Much appreciation to the comments/faves/follows. Thank you so much for them! Special thanks to LoryLily for sticking around since the beginning. I'm very happy, guys, that this story is actually being read.

Feedback, as always, is appreciated because it tells me that yes, I am writing something that you all like and enjoy.

The following chapter contains scenes of a disturbing nature. This is rated M for a reason after all. You have been warned.


04.

An hour passes after their miraculous escape from the zombie-infested hardware store. Eventually, once Cry stops himself from shaking, he begins to realise that his body feels sore and his hand is smarting. It's too dark in the car to see anything so he traces a line which seems to be cut across the inside joints of his fingers. They don't feel like teeth marks (god, please tell me I didn't get bitten) but he tries to experimentally open and close his hand anyway, hissing a little when his fingers give a painful throb.

Whatever it is, he needs to check it out. So he reaches up to click on the car dome light to further examine his hands. When Pewdie gives a whine beside him for suddenly flooding the car with bright light, Cry turns and sees a line of blood which has streaked down Pewdie's face, staining his cheek red.

"You're bleeding," Cry points out, alarmed. "We should stop somewhere and patch that up before it gets infected."

"I am?" Pewdie shoots a quick glance at the rear-view mirror to see his reflection. His bewildered expression changes to that of shock. "Holy shit. I'm bleeding. I'm bleeding, Cry. How come I didn't even notice this?"

"Pull over," Cry instructs, popping open the glove compartment to extract one of their first aid kits. "The last thing we want right now is for you to pass out while driving."

They are lucky enough to spot another large billboard up ahead – some commercial about the country's best pie – and park the car behind it. They leave the dome light on so Pewdie can properly study himself in the rear-view mirror while Cry readies the antiseptic and plasters. It's silent in the car as Pewdie carefully peels his blood-stained hair off his face to inspect the damage. He then stares dazedly at his reflection and doesn't move for a long time.

Suddenly, Cry feels panic rise in his chest at the other's stillness. He kicks his door open, startling Pewdie, and goes out to take a few things from the trunk, navigating in the dark by flashlight. He returns with a torn strip of cloth and a precious bottle of water.

"I'll do it," Pewdie says, reaching for the items but Cry yanks them out of reach.

"Hold your hair back," he says instead and hopes the firmness in his tone would compel the other to obey. He's not sure if it's a trick of the light but Pewdie looks a little flustered by his words.

"You really don't need to," says Pewdie, shaking his head a little. "Really, Cry. I'm fine. I can do it. Don't–" his words cut off and Cry realises that Pewdie seems embarrassed by the attention given to him. Cry had reacted on panic after all when he frantically scrambled out to fetch things from the trunk, thinking that Pewdie might have been seriously hurt. After realising that Pewdie had noticed his reaction, Cry can't help but reciprocate the same feeling of embarrassment as well.

Except that this really isn't the time for any of that. He needs to turn his attention to the matter at hand. "Man up, bro," he says encouragingly to Pewdie and probably to himself as well. "And hold your hair back, okay?"

A few minutes later, Cry is gingerly cleaning the cut around Pewdie's eyebrow with the strip of damp cloth, now stained red with blood.

"So how long do I have left, doctor?" Pewdie asks melodramatically, gazing wistfully up at him. "A week to live?"

"Oh, you're lucky it's not deep," Cry shoots back with a smile, peering at the faint line across the other's skin. He coats a wad of cotton wool with some antiseptic and looks back at Pewdie expectantly.

"Go for it," says Pewdie. Cry can sense him tensing a little and he gives a playful scoff, intending to be encouraging, "Relax, Pewds. It'll just feel like a pinch."

Pewdie doesn't make a noise when Cry lightly presses the swabbed wad onto the shallow cut but he does flinch away at the contact. By the time Pewdie straightens up, Cry has already stuck a plaster over it.

"There's blood in my hair," Pewdie says, wiping his stained locks. "I guess it makes sense to get cut after smashing through glass like we did but – What about you? Are you hurt anywhere?"

Cry remembers his hand stinging and quickly puts his palm up to the light. He can see thin red lines cut across the inside of his fingers and his thumb is swollen, streaked with tiny little red dots. Bruised, he thinks automatically, recognising this type of injury. From gripping the ladder when it smashed hard through the glass. Definitely not a bite mark. There is nothing much to do with a bruise like this unless they have ice cubes at their disposal, which they don't.

Pewdie seizes his wrist and exclaims, "Geez. That looked like it hurt."

"It feels numb actually," says Cry, letting Pewdie examine his hand closer in the light. He falls into a thoughtful silence as he stares blankly at the bruise. Although the memory of their escape remains fresh in his mind, when it comes back to him this time, the whole thing suddenly feels unreal, like a dream, as if they hadn't just experienced it a little over an hour ago. He can still recall the emotions and the atmosphere of that time – remembers the tension, the fear, the adrenaline rush, the shuddering jolt as they break through glass, the overwhelming sense of relief at their survival – but they're distant now. Distant like a dream. Did all that really happen?

"Whoa, you alright there?" Pewdie gives his wrist a little tug, jerking him out of his thoughts. "How are you holding up?"

"Sorry," says Cry, pulling his hand back. "I'm fine. Just… still a little shocked." It's not true though, he's no longer in a state of shock. More like bewildered – bewildered that they are here, alive and breathing, and not eaten by zombies or ripped to shreds by broken glass. He thinks, if I'd gone in there on my own without anyone to back me up, I would've been dead in five minutes.

"It's weird," Pewdie says suddenly and his voice is serious for once. "I can hardly believe all that actually happened. It's like watching two other people do this stuff and escape without getting killed. You know, like they're not us. Because if it were us, we wouldn't have survived." He lets out a short laugh, "It's sort of feels like–"

"–A dream," Cry finishes for him the moment he realises that Pewdie's words mirror his own thoughts. "Yeah, that's exactly it."

"We were like, sneaking past fifty zombies or something–" Pewdie gestures wildly with his hands.

"With flashlights!" Cry adds.

"We had to be in ninja stealth mode–"

"Exactly. And we were quiet enough that they didn't even hear us."

"'Cos we're awesome like that. Awesome ninjas. We even escaped Zombie Martin."

Zombie Martin? Cry couldn't help letting out a giggle. "Zombie Martin?" he says aloud because he can't begin to pinpoint what was funny about that creature – Pewdie's nickname for him, or the fact that Zombie Martin wasn't wearing any pants and was missing a dick.

Except Pewdie thought he was giggling at the latter reason because he bursts into uncontrollable laughter, making Cry laugh even more because Pewdie's laughs are just fucking contagious – before gasping, "What the hell happened to him? I've never seen anything like it before. Anywhere. Not in any zombie movie I've seen. He must've had a hard time getting laid."

"Or someone had been a little too enthusiastic with him," Cry joins in the raunchy talk because he really can't help it if he sees an opening. "I think he needs to lay off the blow job requests from now on."

"Oh my god," Pewdie struggles to speak above Cry's laughing. "He should dump that zombie girlfriend of his. She really needs to learn not to bite too hard next time."

"Oh my god, Pewds. You didn't."

"Oh, but I did."

It's funny how many dick-related jokes they can come up with, and their laughter fills the interior of the car for another five minutes before they lapse into silence. Suddenly, like the aftermath of a violent storm, Cry thinks Zombie Martin's fate isn't so hilarious after all.

"It's horrible," he finds himself saying aloud. "What happened to him, to his face, to… you know."

"I think he got attacked in the toilets," Pewdie murmurs gravely. "I really don't want that happening to me if I were to die at the hands of a zombie." He then hums thoughtfully and says, "Not that I want to die any sooner. But… I'm glad though. That you were around to stop me, Cry. That you were there with me. Otherwise, I would've screamed when I saw Martin and gotten us killed."

The look Pewdie gives him right now leaves him with a warm feeling in his chest and Cry feels that he needs to confess something of his own. It's surprising that he and Pewdie seem to be thinking and feeling the exact same things. It's surprising how synchronised they seem to be at this moment, how this makes it easier for him to open up to the other because he knows that Pewdie will understand. It's strangely different from before, from when the world used to be normal and he and Pewdie sometimes have heartfelt talks over Skype, because he's never been in a situation where he literally owes someone his life.

And so he does. Cry says quietly, "I need to tell you something. Remember when I accidentally pressed that intercom button in that office?"

"Oh yeah, Cry," says Pewdie mischievously, giving him a mock-accusing stare. "You fucked up."

"Oh shut up," Cry waves it off with a laugh even though deep down, the accusation leaves him with a horrible feeling of guilt. "I'm being serious here… look, when we were facing those zombies all waking up, I really thought we were done for. I honestly couldn't see a way out. My mind sort of went blank for a second. I mean, I knew we couldn't go through the back door and how could we get to the front one without getting attacked?"

Cry pauses to let out a deep breath. He knows that Pewdie is listening to him carefully now, not wanting to interrupt him, so he continues on, "What I'm trying to say is, if it weren't for your quick thinking with the ladder… basically, we wouldn't have gotten out of the shit I put us in if it weren't for you, Pewds. So, thanks."

That's it then, Cry tells himself. We've both laid everything onto the table.

There is an awkward stretch of silence before Pewdie's face breaks into a smile. "We make a pretty awesome team," he points out and – goddamn it, it's the best idea in the world.

"Awesome ninja stealth team," Cry corrects with a grin.

"Awesome ninja stealth team fighting against zombies," Pewdie adds. "We should make our own videogame. Have the characters sneak past zombies and earn achievement points."

"That'll be your game," Cry says, snorting. "I'm fucking done with zombies."

"Oh, but we are keeping the awesome ninja stealth team, right?" Pewdie's grin is blinding once again. "Of course we are. That team is us. We'll be okay as long as we stick together, eh? Am I right, bro?"

He lifts his fist, holding it towards him, and Cry wants to laugh again because he hasn't seen a fist bump in what he thinks is years. It's so wonderfully familiar and it reminds him of better times, of times when he sits at home and creates videos that help make the world a happier place.

"Totally," he agrees, and bumps his fist against Pewdie's warm one.


Pewdie wakes up to a face full of sunlight and groans, intending to turn over. Then Cry's voice flows into his ear.

"You're awake," he says and Pewdie lifts his stiff, sore wrist to cover his eyes from the sun's glare. "No, no, don't go back to sleep," Cry scolds. "Come on, got something to show you."

"How are you even awake so early?" Pewdie mutters, straightening up in his seat and rubbing his face, feeling the plaster on his eyebrow. "Did you get any sleep last night?" It's the morning after their miraculous escape and they're still parked behind the giant billboard. It's a shame that they're facing eastwards because the sun right now is a little fucking annoying.

"Yes I did," Cry says patiently. Pewdie can't see his eyes since the sunlight is reflecting off his glasses, but he does see that Cry is holding something in his hand. When Pewdie blinks his groggy eyes a few times to get his vision into focus, he recognises the chunky black device they retrieved from the hardware store.

"The walkie-talkie?" he says.

"Even better," Cry goes to correct him. "It's a handheld CB radio. It's good for use in remote areas and also perfect for times like these…"

The pause that Cry leaves makes Pewdie purse his lips. "You don't know how to use it?" he guesses, reaching for the device.

Cry lets him take it. "No idea," he says and when Pewdie begins to examine the CB radio in his hand, he adds, "Also, it doesn't work because there aren't enough batteries."

"Are you kidding me?" Pewdie says incredulously. "I got us a whole bunch of batteries back at the hardware store–"

"Yeah, I know," Cry cuts in a little sombrely. "I took the liberty to check. You've collected a whole bunch of them – AAAs, Cs, Ds, some other sizes, but not enough AAs. This thing needs about nine of them. We've only got two working ones left."

Pewdie stares at the device in his hand. "Are you kidding me?" he mutters again, disappointed at the discovery that their one item of hope turns out to be useless after all. Except what stops him from wallowing in that disappointment is that Cry is looking at him expectantly. He looks restless, like he wants to tell him something but is waiting for Pewdie to give the signal.

"I've been thinking," Cry starts anyway because apparently, Pewdie's bemused expression turns out to be the signal for him to speak. "We did pretty okay when we looted the hardware store, right? Maybe we could do it again… but this time, we find some other place. We could find new batteries for our CB radio, get this thing to finally work so that we'll be able to call for help. What do you say?"

It takes Pewdie several seconds for all that to absorb into his sleep-addled mind. When it does, he isn't sure what he is hearing, "Wait, are you saying you want us to go into another place with lots of zombies just to get more batteries for this thing?"

Cry's gaze is blazing with eagerness, "That pretty much sums it up."

Pewdie isn't really against the idea of a second attempt because he already knows that they will eventually have to do more of these as time goes by. He merely feels uneasy at the feeling that their luck might have run out after surviving that first supply run at the zombie-infested hardware store. Then again, Cry looks quite determined as he sits there with the CB radio which he took back in his hands. He looks determined that they are able to pull it off the second time, all because–

"We'll be okay," says Cry reassuringly. "As long as we stick together, right?"

The words strike a familiar cord within him and Pewdie grins, recognising that the words had been his own. Seeing the grin forming on his face, Cry's lips twitch upwards into a smile.

"What?" he says, sounding amused. "What's so funny?"

"I'm not laughing," says Pewdie with a slight shake of his head. "Why are you laughing?"

"Who's laughing?" Despite what he says, Cry is the first one who lets out a peal of laughter. "I don't even know why this is funny. All I said was that we try out his whole ninja stealth thing again. Just like that videogame idea you mentioned last night. I mean, we did do good yesterday, right? We know what to avoid next time. We move slow, we keep quiet, we take our time and most importantly, we don't wake up the zombies. Besides, we work well together. We got us out of that place mostly intact. I'm sure we can do it again."

"Well then, lead the way, Cry," Pewdie says, sweeping a hand towards the open road. "I have no idea where the nearest store is. We need to plan this carefully. Map– er, the map is under your seat, I think… actually, do you have any idea where the fuck we are?"

Cry blinks before he lowers his window to lean his head outside. A few seconds later, he pulls back, muttering, "I have no idea where the fuck we are."

"Get that map out," Pewdie says, pretending to sound business-like as he settles back in his seat. He fires up Bluey and pulls the seatbelt strap over his chest, clicking it in securely. "We've got work to do."


So it begins, their "awesome ninja stealth team". It's what they decided to call themselves even though it's as cheesy as hell but it gives them something to be proud about. They drive on for hours, for days, until they finally find a very secluded retail park that is scattered with about a dozen zombies but also has something of an electronics store that is stacked between two clothes shops. They park a little away from it and recon the area for about an hour, planning the best way to break into the electronics store without disturbing the wandering undead.

"Sneak in through the back door again?" Cry suggests.

"Where is the back door anyway?" Pewdie points out while gazing through a set of binoculars that Cry scavenged from the hardware store. "I really don't think we can pull this off if we decide the only way in is through the front door."

"That is, if we assume that the front door is locked," Cry shoots back thoughtfully. "If it isn't locked, I wouldn't need to use the lock pick. That thing makes too much noise."

In the end, they decide to risk it and creep their way past the zombies, choosing a route where they can maintain at least a five feet gap of space between themselves and the creatures. They keep extra quiet as they take their time to reach the store's front entrance, rejoicing silently together when they find it unlocked. There is one zombie inside, a former shop assistant with two gunshot wounds in the middle of its chest, and it stands languidly by the glass counter, staring blankly into the distance. Discovering the presence of their unwanted guest, Cry and Pewdie stand by the shut door, wondering what to do with it.

Pewdie shoots a look at Cry and eyes the shovel hanging on the makeshift strap off his shoulder. Bash its head? He mouths. Cry shakes his head, unsure if it's a good idea. Will they make too much noise if that were to happen? Would the sound of a shovel smashing through a decomposing head be loud enough to literally wake the undead outside?

Keep an eye on it, Cry commands Pewdie in the end, deciding not to risk it. There is no need to kill them unless the zombies are the ones who attack them first. I'll go look for the batteries.

He's grateful that Pewdie doesn't argue with him so he leaves the latter to stand watch. He doesn't spend too long searching through the stuff in the store. There are a few things behind the counter that he's tempted to take but he doesn't want to go anywhere near the zombie. In the end, he finds no packets of batteries anywhere. The display racks, which are supposed to have the items hanging from their hooks, stand completely empty. Furthermore, there is no sign in the store that sells anything CB radio-related. Eventually, he gives up the search and motions for Pewdie, who Cry can see is already restless because of the way he absent-mindedly taps a rhythm onto his flashlight, that it's time to leave.

They breathe a collective sigh of relief the moment they sneak back into the car and drive off. This second attempt had been amazingly fortunate for them so far, since they managed to slip past a number of zombies and the undead shop assistant without disturbing them. The only thing that dampened their spirits was their lack of success in finding any battery cells for the CB radio.

"We must have been really lucky at that hardware store," Pewdie murmurs as he swerves the car out of the highway and onto a smaller road. "I guess one of the first things that people will stock up when there's a crisis will be batteries. They'll probably be the first thing to go. That's why you can't find them anywhere anymore. Also, we did another good job," he adds. "We're still alive and kicking."

This second experience doesn't feel as intense as the first, even though the amount of danger involved in both are similar. Cry finds that he does agree with Pewdie that they've done pretty well so far. The combined feeling of relief and triumph after leaving a scene of peril unscathed is overwhelming, addicting, and he finds that he wants to try again. He wants to keep finding things, to slip past zombies unseen, to feel invincible, because he feels he can do it – they both can do it as long as they stick together, as long as they have each other's backs.

The next time they find somewhere with a shop which probably sells batteries, they decide not to go through with looting it. The zombies in this area stagger around in groups, moving together with purpose. It's the first time they start to see the difference between the dormant-type of zombies that they'd dealt with and the ones which are fully awake. The way they are wander around the area gives a vital clue – the inactive ones are scattered about, languidly floating about like balloons while the active ones congregate in clusters, moving like a pack of wild dogs.

The only reason they were lucky enough to slip past the undead creatures in the hardware store and electronics shop was because no living human had visited both places for such a long time, and the lack of living flesh to pursue had rendered the zombies inactive. They only rouse into being when they hear a noise loud enough to attract their attention. That's when they become dangerous predators.

They know they see a losing battle when their car passes by the shop and about a dozen zombies jerk their heads at the noise of the engines and begin staggering after them. In two seconds, the group of a dozen zombies become two dozen, all travelling together in a mass of bodies, hurrying after their car and it's terrifying how they can suddenly move that fast, so Cry tells Pewdie to step on it and they zoom away.


They don't spend all their time searching for batteries. There's still the regular supply runs for food, water and other essentials but they only collect them from selected venues with fewer to no zombies around. Sometimes it's an abandoned house, sometimes it's a convenience store. Once, when they're stealing overripe fruits and vegetables off someone's garden, Pewdie startles badly when he spots a female zombie, formerly a little old lady, standing blankly at them through the window of the house which overlooks the garden they are in.

"She can't see us," Cry reassures him as he tosses a couple of potatoes he unearthed into the half-filled rusty bucket. "Unless we fire a gunshot or something, she won't start clawing her way out of the house to get us."

"But it's like she's watching us," Pewdie whines nervously, eyeing the undead old woman, at the dried blood coating her white hair. "It's so creepy."

On a blazing hot afternoon a few days later, Pewdie looks at the gas tank meter and mutters, "We're almost out. Where's the nearest gas station?"

"Wasn't there one about a couple of miles back?" Cry recalls from his seat. He's busy eating a packet of peanuts while examining Map's frayed, dog-eared pages. Sometimes when he eats in the passenger seat, he absent-mindedly holds out whatever food he has for Pewdie to take. On other days, Cry becomes a selfish bitch and doesn't share a crumb of his food with him at all.

"Isn't there one anywhere up ahead?" Pewdie asks again.

"Nope," says Cry.

"Well, fuck."

About fifteen minutes later, the gas tank meter starts flashing.

"Cry," Pewdie wails, tapping the meter's clear plastic.

"We've got a hose," Cry says suddenly, straightening up in his seat. "In the trunk. You swiped it from that old lady's garden. We're finally about to put it to good use."

"If you're thinking what I'm thinking…" Pewdie murmurs, shooting suspicious glances at Cry because he already has visions of a car, a hose, a gas tank and a bucket in his mind. "But there aren't any cars around for us to do that."

"Actually, there is," Cry points at something up ahead and they see a couple of skid marks on the road leading to the remains of a small car which has collided against a tree. When Pewdie slowly pulls up beside it, they notice that only the front part of the car is crushed inwards, a branch punching a hole through the glass. The back of the car, including the trunk and gas tank, is fortunately still intact. There is thankfully no one inside, meaning that whoever the driver had been must have escaped the scene alive.

"Do you know how to do this?" Pewdie asks as he watches Cry unscrew the cap from the broken car's gas tank. The strong smell of petrol begins to fill the air.

"Actually no," Cry admits as he puts the cap aside and dangles the length of the hose in his hands. "I've never done this but I've seen someone else do it in a video once. You take a hose and then you've got to use your mouth to suck the gas out."

"That sounds like fun," Pewdie jokes half-heartedly.

Cry's gaze doesn't waver, "It isn't."

When they set to work, it doesn't help that the heat and the strong, dizzying smell of petrol begins to make them both irritable. Pewdie lets out a line of colourful curses in Swedish every time one end of the hose keeps slipping out of the gas tank while they work on tying the other end into a loop. When Pewdie trips over one of their gas jugs, Cry shoots him a glare at his clumsiness.

Once they set the hose in place, Cry is the first to try sucking on the looped end in order to draw the fuel out, but after several failed attempts, he looks ready to toss the whole thing onto the floor. When Pewdie takes over the job instead, he's more fruitful in his endeavour but unluckily for him, a small amount of petrol escapes through the loop and enters into his mouth.

"You okay?" Cry asks concernedly when Pewdie doesn't stop coughing and spluttering. Cry has the easier job, Pewdie thinks glumly, of holding the hose in place as gallons of petrol gush into the jugs.

"No," is what he spits out bitterly, not facing the other when he speaks. The taste of gas in his tongue is revolting and he doesn't stop rinsing his mouth with their precious water until the water bottle is finished. A few minutes later, there are footsteps behind him and he feels Cry's hand lightly pat him on the back. He suddenly relaxes at the gesture. Somehow, he doesn't feel that much irritated by what he had to go through.

On one late morning, they drive into a strip mall littered with bodies. Upon closer inspection, it's obvious that they had all been zombies, and it seems that someone had rampaged through the area, killing each and every one of them in a number of different yet equally horrific ways. What they see, as they silently drive through, is disturbing. There's a body of a teenaged girl lying in a shallow drain with its head bashed open and its brains spilling out, while a headless man's body sits awkwardly against a blood-splattered brick wall. There is a small pile of burnt bodies stacked on top of each other like a bonfire, and someone has taken a shot to a zombie's face, obliterating almost all its features, leaving a gory hole where its eyes, cheeks, nose and mouth had been.

It's eerily silent here, not even the wind stirs the flag suspended in the middle of the parking lot.

"This is kind of creepy," Cry finally comments aloud as he gazes uneasily at the scene through his window. Whoever had killed all these zombies must have been utterly ruthless. For the first time in weeks, he feels a sense of fear not only towards the undead but also the living. He doesn't need to voice this out to Pewdie because he knows that the other is probably thinking the same thing.

His uneasiness quickly turns into alarm when Pewdie parks the car at an inconspicuous spot and turns off the engine. "What the hell are you doing?" Cry yelps.

"Supply run," says Pewdie breezily. "Look, all the zombies are dead. Which leaves the whole place to ourselves. If you're still unsure about this, bring your shovel." In reality, Pewdie also feels disturbed by the state of the dead zombies, by the way they were killed, but his guts tell him that this is a lucky opportunity that they should take while they still can.

After half an hour of some very thorough examination of the area, Pewdie's statement turns out to be true. There is nothing living or undead around anywhere and it is only then that Cry allows himself to relax. They end up staying at the strip mall for the entire day because of the kinds of shops available for them to look through – a few clothing stores, a supermarket, a hairdresser's, a bakery, a shoe shop, a music store and a few others. Although they discover that all of these shops have already been raided, there are still enough useful items left around for them to take.

When they enter a clothing outlet, they take the opportunity to change into fresh, new clothes. It's about time they do so since their old ones have become dirty, frayed and torn over time. They spend a while inside, trying out this and that, and when Cry is just adjusting the zipper of a new hoodie he had just put on, Pewdie strolls over and dumps a cap on top of his head.

"Perfect," Pewdie says with a theatrical wave of his hand.

"What the hell is this?" says Cry, pulling the cap off. It's a plain, cheap-looking cap with a flat brim imprinted with a rainbow-coloured cartoon duck. He gets the reference easily because Pewdie has a weird thing for ducks, but the cap turns out to be a little too big for him.

"To complete your look," Pewdie points out. "Also, to keep your hair in. It's starting to grow out of control."

"Well, you're starting to look like a girl," Cry says insultingly, eyeing Pewdie's own locks. "Maybe you should get a haircut."

"Maybe we should get haircuts," Pewdie suddenly corrects and it's not an argument he's presenting this time but a suggestion, and Cry recognises the reason behind it, remembers a crucial piece of advice Chuck gives in The Walking Dead game. If their hair grows long enough, it will become a liability since there's a higher chance of it getting grabbed by zombies' wandering hands.

He and Pewdie look at each other in mutual understanding before diverting their gazes outside, where they had spotted a hairdresser's on the way to this store. When they make their way there, they find to their disbelief that someone had taken away every sharp object from the place. The only thing they can use left is the pair of barber shears which have been stabbed into the back of a female zombie's curly head.

"This is disgusting," Pewdie moans in revulsion as he forces himself to hold down the zombie's head so that Cry can pull out the shears that are stuck into its skull.

Once they clean the shears the best they can, they take turns cutting off each other's hair. In the end though, it's Cry who is the worst of the two because Pewdie spends about ten minutes whining about how imbalanced it all looks now that it's trimmed short.

"Can't you see how this side is longer than the other?" Pewdie says, tugging at his shortened hair once they leave the hairdresser's. "If I had known you were bad at this, I would've–" his words trail off as he suddenly stops in front of the music store. When he doesn't move for a few seconds, Cry peers over his shoulder, trying to follow the direction of his gaze.

"What is it?" he asks, confused. There's nothing interesting inside. The glass displays have been smashed, its contents seized, and the interior of the store, like everywhere else, is dark and dusty from disuse.

Pewdie suddenly seizes him by the shoulder, almost knocking the cap that he had given him earlier on off his head, and points at something by the music store counter. Cry doesn't know how the other is able to see whatever it is he is pointing at from this distance and in this gloom, but thank god that he does.

"Batteries!" Pewdie exclaims happily. "I think I see some AAs. We're in luck, Cry. We've got batteries!" He feels Pewdie's hand wrap around his wrist before he is tugged into the shop.

Although there's only one packet containing four AA battery cells hanging from a display rack by the counter, they take it anyway because it's the best find they have in so many days. It assures them that they're one step closer to collecting the remaining number of batteries, one stop closer to making their CB radio work, one step closer to being saved.

"Good job, Cry," Pewdie congratulates him even though Cry isn't the one who had found the batteries. He grins widely, so brilliant it looks in the gloom of the music store, and silently offers his fist to him. Cry feels a warm feeling rise in his chest, bubbling out of his mouth in a huff of laughter, and bumps his own fist firmly against Pewdie's.

On the dawn of the following day, armed with a variety of new supplies which have been stowed away into the trunk, they drive off in the rising sunrise, leaving the strange, deathly strip mall behind them.


The days blur inconspicuously into weeks and soon, a month passes by.

Life on the road has its ups and downs and they do see their share of awful, unsettling things while travelling. One afternoon, they drive past a horde of zombies feasting on a live cow. The animal had been trying to escape their clutches in vain and when it collapses on the ground after an undead woman gnaws on one of its legs, the rest of the group fall onto it like a pack of lions on a gazette. It's a horrible sight to watch something alive being torn to bits in minutes and they quickly drive away before their car starts attracting attention.

Once, when they are driving down a small, dirt road, a pickup truck flashes past them, missing their car by inches, before swerving out of control. From a distance, they could just see the driver in the truck struggling in vain against a zombie whose teeth are buried into his shoulder. Pewdie's first instinct is to find some way of helping him but that idea is extinguished when the truck suddenly flips and rolls over several times before coming to land with the wheels up, the many tonnes of metal crushing both man and zombie into a pulp.

They decide to stop at a motel on another early evening as the sun begins to set so they could take a break from driving. However, when they enter the room they had chosen to stay in, they discover, to their horror, the bodies of a family of four involved in a mass suicide. The parents lie sprawled on the floor, their heads haloed by pools of blood leaking from the gunshot wounds on their temples. Two children, around ten to eleven years old, are curled together on a sofa, their blank faces deathly pale and the back of their heads bloody.

This is crazy, Cry gasps, appalled by the sight. It's terrible, what happened to these people. It's terrible to see how the world right now can drive a family to extreme measures like this.

Beside him, Pewdie turns his face away, unable to look at the scene before them any longer. A second later, he suddenly spins back sharply, looking terribly disturbed, before he brushes past Cry and leaves the room without another word.

"Pewds…?" Cry calls weakly, not wanting to be left alone in this terrible place. He glances over at wherever Pewdie had been facing and notices a bed there, realises exactly what the other had seen to make him react like that. There is something small lying on top of blood-splattered bed sheets and when he stares at it a little longer, he discerns a human-shaped bundle of clothes attached with two pairs of limbs. He sees a small arm that ends with a set of chubby little fingers belonging to an infant child. A large pillow covers its head, covering the worst of the blood stains.

Cry feels his blood turn cold. Suddenly, he feels unclean, he feels sick, he feels wrong, and all he wants right now is get out of this room.

Pewdie is already in the car when he runs out of the motel room and they instantly drive away the moment Cry slips into the passenger seat. They drive in silence for a while before Cry glances over at Pewdie and sees him staring mournfully at the road before him. He is stunned to notice the tears that are silently running down the other's face.

"Pewds," Cry says softly, sadly and a little helplessly, because he doesn't know what he can do to make it better. How can you try and make it better after seeing something like that?

"Pewds," Cry calls again, even more softly, like a whisper, and this time, it rouses Pewdie out of his thoughts. "You're crying."

They have to stop the car for a while and Cry patiently waits to let Pewdie calm down and collect himself. After that, they don't talk about what they had seen and don't stop at any more motels they happen to pass by.


Despite this, despite all the perturbing things they've seen, it really isn't all that bad, this dangerous life they have now, since it doesn't really get boring in the car when they're roaring down an empty highway. When it does get a little quiet, Pewdie sometimes slips in a random CD from a collection they stole from the music store weeks ago and lets Cry sing along to all the tunes while he beat-boxes alongside him. Cry isn't a terribly good singer or a terribly bad one either but sometimes when he croons out songs, his voice goes a little too high-pitched and it makes Pewdie burst into fits of laughter that he can't control.

At times when Pewdie gets tired of driving, he lets Cry take the wheel but it's short-lived because Cry drives like a mad man and Pewdie spends most of that time gripping the passenger seat hard and telling Cry to "slow the fuck down."

When they come across a broken pipe that is continually gushing out water one day, they make the best of it by not only refilling all their bottles and containers, but also using it to wash every inch of poor, battered and dirty old Bluey until she shines under the sun. They also get into an inevitable water fight during the car wash at the same time.

That late evening, Cry wakes Pewdie up in the middle of the night and invites him outside. Pewdie is irritable at first because he gets tired driving for hours and it had taken him a while to find a place secluded enough for the car to rest for the night. Cry rolls his eyes at his complaints and motions for him to sit on the hood of the car.

"Look up," is what he says when he settles next to him, and Pewdie does.

The night sky is littered with a million twinkling stars and they shine so bright now that the world has literally descended into darkness. He thinks he's never seen anything so big and so beautiful in such a long time.

He doesn't know how long they sit there together, gazing up at the glittering sky, but when he comes back down to earth, he mutters sheepishly, "This is pretty cheesy." Because Cry waking him up just to let him witness this magnificent sight is pretty cheesy. It's also a little bit romantic.

"It's one of the few things in the world that hasn't changed," Cry murmurs beside him. "And they're beautiful, aren't they? The stars? So, yeah. Of course this is pretty cheesy."

During the day, they spend most of the time talking, sharing with each other what they know about surviving a zombie apocalypse, discussing new tactics on better ways to either sneak past the undead or how to scavenge the most useful items. Sometimes, when they're not talking about something zombie-related, they would recall the videos they once made for their Youtube channels, laughing over the stupid things they did or reminisce on the kinds of videogames they played. The good thing about it is that it's easy to talk about these things with each other because it doesn't get old.

There is one thing that Cry never talks about, no matter how many times Pewdie tries to bring it up. Even when it does get brought up, Cry avoids mentioning anything further about it and lets the topic die naturally in the conversation. Pewdie notices it whenever he speaks about his family back home in Sweden, about Marzia or Maya. He notices it when he tries to ask Cry about his own family but the subject is always cut off, sometimes by a sudden change in topic or when Cry interrupts him with an announcement about the state of their supplies.

It's puzzling how Cry suddenly becomes guarded and shut off when their conversation turns to something related to their past lives – that is, their real lives when they are not called Pewdiepie and Cryaotic. To Pewdie, it's one of the ways he uses to cope with the world now because it helps him believe that the people he misses are safe out there and are waiting for him to come home. He misses them dearly, regrets that he had taken them for granted all along, so he uses the memory of them to keep him going. It's one of the reasons why he openly talks about them. He just doesn't understand why this isn't the case for Cry.

Pewdie doesn't know what happened to Cry's family when this hell began a couple of months ago. Cry has yet to mention what happened to him in detail in the three weeks before their reunion. What Pewdie has done to satisfy his own curiosity about the matter is to merely form speculations.

And then that day arrives, when the opportunity to talk about their past lives comes up, and Pewdie decides to take it because they're both in a good mood and Cry has been laughing hard at something he'd said for the past seven minutes. It's also one of those days when he lets Cry drive for a while. He thinks that maybe he can catch him off-guard this time.

"You never told me exactly what happened to you when this all started," Pewdie begins casually. At once, he catches the changing expression on Cry's face, notices how quickly the merriment slips out of his features. "I was at the airport, waiting for my flight and I had time to I call Marzia on the way there to tell her I was going to miss my plane. I got through to Ken after I got Bluey and drove out of the city. What about you? Did you get through to anyone?"

It's most direct thing he's said about the subject yet and Cry's response to this is a tense silence that even Pewdie can feel in the car. He notices that Cry has recoiled into his seat, his focus turned towards the road ahead.

"You didn't get through to anyone?" Pewdie says. "Did you try to find them? Your family or your friends? Search for them at the last place you expected them to be?"

There is more silence filled with tension from the driver's seat. Cry may have escaped this talk one too many times before with the use of interruptions and clever diversions, but not right now. Pewdie has sought him out, forced him to confront this subject and he can see that Cry is struggling to find a way out.

"It's okay, man," Pewdie coaxes gently, thinking that this direct approach may be freaking him out. "I mean, it's about time we talk about this, right? It was going to happen eventually. I got to be honest with you. I've been wondering about this for a while. Did something happen… to your family? Is that why you don't talk about them?"

"No," it's the first time Cry speaks. His voice is hoarse, his words sound forced, and the stubborn reluctance to pursue this topic is prominent on his face – from the furrow in his eyebrows to the downturn in his mouth. He starts to grip the steering wheel hard with his fingers.

"No?" Pewdie echoes because the answer alone doesn't tell him much. He lets the silence between them stretch and when Cry seems determined not to answer him, he sighs and resumes, "'No' as in 'something didn't happen to your family'? If that's the case, then maybe they're safe. Maybe they escaped just in time, like we did. I mean, we got through okay, right? Maybe they did, too."

Pewdie becomes bewildered when the reassurance doesn't move Cry at all.

"You're worried you don't know what happened to them?" he guesses.

"Is it that you feel guilty because you haven't found them yet?" he tries again after failing to coax so much as a noise out of the other.

"Why won't you talk about your own family?" he says impatiently this time. "Why won't you talk about your own life? Why don't you say something? Anything?" He wishes they could stop the car so that he can make Cry look at him because the silence that he's receiving is beginning to unnerve him. It is like talking to a brick wall. Eventually, you just want to smash it just to get some sort of response.

"Really, Cry? This is–" This is ridiculous, what they're doing now. He didn't intend for this to happen, didn't expect their initial good mood to melt into the boiling pot they are standing in now. What started as a simple ploy to take advantage of Cry's good mood in order to get him to talk has turned into a battle of wills. He finds himself in the middle of a crisis of whether to continue pursuing this or drop it entirely because clearly, Cry does not want to talk about this. That much he knows already and really, it isn't his place to pry further into the details of Cry's life.

But this, right now, this stubborn muteness is fucking ridiculous, it's frustrating, it's downright childish, and for one mad second, Pewdie thinks that Cry is starting to become another inanimate object in his car that needs to be given a voice just so he doesn't go crazy from the silence.

And then he begins to go too far.

"Could it be that you just don't want to think about what happened to them?" Pewdie says, or rather he sneers it because if the gentle approach isn't working, he will try mocking, he will try light-hearted banter, he will try something else if he can. He just wants Cry to say something. "You don't want to entertain the idea that maybe they didn't make it? Maybe they got caught on the way. That's why they couldn't make it back. That's why you didn't get to see them."

He keeps his eyes on Cry when he says all this, wants to see if his words can stir something out of him. But Cry remains stuck in stony silence, his expression carefully blank as he continues to focus on the road ahead as he drives.

"Maybe you did spend those three weeks looking for them," Pewdie rambles on. "But you couldn't find any clues as to where they'd gone so you gave up. Is that it then? The reason why you don't want to talk about this? Is it because you gave up?" He doesn't know if what he says may be the truth or something close to it. He's just bullshitting now, merely voicing out his speculations unless Cry intervenes and tells him that everything he says is wrong.

You should stop, Pewdie. He isn't sure if it's Map or GPS or Torchy who is warning him to drop the subject. He isn't even sure if he's the one who is telling himself that. He can't stop, he can't seem to stop himself from speaking. Something is boiling in his chest, growing all the more intense as Cry continues to look forward, refusing to look at him and there's just nothing happening and– goddamn it, Pewdie doesn't even know if Cry is even listening to him, the bastard.

"Or maybe it's something else," he gnashes out, becoming increasingly frustrated at the continued lack of response. "Maybe you did find them. But it was too late to save them." He sees Cry's back tense a little. Oh, was he actually listening all this time then? What would it take to get Cry to make a sound? "Maybe you're guilty because you couldn't save them. Is that it? Tell me I'm wrong, Cry." God, he needs to stop. Why can't he stop?

"Stop being such a wuss," Pewdie begins taunting, his voice growing louder. "This is about your family. Why are you so scared of talking about them?" He shouldn't do this. It's unfair to Cry, who is breathing hard now, who is gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles have turned white, who is barely blinking as he stares determinedly at the road before them. But the silence. The silence just continues to make Pewdie even more aggravated.

"Goddamn it, Cry," he almost barks it out, throwing himself back in his seat in frustration. "Man up and tell me what the fuck is wrong with you–"

Then his gaze falls on the road ahead – and he spots a zombie there in the middle of the road, a small thing like a child that's not so easily seen and it just lingers there in a daze, baking and decomposing in the sun.

And they are hurtling straight towards it.

"Cry," he calls in alarm, glancing over at the other and Cry is still staring straight ahead but his eyes are glazed over. He's not seeing anything. He doesn't see what they're driving towards.

"Cry!" Pewdie yells sharply.

"What–?" Cry utters, snapping out of his trance, and he sees the zombie child standing in their way and startles in surprise, jerking the car to the side by reflex.

The next thing they know, their world outside becomes a blur of colours and suddenly, they're no longer driving on smooth tarmac but on bumpy and uneven ground, kicking up dirt and dust, and Pewdie is screaming for Cry to stop the car and Cry is screaming for Pewdie to shut up as he tries in vain to keep the wheel steady while stamping his foot hard on the brakes.

The car slams into an unseen bump, the impact jerking them against their seatbelts, and they sail into the air for a second before they're plunging downwards into a steep ditch and something explodes into their faces, turning everything in their visions white.