyes looked under him and saw that a puddle of blood had formed quite nicely under him. He gave a small chuckle and reached out to grab Nick's white suit, tugging it slightly with his usual cocky smile. "Lookit yew...nice time t'be wearing a white suit…migh' as well be a red suit now."

He would have made another remark about it but Ellis had stopped moving all together and his hand fell, his eyes closing. "ELLIS!" Nick screamed out his name.

AN: I kinda wrote this a while ago on one huge document, soooo it may not fall together nicely like my other stories but I will have enough chapters updated so that it will make sense. Then I'll update it like I would to a normal story I post online.