A/N: The second day on the conditional freedom and two of the Horsemen get new ink on their skin. If these feel like the calm before a big storm, then you'd be right. In the meantime, enjoy! Both excerpts come from the Book of Revelation on the New Testament of the Bible.
DISCLAIMER: Recognizable characters (c) VALVe
A/N EDIT: Thank you Aunty Soshul for pointing out the discrepancy! Corrected!
Chapter 10: Ink
The next twenty-four hours were lost among the many things. Each of the Survivors did something that rekindled memories of their old lives, ranging from the men watching a long forgotten Patriots vs. Saints game while Rochelle caught up with her journalistic drive by making a scrapbook of articles. Breakfast had never tasted so damn good and she received her proper accolades with making powdered eggs edible. It was during the taped breaks in the game that Ellis asked Nick, "Wha' happened t' yer arm?" while pointing at the almost hidden bandage. "This?" The conman checked and grinned slightly before he unwrapped the straps. El's eyes widened at the sight; two lines of text written in his friend's forearm in a language he didn't recognize. "Made it myself during my side visit to the market. Strangely enough, the tattoo parlor was besides a bakery," Nick explained rather proud.
"God tha' musta hurt like a bitch! Whut is it?" The mechanic inquired further, trying to make sense of the tattoo. "It's Hindi," the card shark answered with a shrug; he knew he was giving away sensitive information about himself but he didn't care; they were practically family. "Yer Indian? Honest t' God I thought yew were Italian!" "Bangladesh, mother's side; my father was the Italian. Not everybody's pure hick like yew, Ayeluss." Ellis felt slight annoyance at that last part but played it up once Coach arrived at the living room. "It's a mighty shame half those kids are eatin' brains," he commented, dark humor oozing. There they watched the conclusion over a beer until it came time to move out.
Just before leaving, the Survivors left the first graffitti on the perfectly unstained walls. Coach left a message for someone named Flo, Rochelle for Jacob and Ellis to Keith. Nick made no message to anyone but rather a general statement, Trade a BJ for cigarettes. "Yer really willin' t' go down on a guy fer smokes?" El could barely contain the snickering. "The supply I won off the soldiers ran out before this job. But I'm more surprised you even know what that means," the conman smirked back. "Yew manwhore..." "Are you two done flirting?" Rochelle cut the banter short with a smile, "there's still a lot of ground to cover before the sun sets."
Again, understatement as the four made their way down the building, leaving behind some nonperishable supplies for any other Survivor to use. There were still 12 miles from the target zone and were making average time considering the distractions. Black helicopters flew the sky overhead, reminding them all they were still being watched. "Don' want to lose their new toys," Coach growled under his breath. "Hey look at the bright side; we're worth more than a nuke," Ro added with equal disdain. At a considerable distance, Ellis came up to Nick and requested, "Can yew make me a tattoo like yers?" The card shark grinned with his answer, "Next safe-house, Overalls, IF there's a parlor nearby." The mechanic lit up and started thinking of something kickass to etch on his skin.
That relative peace didn't last long, shattering into a million (or more exactly 2094 and a charger) pieces when a stray touch to a car activated the alarm. "Shit!" Nick hissed as they all reloaded their guns and started firing. The intensity of the Hordes made things seem that the assault on Jackson High was a minor inconvenience to the Apocalypse; it was as if the Infected propagated through mere eye contact. In one instance, there were so many that they toppled Coach and pinned him to the ground to devour him whole. "Jesus Christ, get these things off me!" He yelled as every scratch reconstructed as fast as first contact. "I'mma comin' big guy!" Ellis responded but was suddenly cut off by the one-armed behemoth in a single tackle. The moment the charger slammed him into the asphalt, El felt his left arm pop out of its socket, arousing a scream of pain. Just as the charger was going to crush him under his massive arm, the mechanic saw the conman hop over the monster and land a solid shotgun blast to its face.
"You all right, Ellis?" Nick asked, firing another blast at the headless zombie, just to make sure it was dead. "I'll be fine, jus' gotta pop it back 'n place…yew go help Coach," El groaned as he dragged himself back on his feet. "He's peachy right now," the card shark remarked with a grin through the blood bath; Rochelle did look her loveliest with a machete. Thankfully, no Tanks or Witches came into the fray nor did any Boomers to aggravate the situation. Standing over a decrepit CEDA worker corpse, the young woman scanned the area for any more bullet fodder still standing. "Guess…that's it…" Ro practically whispered to herself, bewildered at that. "No, we just blew up their back-up twenty four hours ago," the oldest remarked with a satisfied grin. "Jus' as long as we get t' a safe-house an'-" Everyone present HEARD Nick reposition Ellis' arm back into place. "JESUS CHRIST, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THA' FOR?" "So you wouldn't bitch about it later."
Contrary to the first day, the Survivors kept going well into the night, eyes shining slightly in the dark thanks to their adaptive nature. With ammo halfway depleted but no real exhaustion to their walk, they continued on until they were only seven miles to the checkpoint at the Veteran's Hospital. Their new safe house had once been a citadel for CEDA, where evidence of discarded tests and a bloody massacre had taken place before it was reinforced. "How are the scratches, Coach?" Rochelle inquired as the last scar of the Infected-caused wounds disappeared. "Nothin' too harsh," was his trite answer as he dumped the weapons into a corner and grabbed a slightly dented car of warm beer. "Guess this is our last night o' freedom…better make it count."
There was a collective downturn in the atmosphere: in twenty-two hours, the military would scoop them up and put them away in their stale white boxes for God knows how much time. "Anyone wants to cuddle?" Nick sneered while spreading his arms mockingly. The little snide comment broke the depression just enough for War to laugh and shoot back, "Nick, if you didn't get some before all this shit, what makes you think you're getting any now?" "Propagation of the new species and McKinley sadly didn't give El a vagina." "HEY!"
"C'mon, Nick, yew promised" Ellis nudged in an almost feline manner to his napping comrade, lantern at hand. "Ellis, I'm trying to sleep," Nick grumbled under his sleeping bag's covers; his bloodied watch read 3:45 am. "Yer lying; we don' sleep tha' much an'more," the mechanic added rather morose, causing his elder to stir…kid was telling the truth. Ever since waking up from the experiment, they could go on for days without sleep (El's record was 5 and half) then crash hard for 18 hours or more. Maybe that's why the military coordinated their jobs to coincide with waking periods. In some of those dreamless rests, Nick wondered how long they could sleep or hibernate. "Fine…lead the way, kiddo," he groaned, taking his katana and quietly jumping out of the third floor.
They both ran the two miles down from the CEDA station to Patty's Tattoos, a place whose broken window and general disarray meant that there was a moderate scuffle prior to the owner's disappearance. "Jeez, Overalls; not much to work with here!" Nick's disdain was evident but Ellis would not be dissuaded. "Th' machine still works an' we've got a first aid kit to patch me up." Flicking on the fluorescent light, Nick grabbed some stencil paper and a drawing pencil. "Whaddya want?" Ellis smirked before responding, planting his ass on the chair to make himself comfortable, "First y'tell me whatchu got on yers." Nick held back a laugh as he mixed the inks and changed the needles on the machine for hygienic purposes. "Isakē savāra kī mauta nāmita kiyā gayā thā, aura naraka pāsa usakē pīchē pīchā kara rahā thā."
"…Yer momma," Ellis shot, face blank at the string of syllables." "It means 'Its rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him... '," the conman concluded, "Now what do you want on yours? And make it quick; I'd like to get out of here before hunters get any funny ideas." With this new information, El quickly made up his mind and whispered it. It took a while for Nick to process the request and the look on his face bordered between mild annoyance and genuine smirk, "You fucker." "Told ya I'd get the 'Bros' tattoo, asswipe," the mechanic retorted as he held out his right forearm, just beneath his old blue tribal insignia. "Now, git t' it."
Forty minutes later, Nick was just about done with cleaning the last of the inks and nodded proud at his work. "Removing that's going to be a bitch," he said as Ellis wrapped the new tattoo in gauze. "I don' plan on it, man; yer not half bad! Now let's get th' hell outta here!" As they ran the distance, the discarded stencil read backwards in a gothic letter, reminiscent of an old Bible: "Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest."