Much heartfelt thanks to CIAKat for your comment for the previous chapter.
Here's another monster chapter for you folks. Sometimes I wonder how I can churn out 8K+worded chapters every week. Writing is such exhausting work after all.
07.
The moment when he storms towards that first zombie, there's a rush of exhilaration spreading like fire through his veins which bursts into a fit of violence as his shovel smashes into the creature's face. He watches as the impact crushes part of the skull inwards like a cracked egg, watches as it throws the undead man to the floor and he grinds it down with his foot and doesn't let one second of hesitation escape him as he stabs the shovel blade into that ruined face and breaks it even further.
And there's raw power filling him up and he can feel it tingling on the tips of his fingers where he's gripping his shovel. That first kill was done so swiftly, the movements so practiced and he easily recalls how natural it feels again, how he still has it in him to swing and smash things to obliteration, like recalling each note when playing an old melody on a piano.
And then while he stares down at his kill, satisfied at how precise his aim on its face had been, he's aware that the second zombie is staggering down towards him, its broken foot scratching against the floor as it drags itself closer. When he glances up, he's already tightening his grip on the handle of his shovel, counting to three, and doesn't flinch when the creature launches itself at him like some hideous, demented cat. He catches a glimpse of its torn neck as it flaps open like a gutted fish and the inside of its mouth that's missing a tongue between the twin rows of rotten teeth.
During the second kill, he lets himself go, lets out all his emotions – the guilt for losing their car, the frustration for walking miles and miles alongside a river for weeks, the exasperation for only having Pewdie for company, the impatience for reaching their destination, the excitement for getting a job done – he lets them drive his movements just like they did the first time he kills a zombie after Marilyn and George's deaths. He can't stab the shovel blade into the creature's face when he knocks it face-down so he resorts to repeatedly smashing it on the back of the head until it reduces into a bloody, juicy pulp.
Then he straightens up once again and he's panting for breath, his arms tingling and warm from the strain, feels the power still rippling through his form. He's aware that he's covered in blood and gore, feels it beginning to harden on his skin and he knows he's ready for more, ready to kill some more, ready to face another undead creature and bludgeon it to death.
Damn, he thinks. It feels fucking good to let everything out.
Still high on the adrenaline that's rushing through his veins, he meets Pewdie's gaze by the sliding glass door, feels light-headed as he mutters to the other something about how long it's been since he'd done this. He wants to grin at him, reassure him that the danger has passed because he'd taken care of the problem but he's now aware of Pewdie's pale, shocked complexion as the latter stares back at him. At some point, the other man had dropped his crowbar where it lies there on the floor by his feet.
Cry frowns and motions towards the two bodies on the ground, "They're dead. It's safe now. We can hole up in this house for a couple of days." When he moves his head to emphasize his point, a gloop of congealed blood drops from his hair and slops messily onto his cheek. He wipes it away in disgust and realises he's only staining his face even more because his hands are red with blood. Geez, he'd forgotten how messy and often unhygienic this job can be.
When Pewdie doesn't answer him, which is a very odd thing for him to do, Cry shoots him a look of confusion and says a little more loudly this time, "Pewds, chill the fuck out. They're dead. We're safe now."
He watches as Pewdie opens and closes his mouth a few times like a fish, looking as if he's grasping for words before he finally settles with a sharply delivered remark of, "Yeah, I know that already. Don't need to point out the obvious." Pewdie then detaches himself from the glass door, leaning down briefly to pick up his crowbar and Cry's fallen cap – Cry didn't even know it had fallen off his head that time – and creeps around the dining room table where the dead zombies lie, not wanting to come any closer to them. Pewdie seems fascinated by the state of the bodies on the floor at first before something changes in his face and he turns away, looking sick.
"Geez, bro," says Pewdie, motioning towards the bodies without looking at them. He is playing with Cry's cap in his hands, absent-mindedly smoothing the brim with his thumbs. "You weren't kidding when you said that you've got a talent with killing these things." His voice sounds oddly faint, as if uneasy.
"I didn't," Cry corrects in a matter-of-factly tone. "You made the assumption. And anyway, it's not really a talent. It's a necessity. Sometimes you've got no choice. Sometimes you've got to do it."
And that's when he realises that he and Pewdie never once killed any zombies when they were travelling together. He's heard from Pewdie once while they croon out bad pop songs in the car that the latter had only killed one zombie and that was mostly by accident. He knows that Pewdie has been surviving all this time by keeping to the roads and avoiding civilisation so of course he wouldn't have seen an actual killing in real life. Of course it makes sense now that he looks a little unnerved after Cry took care of the two zombies on the floor. It's no wonder that Pewdie seems a little wary of Cry now judging from the way he's leaning his body away as if he can feel that raw, brutal power radiating off Cry's form.
Cry wants to assure him that he's sorry if he'd given Pewdie a shock, that he may have overdone it with the killing. Except, he really isn't that sorry at all. These aren't like the videogames they'd played before. This is the harsh reality they live in now. This is not the time for Pewdie to be upset over this. This is the time for Pewdie to face the facts.
"Man up, bro," Cry says sternly. Although he can barely see Pewdie through his blood-stained glasses, he's standing close enough for Cry to discern his changing expression from dazed to attentive. "Did you think that we're going to spend the rest of our lives just sneaking past these bastards? Even if we could, how long can we keep that up? These things are like dormant bombs. How long can you tiptoe around them without setting them off?"
"I know that," says Pewdie again, his tone sounding insistent yet his eyes continue to look uncertain, unfocused. Cry just shakes his head, assumes that the other man is still unconvinced.
"Look, I did it because I had to," he begins, his tone firm and persistent. "Because we needed a place to stay for a bit. If you still think we can pull off this ninja stealth thing and go rest upstairs, how do we even do that when we know for a fact that there are two sleeping zombies down here who can wake up at any moment if one of us screws up? Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"I fucking know that, Cry," Pewdie snaps this time, looking harried and impatient at the repetitive nature of Cry's words. "I get it, okay. All of it. We need to kill these sons of bitches sooner or later and when it comes down to it. I get it. Geez."
"Then why do you still look like that?" Cry asks. He can't help but furrow his eyebrows into a frown.
"Like what?" Pewdie asks.
"Like you just swallowed something you shouldn't have," Cry tries his best to describe the expression. It's not really that accurate though. If he had to guess again, he thinks Pewdie looks rather shaken by the event, maybe a little bit bewildered by the reality of it, and possibly a little bit scared of Cry. Cry gets that vibe from the way Pewdie just can't seem to keep his eyes on him for more than five seconds, as if he can't stand to look at him.
Noticing this, Cry feels incredibly self-conscious of himself and of his actions and as he struggles to find words to get the other to stop doing that, the silence between them stretches on until it becomes too awkward to continue their line of conversation. So they stand there in disconcerted stillness over the sprawled, mutilated zombie bodies.
Then, another gloop of sloppy, congealed blood drops off Cry's hair and splatters onto the lens of his glasses, into his eyes.
"Shit, gross," Cry tears his glasses off his face to clear the disgusting gunk out of his eyes with a dry portion of his sleeve. He's aware now of how sticky and dirty he is, not to mention how spent and tired he feels after his adrenaline rush had died down completely. What he wants right now is to clean himself up and rest and he's not doing any of those things until they get rid of these two bodies.
"Help me out," Cry instructs, putting their air of discomfiture aside and propping his shovel against the wall. "We've got to toss these things out of the house. You take one of them and I'll take the other and we drag them outside. Come on, let's go," he adds when Pewdie doesn't move.
Cry leans down and takes hold of the ankles of the older zombie, waits until Pewdie puts his cap and crowbar on the dining table and comes over to retrieve the legs of the younger one, and then begins to pull. There is a nasty squelching sound as the remains of the zombie's skull slowly peels off the floor and – ugh, holy shit, that's disgusting. He can see the smashed bits of brain poking out of that demolished head, mixing with the fragmented pieces of bone and blood. Then there is the stench, like a rotten mix of decayed flesh, the sharp tang of iron and something else he can't quite identify. For once, he realises just how extreme his blows had been if it can reduce a human head into something as repulsive as this.
"Cry…" Pewdie's voice thankfully pulls his gaze away from the gory sight and at once, Cry recognises the sickly green pallor that Pewdie's complexion has taken as the latter stares at the zombie Cry is holding on to.
Alarmed, Cry lets go of the creature and reaches out to reassure him that he understands how he is feeling, how nauseating and sick the sight is making him – and realises with a start that he is feeling that right now. He shuts his eyes tight and fights off the urge to retch, to gag; forces himself to swallow down that wretched wave of nausea that's rising in his throat. He doesn't want to throw up. He won't. He'll fight this. He can get through this. Breathe, Cry. Fucking breathe. Count to ten, thirty, forty, fifty. Breathe.
When he opens his eyes, feeling a little more composed now, he sees that Pewdie has disappeared from his side and is currently rifling through the cabinets under the sink. When he straightens up, his face still a little pallid and sickly, he holds up a roll of black trash bags and some dish-washing rubber gloves for Cry to see.
"How the hell is that going to help?" Cry asks. He doesn't want to look at the zombies again because he's afraid he can't handle it the second time. He used to be so unperturbed by the sight but now, after he is forced to move them and sees exactly how gruesome it actually is, he's disgusted and sickened by the view. So no. No, he's definitely sure he can't handle this the second time.
"We have a shovel," Pewdie says simply, and pauses like the last time to let Cry figure out the rest of his plan.
And Cry does – and it's one of the things he remembers that makes him and Pewdie such a good team. He puts two and two together – the shovel, the gloves and the garbage bag, and knows what they're supposed to do. Except this will require some teamwork and a lot of will not to give in and throw up.
Pewdie already knows all this of course because he mutters, "I am not going to like this. Not one bit. Not one bit. Goddamn it." He's already busying himself with unrolling the bin bags and tearing a couple of them off. He passes Cry without looking at him, averts his gaze away from the bodies and drops two of the bin bags over the mutilated zombie heads, successfully covering them entirely from view with the black sheets. Cry is able to look at the bodies now without flinching, but the thought is not entirely reassuring. He knows that underneath those bin bags, the heads are still there, still battered to hell.
As Cry picks up his shovel from its place against the wall, Pewdie pulls on the rubber gloves and for one short second, their gazes connect and a quick message passes between them – Ready? And then Pewdie is picking his way through the pool of blood and gore surrounding the covered zombie head, wincing as he tries to keep his balance on the slippery gunkand crouches over the head end of the body. Cry can see the uneasiness in his face as he prepares his gloved hands, ready to wrap the head with the bin bag the moment Cry scoops it off the floor with his shovel.
"Just do it quickly," Cry offers the advice as he positions himself by the side of the head, hoping his words have some sort of reassuring effect on Pewdie, who is strangely silent right now. The last time they touched a dead zombie body was when they were pulling the barber shears out of its skull at that deathly strip mall. Cry remembers just how noisy Pewdie had been as they worked together at the extraction. But here, Pewdie's clenching his jaw, letting not one disgusted whine out of his mouth and his eyes seem unfocused, full of dread and reluctance for their task ahead.
Cry takes a deep breath through his mouth – he isn't going to do that through his nose if the whole place smells this bad – and tucks the tip of shovel blade under the black bin sheet, feels the not-quite solid remains of the smashed skull, and scoops upwards. There's that horrible wet, squelching sound again and Cry fights off the image of a gruesome head peeling off the floor and the wave of nausea that's threatening to come back to him. On the floor, he sees Pewdie squirm in disgust.
He thinks he's managed to scoop a good portion and lifts it slightly off the ground and Pewdie instantly acts, wraps the head and shovel blade loosely with the bin bag. Once secure, Cry carefully pulls his shovel back, the stained blade slipping out of the black sheet, and watches as Pewdie gathers two ends of the bin bag and tie them together in a tight knot. Once done, he drops it back down to the floor and immediately stands up and the bin bag splashes onto the puddle of blood, staining his shoes.
They allow themselves a few seconds to rest and prepare themselves again before they turn their attention to the other zombie. Again they work quietly, only because Cry thinks talking aloud might make the sickening feeling even worse, and when they're done, they try dragging the bodies and despite struggling with the heavy weight, it's easier, so much easier than before to do this without looking at the gory mess. They haul each dead corpse across the floor and leave a bloody trail behind, like red tyre skid marks, and dump them outside in the backyard. When Pewdie slides the door shut behind them, Cry goes to tug the thin lacy blinds over it to block their view outside. That's when they both breathe a sigh of relief.
For a brief moment, Cry allows a sense of security to wash over him before he's up and lifting his shovel again. He actually feels Pewdie's bewildered gaze on him, feels the question in his eyes.
"We need to check the entire house," Cry says as a way of response. "Secure the whole place, check for any more zombies, barricade exits in case something wants to come in, that sort of thing. We do that first, then we can go rest."
"…R-Right. We should go check upstairs first," Pewdie responds after a few seconds, his voice a little shakily as he picks up his crowbar. Again, his glance is wavering, unable to stay on him for too long. "Should we split up and cover more ground?" he adds almost absent-mindedly and Cry frowns, appalled by the idea.
"No, we stay together," he berates him. "What did I tell you about splitting up? We don't do that. We'll be safer together. Come on." He's a little annoyed at how unfocused Pewdie is and wants to try snapping him out of it, but he's sick of nagging so he lets it go and decides to give the other some time to calm down on his own.
They creep upstairs, the steps on the staircase making a slight creaking noise, and reach the landing where a shard of sunlight shines through a round framed window, lightening up the length of the hallway. One of the glass panels of the window has been swung open, allowing ventilation into the house. Four doors lie on either side of the landing, two of which hang open and they decide to go through the one nearest to the stairs.
It's a typical sort of bedroom that either of them could own. Posters of cars with the occasional attractive scantily-clad lady are plastered on the walls, a mini fridge stacked next to a desk with a dusty computer, some DVDs and a couple of car magazine issues heaped into a pile on a shelf, some clothes and other knick knacks lie scattered on the floor, a baseball jersey hangs off an office chair which had tipped over and fallen on its side on the carpet. There is also a collection of knives lined up on the unmade bed and a cleaning cloth followed by a bloody baseball bat propped against the bedframe.
There's another door inside the room and Cry nudges Pewdie to it and they cautiously push it open. In one glance, it's a bathroom with blue and white tiles, a boat-patterned curtain covering a bathtub and shower head, a porcelain toilet tucked between the bathtub and the sink. They both stiffen at the sight of something moving and realise that it's nothing but their reflections in the bathroom mirror.
When Cry and Pewdie stare at themselves properly for the first time in weeks, it's a shocking sight to behold. What is looking back at them from the mirror are two strangers resembling a pair of vagrant homeless men, bodies skinny, clothes frayed and dirty, their faces weary and weather-beaten, jawlines dark with stubble, their hair wild and unkempt. Cry can't believe that one of the pair is actually himself, that the face and clothes hidden underneath the blood and guts are actually his own. He's especially struck by the unfamiliarity of the red-rimmed eyes that are staring back at him behind blood-stained glasses because that gaze is hard and intense. It is like the gaze of someone who has seen so many things that he regrets seeing, that he wishes he never had.
"Holy fuck," Pewdie breathes beside him and his face in the mirror twists into that of astonishment.
Cry blinks out of his dazed trance, trying not to glance at his reflection again and reminds himself not to forget their priorities. Leaving Pewdie's side for a while, he turns his attention towards the bathtub where a shower curtain is drawn over it, hiding it from view. He approaches it cautiously, one hand gripping his shovel, and slowly pulls the curtain to find nothing inside. He does, however, discover a small square window above the tub and when he climbs in and stands on tiptoe to look through the window, he sees the backyard below him and beyond that, the road they had travelled from.
A sudden gurgling noise coming from behind him startles him from his observation and Cry stumbles unsteadily on the balls of his feet, trying to regain his lost balance. When he hears Pewdie swear something in Swedish, he turns around to find that the other man had jumped back from the sink, staring at it in alarm. About a second later, the tap gives a visible shudder and a jet of water spits out of it in a gushing stream and begins to fill the bowl of the sink.
"Oh my god," says Cry, unable to believe what he's seeing as he climbs out of the tub and takes a step closer towards the sink.
"Water," Pewdie exclaims softly, looking even more bewildered than he is. "I didn't – it was an accident. I turned it on by accident but… Hey, we've got running water. How…? How in the hell is that even possible?"
The question makes Cry think about what he'd seen a minute ago so he turns and climbs back into the bathtub to peer out the window once more and study the backyard underneath them more carefully. There are two steel water storage tanks outside that they walked past and hadn't noticed.
"The water is supplied directly from the water tanks outside," Cry explains as he steps back out of the bathtub and turns on the tap, watching thin sprays of water sprinkle out of the shower head before quickly shutting it off. "I guess we can clean ourselves up with this but we need to be careful not to use a lot. We don't know how much water is left in those tanks outside. Come on, we should check out the rest of the house."
The rest of the house lies in the clear for them as there is nothing living or undead hidden behind any door, around any corner, under any piece of furniture or inside any compartment. After they finish blocking some of the exits with heavy furniture, they linger at the bottom of the stairs together.
"You should go and take that shower," Pewdie recommends and his tone is the steadiest it's been since they'd entered the house. "You look like you need it more than me," he adds with a motion of his head and Cry can't help but agree. The blood in his hair had hardened, making it stiff on his head, and he knows he smells like one of the undead.
Cry gives Pewdie a stern look and says, "Keep your guard up and don't go outside, okay?" and waits until he gets a nod of confirmation before he makes his way upstairs back to that first bedroom. He slips his bag off his back and enters the bathroom, making sure to keep the door unlocked in case he needed a quick escape. After peeling off his bloodied clothes, he steps into the bathtub, draws the curtains and turns on the tap full blast.
Once he walks out of the bathroom freshly scrubbed, brushed and shaved, he finds to his surprise a pile of fresh clothes neatly placed on the floor right outside the bathroom door which he knows wasn't there before. He guesses this must have been Pewdie's work. The other man must have come by and went to search for something clean for him to wear. Cry feels a warm, tingling feeling in his chest at Pewdie's considerate gesture and wonders where the latter might be now. After pulling the clothes on, he realises his body has never felt so tired and heavy before.
Cry sweeps the knives, cleaning cloth and baseball bat off the bed, lets them all clatter onto the floor and he throws himself on top of the bed sheets, instantly falling straight to sleep the moment his head hits the pillows.
By the time he wakes up, he finds himself buried under pillows and blankets and it's warm and comfortable here. It's almost as if he's back home, as if he's just waking up to his once-normal life on an early evening, ready to spend the next couple of hours playing videogames. What a distant dream that all feels now and it hurts, this nostalgia, this yearning for the old, better days. He'd give anything to have them back again, to escape this terrible reality he's in, to go back to being himself before all this zombie hell happened. But for now, he allows himself to bask in the peaceful, drowsy silence, on the soft springy bed, nestled in the warmth of the bed sheets.
Except he doesn't bask under the sheets that long. Because he can now smell an amazing aroma that's seeping through the door of the bedroom, making his mouth water and his stomach grumble in response. Food! He thinks. Is that actual cooked food? Is someone cooking somewhere? How is there cooked food? Where is the food?
The next thing he knows, he's out of the bedroom and is following the scent like a sniffing dog on the trail of a criminal. It leads him to another bedroom with a little office at the far end of the hallway, near the framed window. When he steps inside, he finds that it seems to have been converted into a mini-kitchen.
The bookcase which once displayed an impressive collection of books has been cleared out to make space for packet, bagged and canned dry food items which now fill a couple of its shelves. There are also bottles, jars of sauces and seasoning pots tucked into another shelf, a couple of Tupperware containers piled up in a different one and finally, some pots and pans shoved into the shelves at the bottom. There's a coffee table that's laden with a holder full of cutleries, plates and a box of tissues on one end while over at the work desk, a camping gas stove sits on its surface, connected to a fuel container. There's also an opened can of tomatoes and mushrooms, a stained dishtowel, a bottle of olive oil, a salt shaker, a chopping board and a knife placed next to the stove on the desk.
Pewdie is standing there by that stove, stirring something in a pot with a wooden spatula and it's something of a bizarre sight for Cry to see. It's not because of the knowledge that Pewdie can cook which baffles him, it's the act of cooking itself. It's shocking to see such a normal day-to-day act like cooking to occur in a crazy, distorted world like this.
Cry doesn't have time to mull on this further because the attractive scent that's coming from the pot distracts him from his thoughts, drawing him closer until something in the aroma tickles his nose, making him sneeze. Pewdie hears it and jumps, whipping around in alarm to find only Cry there.
"Yeeey, don't… don't do that," Pewdie whimpers as he clutches his chest to calm himself down. Cry notices that Pewdie has cleaned himself up too – he's wearing a new set of clothes, his gaunt face now smooth and clean-shaven and his hair is back in its lustrous, fluffy state.
"Sorry," Cry apologises, forgetting Pewdie's easily startled disposition. He peers over Pewdie's shoulder and recognises the long noodle-shaped pasta inside the pot. Cry tries to remember when he had last eaten pasta or a cooked meal and finds that he can't. Instead, he stares hungrily at the hot food and he can feel his body shake with anticipation and impatience for it – because dammit, he's never felt so hungry before – but luckily, Pewdie's already done with cooking. After turning off the stove, he lifts the pot up, makes his way towards the coffee table and places the whole thing there. Once he spoons a decent portion onto two plates, he hands one to Cry and they both sit cross-legged on either side of the coffee table and dig in without another word.
Cry thinks he's never tasted anything so delicious in his life even after he burns his tongue when he shoves a forkful of hot pasta into his mouth, even when he finds that the flavour leans a bit too much on the tomato, even when the mushrooms feel rubbery and unpleasant on his tongue when he chews on them. He doesn't care for all of that as he lets the taste explode in his mouth before swallowing most of the food down without chewing much. After he cleans his plate in a matter of minutes, he's scooping out a second, third, fourth portion from the pot, falling onto it like a lion on a juicy piece of meat and shovels in forkfuls until he forgets for a while that Pewdie is there, eating opposite him. He's only focused on satisfying the hunger that has gnawed on him for so long and relishing the experience of finally eating a home-cooked meal.
It's only when he finishes licking his plate and peers into the pot to find it empty that he finally settles down to breathe. He suddenly remembers that Pewdie is there when the latter sets down a can of coke in front of him.
"How long was I out?" Cry asks, popping the cap off the can and chugging down a few mouthfuls, wincing slightly at the drink's lukewarm temperature.
He watches as Pewdie's mouth quirks upwards into a half-grin, "Do you really want to know? Well, you slept for about a day and a half, I think. Or maybe it was a little more than twenty-four hours. Basically, you were out for a long while."
"Wow," says Cry. "I must have been really, really tired. Even more than I thought."
"You feeling better though?" Pewdie asks, sipping his own can of coke.
"Yeah, yeah, loads better, thanks," Cry answers. "But, ah… what about you? Did you get any sleep the whole time I was out?"
Pewdie shrugs nonchalantly. "Yeah I did. Maybe every four hours or so… uh, but only when it's safe, of course," he adds as if he's saying this for Cry's benefit, like a child telling his parents what they wanted to hear. Cry frowns in response, wanting to address this because it's the first time he notices this carefulness in the other's tone, as if he is choosing his words carefully for Cry to hear. It puts him in mind of poking a sleeping bear on the side and hoping that none of the prods would wake it up from slumber.
Unfortunately, Pewdie catches the frown on Cry's face and assumes something of it because he suddenly falls silent, looking away from him as he jiggles the coke can in his hand.
They're quiet for a bit, sipping their lukewarm drinks, and Cry decides to distract himself from this awkwardness by looking around the room.
"What happened here?" he asks casually, breaking their silence. He motions towards the bookcase and camping stove in particular with the hand that's holding his can. He sees Pewdie's face brighten a little at his words.
"It's now a kitchen," Pewdie says proudly. "Found the stove downstairs in the basement. You wouldn't believe the kinds of shit these people have. The cans of food and stuff are from the real kitchen and I moved the ones that are still good up here because it smells so fucking bad downstairs. With this amount of food and the cooking stove and the running water, we can stay in here for a couple of days at least. It's great, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it certainly is," Cry agrees.
Somehow, they fall into another uneasy silence and Cry realises for the first time the nature of their present relationship, how it seems to be slowly spiralling downwards ever since they'd lost the car. He doesn't understand why it's suddenly become so awkward between them, why Pewdie is reacting like this towards him, why Cry gets frequently annoyed when in Pewdie's company. He thought that they were good after their reconciliations back when they were travelling through wilderness and yet, for some reason, it doesn't seem like that is still the case ever since they entered the house. Could it be that Pewdie may still be affected by Cry's violent display yesterday? Could that be the factor that is causing this uneasy air between them lately?
He doesn't have time to come up with a decision to make things better between them because Pewdie gets up and begins collecting the dirty cutlery into his arms, stacking them on top of each other. "Come on," he says invitingly. "Let's clean this stuff up in the bathroom."
Cry silently complies with the invitation and they spend about ten minutes washing up in the much larger bathroom which lies opposite the 'mini-kitchen'. They're quiet when they do this but it actually isn't so bad having Pewdie scrub the pots and plates with soap and try to rinse it in the too-small sink bowl while Cry, on the other hand, wipes the items dry with a face towel that they found under the bathroom sink.
It's weird, what they're doing – these two ordinary guys who have grown used to travelling and running away from zombies now engrossed in a simple, domestic household chore like this. For Cry, the rough, calloused hands which had not long ago gripped a shovel used to kill a pair of undead creatures are now handling delicate porcelain. What a strange world they live in now, he thinks to himself. It's weird how normal things like this no longer feel that normal anymore.
Once they finish, he and Pewdie retreat back to the 'mini-kitchen' and place the cleaned items into the shelves of the bookcase. Cry feels the pleasant sensation of accomplishment at their task as he stands before it to inspect their effort. Then Pewdie nudges his forearm gently with his hand and motions towards the stairs, "Come downstairs. Let's go clean up that kitchen."
"Wait, what?" Cry asks but he can't do so any further because Pewdie has already left the room and Cry can hear his footsteps moving down the hallway. He has no choice but to follow him down the staircase.
The kitchen and dining room area are still left in its eerie, deathly state and Cry sees the bloody trails and footsteps marked along the floor, a frightening sticky, red path leading towards the sliding glass door that's covered by the thin lacy curtain. Pewdie sidesteps this path, heads towards the cabinet under the sink and begins to take out a variety of cleaning agents and utensils. Cry can't do much but gape at what the other man is doing.
"You're kidding, right?" he finally says in disbelief. He wants to laugh at all of this because he thinks that Pewdie has lost it. Whatever shock the other man had undergone when he witnessed Cry's killing display must have driven the sense out of his head. How can Pewdie be thinking of something as unimportant as this when they should be doing something else that's related to prolonging their survival?
Pewdie shoots him a look, "Actually, I'm pretty serious about this. I don't feel comfortable with all this blood downstairs, man. Also, it's pretty unhygienic."
"It's not our concern," Cry protests, motioning towards the bloody trails. Also, since when is Pewdie this serious anyway? He isn't sure what to make of it. Either Pewdie is fooling around or something might really be wrong with him. "Seriously, Pewds," Cry continues. "Why do we have to clean this up? It's not like we're going to be here long. We're only staying for a couple of days anyway. It's kind of pointless."
Cry's words make Pewdie merely shake his head slightly. The other man had just extracted a plastic bucket and mop out of a cupboard somewhere and is currently filling the bucket with water from the tap.
"It isn't pointless," Pewdie says, frowning slightly at the bucket he's holding. "We're really lucky to have food and gas and running water here but we can't just do whatever the hell we want. We should respect it – this house, I mean – for giving us shelter. I mean, it makes sense, right? The least we can do to make up for intruding is to clean up our own mess. It's the only right thing to do after all." He briefly glances back up and meets Cry's gaze, "Do you… get what I'm saying?"
Cry does, he does get it. What's more is that he's so surprised by the considerate, respectful nature of that reasoning. It's such a humanly thing to think about – that moment when you feel obliged to clean up your own mess while staying over at someone's house out of respect for your hosts. Cry is surprised that after all they've been through, after surviving this game for so long by following a different set of rules, Pewdie still has it in him to retain some form of human courtesy. He still puts some value on the little things that used to matter. Unlike Cry who has been hardened by his experiences, Pewdie is still safe, not yet broken by the harsh, ugly reality they live in now.
Cry hopes that Pewdie will never let go of that human aspect of his in the future days to come.
So he nods in response to Pewdie's question, braving a smile to let the other know that he agrees with him, that he understands. He comes over and picks up a plastic bottle of floor cleaner from the sink and asks, "Okay. So where do we start?"
It takes most of the afternoon to clean the kitchen and dining room. With some combined effort, they lift the heavy dining table to tug the stained carpet free and toss it out of the house. Afterwards, it takes them almost three buckets of water and soap to get rid of the bloodstains on the floor with Pewdie insisting they disinfect it with some diluted Dettol once it's clear of the blood and guts. It smells so much better now once they swab the floors with two coats of Dettol and leave it to dry, even if it does fill the rooms with the strong, chemical scent of disinfectant. Pewdie eyes the refrigerator once they finish and goes back to the cabinet under the sink to extract the roll of black bin bags.
"Are you ready for this?" he asks and at first, Cry isn't sure what he's really talking about.
"Ready for what?" Cry replies in return. To be honest, he feels ready for anything at the moment. It's good to be able to do something again apart from just running away, even if it is performing a simple household chore like this. He's starting to understand why some people enjoy cleaning so much. The reward for it is splendid – he feels the satisfied state of accomplishment that one gets after knowing you'd finished tackling a dirty, untidy room and restored it back to its beautiful, clean state. He follows Pewdie's gaze on the refrigerator, puts two-on-two together – fridge and bin bags, and purses his lips thoughtfully.
"What do you think is in there?" he asks.
"Maybe a mutated monster," Pewdie says jokily. "This fridge hasn't had electricity in a while. Maybe for a whole month, I dunno. Who knows what sort of things have grown in there? You might want to go get yourselves some gloves or something. You really don't want to touch the stuff in there with your bare hands."
It turns out it's so much worse than they thought. The moment they pry the fridge door open, it's completely unrecognisable inside. They can just discern some shapes of what used to be food on the shelves but the whole thing – the whole fucking interior of the fridge – is covered in a thick, disgusting, fuzzy coat of black, grey and green mould.
Pewdie snaps the door shut with a thud. His face has taken on a faint greenish tinge. Cry, on the other hand, had clamped a hand over his own mouth, forcing himself not to gag at the sickening sight.
"I think we should just throw this whole thing out," Pewdie says faintly, swallowing hard. "Nobody needs it anymore."
"How…?" Cry tries to say, his voice muffled behind his hand. He wants to say how it could be possible for that much mould to form from rotten food stored in the fridge, but he can barely hold his nausea back.
"Can you estimate how many months have passed since all this crazy shit started?" Pewdie murmurs, having guessed what Cry had intended to say. "Geez, I don't even remember myself. Maybe less than four months? Maybe more? It does get pretty hot down here at times, especially if you don't crack a window open. Maybe the guys who lived here didn't bother touching the fridge since they can't use it anyway without electricity. So time passes and it got worse."
Cry manages to swallow his nausea down and puts his hand away from his mouth so he can take a deep breath to compose himself. "Let's just get this thing out of here," he suggests. "Just looking at it is making me sick again."
They feel much better once they dump the fridge onto the backyard with the zombie bodies. They mop up the dusty square of space left by the refrigerator and disinfect it afterwards. The kitchen and dining room look fantastic now, especially the floor, which shines from the sunrays coming through the windows.
As they stand there and inspect their work, Cry feels a sense of warm camaraderie return to him – that same feeling which had filled his chest from the time when he and Pewdie pulled themselves out of their wrecked car. Perhaps whatever uneasy thing between them has dissipated like the blood trails on the floor. Maybe Cry had been overthinking it when he assumed that there was a downward spiral in their relationship. Maybe it's just a bumpy hurdle that they'd easily jumped over.
"Good job, Cry," says Pewdie beside him. "We make a great cleaning team," he adds and casually lifts his fist at him without looking and Cry almost smiles, his lightened heart warmed by the gesture, and bumps the fist without another thought.
"We should get paid for this," Cry supplies heartily as he withdraws his hand and hears Pewdie snort with laughter.
"Yeah, we'll make a good business out of it too," the other man says, a half-grin breaking out of his face. "People are too busy worrying about zombies to clean their houses. We can do it for them in exchange for gas or water or home-cooked meals."
"That's a great idea," Cry says enthusiastically. "The dirtier the house, the more demanding the job, the bigger the meal."
Suddenly, he realises he's hungry and his stomach acknowledges this thought by releasing a growl that demands for attention. Pewdie shoots him a look of amusement.
"I was thinking we could have beans or something tonight," he suggests, eyebrows wiggling knowingly. "Or we could throw everything in a pot and make some sort of stew."
Cry opens his mouth to say he's fine either way but his stomach gets there first and rumbles loudly in agreement. He rolls his eyes in response, aware that a creeping heat is making its way up his neck.
"There's no time to lose," Pewdie says in acknowledgment, tugging him by the sleeve towards the staircase. "That stew isn't going to cook itself. The sun's going to set soon. We can't do this shit in the dark."
"We?" Cry echoes in confusion as they ascend the stairs, their footsteps making the steps creak.
"Yes, 'we'," Pewdie responds a little impatiently and casts him a look from over his shoulder. "You think I'm the only one who's going to do all the work here? It's about time you learn the tricks of the trade, bro."
For the last twenty-four hours, Pewdie has been trying hard. He has been trying hard to assure himself that they have been lucky to get this far, to look at death in the face and escape from it a few times, from their run-ins with zombies, climbing out unscathed from a car crash and surviving in the wilderness for weeks on end. They're lucky that they managed to last this long because they're aware of how to play by the rules of this chaotic world now; they know that sometimes it's necessary to do things in order to survive, even if it resorts to violence and killing. He knows that. He gets it already.
But what Pewdie doesn't understand after all that assurance is why he actually feels differently compared to what he thinks. Whatever reason that the rational part of him presents, whatever thought he repeats in his head to convince himself that it makes sense, they don't seem to coordinate with his own feelings. Cry had noticed this already, seen the discrepancy between Pewdie's words and the emotions which had peeked through his expression.
Pewdie knows where his thoughts stand because he's aware of the fact that Cry has killed zombies before. He's seen the latter's work back when they reunited at that gas station store, so he shouldn't be surprised by what he'd seen or feel alarmed by what Cry is capable of. Except that he is. Or rather, he doesn't know what to feel about it, doesn't know what he feels about Cry. Pewdie thought he knew the other man – after all, they've been travelling together for the past few months – but after seeing the brutality of his kills and the mixed emotions that were blazing in the other's eyes, he just doesn't know anymore.
Which is why he's been unsure about how to act around Cry lately. He finds himself saying his words even more carefully now because he doesn't know whether the wrong thing might trigger something he would regret. He's aware that when he looks into Cry's eyes, he expects to see that swirl of emotions raging inside and he can't keep his gaze on him long enough to find out. He knows that Cry senses his wariness and it does sort of explain the state of things between them. Pewdie's uncertainty and occasional loss for words seem to be causing this uneasy air between them, making them frequently fall into awkward silences.
"These are tough times for you both," says Map when Pewdie sits down to rest after he finishes arranging the cans, packets and bags of dry food he brought up from the kitchen onto the bookshelves. "You were lucky to escape from the worst of it in a car. Cry had to endure it out there by himself for those first three weeks. Remember when you thought he seemed different the first time he joined us? How tense he was that he jumps at every sound? Three weeks trying to adjust to this reality can change a guy. After what you saw before, you might think that Cry seems to have become a different person but that's only because time and experience have changed him. Just like it has done to you too."
"Maybe you're right," Pewdie murmurs in response. "I shouldn't act weird around him. He'll think something's wrong or… I don't know. The point is, it won't do us both good if this keeps up."
So after Cry wakes up and they finish eating their pasta, Pewdie tries to clear this awkwardness between them and he knows the best way for them to communicate easily is if they find some task they can do that allows them to work together. It works magnificently, their combined teamwork to clean the blood trails off the kitchen floor and remove the refrigerator from the house, and he knows that they've reached the point where they're okay again when Pewdie casually offers a fist bump to the other, almost expecting him not to respond, but he's so, so glad when Cry does in the end.
After a heavy dinner of stew which leaves Cry with a full stomach and a drowsy head, Pewdie lets the other go back to his room to rest while he decides to pass the time by picking up an LED lantern he found earlier and continuing his exploration in the basement downstairs. When he emerges a few hours later, it's night time outside the house and he climbs the stairs to find the landing lying in complete darkness. He eagerly knocks on Cry's door, not caring if the other might still be asleep, because they have got to do this thing that Pewdie is going to propose and he's sure that Cry will like it.
After a couple more knocks, he can hear a muffled curse, some clumsy footsteps stumbling across the room followed by a thud as something bumps against the door. It then swings open to reveal a groggy, bleary-eyed Cry who is squinting at him with no glasses.
"Cry!" Pewdie exclaims with a grin. The LED lantern he holds is the only source of light in the whole house right now and it illuminates Cry's tired face. Pewdie's not sure if Cry is squinting or glaring at him but either way Pewdie knows that the other man is only annoyed with him now because he had been forcefully woken up from his slumber.
"Pewds?" Cry murmurs as he rubs his eyes, trying to look alert. "What is it? Is it trouble?"
"No, no," says Pewdie in a low whisper and he doesn't know why he's doing it. It could just be the darkness and silence of the house that's making him do that. "I got something to show you. Look what I found!"
Ecstatic with excitement, Pewdie lowers the lantern to let it shine on the items he's carrying in his other arm. A small cool box swings from the inner joint of his elbow and an old-fashioned board game is tucked underneath his armpit. He sees Cry squint at the two things for a long while before the latter breaks the stillness with, "Wait, let me go get my glasses. I can't see a goddamn thing in this darkness. Bring that light in, will you?"
The room is pitch black when Pewdie looks in but as he steps inside and shuts the door, the light from the lantern turns out to be strong enough to illuminate almost half of the room. He can just see the unmade bed, the knives and baseball bat on the floor, the office chair now put upright, the mini-fridge next to the desk, the dusty computer as well as a poster of an attractive woman sprawled across the hood of a sleek sports car on the wall.
Cry retrieves his glasses somewhere from within his tangled bed sheets and hastily puts them on. He's still holding onto the temples as he stares at the items in Pewdie's arm, trying to discern them and Pewdie decides to be helpful by setting down all the items he's holding onto the floor and popping open the lid of the cool box while he's at it.
Cry's eyes widen, "What–?" he says and there's a twitch as the corner of his lip stretches into a smile.
Pewdie reaches into the cool box and lifts out one of a couple of six packs of canned beer stacked inside and sets it on the floor. He grins widely and says, "We are so getting drunk tonight."
"You know that could be potentially dangerous," Cry says with a raised eyebrow and although Pewdie doesn't know whether this may be a precursor to a harsh scolding or whether Cry is just joking around, he can't help but tense slightly in response. He wonders, have I done the wrong thing?
"But as long as we stay quiet and don't attract attention, I don't see why not," Cry suddenly cuts in as if he senses Pewdie's hesitation. "I mean, I guess we deserve a break. Not think about the apocalypse for a while."
Pewdie relaxes, seeing that it's a false alarm, and plops himself on the floor, kicking the bloody baseball bat away with his foot. "Come and sit down, Cry," he says invitingly, patting the spot on the floor next to him. "And let me buy you a drink– I mean, get you a drink."
"Wow, are you trying to hit on me?" Cry asks, trying not to laugh as he sits down and helps himself to a beer can instead of taking up the offer. To Pewdie's surprise though, Cry extracts an extra can from the pack and hands it over him.
"What have you got there?" Cry asks, motioning towards the board game with a nod of his head. His fingers are busy pushing the cap of the beer can open. Once he's done, he gulps down a few mouthfuls.
"Can't you see?" Pewdie says, popping open his own can to take a sip – ugh, it's lukewarm – and pushes the item closer to the light. The cover is dusty and very faded but you can just about see its colourful illustration.
"Snakes and Ladders?" Cry says, huffing a laugh of disbelief as he tugs the board game closer towards him. "Snakes and fucking Ladders? Are you kidding me? Out of all the games you could've found in this house, you chose for us to play this one?"
"Hey, it's a classic," Pewdie protests. "You know you love it. Shut up and open that box and let's play. I want to be that red token. Come on, hurry up."
"Alright, alright," says Cry heartily, opening the box to take out the contents inside. Except, a cloud of dust explodes into the air and hits their faces, making both Pewdie and Cry recoil and sneeze all at the same time.
"This thing is really old," Cry sniffs, unfolding the board which emits a crackle as he straightens it. He sets it on the floor next to the lantern and hunts around for the tokens and dice. "Right, you wanted the red token right? Here's a green one. Guess I'll use that."
"I got an idea," Pewdie says, pulling the cool box towards him to take out the rest of the six packs. "Let's do a drinking game. We play this board game and then every time we go up a ladder or go down a snake, we take a drink. We don't touch our cans unless we get a ladder or a snake, okay? We do this as many times as we want. We've got like a bazillion cans to go through."
"I've never heard of a drinking game like that," Cry says.
"Don't question me," Pewdie says demandingly. "New rule: every time you question me, you take a drink. Go, Cry. Go drink."
"Hey, how come this rule only applies to me?" Cry asks but complies with the order anyway, taking a large gulp of his can and sighing loudly despite the tepid temperature as he pulls it away from his mouth.
"Drink," Pewdie points towards Cry's can. "You asked another question. Take another drink."
"Let's just fucking start," Cry grumbles after he chugs down another mouthful and snatches up the die. "I'll make sure you get drunk enough so that I win this game."
Pewdie doesn't know how long time passes as they play and drink. The only indication for it is the number of beer cans they consume and leave lying around. They become so engrossed in their game that it almost feels like the good old days when they played co-op videogames together, complete with their own crazy commentaries. The longer they play, the more beverages they consume until he and Cry begin to explode into giggles or randomly break into song for the sole reason that they just feel like it. Pewdie savours this feeling, however nostalgic and sad it actually is, and wishes things could somehow go back to the way they were once they are found and saved.
"Don't worry about it, Cry," Pewdie mumbles into the fifth or sixth round of their game, lazily waving a dismissing hand in the air after he moves his token up a ladder and takes a drink. "Don't even worry about it."
"But that doesn't make sense," Cry slurs, tossing the die onto the board and moving his green token across it. "You don't just climb up ladders, you can go down them too, right? Like, you can't do that with a snake. You hit a snake, you only go down– Whoa– you…you went down a snake. Go take a drink."
"I'm still a few squares higher than you," Pewdie points out, taking a mouthful of beer and moves his token downwards. "Bet you can't top that, bitch."
Cry lets out another breathy giggle and says, "Just you wait. I'm– I'm coming up there and kicking you back down."
"Just roll the dice, Cry," Pewdie says.
"It's not a dice, it's a die," Cry corrects, with an empathetic tilt of his head. "A die is one dice, a dice is two dice – no, wait. A dice is one and a die is two."
"Don't worry about it, Cry," says Pewdie cheerfully once more. "Stop thinking. Cease all thinking mechanisms and just roll the fucking dice."
"Oh okay," says Cry with a shrug and Pewdie snorts in laughter as he watches the other roll the die. It comes up to six dots and Cry whines when his green token hits a snake and he is forced to move it three rows below Pewdie's. At Pewdie's knowing look, Cry grudgingly lifts the beer can a little too quickly to his mouth so that when he tries to swallow a mouthful, some of it spills down his chin.
"Whoa, you – ha, ha – are you okay there?" Pewdie asks, snorting and heaving and gasping with laughter like a braying donkey as Cry splutters and waves his hand at him dismissingly.
"'M fine, I'm fine," he wheezes and goes to take a drink again. "Why aren't you rolling the dice– the die? It's your turn after all."
Pewdie feels the pleasant buzz from the alcohol fill his head like air to a balloon, making him light-headed and empty. For once, his thoughts are unburdened by anything related to zombies or the disordered world outside. Instead, he finds everything around him fucking hilarious and he can't believe that they've been living and running away in fear all this time because it seems so distant to him right now, everything they've gone through trapped in a dreamy haze. He also doesn't understand why he'd think that he and Cry's relationship seems to stand on unsteady ground. How can that be? They're getting along well right now, laughing and drinking together. How can he possibly worry about the world that has ended out there when he and Cry have not?
He thinks he's reached the point in his state of intoxication where his head feels heavy and the room tilts and sways in his vision. The next thing he knows is that he's looking at the ceiling and his head sort of hurts. He thinks he must have collapsed and hit it at some point but he doesn't have any recollection of it. His thoughts are fuzzy and disorientated, his vision blurry and he's not sure if he's still talking or singing or laughing or not.
He must have passed out at some point because when he opens his eyes, he sees the ceiling again and it's still night time. It shouldn't have been more than five minutes since he'd drifted off into brief unconsciousness. Although his head still seems too heavy to lift, his whole body feels as light as a feather and his mind is startlingly clear. He's never felt so relaxed, lying spread-eagle on the floor like this with numerous empty beer cans scattered all around him under the glow of the LED lantern. He basks in this quiet, peaceful air about him and thinks. Thinks about his life before, his life now, his life after.
"…Hey, Pewds?" comes Cry's quiet mumble from somewhere beside him.
Pewdie turns his head a little and sees Cry lying on his back like him but his eyes are half-open, staring at nothing before him. The game board is the only thing which separates them from each other.
"I want to ask you something," Cry continues to murmur almost sleepily. "That time, with those zombie brothers… Were you… Were you scared of me when I killed them?"
Pewdie doesn't know what to answer at first because he's busy trying to understand Cry's words. He slowly recalls the scene a little more than a day ago, the moment they enter the house and shut the sliding door, the moment when Cry flies towards the undead creatures and bashes them to death, the moment Pewdie sees his wild, terrifying eyes.
"Were you scared of me?" Cry asks again, his voice sounding quiet and hesitant.
"Yeah," Pewdie murmurs admittedly. "Yeah, I was at first. You were… you looked weird, man. But I get it. I get why you had to do that."
"You shouldn't… you shouldn't let it get to you," says Cry in an attempt to sound reasonable although it does come out a little nervous instead. "Whatever it is you gotta do, you gotta act fast. Don't hesitate even for a second. Sometimes you need to be that way to make sure you don't get caught off guard."
"Yeah, I know all that. I do," Pewdie says insistently. "But…"
"I get it," says Cry in a sympathetic tone. "You still need some more time to accept this."
Pewdie hums in agreement, finally realising it to be the case. He sees it clearly now, that despite telling himself what he should think, it is really his feelings which speak the truth about himself, "Yeah, maybe."
"Don't take too long," Cry advises grimly. "You have to suck it up and move on. You shouldn't let things like that distract you."
"Hm, I'll try," Pewdie says in response and they both fall into a brief pause. Pewdie feels a little relieved now after acknowledging his true feelings, so much so that he's bold enough to say, "Hey, I want to ask you something now and I won't bullshit this either. But… are we still good? I mean, for the past few weeks in the woods and all, we haven't been doing well. I mean, we did and then it just seems to go down again. I don't know but... I'm sure you'd noticed how weird it feels lately when we're together."
"Yeah, I have," says Cry with a sigh and it sounds like he's been expecting this to come up sooner or later. "I notice I get a little… cranky when I'm with you sometimes. I don't talk to you as often and it looks like I'm mad at you for something you did. I don't… I don't mean any of that. Whatever weird mood I was in at that time or whether it happens again in the future, it's not because I don't want you here with me… so, yeah. I just want you to understand that."
Pewdie finds himself beaming at the words, at the effort that Cry is putting in for opening up to him. He makes a show of sighing dramatically in relief and says, "That's good to know. I was starting to think you didn't like me anymore. I know I can get pretty annoying at times and I'm sorry for that."
"Yeah, yeah, you do get pretty annoying," Cry doesn't hesitate to confirm that, the bastard. "But then, aren't we all? Sometimes we can't help it, right? Sometimes we can't help but get on each other's nerves. Circumstances just make us act that way. We just got to pull through it and then we'll be okay."
"What about you though?" Pewdie asks hesitantly. "Are you doing okay?"
"What about me?"
"That was some pretty gory stuff you did back there. I mean, I did mention you looked a little weird after all."
Cry lets out a sigh and drearily murmurs, "You mean, you think I might have gone psycho? I guess it explains why you wouldn't look at me anymore. And even when you did, you looked at me like I was going to kill you with the shovel or something."
"Geez, you're not a psycho, Cry," Pewdie counters that assumption with a frown. "It never even crossed my mind that you could be one. Or will be one. And besides, I know you won't kill me either."
"And how can you be sure of that?"
"Because I'm far too fabulous to be killed."
"Dude, I'm being serious."
"Well, isn't it obvious?" Pewdie sighs. "It's because I believe in you, Cry."
He's met with a few seconds of surprised silence after his words and he hears a rustle as Cry moves his head a little to look at him. Pewdie doesn't see the expression on the other's face because he's busy noticing the glow-in-the-dark star stickers plastered on the ceiling above the bed.
"Listen. There's… something I've been meaning to ask for a while," Cry murmurs, turning away from him to stare back at the ceiling. "It's been bugging me for weeks but… maybe you already know or something but you know you… you never once talked about the car crash."
"Of course I didn't," Pewdie easily says in a matter-of-factly tone. "There was no need to talk about it. We got out and we didn't get hurt. That was all that mattered."
"But aren't you…" Cry says uncertainly. "Aren't you mad? That I crashed it? That I lost it? I mean, didn't Bluey mean a lot to you?"
"Of course she did," Pewdie says emphatically and he can hear the sadness in his own voice. "If it weren't for that car, I wouldn't even survive a day in this hell."
"So… you were mad?"
"I didn't want to be mad," Pewdie corrects him, aware that they're stepping onto sensitive ground. For the past few weeks, this topic was supposed to be something unmentionable between them, but now it seems that they are far too caught up in the moment in this quiet, peaceful atmosphere to stop. "But what's done is done. There really isn't any point in bringing it up anymore. It's not your fault after all. I mean, the last thing I want is for you to feel guilty about something that wasn't really your fault."
"W-Wait, lemme get this straight," Cry slurs this time not because of the alcohol in his system but because he sounds genuinely confused. "You purposely avoided mentioning the car because you didn't wantto make me feel…bad about myself?"
"I told you it wasn't a big deal," Pewdie says. At Cry's hesitation, he adds, "Look, I feel like I'm also to blame for causing that crash. I mean, I was being such a bully to you. I pushed you too hard. I shouldn't have done that and it was wrong of me. I know you don't want to talk about… about certain things, and I should respect that. So I'm sorry for what happened."
"I should be sorry," Cry's voice comes out very quiet that Pewdie barely hears it. His words sound small, scared and a little helpless. "I fucked up a couple of times. Like I did in that first raid. And then when we lost the car. I did stupid things that almost got us both killed."
"No, you are the one who kept us going," Pewdie points out fervently, suddenly deadly serious because he needs Cry to understand this. "You got us this far. You're the one who found that radio. You're good at picking up the best supplies that would help keep us alive. You stay up all night just to keep us safe. You're the one who brought us to this place. And you're a good navigator too. If weren't for you– if– if we never met, I would've just driven around in circles for weeks and eventually go fucking crazy. I wouldn't have made it out of those woods without you, man. I wouldn't have lasted this long if it weren't for you. You've done more good for this team than all the bad things combined."
After that passionate outburst, they both fall into a mutual silence for different reasons – because Pewdie feels a little embarrassed for saying all those things so intensely like that and Cry looks like he'd fallen speechless at his words. Despite this, their silence isn't like their earlier, awkward ones. Instead, it's a silence full of quiet contemplation. After a whole minute of stillness, Pewdie thinks Cry has drifted off to sleep but he's mistaken when the other man stirs and lets out a long sigh.
"You…" Cry murmurs, sounding as if he's struggling to find the right words to say. "You're a good guy, Pewds."
For the second time since Cry had thanked him aloud for pulling him out of the car, Pewdie finds himself a little flabbergasted at Cry's words because they hit him straight in the heart, filling it with an emotion that he can't describe. He's glad that the LED lantern doesn't illuminate the warm flush that's already spreading across his face.
He decides to cover up his embarrassment by scoffing dramatically and saying, "Of course I'm a good guy. That's what I keep telling everybody but people don't seem to see my goodness. Did you know that I did a random act of kindness by releasing an egg back into the wild? Like an actual duck egg. If that wasn't an act of kindness, then I don't know what is. Don't you think so too? Don't you agree with me? Eh, Cry? Are you–?"
When Pewdie gets no answer, he's suddenly aware that Cry is breathing slow and steadily beside him so when he turns his head, he finds that the other man had drifted off to sleep to the sound of his voice. He quietly watches Cry's chest rise and fall in accordance to his deep breathing and thinks about his outburst earlier on, about how Cry needs to understand how much he's done for them both. He hopes that the message had hit home because it certainly has done so in Pewdie's case and he's never felt this grateful to have Cry by his side all this time, to have Cry push him on and on even when Pewdie sometimes feels close to giving up. All they need to do is to keep this up, this constant reassurance that they keep it together until they reach salvation at last.
As he stares a little longer at his sleeping companion, Pewdie notices that one of Cry's arms is draped over his stomach and his other one is carelessly stretched out across the game board between them. His fingers are loosely curled inwards, almost resembling a fist.
Pewdie slowly reaches out and gently brushes his knuckles against Cry's fingers before he pulls back his arm and looks at the ceiling, at the glow-in-the-dark stars. About an hour later, after he falls asleep to Cry's slow, rhythmic breathing, the LED lamp sitting between them runs out of battery and blinks into darkness.
(Dammit, Pewds. You're such a sweetie sometimes.)
I raised a couple of points in this chapter, particularly about the state of Pewdie's character and the fact that he, unlike Cry, still retains a bit of his humanity amidst the chaos of this apocalypse. I wanted Cry to acknowledge that in Pewds's suggestion that they clean the blood off the floors because he thinks it's "the only right thing to do after all".
At the same time, I thought that it was about time they have one of these more serious heart-to-heart talks. It's about time they both step up and address the state of their relationship and that it's not going so well lately. I also thought it's about time Cry brought up the unspeakable topic of their car crash and share his guilt about it. Finally, I wanted Pewds and Cry to not only realise how much they need each other in order to function as a good team, but also what they mean to one other on a more personal level. Why? Because I love character appreciation so I will write about it as much as I want.
Feedback/reviews are most appreciated, as always. (How do you feel after ploughing through this monster chapter?)
