You guys thought I'd given up, huh? FALSE! I've just been having a few personal issues lately, that's all. I definitely plan on continuing this fic, and Savannah City Sweets. I'm even coming up with a new one-shot for the Nick/Ellis Summer contest on DA. Soo...enjoy!


It was past midnight when the building's electricity gave a powerful hum then simply cut out. Nick paused immediately; he hadn't been able to sleep, so he'd been walking the hallways, with Ellis, as usual, tagging along. Now they stood in the pitch-black darkness, motionless, confused, and alone.

"Ellis?" Nick asked softly. He was rewarded with a hiss by his side and felt the boy's shoulder brushing against his leg. With a groan, Nick hunkered down to the floor, ignoring his popping joints and placing a hand on Ellis' head as his eyes waited to become accustomed to the murkiness.

"Shit," he whispered to himself, feeling the rough brim of Ellis' hat beneath his fingertips, "I'm sure this won't be good."

Ellis snorted beneath him, inert under Nick's hand. It was a good sign. If danger skulked nearby, Ellis would be anxious and bristling. But the boy just sat against Nick, waiting patiently for whenever the older man felt ready to move. Eventually the darkness peeled back slightly and Nick could see with dim vagueness the outlines of the walls and the detritus littering the floor. As he stood, he mentally cursed himself; if he had been traveling with one of the flashlight-equipped guns like he should have, he wouldn't be stranded here, feeling vulnerable and alone.

But he wasn't alone, not truly. Ellis reminded him in the form of a soft growl. With a grim smirk, Nick cautiously ventured back toward their room.

Coach and Rochelle were up and waiting.

"I guess when you've been sleeping in the light for so long and it suddenly cuts out, it's kind of a shock," Rochelle shrugged in way of explanation as they sat in a small circle on the floor.

"What do you think it means?"

"Generator, or whatever was powerin' this place, finally gave out," Coach said with a heavy sigh, and he added a "damn" under his breath for good measure.

"Maybe a Tank smashed it," Rochelle grumbled in atypical pessimism, her hands twisting nervously around a half-empty bottle of water.

"No, Ellis would have heard it and raised hell," Nick noted, rubbing Ellis' back. The boy sat on his haunches and lifted his head like a proud watchdog, "damn thing probably just blew. It was only a matter of time, I mean, no one's been doing maintenance on it. At least I sure as hell haven't."

They sat in their little circle, restless and quiet. It seemed that not even Ellis felt like making his usual pseudo-conversation in growls and hisses. Finally, Coach spoke again.

"I think this is a sign, y'all. I don't think we should stay here anymore. I reckon we oughta leave, like we was plannin' on the other day. I mean...we gotta face it, ain't no one comin' to save our asses. Besides, the food we got from them hoodlums ain't gonna last forever."

"But it's safe here," Rochelle mumbled in a quiet, desperate voice.

"You think so?" Nick snorted, "Because it didn't seem too safe here when we were being beaten by those redneck jackasses."

Rochelle didn't bother looking up to glare at him, opting instead to make a simple, sad humming noise. Coach cleared his throat before speaking again.

"I think we oughta go look for that base they was gonna transport us to. That's our best bet."

"Yeah," Nick pushed Ellis away as the boy tried to gnaw at his shirt, "if we can find it. And what if that place has gone to hell like this one? And what're we gonna do with the kid?"

"We'll figure that out on the way, Nick. I just don't have a good feelin' about stayin' here anymore. Just don't feel right. Y'all can't tell me you don't feel the same."

The other two were silent. Nick couldn't speak for Rochelle, but the second those lights had gone out, his blood had run cold. He already felt uneasy about the whole place since the incident with the men.

The gambler didn't like the idea of leaving any more than he liked the idea of staying. He wasn't looking forward to the constant run, the scrounging for food and water, the knowledge that anywhere, at anytime, they could be ambushed by a horde...or worse. The race for survival was a constant hell on earth, no matter how much they tried to alive the stress with sarcastic quips or, as had been the case with Ellis, suspiciously fantastical stories about a long-lost buddy named Keith.

"We can't stay here forever," Nick finally agreed. Rochelle dipped her head in a reluctant nod.

Ellis hopped onto one of the beds and turned in a circle before finally curling up, as if he deemed the matter settled.


"This thing has a nice bit of gas in it," Coach murmured appreciatively as the Hummer's engine roared awake with a twist of the key. He and Rochelle sat in the front, while Nick chose to confine himself to the backseat, amidst Ellis and a few stray supplies. As Coach put the Hummer into gear and trundled through the ruins of the compound gate, Ellis was already beginning to get on Nick's nerves.

The boy was beside himself with what must have been excitement, hopping from the seat to the floorboards, back up to the seat, crawling close to Nick, backing off and twisting around to stare at the passing landscape, his blackened claws pressed firm against the grimy window.

"How's Ellis doing back there?" Rochelle curved in her seat to look back at them.

"I think he's about to have a fit. Oof!" Nick grunted when Ellis leapt onto his lap, knees jabbing against Nick's thighs as the boy watched the trees pass with amazement, "Ellis! Off!"

Rochelle giggled and Ellis leapt back to his seat, fingernails scrabbling at the window and mouth working, as usual, a mile a minute, speaking in excited growls.

"Oh, he's just having fun. Ellis always did love cars."

"Don't remind me. Grease monkey."

Rochelle turned back around with an amused snort and Nick crossed his arms, glancing toward Ellis once again.

In the excitement, Ellis had tilted his hat so far back that it was in danger of falling off of his head. Nick sighed in aggravation and moved forward to fix it, but Ellis beat him to it, moving both hands up to his head, in a very human gesture, to right the cap itself. Nick was stunned. Ellis, however, didn't seem to think any more of it, and promptly began to chew at the leather seats.


The roads were clear and long and must have lead somewhere, but the survivors agreed that they must made several stops in order to get their bearings and to ward off the occasional insanity that came from too-long road trips. Not to mention Coach griped that it was hard to drive with Ellis bouncing all over the car. So evening saw them at a long-abandoned, garishly tacky welcome station on the state line of Oklahoma.

Coach had parked the Hummer under the eaves of the rest area to keep a close eye on it and they were now in the lobby area, Rochelle inspecting an overturned water dispenser and Coach looking through a pamphlet that unfolded into a large map of the state. Nick cautiously inspected the perimeter of the lobby, a Magnum in each hand, while Ellis leapt from the chairs to the counter tops, eager to stretch his legs after the drive.

"Smell any zombies, Ellis?" Nick turned toward the boy as he made a spectacular dive and landed on top of an overturned vending machine. Ellis just tilted his head as if thinking over a curious puzzle, then gave a playful snarl and darted off to attack a rather harmless stand of newspapers. With a roll of the eyes, Nick continued to check for danger.

He was in the farthest corner of the room when he saw it out of the corner of his eye; a long green arm disappearing behind an open door, and the familiar trail of spores and smoke that followed it.

It was fast but the gambler had become more than enough of a match for lone Special Infected; he stole quickly around the corner, into the Employees Only backroom, and saw the Smoker shuffling in reverse, its sickly yellow eye trained upon him. Before it could so much as twitch, Nick raised his arms and pumped three shots from each gun into the zombie.

It collapse to the floor with a wheeze, leaving a puff of pulpy green haze where it had been standing. Satisfied, Nick exited to the lobby to find Coach and Rochelle running toward him.

"Just a Smoker. I got him," he said, and with relieved expressions, the other two went on about their business.

Twilight fell fast on the welcome station, the orange light of the sky shining through the broken glass and glancing off the stained walls.

"When I went to Florida," Nick mused as he prodded a useless coffee pot, "they didn't have coffee, but they had these little machines that dispensed more orange juice than a sensible person would know what to do with."

"I'm surprised you ever stepped foot into a welcome station, Nick," Coach said, a corner of his mouth upturned as he snacked on a stale Snickers bar, "don't seem up to your standards, do it?"

"Had to, the car I hijacked broke down," Nick answered flatly, wondering if they'd be asking him questions about the truth of this statement. They had long since learned to ignore him, however, and Rochelle continued perusing one of the maps Coach had laid out.

"Boys, I'm afraid I have no clue where that CEDA base could be. I mean, we passed the place where our convoy got attacked, that was our only real stepping-off point...so now what? Says on this map there's a military base in a city called Norman...doesn't look too far away from here..."

"Then we'll head there and just keep checkin' the radio for signals," Coach said, finishing off the unfortunate Snickers and beginning to unwrap a Heath bar, "just gotta keep goin' and check our information. That's the best we can do. We'll find our way, baby girl, don't you worry."

"I know," she sighed, "but you know how hard it is to be patient during a zombie apocalypse."

"Don't we all?" Nick scratched absently at his jawline, feeling the rough stubble underneath his fingernails. Nick usually preferred to be clean-shaven, but living conditions lately hadn't been exactly accommodating to his preferences. Ellis had loved his stubble, anyhow, always running rough palms over the planes of Nick's face, leaning forward to kiss and peck at his cheeks and jaw, whispering what Nick would consider sweet nothings, so the blunt hair would grate at the mechanic's soft lips and the boy would give a shudder of delight that ran through his whole body.

Nick ran his fingertips slowly over the skin of his own cheeks, remembering, until Rochelle interrupted.

"Where's Ellis?"

"Dunno...I reckon we should keep him close, though, we don't know this area," Coach stood and the two followed in unison.

"Ellis!" Rochelle cupped her hands to her mouth, "Sweetie, where'd you run off to?"

But there was no answer, not even when Nick called his name.

"Well damn, where'd that boy run off t-" Coach paused and held up a large palm in a gesture for silence before craning his head forward, "Y'all hear that?"

A shambling noise, so small it might have been imagined, came from the backroom. They moved together, in a tight group, toward the source, and rounded the corner.

Ellis was huddled, crouched as usual on all fours, near the Smoker that Nick had taken out earlier.

The Smoker was still alive, half-sitting half-laying with its back slumped against the wall, its single milky eye watching Ellis as if with weary resignation. Its gargantuan neck tumor had burst with the gunshots and now leaked a viscous yellow liquid down the front of the Infected's already-stained shirt. The smell was horrific.

"Ellis, get away from that thing!" Nick raised one of his Magnums again, jerking his head to the side in a signal for Ellis to move. But Ellis didn't seem to hear him. Instead he leaned in close to the Smoker and gave a friendly growl, his head tilted in habitual curiosity.

Coach, Rochelle and Nick gradually lowered their weapons as the half-dead Smoker made an odd gurgling noise around the large mass of its tongue. Not only was it aware of Ellis, it seemed to be communicating with him. Ellis gave a short bark in response and turned in a circle like an excitable Pomeranian, then his normally expressionless face fell as if wondering why his fellow zombie wouldn't play with him.

The Smoker was unmistakably looking at Ellis, watching him. Then it gave one last hack and wheeze before its misshapen head fell back and it was, finally, dead.

Silence filled the dark little room. The three survivors watched with unease as Ellis stared at the Smoker's lifeless corpse. Then, without warning, Ellis turned and prowled into the corner, nestling himself in between the wall and a filing cabinet.

"Ellis..." Rochelle started forward, her hand outstretched, but he rebuked her by growling and pushing himself closer to the wall. Confused and afraid, Rochelle backed off, "What's the matter with him?"

"Dunno, but we best stay away for now," Coach said, putting his hand to Rochelle's back and leading her away.

Nick glanced back at Ellis, sullen and silent in his corner, and followed the others out.

For a long time that night, Ellis stayed away. As Nick set up his palette of blankets behind the counter of the lobby, he had expected to hear the telltale scuffling noises of Ellis padding along toward him. But the boy seemed content to stay sulking in the back room, and so Nick curled up amongst his blankets and fell asleep, the promised safety of Coach, Rochelle, and several firearms nearby.


Dawn was shimmering on the horizon when Nick awoke to the boy laying beside him, his ever-erratic breath coming out in uneven huffs, as it had done since he'd become Infected. Caught up in a tangle of blankets, Nick struggled and finally turned to face him, laying a gentle hand on Ellis' cool, muscular arm.

Nick knew the boy was upset, though you didn't have to be particularly good at reading people to tell. Ellis had never been good at hiding his feelings, and it seemed that not even becoming a zombie could fix that.

Nick knew it must have had something to do with the Smoker's death. The moment the tall Infected had died, Ellis had sunken into this morose and antisocial state. He wondered if Ellis had finally realized what he himself was, or maybe he knew that it had been Nick that had fired upon his "new friend". Nick didn't know, and it tore him to piece not to be able to wheedle the information out of Ellis and make it all right again.

But it hadn't ever been right in the first place, had it? Not since corrupt CEDA scientists plunged that needle into Ellis' arm. Ellis, who in that situation, had basically been a kidnapped boy, and just as innocent.

"Ellis...look at me," Nick prodded the mechanic in the ribs. Ellis yelped softly and jumped, swiveling around to growl at Nick, who simply smirked, "Sorry, killer, you don't scare me anymore."

He hooked an arm around Ellis' waist, held him close.

"Tell me what's wrong," he murmured, the palm of his hand cupped against the dome of Ellis' hat. But Ellis didn't erupt into human speech, didn't laugh or shrug or grin, didn't even growl in place of the English words he'd been so fond of butchering with his accent before becoming infected. He simply closed his eyes and gave a deep, guttural sound, half sigh, half growl.

There were many nights where Nick dreamed that Ellis was becoming human again, that he could be taught to walk and speak and function like a normal human being.

But they were always just dreams.


Thanks for reading and sticking with me, you guys!