073 - Saving
Holy shit, Lumaira thinks as he sinks down to the kitchen floor and grips L'Erena's hand with his own sweaty palm. Perspiration is already beading along his forehead, seeping into his fluffy hair. There's blood. Not his blood. On his shirt.
Holy shit.
And he thought that Even climbing out of his grave, dead looking and hazy-eyed, was bad. Even with every self-depreciating remark, every sullen, morose glance in his direction, was not bad. Even was a piece of chocolatey cake when it comes to the fact that Lumaira is hiding out in his kitchen wishing the power could come back on, or that Mum would come home, or he'd wake up to blissfully realise that there weren't any zombies banging on the windows after all.
There's a sound like nails scraping down a blackboard and Lumaira squeals, clinging to L'Erena tighter still. She sighs a litte - somehow, she's worked out how to turn her the half of her brain that controls fear off. She's got a rolling pin in the hand that's not steadying Lumaira, ready to fend off attack.
"I told you," She says quietly. "I told you Even was undead. We had plenty of time to prepare for this."
Lumaira squeaks and presses his back even further into the cupboard door he's hiding against. "Don't say that," He insists. "Even's different. He can think for himself, for one."
L'Erena dares to peek over the counter and out into the night beyond. There's a few in the back garden now, ambling menacingly towards the kitchen window. She quickly ducks down again.
"We need to move somewhere safer."
"We can't move!" Lumaira shrieks, voice shrill and horrified. "Are you insane?"
"What about the hospital?" L'Erena suggests, prising her hand from Lumaira's to scuttle into the hallway. He doesn't follow; instead he curls his arms tightly around his knees to stop himself shivering. He's absolutely terrified. He read somewhere that when things like this happen - not that things like this are supposed to happen at all - some kind of hidden instinct kicks in so that people can survive even the harshest of conditions. He thinks that his brain conveniently forgot about that instinct. L'Erena's planning and adapting already: he's just cowering on the kitchen floor on the verge of wetting himself in fear.
Moments later, L'Erena returns with a grim look on her face.
"Help me board the windows."
"I can't move!" Lumaira wails, ducking his chin to his chest. "It's scary, I want to go home."
"You are home." L'Erena sardonically replies. She's not amused by her best friend's failings, not when their lives hang in the balance and rhythmic slaps of rotting skin against window panes has faded into the background noise.
"You know what I mean," Lumaira says miserably, but L'Erena's moved on already in the darkness, calculating again. He hears the jingle of keys.
"I can drive," She says. "If we can get to a car, we can drive up to the hospital."
"There's dead people at the hospital!" Lumaira exclaims as she drags him up to the front door and swiftly unlocks it.
"There are dead people everywhere."
Lumaira blanches and pulls away from the shorter girl.
"Give me a second."
"Oh, for God's sake, what now-?"
Lumaira runs to the downstairs toilet and is violently sick in the basin. He catches himself in the mirror and nearly screams. He looks like he's dead himself, pale and bedraggled, blood all over his shirt.
"L'Erena," He calls carefully, willing his voice not to crack. "L'Erena, I'm scared."
He lifts one hand almost on autopilot to brush against the mirror. It leaves bloody fingerprints and he's petrified like his own reflection has caught itself in a death-lock and won't let go.
L'Erena storms in and suddenly stops.
"Oh, Lulu."
He stumbles drunkenly over to her and wraps his arms around her safely living, breathing body, and sobs into her shoulders.
"I'm so scared..."
"It's okay," She said, tangling her fingers into his hair. He feels the scrape of her nails against his skull, and the slight tingle of pain is comforting. "It's okay, we'll be fine. They can't get in."
"I can't go out there," Lumaira manages after a sickly gulp. "I can't go out there, I'm terrified..."
"Honestly," L'Erena laughs, and Lumaira realises that she's on edge too. Well, no wonder. She's probably scared out of her wits as well - but she's the kind of person that doesn't show her emotions. Lumaira couldn't keep a poker face if his life depended on it - L'Erena's the opposite. So he clings to her a little tighter, and says like he desperately hopes it'll be true;
"It'll be okay."
"Yeah," L'Erena says, and pulls away. "Now. Help me bar the windows."
It's two hours later that Lumaira's made hot chocolate, of all the surreal times and places, and they've dragged the mattresses upstairs down into the kitchen where they huddle together and wait for help or death to come. "Sun'll be up soon," L'Erena says, glancing out of the cracks in the windows where furniture couldn't be stretched out any further. Lumaira nods shakily. He's still just as scared. Since the zombies started arriving, he's been utterly useless. Mum was at hospital with Even and they're both still stuck there, but Lumaira hopes that they'd be better provisioned there to keep out the living dead. It feels weird to call them zombies. Zombies aren't this scary.
"What do you think's going to happen?" He asks.
"Dunno," L'Erena says. Seconds later, the slapping against the windows splinters into a crack. "Fuck."
Lumaira screams and flings himself into a corner as the first shard of glass comes tumbling down over the work surface and lands next to his foot. L'Erena picks up her rolling pin and stands up.
"Well, then."
"L'Erena, don't, it's suicide! You'll be killed!"
"What else can we do?"
"I don't know!" Lumaira shrieks, daring for a second to reach up and see a hand poking through a gap and groping around on the smooth work surface. L'Erena studies it for a moment, then brings her rolling pin crashing down onto the fingers. They crunch and Lumaira nearly throws up his hot chocolate at the sound. L'Erena swings her pin again and one of the fingers rolls onto the floor. Lumaira whimpers at the sight of it, bloody and rotten.
"Right," L'Erena says, grabbing the bread knife. "Looks like it's game on."
Lumaira thinks it would be a better idea to lock himself in the bathroom and cry until somebody rescued them, but no doubt L'Erena would consider that undignified. They retreat into the hallway, where gory faces are peering through unprotected holes and hands are pressing against panes strained to breaking point.
"They can't get in," L'Erena says. "Not yet, anyway."
Lumaira hears cries and moaning screams from outside and backs, horrified, into L'Erena.
"There's more of them," He says weakly. "I know it." "Well, there are a lot of dead people," L'Erena states blankly. She passes Lumaira the rolling pin and he's quick to give it back.
"I can't do anything useful with that!"
"Trust me, when a zombie's threatening your life, you'll fight back."
Lumaira doesn't think that would work with him. He'd probably just whimper and curl into a ball in the hopes that somebody would save him before he had his brains ripped out.
There's thrashing noises outside now. Lumaira takes back the rolling pin anyway and holds himself strong at the front door, hoping that the zombies would rather try their luck with the windows.
"I'm scared," He says again, because if L'Erena knows that means he doesn't need to pretend like he isn't. He feels like such a coward. Well, he is.
There's a yell outside that sounds distinctly human, and then a thump like somebody flinging themselves into the front door. Lumaira suppresses a scream and readies himself for the onslaught.
"Let me in, you wankers!"
That.
That didn't sound like something Lumaira expected a zombie to say. L'Erena seemed to have noticed too, in between hacking off intruding body parts, and glanced up at him.
"What are you goddamn waiting for?"
"Even!"
He unbolts the door and a bloody body topples in. It's Even, alright. Well, most of Even. There are bits of him missing. Namely a large section of his stomach, half an elbow and parts of his shoulder. Lumaira screams at the blood and staggers back as the blood drains from his face.
"It's okay," Even says, shutting the door. "I've worked out what's wrong with me."
"You're in pieces?" L'Erena guesses, gesturing to all the gaping holes and one hell of a lot of blood.
"I'm not dead." Even intones dully. Lumaira notices the cleaver in one hand, through the crimson sheen of blood.
"Um."
"I've come to save you."
L'Erena and Lumaira stare at him in astonished silence. Even sighs, stomping through into the kitchen and leaving a trail of blood behind him. The stench pollutes the air, even as he sets the water running and washes the worst of it from his hands and face. Then he sets to work patching up all the wounds that ought to have been fatal with the shredded remains of his shirt.
"We'll leave here in fifteen minutes," He says briskly as he works. "It's going to be interesting, but I'm pretty certain that I can keep you both safe."
"Um." Lumaira says again, eyes still stuck to the cleaver, now lying beside the kitchen sink.
"What?"
"How?"
Even wrings the worst of the blood out the last shred of his shirt and wraps it around his elbow.
"How what?"
"How did you get here?" Lumaira begins. "How did you survive having bits chomped out of you by the zombies? How come you've got a meat cleaver? How is it that you came back from the dead exactly the same and they're all trying to eat us?"
"I'll explain at the hospital," Even says. "It's the safest place right now."
"How come you're not dead?" Lumaira persists all the same, voice cracking. He's got a face Snow White would be proud of and he's quivering.
"Oh, that." Even says. He picks up the cleaver. "Look at this."
He swings with calculated precision and takes his own arm off at the elbow. It falls, twitching to the floor. This seems to shock even L'Erena, who steps backwards a little and nearly trips over Lumaira who's ducked behind her in total horror. Even sighs and picks up his arm, popping it quite neatly back onto the seeping wound. Then he flexes his fingers.
"See?"
"Holy shit." L'Erena says. The wound is already closing up, still a bloody mess - but still healing.
"Quod Erat Demonstrandum," Even concludes, "These things can't kill me."
Lumaira dares to peek out from behind L'Erena.
"Oh." He says. "How...?"
"I don't know."
"Right."
Even wobbles over to the kitchen table and sits down on one of the chairs. Despite himself, he looks weak, like he's alive but only just.
"Are you okay?" Lumaira asks. With Even here, everything makes even less sense, but it's a more comforting sort of nonsensical.
"I'm fine," Even snaps, testing out the muscles along his arm. "Just give me a few minutes to patch myself up."
"So you can't die?" Lumaira says quietly as some sort of natural instinct kicks in, even if it's not L'Erena's, and he collects the first aid kit from under the fridge.
"Well, not exactly," Even admits. "I can be killed. I just won't stay dead. I died a few times on the way here."
"How did you know?" Lumaira asks. "I mean, that you'd come back again."
"I didn't," Even plainly interjects.
"Oh."
Already, he's looking better. Lumaira bandages him properly, and sends L'Erena upstairs for a new shirt. It's too big for Even, but Even's still so thin it's painful and everything just hangs loosely from his bones.
"We need to find some way of getting you to the hospital," He says eventually, standing up. He towers over even Lumaira, and in the cold nearly-dawn light with blood still sticking to his skin, he looks fairly intimidating.
"Is Mum okay?" Lumaira suddenly interjects, reminded of his mother by Even's mention of the hospital.
"She's fine," Even says. "The hospital is safe."
"How did you get here?" L'Erena asks as Lumaira settles back into a small sort of assurance.
"I ran."
"From the hospital."
"Yes."
L'Erena whistles a little.
"I don't think even I'm up to that. It's nearly two miles away."
"I think it's best if we stole a car," Even concludes. "Although the bodies are a bit thick out there."
"A bit," Lumaira says. He's peeped out of the sitting room windows and nearly twice as many zombies are out there now.
"They must have followed me here," Even huffs, like it's some kind of personal offence.
"Great." L'Erena says darkly.
"Wait." Even suddenly looks up, and paces over to the window. Lumaira's still on edge, and he squeaks as Even brushes against him.
"This is a terraced house,"
"Yeah. So?"
"We can go on the roof," Even says. "To the end of this block, where there'll be less zombies. Then we can get a car and reach the hospital. We appear to be in a bit of an epicentre at the moment."
With the help of Lumaira's rolling pin and Even's steady persistence, they break through the plaster and tiling up onto the roof. Even's up first, helping Lumaira climb gracelessly through. He half expects Even's arm to come off again when he tugs it, but it holds strong and steady as Even helps him to balance up on the roof. L'Erena jumps out as elegantly as a dancer next to them and they find themselves watching the sunrise filter over the land with a warm, comforting glow.
Lumaira risks a glance at Even in the better light. His hair's blowing in the wind, cleaver by his side. There's blood still, in no small quantity, but he looks healthier and stronger than he ever did before.
"Right," He says, finding a good hold against the chimney and skittering onto the next house's roof. "Let's go."
They leave the mass of zombies and carnage behind until they reach the end of the block, where there's a trashy enough car for L'Erena to jump start, and they reach the hospital, curiously devoid of zombies, in good time where Lumaira nearly tackles his mother when he sees her all well and good.
As they settle into one of the waiting rooms - people have been coming and going as much as they dare now that it's light outside and the undead seem less menacing - Even stays by the corner and just as Lumaira glances up from his bundle of Best Friend and Mum, he notices an upwards twitch of the older boy's mouth that couldn't have been anything but a smile.
From my fanfiction, Blackbird, where Even kills himself and doesn't stay dead. A crazy idea I toyed with, having zombies, but eventually I decided against it for the main plot.