Silent Lucidity

By: esmtz

By the time the sun had started rising Ellis hadn't realized that he had fallen asleep as he looked over and saw that Nick was sleeping in the exact same spot that he had been yesterday before coming over to talk to him. He frowned.

'Was that just a dream or did Nick actually…' Ellis thought blushing as he remembered what had happened last night, 'I guess it was just a dream. There's no way Nick…'

Just as he thought that Nick and the others started to stir and Ellis watched as Nick slowly looked up at him and then quickly looked away with a small blush on his cheeks. Rochelle yawned as she got up and started to stretch as she looked at both Nick and Ellis.

"So are you boys feeling any better now?" Rochelle asked looking from one to another, but Ellis in particular.

Ellis slowly got up just to see if his body was still in any pain or not.

"Much better then yesterday. It ain't hurtin as bad right now." Ellis responded looking at her and then at Nick, "You alright there, Nick?"

Nick nodded as he got up avoiding looking at Ellis directly.

"Yeah." Nick said.

"Well that's good cause we still got a ways to go before we get to the bridge." Coach said as the first thing he did was get up and grab ammo and a health kit.

Ellis frowned as he watched Nick move to grab ammo and started blushing as he realized that maybe last night really did happen as that was the only thing that could explain why Nick seemed to be acting differently. Rochelle frowned slightly wondering if something happened last night as she looked at them. Coach didn't even notice as he looked outside to see that there was already quite a few zombies that they would have to take care of.

"As soon as y'all are ready we're gunna have to take care of some zombies already." Coach told them.

"Do you think we'll have time to find something to eat, Coach?" Rochelle asked as she turned to look at him.

"Probably not baby girl. Best chance we got is either in the next safe house or when we get rescued." Coach replied.

'If we get rescued.' Nick thought as he grabbed a health kit and headed toward the door.

Ellis felt nervous as he too grabbed what he needed and went towards the door ready to shoot at anything that gets in their way.

"Everybody ready?" Coach asked just as Rochelle grabbed her stuff and held her gun at the ready.

Nick rolled his eyes.

"Just open the goddamn door Coach!" Nick told him.

Coach didn't bother to respond as he opened the door and started shooting at the zombies closest to him. While he and Rochelle took the lead, Ellis went up to Nick and looked at him worried.

"Uh, Nick? You sure you doin alright?" Ellis asked.

Nick sighed.

"I'm alright, Overalls." Nick replied still not looking directly at him.

"Then how come yer not looking at me? Is somethin wrong?" Ellis asked wondering if he was over thinking the situation and just assuming that what happened last night really happened.

Nick ran a hand through his hair before turning to face him.

"You're seriously not thinking about what happened last night?" Nick asked frowning slightly wondering if Ellis didn't really care as much as he let on during their talk last night.

Ellis's whole face turned bright red.

"I-I thought that was a dream…"

"Trust me it wasn't."

"O-Oh.."

Ellis felt really embarrassed and awkward now as he realized that things between him and Nick were definitely different now than before. He hadn't realized that while they were talking Coach and Rochelle had already gotten rid of the zombies that were in their way.

"Hey, boys we could use your help!" Rochelle called out as she and Coach headed inside a house blasting at a few more zombies that were in there.

"We're comin!" Ellis yelled back still looking at Nick as he watched him catch up to Rochelle and quickly followed right behind.

After climbing the stairs and walked out onto the balcony they immediately heard a smoker coming from across the street to where other houses were at.

"Careful the smoker could try to get us from the rooftops." Coach said as he looked around for it.

"Well we can't stand around waiting for it to show up lets go." Nick said as he walked to where a van was parked and jumped on top of it shooting at the zombies that were on the road.

Ellis quickly followed and just as he felt a tongue start to wrap around him it stopped as he saw that Rochelle had killed the smoker that was on the rooftop.

"Thanks, Ro." Ellis said smiling at her before jumping off the van and following Nick.

Rochelle smiled at him as she and Coach followed behind them.

"Hey, Nick try not to get too far alright?" Ellis told him as he caught up.

"Relax. I'm not stupid enough to go wandering off by myself." Nick told him.

"I know yer not I just don't wanna see you….you know." Ellis whispered that last part as he rubbed the back of his neck looking at him worriedly.

Nick turned to look at him and nodded wanting to so desperately put his arms around him to let him know that he wasn't going anywhere but couldn't because of a few reasons one being that they were out in the open where the infected could get at them.

"Same goes for you sport. Just please don't do anything stupid alright?" Nick told him.

Ellis nodded.

"I won't."

Having been too far off Rochelle and Coach didn't even hear what they said as they caught up. Nick snorted.

"What took you guys so long to catch up?" Nick asked.

"Sorry, Nick. We were just looking to see if we could find some supplies." Rochelle told him.

"And? Did you find any?" Nick asked looking at her.

She shook her head.

"Don't worry about it we might find sumethin in one of these houses." Coach told her as they started going through another house.

After passing through a few more buildings they managed to find two bottles of pain pills which Rochelle and Coach picked up and then made their way to where they found themselves having to alert a horde of zombies just so they could get across to the second story of another house. Once they started it they immediately went back to where they jumped off the balcony on to the top of a small building and started killing whatever that approached them.

"Y'all I hear a hunter!" Ellis yelled out not sure of where it was coming from as zombies started surrounding them.

"That's not our only problem." Nick said as he saw a boomer coming from where they had jumped down from, but couldn't get a good aim because of all the zombies attacking him.

Being closest to Rochelle the boomer vomited all over her and the zombies quickly changed their target to her. Coach quickly killed the boomer before it could do anymore damage and just as he did the hunter pounced on him and started ripping into him.

"Get it off!" Coach yelled.

Nick pushed it off of him and killed it then went back to helping Ellis and Rochelle with the zombies. Having been too busy trying to help Rochelle none of them heard that a charger was around so when it rammed into all four of them it sent them flying off the roof and started pummeling Rochelle into the ground.

"Chargers got me! Help!" Rochelle cried out.

The guys quickly got up ignoring the pain they were in from being thrown off the building (even if it wasn't that high) and went to help her out. They quickly killed it and Ellis helped her to her feet.

"Holy…Ro are you alright?" Ellis asked worried as he saw her stumble.

"I think I'm ok for now…" Rochelle replied as she took some of her pain pills.

"You probably should heal Rochelle." Nick told her.

Rochelle shook her head.

"No we need to get going. I'd rather save the health kit till when I really need it." Rochelle said.

"Are you sure baby girl?" Coach asked wondering if he should just heal her himself.

"Yeah besides the safe house shouldn't be far right?" Rochelle asked.

Coach sighed.

"Well alright, but if you need help let us know." Coach told her as they once again headed back up to cross over to the house.

As soon as they went through the house and got rid of a few more infected they found themselves facing an alley and just beyond it they could clearly see the bridge.

"Well we made it y'all!" Coach said.

"About time. I just really hope that this time we're getting rescued instead of having to go through another town like this." Rochelle sighed as they kept walking.

Nick frowned wondering why they haven't run into the Tank or the Witch yet and he started to get a bad feeling about this. Ellis frowned as he looked at him.

"Nick?"

"It's nothing, Ellis. Let's just keep moving." Nick told him as they followed right behind Rochelle and Coach.

Halfway through they heard the sound of a Tank making all of them wince knowing that there was no way that they could sneak past it without alerting it.

"Ok y'all on the count of three keep behind me." Coach told them as he started counting down, "One…two…THREE!"

They all started running and that immediately alerted the Tank as they ran past making it chase after them. Having found a pipe bomb earlier Coach tossed it way ahead of them so it could keep the other infected busy. Of course they hadn't seen that a jockey and a hunter was nearby and while the Tank had their attention the Jockey jumped on Coach and started steering him away while the hunter pounced on Nick.

"Get it off!" Nick yelled, but before anyone could help the tank swung its arm at him killing the hunter and sending him flying.

"NO!" Ellis yelled as he ran after the Tank while Rochelle ran to help out Coach.

While the tank was picking up a rock to throw at Nick, Ellis got close to it and started shooting it in its back. Having pissed it off the Tank turned its attention to him and swung its arm sending Ellis flying and stumbling to pick himself back up as he reached for his weapon, but the Tank had ran towards him and sent him flying again.

"ELLIS!" Nick yelled terrified as he ran to help him.

Just before the tank could do anymore damage to him it suddenly stopped and fell to the floor dead. Nick was speechless as he looked up and saw that someone was on the bridge and clearly looked like had helped them. Ellis groaned as he slowly got up and looked up and saw that Nick was looking at something making him frown and turn to see what it was. His eyes went wide when he saw who it was.

"…Keith."

Author's notes: Look whose still alive lol I know it's been what about two years since I last updated this story (holy…) well it's been mostly because I was too lazy to update since I hadn't gotten any reviews at the time and after a few months I said aw to heck with it. I'm seriously surprised that I managed to even write this chapter. It was just out of the blue. Anyway it probably sucks cause well it's been a long time since I posted this story and actually wrote something so I'm not surprised if this didn't turn out as good as I was hoping it was going to be. Anyway don't expect another chapter up again for awhile because I don't know when I'll get inspired again if at all. I was seriously thinking about putting this as a discontinued story, but I didn't. No idea why I didn't do that.