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Chapter Fourteen
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You learn things, growing up with someone. You learn to pay attention to the details.
For example, Arthur learned at a younger age than most that needling Morgana at a certain time of the month was very likely to get him shot. Some lessons you really only need to be taught once.
He learned to make himself as small as possible around his father on certain days of the year—his mother's death date, for one, followed by her birthday and their wedding anniversary. As a child he hadn't really understood his father's desire to be left alone on those days, when he for one would have preferred the comfort of being near someone who had known and loved his mother as well, but ultimately that just wasn't worth the effort. His father didn't have preferences; he had silent commands that everyone else was expected to follow, and Arthur has always followed them in the end. And in any case, it taught him how to act around Morgana on the anniversary of Gorlois's death.
She had raged against Uther more and more frequently as they all grew older, but Arthur has known for a long time that she was far more similar to their father than Arthur himself was.
Everything is in the details. The devil and everything else; you only need to pay enough attention to read a situation and then act accordingly.
Detail: Uther oversaw all of Arthur's earliest lessons in marksmanship, and Uther demonstrated every lesson first.
Detail: Uther is absolute shit at poker.
Because he has a tell. Arthur noticed it after approximately his five-millionth instruction with a shotgun and he's never forgotten it.
He sees it now, and it's the only reason he manages to pull Em out of the way in time.
It's all a bit of a blur there for a minute, everything coming in flashes—
Gwen, stunned even as she pulls the trigger—
Uther, fury and surprise on his face mixing with sudden pain—
And Em, half in his arms, gaping like an absolute idiot at the hole in the wall behind them as if he's actually confused by what's just happened.
Arthur wants to shake him until his teeth rattle, but there's no time for that now.
"Arthur." Gwen's fingers dig into his arm, and her voice is trembling. "Arthur, we need to go. Now."
That's when Arthur looks to his father again.
Uther is propping himself up against the conference table, blood oozing from his right arm, face contorted. His gun is on the floor.
It was a shot to disarm, not to kill. Arthur wonders if he could've managed that in Gwen's place.
Swallowing past the lump in his throat, fighting every instinct he's had since birth to go back, help his father, make all of this right, Arthur turns for the door and hauls Em along with him. They'll need to sound the alarm themselves, as it seems diplomacy has failed them just as spectacularly as he should have expected it to.
"Those things killed your mother!" Uther snarls from behind them, all calm lost. "Your sister!"
Arthur hesitates.
As has become unfortunate instinct when Morgana's death is mentioned, his eyes flicker to Em. Em, who is watching him like he knows exactly what he's thinking. There's a well of guilt there, in his eyes and the set of his mouth—it's not enough for forgiveness, not yet, but it's enough to make Arthur want to believe him when he says they're changing.
"I don't remember my mother very well," he hears himself say, turning to face Uther one more time. "But I knew Morgana. She died fighting; she died protecting every last person inside these walls. She would not want them slaughtered without reason. Not when there might be another way."
It's his first act of open defiance, and the shock is ugly on Uther's face. Arthur imagines it's not much more attractive on his own.
But it only lasts a moment. In a move Arthur has become too familiar with over the years, Uther's face shuts down completely. Not an iota of emotion or warmth remains.
"It seems I have lost my son as well," he says.
He'll feel the pain of that later, he thinks, agonize over it once the adrenaline and the immediate crisis have worn off. As it is…as it is, it's just one more thing. It's always just one more damned thing.
Arthur sets his jaw, turns his back, and shuts the door between them.
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Em's not entirely clear on what the hell just happened, but he's pretty sure Arthur saved his life. Again.
He figures he can dwell on that later, once he's not being dragged headlong back down the hallway with a speed that suggests Satan himself is jogging merrily behind.
Arthur doesn't keep heading for the elevator though, instead ducking right through an unassuming door Em hadn't noticed the first time around. He has just enough time to register stairs, lots of them before Arthur is yanking him along again, Gwen ahead of them both.
"Come on, come on," Arthur urges him under his breath, and Em doesn't bother wasting his with a protest. Because stairs have never been his strong point, but right now they're passing under his feet surprisingly quickly. Maybe the trick is to not think about it.
Well, not thinking does seem to be your specialty.
Really, Morgana? Now?
Why not? After all, if you don't get a move on, we're not going to have much more quality time together.
Em doesn't dwell on that either, partly because there're too many damn stairs for him to be thinking about anything else. But solid floor is approaching, and with it another door, which Gwen shoves open. Their intrepid little trio stumbles out onto the street, panting but otherwise no worse for the wear.
Two point five seconds of relief. That's all they get, just long enough for Em to wonder what the next step is.
Two point five seconds and then the siren starts going off.
It's a high, tuneless wail, piercing enough that even Em's eardrums feel like they're bleeding, a scream of warning that makes him feel like he's standing in a spotlight. The blood has drained from Gwen's face.
"Arthur, is that—"
Arthur nods grimly. "The breach alarm. Damn it, he wants us caught before we can do anything else—"
"Your father didn't have a portable radio on him," Gwen cuts in. There's a soldier's calm on her face, but Em sees something flickering underneath. Like a moth trapped in a glass jar. "He couldn't have sounded the alarm so quickly."
Em cottons on a second before Arthur does, and it feels like the bottom of his stomach dropping out.
No, no, no—
Arthur's hand goes for his machete even as he opens his mouth to confirm what they all know.
"Then—"
That's when the screaming starts.
We're too late.
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Arthur makes an immediate beeline for the source of the screaming, Gwen and Em bolting after. They reach the courtyard in time to see the breach that has the alarm shrieking well over every human sound being made.
"Oh my god," Gwen says softly.
The gates are still closed, that's what doesn't make sense at first—the gates are still closed, how could anything have got in?
And then, squinting in the dim evening light, Em sees a mass of wriggling shapes covering the gates in question. One of them emits a spine-tingling roar and Em doesn't need to look closer.
Boneys. Every last one of them, from the looks of it, every last hopeless bit of rotted humanity crawling up and over the gateway like a horde of spiders, leaping to the ground as soon as they can do so without exploding into gooey bits on impact. There are people everywhere all of a sudden, brandishing blades and firearms, but between the spare lighting and the set sun it's too dark to aim easily, and the boneys use more than just their eyes when they're on the hunt. Em knows from experience—all of them rely on more than one sense; it's what gives them one of their biggest advantages over the humans.
As if woken up by that reminder that he's no longer one of them, the hunger stirs hopefully in his chest. Suggests how easy it would be, here and now, with everyone so distracted, to eat again. He has no more of Morgana's brain left, but he could get some off someone else, satisfy the monster inside while in another person's memories he could pretend to be human again. It would be so easy.
"Em!"
He blinks. Gwen has edged closer to the chaos in front of them, but Arthur is looking at him with the frustration particular to someone who's just said the same thing five times.
"You need to get out. Now. Take the back way into the woods and keep your head down until this is over."
Em blinks some more, uncomprehending.
"You should go," Arthur says in a strained tone. "They're after your kind now too, aren't they?"
So easy. So damn easy.
He doesn't even spare a second for that thought. Instead he shrugs.
"I've seen…the woods…already."
Arthur lets out a surprised huff of a laugh, eyes lighting up.
"You're insane," he says.
And he's probably right. Probably definitely right. Because when Arthur pitches headfirst into the fray, Em's right behind him.
The first one's ambitious, has got farther in than most of its brethren. Gwen's put three bullets into its skull before it comes within five feet of them. Arthur's doling out headshots like a true professional. The cacophony is deafening, screams and warning shouts and inhuman roars and gunshots and tearing flesh and over it all, that damned siren still screeching at anyone too stupid to know yet what's going on.
Em really wishes he had a fire extinguisher right about now. But when his first boney looms in front of him, popping into his field of vision like a deranged jack-in-the-box, the machete Arthur tosses him does the job. One hack-and-slash with all of Em's strength behind it is enough to sever head from neck and leave both pieces flopping ineffectually on the ground.
A gunshot echoes close, too close for comfort, and a bullet clips his ear—what the fuck—Em whips around, looks into the face of the boney that's mere inches from his face, apparently stunned by the hole that's just been put into its head. Another swing of the machete finishes it, and by the time Em turns back he can't see whoever fired the shot.
Somewhere a man screams in agony, the cry cut off without warning. Em shudders.
This is going badly.
No shit, Morgana says, grim.
Heavy footsteps from behind draw his attention; Em brings the machete up instinctively and whirls to face the latest attacker, but it grabs his wrist before he can swing and hauls him off to the side of the worst of the melee.
"Chilllll," it mumbles. Em lowers his arm.
"Will?" he says in disbelief.
"Caaaame…to…hhhelp," Will says.
Now that he's paying attention, he can see his fellow members of the undead threading through the human crowd (denizens of which are looking more confused by the minute, but as the deadwalkers are attacking the same enemy they are, nobody has time to be overly concerned at the moment).
Em looks to Will, who shrugs.
"Fffffight…with…hhhhumans. Whyyyy…not. Fffffucked…anyyywayyy."
Em chokes on a laugh, sobering as Will holds out a hand.
"Good…lllluck," he slurs.
Em grips the offered hand tightly.
"Don't…die."
Will just gives him that look he's so perfected before nudging past and back into the fray. Some of the others cover him, protecting his reentry into the fight. And it's not their fight, Em realizes, or at least it didn't have to be. They're choosing this, every one of them.
Just like he chose Arthur.
Maybe they can turn this around after all. Assuming they all survive the night, that is.
Em doesn't think he could've been terribly lucky in life, given his present condition, but luck's all he has to pin his hopes on now. So he does.
At least until the voice comes into his head.
It's not the dimly familiar undertone of his own mental monologues, nor is it Morgana's acidic tones. This—this is like nails on a chalkboard, a hideously high-pitched shriek somehow forming itself into words.
YOU, it says, loathing packed into the syllable. YOU BEGAN THIS.
Dread like ice water in his gut, Em turns to face the five boneys that have detached themselves from the fight and are watching him now with their dark, soulless eyes.
YOU BEGAN THIS, they say again. IT WAS YOU. TRAITOR TO YOUR KIND.
The voice drops into a roar from the first boney, and the others follow.
Em doesn't need words to translate that, and he doesn't need telling twice.
He runs.
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Chaos.
Arthur's always had a skill for operating within it, fluid and focused when the rest of the world goes jagged and hysterical; it's what makes him so good at his job.
Even for him, this is a new level of fucked up—skeletons crawling over the gates like something out of a nightmare (not going to think about what happened to the guards outside, can't think about that now), people flooding the streets in an angry exodus, drunk on fear and driven by the urge to fight to protect their families and their home (what if some of the skeletons have got past us, into civilian areas—no, can't think about that now), a war that's always been so firmly outside now brought decidedly inside. Hell in a handbasket, delivered straight to his front door with a cheerful bow perched on top.
Even so. Arthur does what he always does, what he does best: He compartmentalizes, he grits his teeth, and he starts decapitating things.
"On your six!" Gwen shouts over the din, and Arthur swings in that direction without thinking about it. (The resulting screech of a distinctly nonhuman kind, followed by an equally distinctive thud, is satisfying to hear.) It helps immeasurably, having her at his side, knowing she has his back. Most of their team is gone now, but they're still here. They're still fighting.
Ichor coats his hands and face, the smell of it filling his nose, the acid taste of it on his tongue. Which is what comes of hacking off skeleton heads. It's the closest thing they have to blood, and it's going to be a bitch to clean. Assuming he gets out of this in one piece, Arthur is going to forgo the laundry and just burn everything he's wearing.
"Behind you!"
He doesn't know where the shout comes from, or who shouts, but when Arthur turns around there's a skeleton's jaws inches from his face, yawning open like the mouth of hell.
He brings his machete up too late, the skeleton smacking it away like an irritating insect before grabbing his other wrist so hard he hears bones creaking. Its head dives in, teeth going inexorably for his throat—
—and then it's falling on top of him, more ichor oozing sluggishly into his clothing. The smell is enough to make him want to gag, but gagging at least means he's alive for the moment.
A hand reaches down to help him up. Arthur shoves the corpse to the side and takes it, realizing only after he's on his feet that it's really a shade too pale to belong to a person.
He stands and a deadwalker is standing in front of him.
Arthur drops the hand like it's—well, like it's a dead thing. The deadwalker looks unimpressed.
"You'rrrrre…wwwwelcome," it says before vanishing into the madness around them.
And that's when Arthur realizes that he sees fucking dead people.
The zombies are fighting the skeletons.
This has the unfortunate side effect of causing a lot of the human participants in the fight to pause in their hacking and slashing, gaping at the spectacle with open mouths.
"Who do we shoot?" a women to Arthur's left murmurs, sounding lost.
Ten feet away he watches a pair of deadwalkers tag-team a skeleton, one bashing its neck repeatedly with a rock, the other tugging mercilessly at its head until it detaches from the rest of the body.
"The skeletons," Arthur says decidedly. Then, raising his voice, "Leave the deadwalkers be! Focus on the skeletons!"
That seems to wake everybody up, and the fighting resumes. Except this time, Arthur thinks with a completely inappropriate note of giddiness, the human side might actually have a chance at surviving it.
And then there's the other thought, mostly buried to allow for concentration on not dying, but there all the same:
Em wasn't lying.
"Arthur!"
Gwen's voice again. Arthur looks up just in time to keep her from knocking them both over.
"Arthur, look—"
Arthur does, and immediately wishes he hadn't. Em's running away from the fight, five or six skeletons at his heels. His stomach drops sickeningly.
He looks to Gwen and she nods.
"Go. Assuming the deadwalkers stay on our side…" She swallows. "Well, one person won't make a difference anyway, if they're not."
Arthur puts a hand on her shoulder until he gets a grim smile. And then he too is running like the hounds of hell are snapping just behind.
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Em's running faster than he ever has in his life and death combined. His feet are slapping the pavement, buildings and stray people going by in a blur as he darts down alleys and between buildings, trying to shake off the boneys. It's not doing much other than to piss them off, if the increasing volume of their roars is any indication.
The headquarters building looming up in front of him feels like a sign from God, because this whole running thing isn't going to keep him alive much longer. He might have more of a shot in a smaller space.
The door is open. Em doesn't even think about it before running inside.
In retrospect, he really should have thought about it.
He goes immediately for the stairs, because even his architectural archnemesis is better than waiting for the elevator to start while murderous boneys breathe down his neck, and takes them two at a time. It's easier than it's ever been, but he figures that's just the adrenaline brought on by the fact that he can smell the fetid, rotting breath of the things behind him.
You know, I'm not sure you've thought this through.
Really not the time, Morgana. A clawed hand passes close enough to tear the hem of his jeans. He runs faster. Where the hell have you been?
Well, if that's how you're going to be, then never mind. But don't say I didn't warn you.
He ignores the warning in favor of running for my life, thanks, I don't have time for your harbingers of gloom. It's only when he's actually pushing open the door with ROOF ACCESS emblazoned across it that he remembers, belatedly, just who they'd left behind here.
The bullet has gone through his shoulder before he even registers that Uther's standing in front of him.
His knees hit the ground; there's no time for any last words, any last thoughts—he's caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place as Uther's stony face looms above, gun pointed right between his eyes in an uncanny mirroring of Arthur's in that bedroom yesterday. A million years ago.
Except this time Em makes sure to look him in the eye.
The gun goes off and he flinches. Then he realizes that generally speaking the dead do not flinch, which must mean he's still—and then he notices the struggle going on in front of him, is scrambling to his feet before it's even properly computed.
One of the boneys has leapfrogged over him in favor of getting to the man with the gun, the rest having followed its lead.
Teeth sink deep into Em's wounded shoulder and he swings frantically; the teeth loosen. Apparently he was wrong about all of them being mindless followers. Two more detach themselves from the throng around Uther and roar in his general direction, which would be as good an indication as any that he ought to be running. If Uther and three other boneys weren't squarely between him and the door.
They're on him before he can think strategy, and then it's just desperate swings and the hope of connection as he's backed, slowly but inexorably, toward the edge of the roof. He's even starting to breathe heavily. A bad habit picked up from hanging around humans too much, no doubt.
A skull goes flying. The others bellow their rage, voices icy in his head.
TRAITOR.
TRAITOR.
TRAITOR.
One leaps at him and Em barely ducks in time. He doesn't dare turn around to watch it careen over the edge, not while a third is patiently waiting for him to drop his guard. All he can do is keep the machete at the level of his stomach like Arthur had taught him and wait until it makes a move.
Still, out of the corner of his eye he can see the other battle happening on the opposite side of the roof. Even with one arm out of commission Uther fights with the precision and skill of a trained professional. He doesn't have Arthur's grace, that way his son has of nearly dancing around a battlefield, but his bullets hit their mark all the same.
If they weren't, you know, mortal enemies and all, Em would probably admire the man.
Apparently thinking along similar lines, Em's boney speaks again.
YOU WOULD CHOOSE THESE SACKS OF FLESH OVER YOUR OWN KIND?
Em can see it tensing to pounce like some kind of wildcat, pausing only to hear his answer. He could lie, he figures, maybe bank on the hope that boneys are forgiving toward their wayward flock or whatever the hell they're under the impression he is.
Or he could just do what comes naturally—something that, more than anything else, feels like a piece of his living self that was too damn stubborn to die—and flip two fingers toward the thing ordering him around.
Please. Is that even a question?
So.
"They are my kind," he says, looking the boney square in the empty eye sockets.
And he even believes it as he charges, swinging the machete for all he's worth, putting his full weight behind it. Even as he sees the thing dodging, the blade glancing off its spinal column. Even as the machete is ripped from his grip and tossed to the grass below. Even as fingers like claws tighten, viselike and cold, around the back of his neck and Em knows he's utterly fucked.
The boney actually lifts him a few inches off the ground. Em can feel its fingertips puncturing the skin of his neck as the rotten smell of it fills his nose. Distantly he wonders if it will throw him off the roof and watch dispassionately as its friends rip his broken, still conscious body to shreds. Or if it will just incapacitate him here, rip his throat out and break his bones and leave him to wither. He doesn't know how long he'll survive in either case, doesn't particularly want to find out.
But then, he thinks as the grip tightens, that's the price you pay for siding with the underdogs.
YOU CHOOSE THEM, the boney says.
"That's…right." Em's vision is starting to go black and spotty around the edges as the skeletal grip tightens further, but somehow forming words has never been simpler. "And…I'm proud…of that."
And I wouldn't change a thing.
He closes his eyes—and a gun goes off.
The fingers around his throat slacken and he drops to the roof, disoriented. The boney lands beside him, a hole perfectly centered in its skull.
Arthur stands behind it, his gun still smoking.
Em stares at him like an idiot.
"You…followed me," he says numbly.
Arthur raises an arrogant eyebrow. "Of course. Clearly, you can't be trusted to look after yourself."
He offers a hand. Em takes it and hauls himself to his feet.
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"Arthur."
Arthur stiffens.
By the time he'd reached the roof his father had made short work of the skeletons surrounding him, and had seemed content to catch his breath while the last in turn made short work of Em.
He supposes it was too much to hope for, that Uther would be willing to let this go.
Wordlessly he turns. The gun in his father's hand is pointed at his head, and even at this distance Uther wouldn't miss, but Arthur knows there isn't a single bullet there that's meant for him.
"Move," Uther says.
"No," Arthur replies.
Em swallows behind him with an audible clicking noise; he's close enough that Arthur can feel his breath coming short and sharp with adrenaline. Arthur's own breathing is steady, as is Uther's. It's a skill they've honed through years of a prolonged apocalypse.
They've honed many such skills, Arthur knows. Lessons that have been as much a part of his schooling as maths and firearms: Shut yourself down. Mitigate potential loss by forming attachments to as few people as possible. Trust only that they will all die in the end. And know that you will join them unless you make yourself better than all of them combined.
It's a harsh way to be, but Arthur's always known it to be necessary. It's kept them alive.
We're not living here, Arthur. We're surviving. And there is a difference.
Morgana's words come back to him like a slap in the face, so clear it feels like she's standing behind him. He half-turns, but there's only Em, standing there with fear and fire in his eyes.
The message there is clear enough: Em doesn't plan on going down without a fight. And it startles Arthur to realize that there's more life in a deadwalker's eyes right now than he's seen in Uther's for a long, long time.
Arthur gives him a tight nod. It's meant to be reassuring, but he's not sure if it succeeds.
The sound of a gun being reloaded reaches his ears.
"Arthur," Uther warns. "Get out of the way. It's one of them. You've seen what's happening."
The block of ice around his tongue abruptly melts.
"What's happening?" he repeats. "I've seen what's happening down there. Have you?"
Uther scowls, but Arthur doesn't give him a chance to retaliate.
"The deadwalkers are fighting."
"I am aware—"
"They are fighting the skeletons."
Uther's face spasms. "You would lie to protect this—thing?"
"I'm not lying," Arthur says, trying to keep his tone calm. "You can look for yourself. They came out of nowhere and joined our side; the last I saw the odds were in our favor—doesn't this prove that they're changing?"
"All this proves is that you would side with the creatures that destroyed our family," Uther says coldly. "I have nothing more to say."
Arthur feels a telltale stinging in his eyes and blinks it forcefully away. "Father—"
Out of the corner of his eye he sees it—a skeleton stirring on the ground, readying itself to pounce, its skull chipped but not blown through. Not dead.
He's opening his mouth to shout a warning when it attacks.
It clings onto Uther's back like a demonic monkey, roaring its fury while Uther stumbles backward under its weight. Too close to the edge.
Arthur lifts his gun, pulls the trigger, and—nothing.
He's out of ammunition.
But Uther still has his gun. Arthur's already running across the rooftop, ice freezing in his chest, wondering why the hell his father isn't using the damn thing—
"Shoot it!" he shouts, desperate.
Uther looks him in the eye. Time seems to slow.
"No," his father says.
The boney sinks its teeth into Uther's throat like a fine meal, appearing to savor the blood that gushes forth. Arthur thinks he screams, but he'll never know for sure.
And then they're gone, tipping backwards over the edge of the roof, Uther and the skeleton both.
Gone.