Time frame: December
Rating: T
Description: Zone 14 tries to get spirited
"We really should decorate." Keith was suggesting as he and Ellis were returning from manning the perimeter of the fences.
"We always do, right? Just cause the world ended doesn't mean we don't got plenty to be happy about." Ellis agreed.
"Jared, wanna help me and Ellis put some holiday crap up around town?" Keith asked, when they were close enough to ask without being loud.
"It's November." Nick noted, smoking grumpily with Francis and Bud.
"Nuh uh, darlin. It's December now." Ellis corrected with a smirk.
"We don't even have a dependable calendar, how do you know it's December?" Danny asked, picking cinders out of John's beard. The older man just got done stoking the barrel fire and some embers flew up into the air, ash settling in his hat and facial hair.
"I just know. Country people know when the weather changes." Ellis said, as if that explained everything.
"Changes? The weather didn't change, Ellis. It was fucking cold last week and it's fucking cold now." Nick argued.
"Nuh uh, smart guy. It was cold last week, but now it's icy. In the morning, it's less of a dry cold and more of a wet cold." Keith countered.
"So wet cold means it's December? So if it rains in October and happens to be cold, that means December is here, right?"
"That aint how it works." Ellis started, "See-"
"Goddamn it, Ellis. I don't care. Besides, incase you didn't notice, the apocalypse made decorating pretty damn difficult, unless you want to risk your life to find some lights." Nick gave up, surrender obvious in his tone.
"We barely got electricity, with the solar panels and the generators. We don't need lights to be spirited." Rochelle suggested, admiring the innocent joy in her two friends. Keith and Ellis, always dependable, always finding good in a bad situation.
"Somebody has the idea." Keith said, scowling at Nick who was clearly NOT the one that had the idea.
Ellis, Keith, Jared, Rochelle, and John spent the remains of the afternoon coming up with fun ideas for décor with things that were likely available to them and did not require any electricity to run. Those that were in charge of Zone 14 wouldn't mind if this little project didn't take away any of their resources.
Keith managed to round up a dead tree, knock all the bugs out of it, and decorate it with garbage after he got it to stand up in the main yard beside the empty pool in front of where they lived. In some of the abandoned houses that were inside the fences, but damaged too badly to live in, he found a whole tub of those nasty paper-wrapped taffies that nobody liked. He picked out all the red, white, or green ones available and strung them together with fishing line. Once the 20 foot rope of them was wrapped around the branches and trunk of the dead Xmas tree, it looked better.
Ellis made a wreath out of old beer bottles, rope, a toilet paper bow, and some interesting-looking rocks, cleaned and spray painted to look like holly berries.
Rochelle found some burned out lightbulbs, spray painted them with some of Ellis's leftover red, and used some tin foil to make sharp-looking flowers around the bottoms, and hung them around windows here and there.
Some of the other guys in town caught on and decided to help out, including Coach who was more than capable of moving heavy pieces of rubble out of the way so that some of the smaller people could fit into the more dilapidated places in the old houses in order to find more supplies.
By the end of the afternoon, the Zone looked as festive as could be expected in a world where modern conveniences were gone. Sure, the décor was much like what colored garbage would be expected to bring to the table, but as far as everyone was concerned, it was the thought that counted. Evie managed to fashion several hexagrams out of tin foil, spray paint the windows of their room with Hebrew characters she couldn't read, and hang a hand-made Happy Hanukkah banner across the empty pool, on account of Ylaina being Jewish.
"What do ya do during Hanukkah?" Keith asked, having never met a Jewish person in his life. "Jew stuff?"
"Walk with me." Ylaina offered her hand, not cringing when Keith took a gentle hold of it, even though his missing fingers felt awkward. The two of them walked off to the hotel "house" that Evie and Ylaina shared.
Evie smiled, leaning over to Ellis. "He's gonna be in there a while. She's probably breaking into her Judaism 101 lecture as we speak."
"Well, isn't that too bad? C'mon El. I… have something in the room that I… need you to help me with." Nick mumbled out quickly, not really caring about making up a good excuse to need his boyfriend in a secluded place. If everyone knew about them already, who cared if they knew he wanted to go to the boudoir and bang the drum slowly?
"What do ya need, Nick?" Ellis asked, not catching on, and hoping it was secretly Nick getting ready to 'pop the question' so that he didn't have to.
"You. Naked. Spread out on our bed."
"Oh." Ellis noted, hint of excitement in his voice.
"You're damn right 'oh'. You're gonna be real familiar with 'oh'. I'm planning to take you so far into Pound Town that you're gonna need Magellan to get you back out again." Nick muttered under his breath, but not low enough to where Coach didn't overhear on the way out to the fire barrel and shake his head at their ridiculousness.
Later that night, when Nick slipped outside for a much-needed cigarette after Ellis slipped into an orgasm-induced sleep, he leaned against the wall of the motel and took in the quiet night. It wasn't any later than 9:00, but most of his group already retired to their rooms for the night. Lights were still on, but there was little to no activity outside.
Some distant noise out in the woods would sound, or a clank from inside the buildings was all that broke the silence. Nick felt at peace. Though he thrived best with chaos at all ends, he enjoyed silence, and occasionally needed a breather just like this.
"Hello?"
Nick's eyebrow rose. Did he just hear that? Was he just tired?
"HELLO?"
"Shit," Nick groaned, pulling his gun out of the back of his pants and knocking on several doors on his way to the gate.
Several of the guys in charge, as well as a few from his group followed to the gate.
Evie had her gun and flashlight drawn, pointing it out into the darkness on the other side of the gate. Just off to the right, she caught a face, a human face waiting on the other end.
Behind that face was another face, and behind that was several others.
"Can I help you?" She asked, in a tone that more than hinted that she had no intention of helping anybody.
"We're from Zone 15. Came the man's voice on the other end. Our zone went down almost two weeks ago. We're on our last leg." He explained.
"Your zone went down?" Asked one of the older guys from 14.
"Yes, a big ass horde, tore up everything. Most of them are dead. We aren't though and we need your help."
"Funny, we needed your help when a big ass horde tore up our zone. We lost more people than we know. You guys in 15 left us to die."
"Nah, no. We didn't do that. None of us had any control over that. The leaders are all dead. We were just low-levelers." The people on the other end of the fence argued.
"Come on, let them in. We can't just leave them out there." One of the other leads said, trying to be reasonable, and after several minutes of arguments, the majority agreed that the strangers outside should be allowed inside.
Once the group came into the light, Nick recognized several faces, most of them he remembered not liking much. There were seven of them. Two women and five men.
"Zoey! Louis!" Ellis yelled in excitement, running over to hug his friends from the other zone.
"Ellis, hey buddy!" Louis responded happily. "Did all your guys make it?"
"You bet we did. And we got more. I'll introduce ya to everyone in the mornin."
"Good to see you, Ellis." Zoey laughed, surprised as ever that he was still alive.
Nick sighed.
Great. These fuckers again. Louis he had no problem with, but the rest of the group he could have lived without ever seeing again.
Zoey was a bitch.
Dustin was a control-freak.
Mitchel was a fucking liar.
Miranda was a far right-wing nut job.
And the other two, Nick didn't know them, but they looked like assholes.
"Coach. Rochelle! Well, it's good not to be the last black man left on Earth." Louis chuckled, patting the others on the back as they shared a laugh.
"Plus some strapping guys here." Zoey joked, elbowing the one called Miranda as they scanned the crowd, ignoring a grunt from Louis.
"See, that's the spirit." Nick said, in his usual sarcastic tone.
Francis nudged Jared, eyeing over at Zoey.
Jared shrugged, "Not my type."
Nick met his gaze for a moment, giving him a long look before nodding all-knowingly. "I hear ya, loud and clear."
"Ellis, hold up, buddy." Zoey called him back over.
The mechanic looked at her quizzically.
"I found something back in 15, you might like it." She had a big smile on her face as she patted her leg, drawing attention from a small thing on the ground, moving in the dark.
"It's my kitty!" Ellis gasped, stooping down on the ground and picking up the old Russian Blue off the ground, petting and nuzzling his fur. "You smell like ashes." He said affectionately.
"He was waiting for you at you and Nick's old apartment the day you left." Zoey added as Ellis scooped her into a hug.
"Thanks for bringin him. I missed this fuzz ball."
"Goddamn it, Ellis. The cat's back?"
"But Nick, I wuv him." Ellis cooed
"Well, I don't wuv-..love the way it looks at me so I'm not babysitting anymore." Nick clarified.
This chapter was rather short, just a holiday update while I'm finishing exams. R&R is very welcome.