Author's Note: This being a Walking Dead fiction, it is going to be gory, foul lipped and on the darker side of humanity. The world is not peaches and cream. People are saintly because they can be. With the end in sight, wolves emerge in sheep. I should also tell you that this is a scene piece. Meaning I plotted everything, wrote strong scenes, and then pieced them together. Much like the Walking Dead, you're not going to "see" a lot of down time. I don't feel the need to tell you that my characters brushed their teeth.
Walking Dead: The Truth About Humanity
Lesson One: Humanity Isn't Trustworthy...
Day 0 - 0347
It was dark in the dorm when Ashlyn finally pushed herself away from the little desk and collapsed into bed. She'd been up most of the day in the department, seeing patients and finishing charts, but when she'd finally finished, Boards studying was waiting for her.
She sank down into the mattress, sighing with a happy little sound before letting her eyes slide shut. The glow of the alarm clock next to her had been discouraging as it blinked at her, but any sleep was good sleep.
"Raleigh!" A harsh bark startled her from her drowsing. "Shit hit the fan. Get downstairs." She shook herself, staring at the alarm clock that told her she'd had less than two hours of sleep.
There were downsides to being a doctor, and the hell that came with becoming one was at the top of her list. Raleigh swore under her breath and tugged on tennis shoes. She hadn't bothered to take her scrubs off from the night before.
She poked her head out the door, watching the different level residents from different departments scuttle off to their floors, sleep in their eyes and a heaviness to their shoulders. "Hey." She snatched the arm of one of the younger ones, taking the tone she'd grown to use with her own lower levels. "What the fuck is going on?" She asked, glancing at his name tag. Neurology, great. She thought as the boy babbled a moment before she waved him off.
It didn't take long for her to slip into the dungeon like Emergency Department and find her Department Chair, iron haired and grim faced, barking orders and making demands. Her co-chief was across the room, doing the same and giving CPR to a little boy on a cot.
She ignored the blonde man doing compressions and slid between bustling nurses to their Department Chief. The grey haired Hungarian was making demands as he held a stethoscope to the chew of a woman who was gnashing her teeth and lunging against restraints.
As Ashlyn approached the man's face paled and he turned and muttered something to the nurse. A man started screaming on the other side of the department, and above the clamor, Ashlyn could just hear their most grizzled nurse shouting. "Sit the fuck down and chill. You think this is a fucking Burger King?" Ashlyn chuckled.
"Raleigh." The iron haired man said, clapping her on the shoulder. "We've got problems." He gestured around them, where people were sitting in rooms, on hall beds, and on the floor.
"What it is, George?" She asked. None of them looked remarkably ill. Flu maybe, she thought.
"Fever." George said simply, shaking his head. "More fucking fever than I've ever seen." A harsh ringing peel broke the air between them, and he tugged a phone from his pocket, speaking in quick Hungarian. "My fucking mother. I swear, the woman's survived four wars and you'd think she'd never seen a disaster-"
"Hevesy!" Ashlyn said his name forcefully. "What is the plan?"
He considered her a moment, nodding absently. "That's why we accepted you, Raleigh." He said finally, and pointed out the triage areas they'd set up. Ashlyn glanced over to her blonde co-Chief, who was managing the other end of the ED. Ashlyn ignored him and walked in the opposite direction. There were things to be done.
Day 13 0800
The room was dark except for several large computer screens that had been brought in. On them, images sat, scans and readings, data upon data. George Hevesy sat in front with the other department heads, all looking at the scans in silence. Finally, a short dark skinned man sat back in his chair, steepled his hands in front of him, and in a clipped accent spoke. "I am not impressed." He said, as if the words were rehearsed.
"You're not impressed." Ashlyn repeated from the middle of the huddled group. "You're not impressed?" She asked this time, voice taking on a condescending tone. "How can you not be fucking impressed?" She asked, but before she could cross the distance, her elbow was jerked back, and she found herself thrown from the room, the door slamming behind her blonde co-Chief as he followed her out.
"Raleigh, this isn't helping." He said, voice hard. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It had been a long day.
"Helping!" She cried, coming to her feet and getting in his face. "The dead are walking and chewing on people, Rogers. I'd love it if they were fucking impressed!" She yelled the last sentence, anger bubbling in her stomach.
"I know. I get it." He said, voice softer this time. Ashlyn looked at him, confused by the change in him. She'd seen him like that before, she knew that, but it had been years. "I get it, but we have to work together if we're going to figure this out." He laid a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
"We don't have time for them to pussy foot around this, Rogers." Ashlyn said, shaking off his hand. "We've got twenty-four hours before they sweep through here and kill everything."
"I know, but we've got to keep this organized." He sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. "Just, just let Hevesy deal with them, we've got to get more data." Ashlyn nodded and let herself be calmed.
"You're lucky your fucking good at this, Kevin." Ashlyn said, using his first name for the first time in years. The blonde nodded and let her leave. He watched her go, half a smile on his face. It was good talking to her again, he decided. It was a shame it took the end of the world.
Day 14 - 0600
George Hevesy stood in front of his team. It had shrunk considerably over the two weeks since the first Wildfire patients had come into his emergency department sweating and feverish. He sighed and rubbed at his shoulder. It wouldn't be long, he knew.
"There've been rumors." He said, voice strong and firm, just as it had always been. "There have been rumors that the military issued a decontamination time." He said again. "These rumors state that that time is in two hours, and these rumors-" He paused, drawing on strength he'd needed when he was a child, escaping from the Hungarian Revolution with his mother. "These rumors are true."
A hushed whisper set in amongst the nurses and younger residents. Some stood with confused eyes, others with wide astonishment. All were frightened. "You're going to go home. You're going to pack your families, and you are going to run." He said simply, ignoring the ache in his shoulder and the way sweat dripped down his neck.
"Dr. Hevesy, what's going to happen?" One of the younger residents asked, voice scared. Ashlyn stood at the back, leaning against the wall, fatigue aching in all of her bones. Kevin Rogers stood next to her, leaning against the same wall. They'd known, of course. There had been discussions on when to evacuate. Discussions about who would stay if George hadn't done what he was doing now. Ashlyn and Kevin had disagreed on many things in the past three years of their residency, but following George Hevesy into hell wasn't one of them. They would do it, simply and without question, until their deaths if that was what he asked.
"I don't know." He said, answering the younger resident. "But you're going to man the fuck up and deal with it." He was firm, probably course, but both Chiefs smiled at the words. How many times had they heard that in their careers? "Go now." He said and turned away to sit down heavily on a chair. There was chaos as they all fled through the wide double doors. No one thought to collect the remaining medical supplies in their fear.
Ashlyn and Kevin still leaned against the wall, watching as their department lead sat down heavily, rubbing a handkerchief over his face. "George?" Kevin asked, crossing the room more quickly than Ashlyn. The big Hungarian simply smiled up at the two of them.
"I hired you both. It was my decision, you know." He said after a moment, his eyes slightly glassy. "I did it because I saw in both of you the capacity to do not what is right, but what is necessary. Sometimes," he drew a ragged breath. "Sometimes we must do what is necessary."
"You're not well." Ashlyn said, voice soft and understanding. The man simply looked at her with a shake of his head. "When?" She asked.
"This morning. My mother." He stopped speaking and pulled the arm of his scrub top up, revealing the perfect indentation of dentures in his flesh. "I should have taken her dentures out when she passed."
"What are we going to do?" Kevin asked, mimicking the resident from earlier.
"You two are going to take any supplies you can carry, get those who you cannot live without, and hide. The woods, somewhere without people." George said firmly, standing and pushing firmly on Kevin's shoulder. Both ignored the fact that George hadn't said what he was going to do. The three of them compiled the last of the stocks down to three duffle bags.
George sat down heavily again, drawing something dull and black from his pocket. Neither of the young residents wanted to acknowledge what it was as he pressed it to his forehead, between his eyes. "During the revolution," George said, as if he was telling a story. "During the revolution, I kept a pistol with two shots." He pulled the hammer back on the gun. "One for my mother, which I used this morning, and one for myself."
He died then. Died with the mass hemorrhaging and destruction that the bullet tuck as it ripped through his skull and brain matter. Ashlyn made a little noise and turned, leaving as quickly as she could. Kevin stood a moment, took the gun quietly, and checked the chamber. He almost smiled. Two bullets sat inside, and he almost saw his and Ashlyn's names on them as he put the safety on and tucked it into the back of his scrubs.
"Come on!" Ashlyn shouted into the little apartment. Kevin had gone in five minutes ago, telling her he'd be out with his girlfriend as soon as possible. Ashlyn had scoffed at that. She knew who his girlfriend was. She'd seen the girl often enough. Did Kevin honestly think she wouldn't recognize her college roommate after a few years?
No one responded from inside the door. With a shake of her head she went in.
Ashlyn looked around the apartment. It had been emptied, that much was clear from the open cupboards and the barren way the fridge door stood open. "Rogers!" She yelled, walking into the small living area, the pit of her stomach dropping when he wasn't there.
She walked down the hall, her own bat in her hand, waiting to see Kevin on the floor, Ali dead and chewing on his brain. She didn't expect what she did find. Kevin sat on a floral comforter, head bowed forward, arms against his knees. Ashlyn watched him a moment.
He'd changed from his scrubs into jeans and a t-shirt, and for a moment, he was startlingly like he was back when they were both in undergrad, happy and carefree. The gun in his hand ruined the image though.
Ashly wasn't sure where he'd gotten it, but it was cradled against his forehead, as if it alone was holding his head from his chest. She took hesitant steps, crossing the room to kneel in front of him. "Kev?" She asked, voice soft, his nickname slipping past her lips before she even knew she was going to use it. It was too familiar, even after years.
"She's gone." Kevin said, eyes shut tight against the tears that were threatening to fall. "She didn't wait. I told her to wait." He shook his head against the metal, hands shaking.
"Kev." Ashlyn said, reaching out and taking the handgun from him. Up closer, she recognized it. The image of George, holding the gun like a friend slipped into her mind and she set it down heavily against the floor. "Ali does this. You know that." She tried not to hate her one time roommate, she really did, but the woman thought about what was best for her and little else.
"She left a message." Kevin pointed toward the comforter, where a short note was scrawled on a piece of stationary. "Someone down the hall offered her a ride."
Ashlyn ignored the gut wrenching urge to ask what kind of ride and set her hands down on his knees, squeezing. "Look at me." She demanded, shaking him when he didn't respond quickly enough. "Damn it, Kevin. I've done this before." Her voice was hard, sharp and it cut him. He opened his eyes, ignoring the wetness there as he looked at her through his blonde bangs.
"I know." He said simply.
"I've sat with you while you cried over that fucking whore, and each time you tell me you're not going back. You're done. Well, that was years ago, and you still haven't learned your lesson. You accept all the lies she's ever told you, the wrongs she's wronged you, and the way she just expects you to forgive her. I didn't even lie to you and you cut me out of your life."
"Ash-"
"No. This is it. I'm not picking up any more pieces of you. Not now. Not years later, when the world is ending. She's not worth it." Ashlyn said simply, taking the gun up again, despite the cold that seemed to seep from it into her very core. "You can take this, press it to your temple, and pull the trigger. You can give up." She paused, letting the option sink in. "I won't stop you, but you wanted to find Ethan and put me through hell again, right? You want to find your heterosexual life mate and make it so there are two of you that hate me."
"We don't-"
"So get the fuck up. Deal with Ali in here." She tapped his chest once with the barrel of the gun. "Then deal with her in here." She tapped his temple lightly. "Because you're better than this, even if you are a jackass." She stood up and left the room and the apartment, leaving the gun on the bed.
Day 15 0600
"What room number?" Kevin asked quietly, a baseball bat clutched between his sweaty palms. Walking through the undergraduate dorm hadn't been reaffirming to his sense of self. He'd become a doctor for reasons that were all his, trying to make up for his actions as a younger man. Slamming the metal rod had enough against what had once been a student's head hadn't settled well in the pit of his stomach.
"Two o' three." Ashlyn replied, trying to use the dying cell phone in her hand to light the room numbers. The lights had been killed when the campus had closed. In the commotion, many of the students had been unable to leave. Wildfire had spread through campus like a tsunami.
"Where are we?" Kevin asked, uncomfortable in the silence.
"Almost there." Ashlyn replied, but her feet were slowing the closer they came to the room. Her sister might be there, huddling in the dark with her floppy eared stuffed rabbit. Her sister might also not be there. She might have fled with the rest of them, trying to get back home. Ashlyn didn't consider the last option.
No matter how slowly her feet carried her, there was only so long she could hesitate. Kevin almost ran into her back when she came to a stop in front of the door. She stared at it for a time, pleased that it was closed.
"It's going to be alright." Kevin said, voice a little awkward, unused to comforting Raleigh. Their relationship over the years had moved away from that to a realm where they egged each other on more than anything else. Remembering her sitting in front of him in his apartment, a softness to her eyes as she tapped the gun to his chest, he reached a hand out and squeezed her shoulder.
"I know." She replied, trying the handle. It didn't give, locked tight. "Haley?" She called, tapping the bat against the metal dorm door. "Haley, it's Ash." There wasn't any noise inside for a time, and the pit in Ashlyn's stomach drew.
"Maybe she went home." Kevin tried to comfort her, but it wasn't needed for long as the door was cracked open.
"Ash?" A soft, refined voice asked before throwing the door open and slamming into Ashlyn's chest. The sisters hugged, Haley wrapped clear around her sister while Ashlyn simply stood there, one hand on the girl's head. "I was so scared. We were going to take the bus, but then Jess started acting so weird." She was crying, voice breaking and tears soaking into the t-shirt Ashlyn had taken from one of the empty dorms.
"Sh sh sh sh sh." Ashlyn almost cooed, rubbing little circles into the back of the girl's neck. "It's alright. Gonna get you out of here." Kevin stood there for a moment, watching them interact. He hadn't seen the softer side of Ashlyn Raleigh since undergraduate. Uncomfortable with it, he slipped by them into the room, eyes searching for anything they could use. He quietly packed an empty backpack with the canned food that Haley had kept in her dorm.
"Get what you need." He said, interrupting the hushed whispers the sisters were sharing. "We've got to move."
"What's going on?" Haley asked as she folded a blanket around her flop eared rabbit. Ashlyn rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut as a photo of her boyfriend joined the stuffed animal.
"We don't know." Ashlyn admitted, tossing a few shirts at Haley from the girl's closet along with her bag of toiletries. "We've got my car, so we don't have a lot of room." Ashlyn cautioned as Haley added a pillow to her growing pile of things.
"I'm not taking much." Haley defended as she added the pillow and turned toward her closet. Ashlyn sighed and stepped out into the hallway. She was her sister, but God love her, because she was perhaps the highest maintenance young woman on the face of the planet.
Something shifted down the hallway, drawing her attention. She squinted into the darkness, trying to see as it moved closer. A dorm door stood wide open, the light of the day coming through the window into the hallway, lighting up the corpse as it drug itself along the wall, a flowery red dress still clinging to greying flesh. "Pst." Ashlyn hissed into the room, drawing Kevin's attention. She held her hand out for the bat he held, which was quickly tossed to her.
Haley watched from the room as her sister slipped down the hall. Curiosity caught the best of her and she stepped out in time to see Ashlyn raising the bat as the corpse moved closer. "No!" Haley screamed as the bat connected with the side of the things head over and over until the skull cracked, shattering and moving into the brain matter. "That...that was Jess." Haley said simply, tone hurt and confused.
"That wasn't Jess." Ashlyn replied, rubbing the brain matter and blood off of the bat with the girl's dress.
"You don't get it, kid." Kevin said, not unkindly. "The dead are gone. There is no cure." He shook his head as the girl's face fell. It was an unhappy thought, but protecting her now wouldn't do any good.
"But the military is working on containing it, right?" Haley asked, wide brown eyes searching their faces. "Nick said the military would figure it out. He said not to worry." Ashlyn hesitated, eyes sliding to the picture on top of Haley's pile of things.
Nickolas Evans wasn't a good looking boy, but he was smart. He'd joined the military as a linguist two years into his and Haley's relationship, and it had almost destroyed Ashlyn's sister. She held her tongue for a moment, perhaps too long.
"The military are sweeping the hospitals." Kevin said, unaware of the uneasy way Haley's eyes were watching that photograph. "They've given up."
"They wouldn't-"
"They killed people, Haley." Ashlyn finally said, voice firm as the color to Haley's face drained. "They are walking on the hospitals, killing anyone that might be infected. They don't care if they are or they aren't."
"But Nick said it would be alright." Her voice was small, too soft, and the reality of that scared Ashlyn. It would be a hard world for a long time, perhaps longer than any of them survived.
"It is." Ashlyn said firmly. "You're going to be alright. We are going to go home, find mom, dad and Ty, and hole up somewhere safe." Ashlyn's blue eyes slipped to Kevin's who was looking at her with an odd look of disappointment.
Haley was in the back of the car, her things filling much of the trunk. Ashlyn and Kevin reorganized, packing what they could into the trunk before slipping past the car and into the brick building that housed the cafeteria.
It was mostly picked over, but they picked up some things here and there as they walked. "She's not handling this well." Kevin finally said. Ashlyn sighed and drew a long breath.
"She's nineteen." She said, as if it was all the explanation that needed to be given.
"Were you ever like that at nineteen?" Kevin asked, knowing full well the answer. "Because I remember you at nineteen. I remember you giving chest compressions to Chris when he overdosed." Kevin paused. It didn't take long to conjure that memory, and if he were being honest, that was when he decided that maybe he wanted to be a doctor too.
"I grew up faster than she did." Ashlyn defended. "Besides, I broke down and cried for two days after that." Kevin remembered that too.
"I remember you talking me out of a few dumb things at nineteen. I remember you being annoyingly level headed." He pressed on, trying to get the girl to understand that her sister would have to do a lot of growing and quickly.
"Yeah, well, you were a dumb ass." Ashlyn said, voice starting to become clipped as she picked up a box of abandoned cereal bars from a shelf.
"Ash." Kevin said harshly. "You've got to talk to her."
"And tell her what?" Ashlyn finally snapped, turning to look at the blonde. "I'm sorry the world just fell apart. I'm sorry that you're never going to do what you want in life. I'm so fucking sorry that we couldn't fix this." Ashlyn's voice cracked at that last statement. "We failed them." She said simply,
"No, we didn't." Kevin replied. "The world failed itself." That was the end to the conversation, and as Ashlyn stepped out into the sunlight, watching as her sister sat in the back seat, a text book in her lap as though nothing was different, she knew Kevin was right. She just didn't know how to handle it.
Day 17 1200
Kevin was driving as Haley and Ashlyn slept. He'd been to the Raleigh home a few times when he was younger, the memory serving him as he turned off of a highway and into a little town. He sighed, shaking his head as one of the dead walked aimlessly through the fenced in softball field, trying to find a way out.
Everywhere they'd gone it had been the same. Bodies moving and bodies laying still. The town was small, and he almost didn't pull into the right driveway. "Right here." Ashlyn said, head leaning against the window. Kevin sighed and pulled in. He should have known she wasn't asleep.
"Stay with Haley-"
"You stay." Ashlyn said simply, trying to closer the car door quietly behind her as she climbed the old, nearly crumbling stairs to her childhood home. There was a faint whimper and she turned, eyeing the black cocker spaniel that was sitting in the dog pen by the house. She sighed and walked over, eyeing the emaciated sides under the thick fur.
The dog was a house dog, not meant to be out in the dog run for more than a few hours at a time to stretch its legs and take care of her business. The way mud clung to the animal's paws was discomforting. She unlocked the cage, watching as the animal sprinted up the steps and toward the door, waiting to be let in.
With shaking hands, she pushed the door open. The animal disappeared into the home, and Ashlyn followed, watching for any sign of movement. Her eyes swept the kitchen. It stood as though nothing had touched it. Not a bowel or box out of place. The dog whimpered and yelped somewhere deeper in the house before going silent.
"Jazz?" She called, listening for the dog, but it didn't return.
She was in the living room, eyes wide and watching, when the kitchen door slammed again. The baseball bat felt limp in her hand as she found the dog. Ashlyn quietly hoped that it was Kevin who had followed her in as the innards of the animal were pulled out, stretched between emaciated hands, and shoved past rotting teeth.
The brown, mousy hair and the overly large sweat shirt gave the corpse a reminiscent image of her mother, and Ashlyn almost vomited as the creature looked up at her, eyes devoid of anything that had once made Sue Raleigh her mother.
"Mom?" Ashlyn's stomach dropped as Haley's voice broke the silence. "Mom!" Haley screaming, running toward the crouching form. Ashlyn pivoted, catching her sister around the middle, eyes sliding to Kevin as the girl struggled in her arms.
"Take her out." She demanded, tossing the slight girl to the man. "I'll deal with this." Kevin simply nodded, dragging the screaming girl from the house and down the stairs. She was hysterical, voice cracking as she begged to be let loose. Kevin fought her for a time before finally pinning her back against a tree.
"Listen to me." He said calmly, repeating himself with a shake of her shoulders when she didn't listen. "Your sister is taking care of them. We're going to put them to rest, and then we're going to move on." The girl hiccuped and tears kept falling.
"This isn't fair." She groaned in misery. "That's my mom, and she's going to kill her." Kevin wondered for a moment if Haley was worried for her sister. "Ashlyn is going to kill her!" She repeated, and the wonder was resolved.
"That's Ashlyn's mother too." Kevin said, disappointment in his tone. "And she's going to need her sister."
"I don't care!" Haley wailed on, and Kevin had snapped, slapping her across the face before he even knew that he'd let go of her shoulders. The girl's eyes went wide and she sank to her butt in the grass under the tree. They were quiet then, for a long time. Kevin almost went back in to check on Ashlyn, but thought better of it. Instead, he sat down heavily on the bottom step and waited.
Day 18 1800
Kevin and Ashlyn had been digging for the better part of a day. The two graves were uneven, but then Brent Raleigh had always been much larger than his wife. Both were wrapped in blankets and lowered into their graves before being covered with dirt.
Haley did not help. Instead, she sat against the garage, watching as her parents disappeared into the ground in the back yard. "This is illegal." She said finally, when Ashlyn rolled a cinder block to the head of each grave, using a crowbar from the garage to carve names into the cement.
"I don't think it much matters anymore, Haley." Ashlyn had countered, and they fell into silence. Kevin stood for a while, watching, before he went through the garage, taking what he thought might be of use.
The car had been backed up the garage, and Kevin went through the things in the back with careful hands. Haley's clothes and bedding were placed in one of those airtight bags, the air compressed out of it until they took up a tenth of the space than they had before.
He picked through the garage, taking up one of the shovel's they'd used and dropping it in the back along with a lantern and spare fuel. Three large, red gas cans followed along with a box of tackle and two collapsable fishing poles. His eyes scanned the garage, catching on things here and there they he put in a tool box and sat in the car.
He'd never been so happy that people in Ashlyn's little town were outdoorsy. Shot gun shells were perhaps his favorite find, remembering the gun that Ashlyn had brought from the house. He checked up on the sisters as the sun sank lower before doing the same sweep of the neighbor's garage.
When he returned, the sun had disappeared completely. With a sigh, he resigned himself to sleeping in the house. They'd not found their brother, but Ashlyn hadn't been optimistic. His car and his clothes were gone from the house.
Day 47 0800
"We can't leave yet." Haley said, perhaps her first words since they had laid their parents into the ground.
"We can't wait anymore." Ashlyn countered. They'd searched the entire town for their brother, moving into the larger surrounding towns and villages. "He's gone, Hal."
"He wouldn't leave Mom and Dad." Haley said, voice strained and bordering on whining.
"He did leave them." Ashlyn said firmly, slamming the trunk of the car closed. She mentally went over the contents. There was her father's bow and ten arrows. The shot gun and enough ammunition to either last them years hunting or get them out of one or two sticky situations.
There had been such situations, a few times, while they'd looked for their brother, and each time they had managed to make it out by the skin of their teeth. Ashlyn had started to think maybe Kevin was right. Haley needed to grow, or she was going to get them killed.
"Where are we going?" Ashlyn asked Kevin. They'd already discussed trying to find his parents. He'd shown no interest in that.
"Ethan." Kevin said simply, and Ashlyn nodded.
"You're leaving our brother to go find some boy?" Haley said, voice hard and tears running down her face.
"Haley." Ashlyn began, drawing a long breath. "We've been here for weeks. He's not coming back. Wake the fuck up." She tugged the door open and climbed into the driver's side of the car. Kevin watched as Haley stared, wide eyed, where her sister had been, shaking his head as she finally climbed into the car. He'd wanted to leave a week ago, but Ashlyn had asked. He found himself slipping back into their old pattern from years past, and he'd be lying if he said it wasn't comforting.
Day 50 1300
Ashlyn hesitated as she saw him, sitting outside his parents house. It was clear who it was, from the fedora and the guitar across his lap. In all the years since she'd last seen him, she'd never seen anyone else be so completely comfortable with either the hat or the guitar, as Ethan Bade. She slowed the car, pulling up in front of him before forcing herself to be caught up in something in the middle compartment.
Kevin met him on the street, ignoring the blood on his white tank top as he took his guitar from him and put it in the trunk. Ashlyn kept her peace through all of it as the pair of boys climbed into the back. They talked for a while.
Can't fucking believe you're alright.
It's the end of the world and you bring your guitar.
Thought you died in the hospital.
I'm too mean to die.
Well don't change on my account.
I'm really fucking glad to see you.
Ashlyn smiled as they spoke, having missed the easy push and pull of them. There was no discomfort or missed moment when they spoke. The tenseness to Kevin that he'd developed over the years in the ER slipped away. The awkward pensiveness to Ethan that she remembered was gone.
She remembered them like this, she finally realized. Whenever her mind had wandered to them after the last time she saw them before finding Kevin in her ER, she'd thought of them like this: together. She almost chuckled at how homosexual it sounded.
She didn't though, echoes of the past were far more accepting than their future counterparts. Instead, she simply sat there as the conversation in the back faded, steering the car ever onward, where she didn't quite know.
Ethan sat a long time, just staring out the window of the car, not really seeing his neighborhood pass slowly by. He didn't see the curb that he used to skate off of as a child. He didn't see the skate park or the bench he had his first kiss on.
Julia Abrams had been her name. A little thing with a turned up nose and a temper like a rattle snake. She'd had red in her hair and a nose ring, and back then, that was hot. Everything about Julia flooded back to him. How they'd gotten hot and heavy quickly. How she'd asked him to write her a song. He'd learned how to play the guitar for Julia Abrams, and then she'd cheated on him with an eighteen year old drummer who was stoned all the time.
"He's older." Her sixteen year old self had said. "So much deeper. You know I need someone who can move me." Ethan sighed and leaned his head against the glass. There had been other girls since Julia, and he really should have thanked her, because women loved the guitar in high school and college.
He'd never married though, always asking himself too many questions about a girl before he realized he was too late to actually act on anything. No, the only real women in his life were between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, had braces and bitched because he made them read Shakespeare. He sighed again and closed his eyes to what moved outside.
"You alright man?" Kevin asked, drawing him from studying the back of his eyelids. He smiled and sat up straight. If no woman came looking for him, at least Kevin had.
"Yeah." He straightened himself in the seat, adjusted his jeans were they clung to tightly to his thighs, and settled into the car. There were two women in the front, women he hadn't really seen when he climbed in with Kevin. He sat behind the driver and couldn't make out much from the back of her head, so instead he turned his attention to the slip of a girl in the passenger seat.
She was small, startlingly so from the way her clavicles poked against her shoulders. Kevin had a word for that joint, Ethan was sure, somewhere in one of his anatomy and physiology text books. Ethan was fairly sure you weren't supposed to be able to see it, but the girl had olive skin and hair dark enough to look exotic. "Whose that?" Ethan finally asked, pointing to the front.
"Haley Raleigh." Kevin said after a while, teeth worrying his lip like Ethan hadn't seen him do since freshman year of high school, before he'd filled out and figured out that girls liked his shoulders.
"Haley Raleigh." Ethan repeated, chewing the name. He'd known it somewhere, before. Way before, but he couldn't place it exactly. Haley. He'd dated a Haley, but her last name had been something that had started with a vowel. He moved away from the first name. "Haley Raleigh?" He asked and watched as a guilt spread over Kevin's face.
"Yes." He replied as the girl turned as he name was repeated. She had dark brown eyes, the same as her hair, and Ethan exhaled. No, there was no way those eyes were...his eyes flickered over to the rear view, where a set of blue ones were staring back at him. They darted back down to the road, almost as if afraid of being caught looking at him. He knew those eyes, or at least, he thought he knew them.
He pushed it aside and faced forward. There were plenty of girls named Haley in the world, it only stood to reason there would be a handful with the last name of Raleigh. He almost wanted to sit forward, slip up toward the front of the car and see the driver. Almost. Then he remembered he was with Kevin. Even in the end of the world, there would be no Ashlyn Raleigh with Kevin Rogers or Ethan Bade ever again. That had ended years ago.
"Look, man, don't be mad." Kevin said, propping a leg up to pivot in the seat and face him. "I might need to tell you some things."
"Like what?" Ethan asked. He'd known Kevin since they were toddlers. They'd grown past Ethan breaking Kevin's scooter. Somehow they'd gotten over Kevin stealing Rebecca Linger in the ninth grade, and yes, they'd even gotten over Kevin asking Ethan to never see Ashlyn Raleigh ever again. That had taken longer than the rest. That almost had not happened.
"I didn't know she was a resident at St. Francis, alright?" Kevin asked, that look on his face that was reserved for when he knew he'd fucked something completely. "I just showed up for my first day, and there she was, name next to mine on the roster."
"Whose name, Rogers?" Ethan asked, already knowing the name. Hadn't Ashlyn been set on being a doctor since freshman year? Hadn't Peoria been too ridiculously close to where she'd grown up? Ethan had even wondered, from time to time, how they hadn't run into her doing grocery shopping at a Walmart or out on a date at some little restaurant.
Kevin didn't reply, he simply looked away, toward the front of the car. If it is Raleigh, he told himself, he didn't want to know. If her sister was there, it meant she was probably dead or worse, he reminded himself. Now there were worse things than dying.
"Oh, for fucks sake. If this is going to be a problem, Haley and I will find you a different car. We can be fucking civil for ten fucking minutes when the world goes to shit, can't we?" The driver bit out, voice sharp and angry. Ethan did sit forward then, half climbing into the front seat to turn and look at her.
Bright blue eyes met his. Her hair was shorter now, he realized. She'd always had such long hair before, long and curling around her shoulders. She'd lost weight since college, but her face still had that heart shape. There were new lines around her eyes, lines that were similar to Kevin's.
He sat back heavily in his seat, mind trying to process what he'd just heard. He looked to Kevin, whose eyes were watching him with a nearly unbalanced look. "I'm really sorry. I just didn't want to talk about it at first, and then it would have been awkward to say, 'Wow, you know who works with me now. You'll never guess.'" Ethan nodded dumbly and held his tongue.
The car slowed a bit, pulled to the side of the road, and he didn't realize anyone had gotten out until the trunk was slamming and there were backpacks leaning against the tire and there was a woman next to the gas door, running a tube down into the tank. "What's she doing?" He asked Kevin, who sat beside him in the backseat while Haley slipped from the car.
"Splitting the gas, I'd imagine." Kevin said, an edge to his voice that Ethan hadn't ever heard directed at him. "It's the end of the world, you can't get over college yet?" Kevin asked, popping his own door and leaving the car.
He couldn't get over college? Ethan thought on that, mind playing catch up. Years ago it hadn't been Ethan that had gone to Kevin and asked him to get rid of their best friend. No, that had been the other way around. The gas door was shutting and bags were hoisted onto shoulders before he realized that he was doing it again. He'd out thought himself from several situations in the past, and he'd be damned if he did it again.
Slamming his own door shut, he was almost violent when he jerked the backpack around and crushed the girl in a hug. Just as she had in college, she stood there a bit, unsure of herself and where she stood, before finally patting him on the back. When he pulled away she didn't meet his eyes, just fiddled with the gas can in her hand. He'd taken it before he even recognized what it was, and upended it into the tank of the car he'd climbed from.
"Get your happy ass back in that car." He said simply, a smile on his face, waiting for the response that had become old hat in college. He heard Kevin laugh behind him and climb into the driver's seat of the car after telling Haley she could ride up front with him.
Both doors slammed and yet outside they still stood, one refusing to look at the other, who couldn't manage to look away. "I get this is awkward." She finally said. "I don't know what I did in college, but Kevin and I have figured out a way to at least work together on a daily basis." He was quiet, not really sure what to say. "I get that we aren't friends. I get that we weren't ever really friends, but hell, we might be the last people on the face of the planet who don't chew on other people."
"I think Kevin does chew on people." Ethan replied. It was an old habit, this talking to her without having to worry about any judgement, one he seemed all to eager to fall back into.
"He probably does." She said back easily enough, finally looking up at him. "I'm sorry for whatever I did to you."
"You didn't do anything." Ethan said, shaking his head. "Kevin was mad. It was only supposed to be for a little while, but things got out of control so fast." He got quiet then, thinking about how things had gone between them years prior. "You both are the most stubborn, proud people I know." He finally said.
"It's not Kevin I'm worried about." Ashlyn finally admitted, sighing and falling into the slack shouldered girl he remembered. "Are we going to be ok or not?" She asked, and Ethan gave her a little smile.
"You're a doctor now." He said simply, that silly little smile Ashlyn remembered on his face. "That song I sang you fits." She smiled back at that, and in a moment, Ethan was hugging her again. It felt good, he finally decided, to hug someone who you didn't harbor feelings for, who had known you so thoroughly that you didn't have to worry if they thought that you were too skinny to be attractive or too pale to be living.
"I'm a doctor." She agreed, remembering the Bowl of Oranges song he'd sung her when she was upset over some thing or another. She moved to the other side of the car, hesitating before popping the door open. "And E," she said, using the nickname that he'd hated all those years ago. "My ass, whether happy or sad, is none of your fucking business." She slipped into the car then, leaving him to stand out in the sun on the side of the road.
Kevin was waiting in the car, eyes cautious as she got in the back. The driver's window was cracked; he'd heard everything that had passed out on the street. Ashlyn gave him a little nod as she handed him the keys. There would be talks later, she was sure, but one couldn't be upset about mundane things now, at the end of the world.
They didn't really talk about where they were going, just that they all agreed that Peoria, Illinois harbored too many memories. Kevin had pointed the car south and east, remembering the broadcasts that they'd heard about the refugee camp. There were others, of course, but the California coast was too far away, and with winter only a few months off, Chicago was going to be too cold.
He listened as he drove, occasionally stopping and stretching his legs under the pretense of checking the gas tanks of cars that had been abandoned along the sides of the road. More often than not he came away empty handed, but he somehow found enough to keep the car rolling. It was relaxing, being in that car, listening to Ethan and Ashlyn catch up on old times. He listened too. He'd worked with her for three years, but she never spoke to him like she was speaking to Ethan.
"What about a wife? Kids?" Ashlyn asked. They'd moved past their jobs and had slipped into the personal.
"Never wanted kids." Ethan reminded, scratching at his head a moment. "The wife thing never really worked out."
"Last I knew you were dating Lindy." Kevin's eyes flickered to the rearview in time to catch Ashlyn's nose scrunch up in the way it did when something disgusted her.
"Temporary insanity." Kevin said, half turning his head toward the backseat.
"That lasted what, two weeks?" Ethan asked Kevin, having forgiven him already for his silence. There wasn't time to be angry, not anymore.
"Three." Kevin corrected, turning back to fully face the front. "Then there were the double mint twins."
"Double mint twins?" Ashlyn asked, turning to the blue eyed guitarist. "Twins?" She asked again.
"At the same time." Kevin said, but there was a laughter to his tone.
"I dated a pair of sisters, and it was months apart." Ethan said, jabbing Kevin in the back of the head. The blonde half turned again and laid into anywhere he could reach with open handed slaps. Ashlyn watched them, and for a moment, was astounded that they were still like this. Still so young and carefree when they were together.
"What about you?" Ethan finally asked, eyes slipping to her hands to look for a ring or a tan line.
"Nothing to tell." She said simply. "There was someone, before this, but not anymore."
"Who?" Kevin asked. He'd know if there had been someone in her life. She did, after all, spend almost every day in the ER and her nights were spent very much like his: journals and studies.
"Doesn't matter." She said simply.
"Awww, Ashlyn's got a crush." Ethan teased, and Kevin nearly crashed the car. He'd talked to her like that once. They'd all been like that once. So close that they could finish sentences. He'd never needed to ask for anything with either of them, he just did it and they accepted.
"No, I don't." She defended in the way she always did. Too serious, as if the idea of liking another human being was embarrassing. "At least, not anymore."
"Who was it?" Ethan asked, wanting to keep the conversation. It had been too long since he'd been in a car with the both of them.
"His name was Henry, wasn't it, Ashlyn?" Haley asked from the front, finally drawing herself from staring out the window. Ethan's eyes slid over to the girl and he gave her a smile.
"Henry?" He repeated, looking to Ashlyn, who confirmed with her silence.
"Dobbins?" Kevin asked, disgust in his voice. "Ashlyn that's worse than Lindy." Ashlyn reached forward and smacked the back of his head.
"Doesn't matter because-"
"Because he turned tail and ran the second shit hit the fan." Kevin said, words and anger bubbling. "That rat bastard left you there."
"He left all of us." Ashlyn corrected, but it wasn't heard.
"But he wasn't sleeping with me!" Kevin said, voice getting a little too loud for the compact car. "Fuck, at least I know Ali stayed for a week. That fucker left when the first body stood back up." When he wasn't met with any defense, he kept on, railing about the useless piece of Neurology third year resident.
"She get's it, Kevin." Ethan finally cut him off, and Kevin let his eyes wander into the back again, where Ashlyn had stopped smiling and was turned, staring out the window. No one said anything after that, choosing instead to let the car slip into silence.
In the back, Ethan watched the girl next to him. A lot had changed in the years that had passed. She'd grown up, but the insecurity was still there. Kevin was still a loud bastard that didn't think anything through. He quietly leaned back against the door and stretched his legs out with a sigh, looping one foot over the middle divider to rest against Ashlyn's.
She glanced at him but didn't move her foot. It was a quiet thing, one that they'd established in the first few months of their friendship to comfort Kevin through his and Ali's first breakup. Shoulders brushing when walking beside each other. Knees occasionally colliding when sitting at a cafeteria table. Silent, unspoken physical contact to reaffirm that one was there, someone was with them, and that life couldn't be that hard if there was another warm body there to help you through it.
Day 58
They hit Georgia faster than they'd thought, but with the world gone to shit there weren't any traffic laws to obey. The sun was sinking lower, and it had long been learned that traveling at night was a bad idea.
"There's a restaurant over there." Haley said, pointing to a little mom and pop diner that lined the small town they'd stopped in. "There might be food in the back."
"Good a place as any." Ashlyn had agreed with a smile, throwing one arm around her sister while shouldering a pack from the trunk with the other. The younger girl nodded, shrugging the arm off and walking, alone through the darkness toward the building. "Thanks, Ash, for being there for me, even if I'm a fucking thunder cunt." Ashlyn groused, picking Haley's pack from the trunk and throwing that over her now unused shoulder. The girl's on again off again attitude was starting to really wear on her nerves.
"She is quiet." Ethan agreed, picking up his guitar and one of the lanterns that they'd stolen from a hunting supply shop. Ashlyn chuckled when Kevin came around and picked up a collapsable spear gun from the back.
"You know, if you ever have to use that, it's going to take you ages to get that back out of flesh." Ashlyn reasoned, but it was an argument that had been lost the second the man had seen it on a display rack in the deep sea fishing section of a Bass Pro.
"Spear gun." Kevin said simply. "Therefore, your argument is invalid." Ashlyn shook her head and took the bow that was offered to her as Ethan dug through the trunk. He slipped his guitar over his shoulder and picked up the cross bow that Ashlyn had told him to use. They had three smaller caliber guns between them, all that was left they could find ammunition to match. They only took one. They'd learned too quickly that bullets made noise, and noise was something that was of the old world.
"Should leave that." Ashlyn cautioned Ethan, gesturing to his guitar. With a hurt expression, he cradled it with his free hand.
"This is my baby. Where I go, she goes." Ashlyn shook her head and quietly shut the trunk, following the path her sister had taken into the darkness with the two men following her.
They sat around the little lantern, eating cans of beans and tuna that they'd pulled out of boxes in the back. Anything in the freezer had either been long cleaned out or gone bad. Haley sat alone, off to one side, chewing slowly on bits of tuna as if each piece held the answer to life. Ashlyn had forgone the tuna, turning to her pack and chewing on bits of jerky and trail mix. Things that had once swam scared her taste buds.
Ethan had finished wolfing down his own meal, and was absent mindedly tuning the guitar in his hands, playing the lightest of sounds needed to check the strings. "Play something." Ashlyn finally said, startling both Ethan and Kevin, who had slowly drifted off into a light sleep.
"Can't." Ethan said easily enough. It was a discussion they'd had in the past.
"There weren't any dead out there earlier, and we can get out the back." Ashlyn insisted, sitting up so that her eyes were lit by the lantern.
"What do you want to hear?" Ethan asked, and if he was honest with himself, he ached to play something again. It had been days, and they all needed the normalcy of it. Just one normal thing. Just one.
"Play some Sam Beam." Kevin said, knowing the soft tunes and whispered lyrics would be a better choice at the end of the world. Ethan nodded and the plucking of the guitar grew slightly louder as he let his fingers find the chords again. The melody came easily, the guitar singing out three times before Ethan let the hushed lyrics come forward.
It was always like that, Ashlyn realized. He'd let the melody work as long as possible, trying to hide the vocals that would have to come. She shook her head with a happy sigh when he finally started singing. There were people who tried things that they were hopelessly terrible at, and she was sure that Ethan did have those things as well. Singing wasn't one of them.
When the song ended, Ethan sat, blue eyes shining in the light, a smile on his face. "One more." He almost begged, and when no one objected, he laid into the guitar again, louder and more sure this time.
He was halfway through the song when the front door was kicked harshly in. Ethan nearly dropped the guitar as he groped by the crossbow, and Kevin was already on his feet, the speargun in hand. "Well, well, well." The man who walked through the door said. "Looks like a party."
"Limited guest list." Ashlyn said, leveling the one handgun they'd brought in at the man's head. He held his hands up in front of him, palms splayed to show he meant no harm.
"Easy." He said as two others came in behind him. They were a rough looking bunch, but almost everyone was now. The world had taken away the luxury of being anything but hard. "We're just looking for somewhere to stay the night. Heard the music and thought maybe, just for a little while..." The man trailed off, and a helpless expression took over his face.
Ashlyn relaxed and set the gun next to her, picking up the can of tuna that she'd foregone. "Here." She said, tossing the thing at the man. "The world's gone to shit. The least we can all do is stay human." The man gave her a smile and nodded, sitting down with his two friends just as the edge of the light cast by the lantern. Haley shifted then, almost within the shadows themselves, and pressed herself to Ashlyn's side. The woman smiled down at her sister. It was easier to protect her when she was close.
"I'm Daniel." Their leader said, popping open the can of tuna with the edge of a knife. "This is Trevor and Nick." The other two nodded but the edge to them never left. They all sat in silence for a time, taking in the smell of the tuna and the warmth that the lantern provided.
"Ashlyn. Haley." Ethan said, pointing them out. "I'm Ethan and that's Kevin." The pleasantries were exchanged slowly as the man ate. He offered no food to his two companions, but the laxidasical way he chewed told the blue eyed boy that he wasn't hungry. An edge crept up in his stomach, and he glared down at the guitar, as if it had somehow caused some unknown evil.
"We're part of a group." Daniel offered when he finished eating. He glanced to Nick, who slowly pulled a pistol from the back of his jeans. "And the group has been needing some things." It was all that needed to be said. The edge was back in them all, and all but Haley were on their feet. The girl slowly climbed to her feet behind her sister, brown eyes wide and confused.
Not for the first time, Kevin wished that they had stolen more guns. With the spear gun pointed at Nick's chest, a rifle trained between his own eyes, he felt far less confident than he tried to seem.
"Easy man," Trevor said, holding his non-pistol hand up as if it would calm him. A few feet away, Ethan had the cross bow up, held in Trevor's direction. "We don't want anything from you." Trevor's eyes slid to Ashlyn and Haley. It wasn't a gesture that was missed.
"No, but you want something from us." Ashlyn said, standing in front of her sister, their only handgun tucked neatly between her hands, trained on Daniel.
"Well, that goes without saying." Daniel said. He was used to people doing as he told them. "Come on, boys, put those down. We'll have a talk. You might see things differently."
"Put it down or I put a bullet in your brain." Nick said, squeezing the handle of his hand gun as he looked down the sight at Kevin.
"While I appreciate the Mexican standoff as much as the next movie buff." Ethan spoke for the first time since the three men had come knocking at the door to the run down diner. "This isn't going to work." He lowered the crossbow from the man who trained his gun upon him and pivoted, raising it again to aim at their leader's head. "This might."
"Shoot him." Daniel demanded, and the bullet had sounded before any of them had processed the command. Ethan stood a moment, blue eyes wide with the shock, before looking down at his leg. Blood blossomed, running and staining the light of his jeans.
Three things happened then, all in the same breath. Haley screamed, falling to her knees in sobs, the tension too much for her tortured mind to handle. Kevin paled, finger twitching on the trigger enough to send the spear forward and through, clean through the man in front of him's chest. Ashlyn turned just enough to watch Ethan sink to his good side before she dropped the gun just to the side, and squeezed the trigger. A second shot rang out, and Daniel fell to his backside, screaming as he clutched a destroyed knee.
There would be no coming back from that, Ashlyn knew. Not now. Not with orthopedic surgery a thing of the past, and that was the all of it. They were done, she knew that much as the man with the other gun came forward. It would take Kevin too long to draw the spear back to himself, remove it from the dead man's chest, and reload. Ethan had dropped the crossbow, blue eyes still wide and shocked from the pain. Decisions were to be made. Decisions that would effect their lives.
"You've got a dead man and a destroyed knee." She said, crouching down so she was level with the man writhing on the wooden floor in front of her. "You've got some decisions to make."
"Fuck you, bitch." He ground out between hissed breathes. The other gunman moved forward, looking down his handgun to Ashlyn, who kept the weapon in her hand lazily pointed at the man on the ground.
"There's the thing." She said, voice even despite the growing tension in the pit of her stomach. "You've got a dead man and one leg. I've got an injured friend and no way to kill you both before at least one of us is dead."
"You're all going to die, you cunt." The man with the gun cut in, and Ashlyn gave him her attention for a moment.
"Not if he wants to walk again." Their leader made a little whining sound in the back of his throat. "I'm more than happy to put a bullet in his brainpan. I'm sure this is as good a place to die as any. But, I'd much rather do what I was trained to do, clean up that knee, see to any wounded you have, and part on the friendliest of terms."
"We've got-"
"Shut up." Daniel had managed to pull himself from his pathetic little whimpers long enough to bite out the words. "You're a doctor." He said simply, and Ashlyn nodded her head, praying Kevin would keep quiet. Apparently the way Ethan had begun to sweat and pant through the shock was enough for him to ground himself.
"I'm a doctor. And I can put that knee to rights. Make it so you walk again." She brought the gun up, letting it scratch at her temple. "Or, I can make it so you never walk again." She brought it down, hand forward just enough to indicate his other knee. "Worst thing about being the strongest," she told him as if they were in confidence. "Is that when you're not the strongest anymore, the people you lead leave you. They leave you to die in some dead infested nest somewhere, with nothing but your lame ass and maybe, if you're lucky, one in the chamber."
"Put the gun down." Daniel finally ordered. The man was slow to comply, his eyes flickering over to the dead body. "I said put the gun down!" He screamed this time, voice split by the pain. "You're coming with us. You're going to fix this. We leave the rest of your group alive and as well as they are now."
"And you don't come back." Ashlyn added, eyes watching his face. "You don't come back here, because I'm going to tell you what happens if you do." She turned then, to Kevin. "Get me the kit." He nodded, blue eyes narrowed and angry. When the smaller of their two medical bags fell to the ground next to her she turned toward it, unzipping it and drawing it open to remove a little vial and a syringe. "This," she shook the thing, disrupting the contents before drawing a few cc's up in the syringe. "Can do a few different things." She said, leaning forward and leveling it so the man could see it. "Well, it might. This could be saline. As harmless as a drink of water."
"What the fuck is it?" The gunman asked, getting impatient.
"I said it could be saline." Ashlyn snapped, rocking forward and jabbing it into the thick muscle under the leader's thigh. "It could have been liquified polonium." She shook her head sadly to the man on the ground. "If that's the case, you're going to die." He whimpered as she jerked the needle out. "Or it could have been fucking Morphine, and we all know what that does."
Silence fell for a moment, and the man in front of her stopped shivering quite as badly as the medication started working. It would be a slow process, its onset, given that it was put into the meat of him instead of his vein, but that was the point. She put the syringe back into the bag after capping it, drawing out five more vials with names so long and scientific that no one but Kevin and Ashlyn knew their use.
"I've got quite a few of these, that could go either way. Some of them, if I give to you one way will send you to cloud nine. Then, if I give them another, your heart rate slows, your respirations become depressed, and in a few hours, you just slip into sleep. You'd be dead before anyone figured out you weren't napping."
"Alright." The man said in a low voice, agreeing with her terms. "How?" He asked then, voice too strained to speak in full sentences, despite the edge that was slowly fading from his pain.
"I've got a two way walkie. So does Kevin." She nodded to the man who stood beside Ethan, putting pressure on the wound and trying to keep the man from going into shock. "I'm going to check in with them every day, and if they don't answer, you're going to die." It was simple enough, and the other man nodded. "Now I've got to help my friend. Take the edge off like I did for you, and then we're going to go."
Ashlyn turned away, the hard little stone that had formed in her stomach as she spoke growing with each moment. They'd not handled the situation well. There were other ways, she was sure, but none of them flooded into her brain. No, the only way out in her mind was what she'd come up with, but that would mean leaving her sister with an injured friend and a man who she knew would be pissed at her.
She settled down by Ethan, who was frowning at her in that little way that he did, sweat dripping down his face. "You don't think threatening him with something you don't have is fucking stupid?" He asked, wincing as the needle slid into the vein in his arm.
"It wasn't all a bluff." She said, drawing up another syringe and slipping it in as well. "Kevin's going to have to dig that bullet out." Her eyes caught Kevin's, and the man nodded. There was an entire conversation in that nod.
Fix him.
I will.
Protect her.
I will.
Be safe.
We will. Come back.
Ashlyn turned away, standing and taking the smaller kit with her. The gunman had helped his leader to his feet, and they limped out of the building. "Ash?" Haley called from the floor, tears still trailing down her face. Ashlyn turned to her, a sad little smile on her face. "You're going with them?" Ashlyn sighed and not for the first time since hell had set upon Earth, she'd wished it was her brother that had survived. Haley wasn't cut out for this life. Tyler would have been, but there were no promises that could be said that Tyler wouldn't have been one of the men demanding and taking instead of surviving.
"Yeah, Hal." She said finally, turning away and following them out the door. It would be five days until she kept that promise. Five days and three hours until she saw her sister, sitting in the corner of the same diner, eating a tin of tuna with saltine crackers. It would be five days, three hours, and thirty seven seconds until she was crushed to Kevin's chest with a sound that neither would admit was heard. It would be five days, three hours and forty five seconds until Ashlyn fell to her knees, squeezed her eyes shut, and tried not to feel the bruises that throbbed where Kevin held her too tightly.
Neither noticed when Ethan hobbled over, using boards they'd torn up from the floor as a cane. They didn't notice when he collapsed down next to them and leaned his head heavily against Ashlyn's shoulder. Haley sat in the corner, knees drawn up to her chest, and ate her tuna. That was noticed by all three.
Day 63 1930
Its a few hours later and they've changed buildings, holing up in the broken freezer of a local meat locker. Someone had stolen the meat long ago, but the just there smell of blood hung in all of their noses. Kevin was asleep in the corner, legs drawn up to his chest, head hung between them on his arms. "He didn't sleep while you were gone." Ethan said as Ashlyn studied him, the light of a little lantern between them, casting odd shadows on their faces.
Ethan almost wanted to reach out and turn it off. It made the past few days too difficult to deny. The play of dark and light made bruises stand out in more evident contrast, and the way it fell on the hollows of Ashlyn's cheeks made the ring of blue and purple around her eyes seem more sinister.
"That was foolish." Ashlyn finally said, turning to Ethan with a sigh. "I talked to him every day on the radio."
"Asking if we were alright and not responding when you got your answer wasn't talking." Ethan said, voice struggling from slipping into anger. "Although, I suppose we should be grateful you didn't lie." It was an old barb, sharp still and aching, and Ethan almost regretted saying it. Almost.
"I never lied to you." Ashlyn's voice came out hard and angry. "What happens in my life is my business. Just because you ask something, that doesn't mean I have to answer."
"No," Ethan said after a long time, voice coming out wistful, and Ashlyn knew where his memories had taken him. "No, you don't, but it would have been nice of you to trust us enough to tell us."
"I didn't then, and that's something we're all just going to have to live with." Ashlyn replied. "Unless you can't." The words came out quickly then, like a pitcher tipped too far. "If you can't, I'll leave. We can split the supplies two ways and Haley and I will be gone by sunrise."
They sat in silence then, for a long while, both thinking on the past and what it would mean for their future. "You know I never blamed you for it, but Kevin was so hurt." Ashlyn looked up to watch a little smile play on Ethan's face. "I didn't have the right to play both sides, so I didn't." Ashlyn nodded and stood up, drawing her pack to her, slipping it open and slowly sorting out their medical supplies.
She'd had to leave the smaller bag behind, and this was all that was left. She sorted it in piles, deft fingers separating and cataloging. Ethan watched her work, having seen her do it time and time again in the past, organizing and reorganizing just so she would know what they had. It didn't take long for him to tell the difference.
"What are you doing?" He asked, voice sharp.
"Separating the supplies." She said simply, and she barely had time to sweep the vials out of the way before Ethan was there, a grimace on his face from the movement it took to propel himself across the few feet between them to settle just in front of her knees.
"Don't fucking do that." He said each word like they tasted bad in his mouth, spitting them out instead of rolling them around in his mouth like he usually did. Considering them, weighing them, knowing them far more intimately than anyone should know a word before letting them out into the world. No, the way his injured leg shook and the fierceness in his eyes didn't let him consider his words as he normally would.
"Alright." She said finally, the relief she felt not seeping into her voice, but Ethan knew it was there. He'd spent how long with this girl, afterall. It had been years, but there were things about a person that never changed. He studied her face a moment, the way the darkness of the blues almost made her eyes stand out more, light against the dark.
There were four long, narrow strips of darkness that ran up her jaw, blooming a brilliant purple in the light from the lantern, with another just under her chin. He knew what pattern those lines would fit, if he reached out and laid his hand upon them. His mind, the delicate literature and prose mind wouldn't let the thought process though, so he reached out, and laid a hand along those lines. His fingers were longer but narrower, and he could see the bruising just outside of them.
"Don't." Ashlyn said, drawing back just enough to put her back against the wall and keep his fingers from her skin.
"Are you going to let Kevin make sure you're alright?" He asked at length, settling back to take the pressure off of his thigh. She shook her head after eyeing the man in the corner. "Your sister?" Ethan asked, letting his own eyes slip to the girl, who was sleeping in a heap of blankets a few feet away. He already knew the answer without having to watch the woman in front of his shake her head. Haley was a broken little thing, and seeing the bruising would shatter her even moreso.
"I'm alright." She said at last, knowing that there was nothing serious to be done. She'd broken a few ribs, which would heal with time. The last two metacarpals of her left hand were broken from where she'd slammed her fist into something-even she wasn't sure what anymore-but she'd straightened them to the best of her ability. The best of anyone's ability now that the world had gone to shit.
"But I'm not." Ethan said finally, tilting his head to the side in a way he'd learned growing up that made almost any woman agree to whatever he'd wanted. "It was the guitar they heard, Ash." Ethan said easily, a hard edge to his voice. "A guitar I was playing, and you were the one that went with them." Ashlyn glared at him for a moment but finally nodded, and he let that be all the permission he needed. His fingers splayed along those bruises again, seeing exactly how they lay before feeling along her jaw, watching as she winced some places and sat unmoving in others. On the other side of her face was a dark bruise just along her cheek that fit perfectly when Ethan balled his fist and gently matched it.
He sat there for a long time then, as he splayed his fingers against her neck, where they fit yet again. There were bruises that slid under the collar of her shirt, but he ignored them, skipping down to her broken hand. He lay his own hands were he thought they fit the bruises up her arms and stopped at the hem of her shirt. He nodded then, sat back further and sighed.
"Are you alright now?" She asked, voice stiff.
"No." He'd replied. "You won't tell me?"
"Sometimes talking about things gives them power." Ashlyn said at last, and for some reason, the aching bruises that he'd touched didn't hurt quite as badly. Ethan nodded his head, accepting her excuse and reached out, turning off the lantern and casting them into darkness. "Are you alright now?" She asked again.
"Better." He said, scooting back to lean against the other side of the freezer.
Day 65 0900
Ashlyn isn't sure how long she slept, but the next morning the freezer door is open and light is coming in through a broken window on the other side of the butcher shop. The medical supplies were all tucked back into the pack, something she's sure Ethan has done when he doesn't meet her eyes when she asks about them.
Haley is sitting out in the sunlight, and something in Ashlyn falls when her sister still won't look at her or speak to her. She stares at her sister for a long time before realizing that someone had come to sit next to her. Kevin bumped her shoulder lightly, a smile on his face.
"Ethan said he talked to you." Her eyes flickered to Kevin and then to Ethan, who simply sat there as though he didn't hear the conversation.
"Yeah." Ashlyn replied.
"So I'm not going to ask, but I'm going to tell you that it pisses me off that you think you can't tell me."
"Kev-"
"And that I wish you would, because I know some of these." He reached out and picked up her hand, letting his fingers curl around her wrist, following the pattern laid out for him. "And I know you. I know you're not going to tell me, and I know that there's bound to be something you should tell me. But I know that I don't have the right to ask." Ashlyn's eyes widened a bit, and he laughed. "Or Ethan told me I don't have the right to ask." Both of them chuckled a bit before he let her wrist go, and with it, the conversation.
END CHAPTER ONE
AN: Well guys, there she be, the monster that is chapter one. I am writing this first chapter very long, as I know you wall want to get to Rick and Co quickly, but I felt the need for backstory. Backstory makes the heart grow fonder and all that. This little beauty weighs in at just under 13 000 words and 30 pages. Phew! The next chapters shouldn't be as long. Kindly review, even if you cannot review kindly.