Hey, here is chapter two, hope everyone enjoys! Not a lot of people reading this yet, but that's okay! Leave a review if you like it!
"Who are you?" Lance asked for the third time as he followed Sword Guy down the street. He earned a glare for that and a roll of those pretty, purplish eyes, but Lance needed to know. They hadn't gone far yet. Sword Guy had grabbed more food and water, and he killed the thing in the cooler too, which had made Lance flinch a little in disgust. His own voice was still a little crackly, having gone unused for three weeks now, since he got separated from his family.
"Come on man, I don't even know who you are, or why I should follow you to... to wherever it is you're taking me. I can't at least get your name?" 'Cute, but grumpy'... Lance thought to himself, pouting a little bit. Not to mention a mullet seemed to be coming in too, 'How eighties...'
"Keith. Keith Kogane. Now shut up and trust me okay? They're attracted to sound, so stay quiet," Keith said, his voice soft, so the things would hopefully not overhear them. Lance scowled a little bit, but he stuck close anyways. His survival chances were better with Keith than without him... Keith had a sword and apparently knew how to use it too, and Lance... well. Lance was a fast sprinter and he was flexible and could probably fight okay... against humans. Against these things though, he'd rather just run like hell and hope they didn't keep up.
"Where are we going?" Lance hissed now and then swallowed at the sight of a small strip mall. It was the kind most suburbs had, with a liquor store, a small shopping centre, a bar... there was even a pizza place! Though Lance suspected they probably didn't have any pizza in there now...
"There's a pharmacy in there, now shut up and come on... or don't, I don't actually care..." Keith grumbled quietly, pulling out some binoculars to look at what he had to handle outside the stores. There were at least twenty of them shambling around the parking lot, shambling around or standing still. They didn't look dangerous when they were like this. It didn't seem like they could or would kill you in half a heart beat if you got too close to them. Lance wished he didn't know the truth, then maybe he wouldn't feel so afraid he might puke.
"You gonna go in there? For... for drugs?" Lance asked, just to clarify. He wasn't sure a junkie was the best person to team up with for the apocalypse but then again maybe they just needed some advil?
"I'm not going because I want to, believe me. But we're gonna need a lot of medicine now that the world's ended..." Keith grumbled now, rolling his eyes, "if you don't wanna come, then don't... you'll just be in the way anyways..." Keith wasn't all that polite it seemed, but Lance supposed the end of days did forgive that one. For now, at any rate.
"Fine, fine, I'm coming... but only if we get an epipen while we're in there..." He agreed. Lance supposed they should grab another bag while they were there... shopping bags were in those places right?
"A... fine, whatever. Just... stay close, and keep quiet..." Keith started moving then, sword drawn as he did, and staying low to the ground. Lance followed close, his eyes still on Keith, or they were until they got close. Lance had always gotten distracted easily, but lately that seemed to come in handy more than anything, as a small movement drew his attention this time and he reached out to grab Keith's arm in response to it. Keith turned to glare at him, but the expression Lance wore gave him pause, and Lance pointed one finger, trembling slightly, at what had drawn his gaze.
It was one of the things, staring right at them as it sprinted full tilt down the road, it's mouth open already as it did. It was enormous too, nearing six and a half feet, it's skin mottled grey, but peeled back on the cheeks and forearms, likely peeled away while trying to catch a person. It made no raspy snarl at them, it's throat torn out by something or someone that had encountered it already. Keith stood, and motioned for Lance to move, which he did. This drew it's attention though causing it to focus on Lance, course veering right for him. He felt his pulse in his head as he tried to evade it, but fell on his ass instead, so afraid he thought his head might explode, and Lance raised an arm to try to defend himself from it.
For as fast as the thing was though, Keith was fast too, moving towards it, sword raised. With it distracted by Lance, Keith was able to sever one of it's legs and an arm in two fast movements. The thing dropped, and another jab from the sword caused it to stop moving, though Lance's pulse was still way above what it should be, and embarrassingly enough he felt tears in his eyes. At least he hadn't peed himself, he supposed, but he didn't understand how Keith could be this cool about the things. Lance had never felt as helpless as he had in the past month since this whole fiasco began...
Keith gave the sword a flick, trying to get the blackened, rotting blood of his sword, but it didn't do much to help. He'd have to clean it properly later. He walked the few steps to Lance and reached one hand out to help him stand up again, making Lance's cheeks heat with further embarrassment. Lance took the offered hand anyways, wiping his cheeks to get rid of the tears that left dark streaks there.
Keith motioned silently to keep going and Lance could barely believe that they were still going in after the sprinter had nearly gotten them. Or maybe it hadn't, and Lance's terror was simply putting the thought in his head. He was riding way too much adrenaline though now, as a result, and he wished this stranger could at least say something, or sweat, or... or look scared! If Keith looked scared, Lance would feel a little bit better about feeling so afraid all the time lately...
They drew closer still though, much as Lance didn't want to, and Keith motioned to him to move around the back of the strip mall. The alleyway had two... definitely more manageable than the twenty or so, and there was a way up to the roof, not that it would be easy. Keith made to charge, but Lance reached out instinctively. On the roof they would have time to think if they could pull themselves up from there... but from here, the sound of fighting would draw the parking lot things into the alleyway, which was more trouble than they needed. Keith might be good with that sword of his, but there was no way he could take a small horde like that on without difficulty at least... and he was looking a little worse for wear, now that Lance had a chance to actually look.
Lance pointed to the two things in the alleyway, neither of which had noticed them yet, then at the rocks strewn about. He made a throwing motion, then with two fingers mimed walking to the dumpsters, a jump, and tried to mime them climbing on the roof. Keith stared at him with a completely blank expression, not understanding any of it. Damn... Keith was looking now though, and then pointed at the rocks and gave a thumbs up, picking one up and peeking out to see where the things were.
Keith had a look of deep concentration before he threw it in a high arch, and far to the other side. Both of the things perked up, heads facing the sound and then beginning to wander towards it and out towards the parking lot. Silently they hurried now to the dumpster, Lance right behind Keith. He was a little taller than Keith too, Lance noticed as he pulled himself up onto the roof. Keith couldn't quite reach it seemed which made Lance feel a little bit better about being so useless... until now of course. Lance reached down and helped pull Keith up onto the roof, feeling a bit smug about Keith needing his help this time.
They moved along the top of the store to the roof access door. The air conditioning and heating units were all on the roof, so this was the safest way into the store... Lance hoped. Keith had his sword out anyways, but he would pray to whatever was listening that there wasn't a single one of those things inside. The lights were still on, which help a little for Lance at least, and Keith lead the way, down the stairs. They came out into a back room, one the customers were never supposed to see, and a couple of the lights were beginning to flicker, but most likely due to not being changed in a month. More than that, come to think of it.
From what Lance could hear, there were some out in the aisles, but Keith stuck to the walls for now and Lance stuck to Keith. Why was he doing this? Why didn't he just stay on the roof tops or say 'Thanks but no thanks' when Keith said 'come with me' to him? He knew why... he would take even this guy who was crazy enough to break into a pharmacy full of those undead -or perhaps truly dead- things during the apocalypse over the alternative. Another night of pulse racing fear and not knowing if he'd wake up because he was done sleeping, or because he was being eaten alive. Another night of deafening silence and the all-encompassing fear that came with no noise at all, not even insects in the grass. Another night of the silence only being broken up by those horrifying rasping gasps as those things shuffled around in the dark.
Keith was moving a lot slower now, Lance noticed, and he didn't look good. Maybe he really was an addict? Keith took down the thing that was near the pharmacy before hopping the counter and heading into the shelves to look for something specific. Lance took the chance to grab what he could see from the shelves. Advil, nyquil, gravol, midol... anything that might come in handy, whether it be for them, or to trade with any other survivors they ran into. The sound of one of those things startled him behind the counter and back to where Keith was.
"Dude, come on, just grab whatever and let's go..." Lance hissed under his breath at Keith. Was he reading all the labels? Lance did find the EpiPen packs easy enough, right near where Keith was looking too, so he had what he needed just in case. Well, for a year anyways, otherwise he had to hope he didn't run into any bees...
"I can't just grab whatever, and I kind of need... this one, thank fuck!" He whispered, pulling out a grey cylinder with a red cap. He knelt down now and grabbed something out of his backpack along with what looked like a strip of paper. Keith pressed it to his finger and... ouch, was that blood?! Lance watched him curiously, reading the label on the one Keith seemed to want so badly too. Humalog 100U/ml Kwikpen it red in red letters on the white box beside the pen.
Keith looked annoyed by what the meter said too when it beeped -too loudly for Lance's liking- at him and he grabbed the grey cylinder again. He fiddled with it for a second before lifting his shirt and injecting himself with it on the abdomen, which made Lance wince a little bit reflexively. He hated needles, and didn't see how anyone could want one as much as Keith seemed to want that one, though he figured it was probably important. Keith patted the spot next to him and made a drinking motion so Lance sat down and cracked a bottle open for him after digging one out of his bag.
"Thanks..." Keith whispered, before digging a list out, along with a fabric draw-string bag, "look for everything on this list... take as much of it as you can..." He whispered, and Lance huffed softly but he did as he was told too. Being on high alert like this made it especially easy to get distracted at least, so he figured he'd notice anything coming. For now, he tried to keep his attention on what he needed to look for.
More of that Humalog stuff... he grabbed the pens and the cartridges and the vials too, but now he read it more closely too. Insulin... so Keith was diabetic then? That kind of explained that then, and Lance secretly felt like an ass for assuming more negatively about him now. Levemir was the other one, and it had a nice turquoise colour, though Lance wasn't sure why Keith needed two kinds. Then again he wasn't well versed on insulin in general... What else... Qvar... he grabbed whatever he found there too, and Ventolin, nitroglycerine spray, and Effexor (37.5)... Odd combo... they couldn't all be for Keith right? No way.
Lance was looking left and right and through shelves every few seconds too, his head apparently on a swivel-stick with every tiny sound he heard, everything he thought he saw out of the corner of his eye. He also grabbed a few other things from back there, not paying much attention to what. Something caught his attention and this time he dropped to the floor when he saw one of those things shuffling around too close. He moved as slowly and quietly as he could with the bag full of stuff but he caught it's attention anyways and he swallowed hard as it's head moved from side to side, watching him as it shuffled closer, stopped by the counter. It reached out at him now, and Lance's eyes fixated on it, and he couldn't help but notice every detail of it.
It was a woman, at one time. Judging by the whiteness of her hair she was probably older when she succumbed to the same plague that claimed almost everyone, though even dead, her hair held on to the tight curls it once grew in, though now it had thinned in her death. Her lips were gone now, revealing her blackening gums and mottled grey tongue and teeth. Her eyes were whitened too, the pupils tiny dots in icy grey, like they all had. Her skin was mottled too, but hints of the beautiful dark brown skin still remained, even with the flesh underneath the same ugly grey as her mouth was now, and Lance couldn't help picturing what she would have been in life... she must have been really beautiful, he decided, but he was distracted by Keith who moved in now. One thrust of his sword was all it took to silence the rasping she gave off and he listened silently for a minute before motioning to Lance and grabbing his bag. Time to go.