Time frame: March
Rating: M (language and violence)
Description: To CEDA
"All these trees are starting to blend together." Rochelle complained, having been on the road for over a day. None of the cars stopped on the road were able to start, so the group had to power their way through the woods on the right side of the road.
Each time they spotted a new car, they'd give it a try before disappearing back into the woods.
"There are living people around. They might be one of yours, but they might be marauders. Keep an eye peeled." Derek warned, trying to see through the trees.
"Let's go a ways ahead and scout for any trouble." Francis offered, and Rochelle seemed to agree. The two of them split off from their companions and took off deeper into the woods. Two people would be easier to hide than four. If there were four of them lumped together, they could easily be picked off by bandits. With two of them further ahead, they could watch for any issues and signal if they ran into enemies.
After about 15 minutes of continued walking, the remaining pair in the group came across a car, wrecked into several trees, blocking their direct path.
"Just move around it." Keith suggested, stepping around the car, heading deeper into the trees before correcting himself a few meters down.
"With nobody on the road, who the hell wrecks into the woods?" Derek wondered out loud. Almost all of the other cars were still on the road. A couple veered off into the ditch, but this was the only car that cleared all the way into the woods before crashing.
"An idiot?" Keith replied, remembering the last time he crashed a car and broke both of his legs.
Derek paused for a moment before turning back to his companion.
"Hey, it really feels like there are people close by, stay alert and don't make any noise." Derek warned in a whisper.
The two continued, stepping more quietly until they reached a clearing.
"Nope, turn around." Derek started to turn back into the woods. Clearings were the worst.
Before the two of them could disappear into the trees again, they heard the click of a bullet being loaded into the chamber of a gun before two men stepped out from the adjacent side of the clearing.
One had a gun, and the other had a machete.
"Fuck." Derek muttered.
"Drop your weapons." The man with the gun ordered.
These two looked like they were up to no good, the story-book bad guy appearance radiating from them. Both were dirty, both had bad teeth, and both looked like they spent the entire 9 months holding people up in the woods.
"Don't do it" Derek suggested, but Keith already had his hunting knife on the ground.
"We don't have shit, man" Keith tried reasoning with them.
How in Sam Hill did Francis and Rochelle miss these two?
"Drop the bat." The man with the gun instructed.
"Fuck you." Derek replied.
The man with the gun shrugged, pointing his handgun first at the younger of the two men and fired. Keith dropped like a fallen tree before the man turned the barrel of his gun in Derek's direction and fired once.
Derek found himself on the ground, holding back the gasp that would let these men know he was still alive. Black blood was oozing from the gunshot wound just under his left collarbone but it didn't bleed as heavily as it would have for a normal, healthy man.
He took a moment, laying still while the wound attempted to close itself, pushing the bullet up and out of the entry wound.
The pain of it was agonizing, but he couldn't make a sound. Being infected didn't make getting shot hurt any less, it was just 100% less lethal.
He turned onto his side, watching the two men as the one with the machete made himself busy going through their stuff while the man with the gun was approaching Keith.
He noticed the younger man was still alive and was reloading his gun.
Who the fuck only keeps two rounds in their gun?
Derek caught eyes with Keith, raising a finger to his lips to tell the younger man not to make a sound.
Slowly, he got to his feet. Both of the marauders had their back facing him, so he had enough time to pull a pocket knife out of his back pocket and open it while the others kept themselves occupied.
The man with the gun was now at point blank range, holding his gun in the direction of the younger man's face while he looked up helplessly from the ground.
"Don't-" Keith started to beg, before Derek's left hand slipped over the marauder's mouth while the other hand drove the blade of the knife up into the hollow between the back of the man's neck and the base of his skull. He moved the blade back and forth, attempting to tear through the bones and leave the man either dead or paralyzed.
When he dropped the man and kicked his gun away, the one with the machete heard the commotion and got himself up off the ground, charging with his weapon ready.
Derek looped around, grabbing his bat from the forest floor and narrowly avoided being decapitated by the machete being swung toward him.
Having just swung the machete with all of his strength, the marauder's back was now facing Derek for the split second he needed to connect the bat to the side of the man's head.
It knocked him loopy and he staggered for a moment before falling down.
Derek choked up on the bat, taking another swing at the fallen man, smashing the bat down even though the man was using his arms to try fending off the offending object.
It was a metal bat. The bones in the man's arms did nothing to protect him while Derek bashed his skull in, blood spattering little patterns on his clothes before at last, he stopped, satisfied that the man was dead.
Taking the bat with him, he returned to check on his fallen comrade.
Keith's expression was one of shock, whether it was the shock of being shot or the shock of seeing two men being killed, Derek wasn't aware.
"Let me see." Derek instructed, lowering himself to crouch beside Keith. As gently as he could, he moved the panicked man's hands away from where they held the gunshot wound.
The bullet hit his lower abdomen, about three inches from his left hip bone, right in the vitals. Being shot in the intestines was a death sentence in this day and age. The bullet very likely ripped through Keith's bowels and his body's own toxins were going to kill him if the blood loss didn't.
"Shit…" Derek muttered, watching the wound gush, "this is really bad."
"I…don't wanna die." Keith gasped through the shock, wincing as Derek attempted to put pressure on the wound.
"Looks like it's time to make a deal." He started, blood pooling up between his fingers.
"A deal?"
The older of the two nodded.
"I know how to save you."
Keith wasn't thinking, clearly preoccupied with the bullet lodged somewhere in his guts.
Derek quickly drew the pocket knife from the base of the first marauder's head, running the tips of his index and middle fingers over the blade, parting the skin and drawing dark blood forward.
"I don't…want to be…a fuckin zombie." Keith insisted, staring at Derek's bloody fingers like he held poison in them.
"You won't be. You'll hate the side effects, but in a few days, you'll be right as rain. I promise."
Keith paused, trying with all of his might to piece his thoughts together.
"Francis and Rochelle should be here any minute. You're either gonna lay here and die, or take my offer. You got four seconds." Derek prompted.
Fuck. I'm not ready to die.
But I can't trust him.
I have to.
It's either Derek or death.
"Just save me."
Keith barely finished before Derek jammed a finger into the wound in his abdomen, while his free hand went to smother the scream that was about to force its way out of the younger man's mouth. Keith could taste blood on Derek's hand, not at all aware of whose blood it was. There was so much of it.
"Just give it a sec." Derek attempted to be soothing.
After several seconds, he withdrew his finger from the wound.
"It'll stop bleeding, but you're going to feel like shit until that bullet squeezes out. Now, you're going to experience some real weird shit for two or three more days. The worst of it will be the next 24 hours."
"What's gonna happen?" Keith questioned, letting that same hot feeling wash over his insides that was present when Derek kissed him before they located Nick.
The wound wasn't searing with pain anymore, and Keith could feel his blood pressure starting to slow. The bullet hole still ached, but the blood was no longer gushing from it. It almost looked like it ran out of blood to give. This felt unnatural.
"I'll explain later. Here they come. Let me do the talking." Derek replied, pulling Keith's shirt down and closing his coat over the wound.
Guys?!" Rochelle called, coming through the clearing, staring down at the dead bodies before her focus went to Derek and Keith pulling themselves from the ground.
"We're fine." Derek assured, "They were both really bad shots."
Francis motioned to the blood on their clothes, and the spatters all over Derek's face.
"That's their blood. We're okay."
"Any idea what they wanted?"
Keith shook his head.
"They just started shootin. I think they just wanted to take our shit."
"But you're okay? You're sure that you're both fine?" Rochelle asked, cross-checking her companions, who nodded in earnest.
"How'd you get the upper-hand on men with guns?" Francis questioned, staring in amazement at the dead mean on the ground.
"One guy shot at Keith first, and I guess he just knew instinctively to play dead. I had a knife, and when he was checking to see if Keith was dead, I stabbed him. The other guy was just swinging the machete around all willy nilly and was pretty easy to take his head off with the bat." Derek explained, trying to look as elevated as he could, wanting to appear guilt-ridden over what just went down.
"Well, it's good that you're both okay." Francis replied.
"We didn't see them at all. They must have been waiting for you." Rochelle explained.
"We should be at CEDA by about 4:00. It's not far now." Derek noted, picking up all of their scattered items before leading the way for the remaining hours of walking, right up until they reached the clean two-story CEDA building. It looked like a hospital, unassuming and uninteresting from the road.
Derek pointed them toward a side door to the building, where the door lock was kept from engaging with a piece of duct tape.
"You guys take the first floor. We are gonna take a trip upstairs and take as much of the meds as we can." Derek suggested.
"Why don't you go upstairs by yourself?" Keith replied.
Something weird and/or bad happens every single time I'm alone with this guy.
"For the love of… listen, if I do even the slightest thing to earn your protest, you can scream at the top of your lungs and they'll both come running to your rescue. Good?" Derek offered, patience clearly wearing thin.
It didn't matter. Rochelle and Francis were already making their way down the hall and Derek was waiting three steps up the nearest flight of stairs.
Goddamn it.
When they reached the landing of the second floor, everything was still. The only thing that made this hallway appear at all abnormal was the sheer emptiness. As they made their way across, things steadily became darker. A smear of blood on one wall, a broken window, several doors with office chairs placed in front of them.
"Did you do this?" Keith asked, not really wanting the answer. He was uncomfortable as it was, alone with a man he didn't trust, trying to act normal with what would have been a fatal gunshot wound in his lower belly.
"Yes." Derek answered, matter-of-factly.
"Why, man?"
"I was trying to get free." Came another empty answer.
Derek quickened his pace, heading through a door on the left. He wasted no time and began sorting through the different medications in the cupboard on the far end of the room.
Keith paused in the doorway. Those sensations were coming back full-swing. He was feeling dizzy and restless. It was hard to breathe in this building. The stuffy air was not agreeing with him. The pressure around the bullet wound was intensifying, increasing his temperature as the cramps continued.
"You good?" Derek called, not taking his eyes from the labels he was reading.
"No…" Keith leaned to his left, bracing himself against the open door. He felt like throwing up.
Derek sat the bottle he was reading down on the counter, approaching the sweating man at the door.
"What's going on?" He stopped within arm's reach, in case his companion was to faint.
"My heart's flutterin"
Derek smiled.
"Ah, now this is where it gets interesting." He said, almost to nobody as he moved to lift the hem of Keith's shirt several inches. His fingertips traced the angry wound just beside Keith's hip.
"Don't…don't touch me." He panted, now struggling to remain standing, almost instantly being drenched with sweat.
Not listening, Derek pushed only slightly on either side of the wound, and Keith's hand gripped his wrist as tight as his strength would allow.
"It's okay. Bullet's out." Derek assured, showing the other what looked like a little black rock before tossing it onto the floor and going back to reading labels.
"What the hell…did you do to me?"
Derek didn't reply.
"Am I gonna die, Derek?"
The older man tisked.
"What makes you think that?"
Keith took in a deep breath.
"I feel hot. My heart is racin. I feel like I have wasps inside."
"You're not gonna die. Just ignore it." Derek replied, as if these symptoms were completely normal.
"Did you infect me?" Keith was becoming angry now.
"With the amount of my blood in you? No. I didn't infect you. Like I said, you're fine."
Keith took a few steps forward, feeling disoriented, but not staggering about.
"How do you know you did it right?"
Derek stuffed a medicine bottle into the ratty old medical bag Keith was lugging around.
"Well, after I killed everyone, I stayed here for a week and read my entire medical file. CEDA did all the tests. A very small amount of my blood can heal a wound. It will make the host feel strange for a couple of days and then they're fine. I didn't mess up. You're not infected."
"How do I know you aint lyin to me? How do I know you didn't make up your medical file?" The redhead questioned, watching Derek carefully move through medications.
"It's in the doctor's desk if you don't believe me." Derek replied, instantly regretting it when Keith cleared the room and was rummaging through the desk drawers by the time he finished the sentence.
He managed to locate a drawer full of files, and the tag "KELLER, DEREK" was written on one. He quickly pulled it out of the drawer and started flipping through medical charts.
"Keith, I'd really rather you not look at those. Just read the first three pages on the left side." Derek warned.
But he didn't warn in time.
Keith was already flipped halfway through the file, finding some graphic medical photos. Some of them were recent, and others were dated several years ago, tagged with Derek's former inmate number. On one of the first photos was a close-up of a wound around Derek's hairline. His face was visible in the photo, bruised and battered, and the wound on his head was deep enough to where a small piece of his skull was visible. The next photo was some sort of inside-the-body photo taken during surgery. Another photo was a mugshot. Another was a close-up of Derek's throat, also quite purple and bruised.
"Stop." Derek warned.
But he couldn't look away from each new image.
The next photo was taken in the CEDA building. This one wasn't too bad. It was a case file photo. Derek looked spun out of his mind, but otherwise healthy. The next photo showed different injection sites on his body. The next photo showed him handcuffed to a bloody hospital bed, naked and bleeding from various wounds. The next photo was a room. No people were in it, but the room was quite a mess, scattered with broken gurneys and spots of blood.
"What is this?" Keith asked, flipping through as fast as he could. The images got steadily more disturbing and intimate before he'd had enough and sat the file back down on the desk.
"Obviously it's the file that the doc kept on me. There are about 200 pages in there aside from the pictures." Derek's voice sounded different, not his usual confidence. His voice sounded tired, defeated, embarrassed.
"Did the doctors do all that to you?"
Derek shook his head.
"Not all of it. Some of those were from prison. Can we go now? Please, Keith? You saw what you wanted."
"I didn't want to see all that." Keith argued.
And he didn't.
As much as he hated Derek's guts, he didn't want to see images like those. He was a psychopath, and a bad man, but the doctors had no right torturing him like they did.
"Well, I warned you not to."
"I'm...really sorry." Keith offered, legitimately sympathetic.
"Hey, couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy." Derek replied, motioning for Keith to leave the room with him.
"Wait."
The redhead was following his companion down the hall.
"You never did tell me what I could expect to happen."
Derek smiled again.
"Give it time." He replied.
"No, come on. Just let me know what I'm lookin at." Keith demanded, still keeping up with Derek's quick pace as he entered another room.
"Exactly what's happening now."
"That is NOT what I mean. Like, scientifically. What did you do to me?" Keith stopped, prompting Derek to stop just past the doorway of the next room.
"Okay. Here's the pulse. My blood can cure little wounds here and there. But it can't cure anybody of a deadly disease, and in small doses it can't make you permanently sick. But, along with keeping all of my diseases in check, the injections have some sort of unique compound made from the various "special" infected, as you call them-"
"Hold on. I have bits of infected in me?" Keith stood in disbelief, waiting for Derek to tell him that he heard wrong.
"Not just any bits. See, CEDA was researching the specials. They noticed that they emitted some sort of pheromone to keep from attacking each other. In fact, CEDA observed specials actually trying to mate with each other after releasing said pheromones. They can't, not really. But they were trying. The jumping ones especially."
"Hunters"
"Correct. Hunters. And it just so happens that the dominant strain that I was injected with was from Hunters. Now, most people don't see this when they see Hunters, but they have been known to attack others of their same type. Hence the pheromone. Once it's released, the Hunters know they are with one of their own and instead of attacking…well."
"No." Keith sighed.
"Yep."
"So with YOUR blood in me…"
Derek nodded, amused.
"I have that same…fe..ferro-"
"Pheromone, yes." Derek helped his less articulate companion.
"Why? Why didn't you tell me?" Keith demanded.
"I did tell you. I told you that you weren't going to like the side effects."
"But it's a fucking sex chemical, Derek!" Keith shouted, pushing his companion back a few paces.
"Nothing even happened. You seem completely normal. If it were going to do anything, it would have. The worst symptom you've had is being uncomfortable." Derek explained, still calm.
Keith huffed.
I'm not fine.
I haven't been able to think for a full day.
I'm tense.
I'm hot.
"Unless there's something you aren't telling me?"
Keith was having none of it. He was irritated, and this entire trip had been a long, drawn out mistake.
He stepped forward, pinning his dark-haired companion into the closest corner, fists clenched into Derek's tattered old hoodie.
"Take it easy. I was just trying to lighten the mood." Derek assured, trying to keep his voice slow and soothing.
"You knew this was going to happen."
Derek's eyes showed no sign of guilt.
"Knew what was going to happen? You not dying? Is that what I knew was going to happen?"
"Cut the shit. You Spanish-flied me!"
"I did what, now?"
"Derek, I'm losing my fucking mind! I been out of it all day and I hate you so fucking much for this. I'm frustrated and I feel like shit." Keith seethed.
Keeping his cool was an uphill battle ever since this piece of human garbage tainted him with diseased blood. Mentally he kicked himself for ever agreeing to accept Derek's help. Of course there had to be an ulterior motive. No way would Derek have saved his life without having his own benefit in mind.
Sure, tainted blood might have saved him from bleeding out, but the side-effect was worst case of horny/angry cocktail.
It was the same awkward tingling sensation Keith tried to digest after their last encounter, only turned way up from an uncomfortable annoyance, to a desperate ache.
"Wait, you're saying it works? What's it feel like?" The tone in Derek's voice was nothing short of rage-inducing.
"Like somebody gave me a handful of ecstasy on a desert island with someone I want to FUCKIN STAB."
"It worked. This is just too fucking perfect. I didn't know it would work. I didn't even think it would work, but it was worth a try." Derek replied, now smiling and excited.
"Fuck you, man. I swear, you better not even come near me." Keith warned.
Derek presented his hands as a symbol of surrender.
"I'm not gonna do anything. I told you I'm not going to force myself on you again."
Keith let out a hesitant sigh of relief.
"However, if you fail to control yourself, and I just lay back and let you…I'm not the one at fault."
"I wouldn't touch you if I was dying." The redhead replied, keeping his voice as dark as possible.
"Well, then you shouldn't have any problems. Listen, Keith. It's JUST a side effect. It makes you drawn to me, makes you want me. But that's all it does. You can either fight it until you're crazy, or let me take care of you."
"Just, get the fuck downstairs. Seriously, get outta my face." Keith backed away enough to allow Derek to leave the room.
He slid out of the corner, entertained expression never leaving his face. "It'll get worse before it gets better. Enjoy." Derek mentioned before leaving the room. Keith watched him disappear down the hallway, an extra spring in his step.
Fuck that prick. How dare he trick me like this. Feeling anything for Derek other than hate is a fate pretty damn close to as bad as death. I'll just sit here and lose my mind. If he stays downstairs, I'll be fine in the morning.
Midnight came and went, before the upstairs part of the building became too cold and Keith made his way downstairs as quietly as he could.
Rochelle and Francis were both asleep, propped in a sitting position against the wall. They looked uncomfortable, but completely unconscious.
Good. I'll just sit down next to them and get a couple hours in.
He settled onto the floor, trying to get comfortable before listening to the sounds of the night, much different than they were 9 months ago.
Two days. I have two days til I get home, back to my friends.
Two days, and I can get back to searching for the others.
But if I do that, I need that piece of shit's help.
I'll be nicer in the morning.
He felt like his eyes closed for only seconds before the sound of footsteps shook him from an uneasy sleep. One eye crept open in time to see his least likeable companion making his way down the hall, stepping into one of the rooms.
Great. What's he up to?