A/N: Would you look at that, I made a thing. This is the fourth installment of zombies that has taken me a while to write because... well, I'm lazy. And Battlesong is still sucking all my writing effort from me (another chapter is well on the way, for those who care to know). But here it is anyway, because everybody needs a bit of crazy in their lives. As always, great thanks to LeMasquerade who helped clean this up, even if she thinks I'm not really Canadian anymore.
Chapter 4
The compound feels empty without the whispering voices of the dead. You watch the birds come and pull the eyes from their heads impassively, picking at their weathered skin until they have access to the flesh underneath. Some are now swarming with animals eager for a meal, but others remain untouched. A plague runs about them, and you can almost feel the shudder of the earth as they stare blankly up at the rolling sky. Mercedes asked you, once, how it didn't disgust you, but you shrugged and smiled brightly, looking to her. There's nothing gross about death. It's just another stage everybody has to go through. They don't believe you, but you guess that's okay. Some part of you thinks it's for the better.
Time passes, as it must. You don't know how long they've been here now, but it can't be very long - the walls are still bloody, things promised to be fixed left untouched. They've created a barracks for each other where they pile on the floor like sleeping wolves, all crushed into one room. You think it gives them a sense of protection. The one relegated to guard duty often gets the cot, but falls asleep within minutes. You lie alone.
Food is becoming an increasing problem. You, with your skeleton skin and broken body, never ate much, if at all. Twelve teenagers in one place consume an unbelievable amount of cans and boxes, frivolous with their water now that they know there is an unending supply. (But for how long?) The girl with the good hands - Tina, you think - mentions starting a vegetable patch on the roof, but that requires climbing up the stairs long since chained and forgotten. It also means wandering out into the waking world full of stumbling corpses and silent cities, a few living against the endless dead. They all get quiet when it's mentioned, and you can tell they're counting the days until they're forced back outside with nothing between them and a cruel end but a few crude weapons built by their own hands alone. (You've gotten good at reading people, you think. You can tell what they feel, but not what they think, for the brain is a tricky, fickle thing, unwilling to be read and remembered.)
They tell you a week has gone by when they gather around each other again in an ugly, lopsided circle. With people here it's easier to keep track of the minutes that disappear from your grasp like smoke, but you still lose chunks of time to whatever abyss lurks in you. The gaping hole your memory has created stretches outwards, ever changing, ever devouring. Dreaming is fractured at best, and sometimes you yearn for the world you've left behind.
Quinn leans against an old desk, her arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face. She was a leader, once, always coiled like a predator about to strike. "We've run out of food." She never stalls or sugars the truth, and in an apocalypse there's no place for half-truths. "Or, we're about to, anyway. Whatever Brittany stored up wasn't enough to keep us all going for very long."
"We have enough for a few days." Kurt protests, wringing his hands in front of him. "Maybe we could go upstairs and scrounge to see if there's anything there? I'm pretty sure there's another floor."
They all turn to you - like the basement, the upstairs sends your skin crawling. Luckily, there's no way of accessing the stairway. "I don't have the key." You shrug, fondling the chain. "I've tried all of them, none fit."
A collective sigh rises from the group.
"Are you sure?" He asks desperately.
You look at him silently, holding his gaze until he turns away.
Puck scratches at his head, stubble growing in where his head was once shaved. He looks like a waterlogged squirrel has taken up residence on his scalp. Shadow snorts - you didn't realize you said it aloud. He shoots a scowl at the both of you, but he can never tell which expression marks your guilt. "Great, so... no food, only water. We're running out of meds and stuff too. Wasn't there a pharmacy close to here?"
From the only unboarded window one can see the red cross blinking in the distance from atop a squat, unassuming building, a beacon of hope to an otherwise doomed survivor. The prospect of going out into the world is terrifying and your legs jump with nervous energy as one hand finds its way to your mouth, teeth worrying the already bitten nails.
"There is..." Quinn says slowly, eyeing him, "but who's to say it's not already ransacked?"
He shrugs, hoisting the slung fireaxe higher over his shoulder. There is a restlessness in him different from yours - it is angry rather than afraid, aching to be let out and expended. "And what if it isn't? It's like... a hundred feet away, if that. We're gonna have to go out eventually, and it'll be way easier to test the waters now where we can run back if anything happens."
Something always happens, you want to say, but the boy with the glasses beats you to it.
"While I naturally want to agree with Quinn and avoid any semblance of contact with the zombified world, Puck has a point - this alone would be cause for a parade in our former lives." He gets glared at, subtly high-fived by Mike, and carries on. "We need supplies. Anybody can see that we will run out very soon, and I doubt we'll make it for very long on the streets without adequate necessities or a guide. Which, unfortunately, I doubt Brittany could be."
He mesmerizes you. Your eyes can't leave the picture of his legs, neatly kept in still-pristine slacks, dangling uselessly from where he perches upon a desk. He takes turns riding the backs of the boys, his bony arms slung tight around their necks and his wasted limbs carefully cradled in their huge hands. (Shadow calls him Wheels, but he doesn't seem to have any. Maybe she's lost it too.)
Rachel hops down from her own seat. From here, you notice just how short she really is, and fight your mouth that wants to curl up into a crooked grin.
"I propose we make a plan." She claps her hands together and ignores the groans of protest across the room. "While I'm afraid I don't have my trusty PowerPoint with me to make a presentation, I assure you that I am fully capable of coming up with a working plan that will ensure the relative safety of all of us."
"Relative meaning there's still a chance one of us will get bitten, right?" Tina inquires sweetly, causing Rachel to frown.
"Of course, Tina, there's always a risk venturing out into undead territory. All we can do is be properly prepared and execute our mission swiftly."
Shadow throws her hands up in the air, her brows knit into an exasperated frown. "For fuck's sake people, it's not a top secret military mission. We leave here, go there, kill some zoms and take a bunch of shit, and then come back! What's there to plan?"
Several people murmur their agreement, but you've seen her plotting things under her breath when nobody's looking. There's a tactician lurking deep under that thick skin, secretly taking from the world to alter and shape the future.
"Santana, you should know that-"
"Can it, Gimp." She snaps in boy's direction, glaring at him from his position on the table. "I don't want to hear it."
Mercedes' boyfriend (she told you his name was Sam, and you think it fitting) tries to inch in with his hands raised defensively. "Come on, Santana, you shouldn't call Artie names. We promised to try and get along when all this went down."
"Habits are hard to break, Fish Lips. I can't help it when I'm trapped in one place for so long with so many idiots."
"Besides," Quinn mutters from against the wall, "this is her version of trying. Be happy you're getting this much."
"See!" She exclaims loudly. "Quinn understands me! Snix can't be tamed!"
"Is Snix your friend?" You ask curiously, oblivious of the snickers around you. Rachel looks like she wants to scold them (or maybe you), but loses heart half-way.
Before anybody else can open their mouths, the sole adult of the room steps in. His shirt is rumpled and stained, his tie mangled and torn apart. Whatever state his hair used to be in has now utterly disintegrated into messy and knotted curls. If you look close enough, you swear you see a whole universe hiding within it.
"Guys," he tries, "calm down for a minute. There's no need for us to get hostile."
Some turn to him, some ignore him completely. Shadow rolls her eyes and pulls a nailfile from the pocket of her shirt, Quinn turning to Artie to converse quietly while Puck yawns and slumps back against the wall. Finn watches the man's every move with bright, wide eyes, and the others all lend a reluctant ear. You think he has about as much charisma as a wet blanket, and is maybe half the fun.
"There's obviously no easy solution here," he continues, looking around before spotting you. "Do you have a whiteboard?" He asks hopefully, frowning when you shake your head. "Oh well, I guess we can do without. But Kurt's right, we should look through the top floor first to see what we can find."
"What part of no key don't you understand, Mr. Schue?" Puck asks, perhaps a bit harsher than intended.
"Well, we can always find wire-cutters or-"
"Yeah, which we will probably be able to get at the pharmacy."
"Puck, mind your tone." Mr. Schue warns him, though whatever threat he might possess has long since worn off.
The boy seems to realize that, too, running one hand over his overgrown mohawk and his lips curling up into a smirk. "Oh yeah? What are you gonna do, give me detention? We're not in Ohio anymore, and you're really not my teacher. Hell - I could shit on this floor and you couldn't do anything."
"Don't do that." You warn him, but he ignores you in favour of the loud bang that echoes through the halls.
Quinn scowls and retracts her hand, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "Will all of you just stop it?" She snarls angrily, glaring at them both. "We don't have time for this. If we argue over every course of action, we're going to starve to death here and there's nothing that can be done about it. We're going to the pharmacy in a half hour; that's final, end of story. Get ready or do something useful."
When she turns on her heel and stalks away, your body thrums with anticipation of stepping out under the sun once again.
Moments before stepping out of the now opened door, Mike appears and slaps a pair of sunglasses into your hands.
You look at him quizzically, but mirror the kind smile he sends your way. "I've seen you outside before." He explains, checking the shoulder strap of his large, empty duffel bag. "It's like the sun melts you. Maybe you can actually see properly if you wear those." He's obviously tried to clean the handles and there's only the smallest hints of gore in the creases - a nice gesture. You slide them over your nose and note instantly how the world loses its cutting quality.
"Thanks." You grin brightly, shuffling them back over the bridge of your nose and patting his arm. The muscle under there startles you, so used to stark bone and tight skin covering the skeleton. Your fingers threaten to lose themselves in exploration, but Tina clears her throat from beside you and you draw your hand away as if burned.
"Sorry." You mutter sheepishly, but she waves you off with a smirk.
"He's a very fine specimen." She agrees amicably, ignoring the way his cheeks go red. "But we should probably go before Quinn has a stroke."
The three of you wander down the hallways until you reach the entrance they once ran through, picking up packs along the way. Tina's crowbar is as long as her forearm, and the steel is blunted and tarnished, red sunk into the metal. Mike holds a pistol in his belt, the precious little ammunition remaining stuffed into his pocket. Your hands remain bare, empty of things that harm but equally lacking of those that heal. Quinn paces anxiously by the door.
Some have decided to stay behind. Mercedes remains to mobilize the others into improving the degree of life into something bearable; Rachel, Finn and Artie stay as well. Kurt has vowed to unlock the upstairs and disappears into the haunted basement in search of forgotten keys - the adult (Schuester, you remember) pretends to work while staring distractedly at the bloody walls. It seems impossible to pull such a place into a home worth sharing but you will find a way, a fortress to boast about. The dead will whisper about it in their eternal sleep, watching with their unseeing eyes. Shadow and Puck converse quietly by the entry, their hands flicking back and forth in dance, voices low and rough.
"Are we ready to go?" Quinn asks, eyeing you and your keys. They jingle in your hand as you nod, the sunglasses slipping slightly down your nose. Tina and Mike flank the sides as you carefully unsnap the lock, weapons at the ready - sunlight pours through the hold and even through your lenses you squint as the chains fall away with a horrible clank. Puck rushes out and nearly knocks you off your feet, stopped only by Shadow's steadying hand.
She looks at you for a moment and you hastily look away with your tongue between your teeth, throwing the keys to Mercedes before pulling the doors shut behind you. They refasten with a dull boom, and you are alone in this wasteland world.
"Come on!" Puck says, loudly for such a silent city, brandishing his axe proudly as he strides across the street to the pharmacy. He reminds you of a little boy who finally gets to play, face gleaming with excitement and lips split into a grin. Your hands clench around the tire iron you were gifted (always need something in a place like this, Kurt said), the metal cold and unkind in your long hands, weighing heavily upon you. The gash in your arm throbs with anticipation.
Your little group cautiously approaches the decrepit doorways that swing on their hinges, the gleaming red cross now flickering with broken power. Peering into the gloom shows nothing, but you know better than anybody the things that lurk in the pockets where sunlight cannot touch.
(There's no slow breathing, no shuffling steps, no dead heartbeat. It's safe - but they don't know that.)
As you step into the room, the first thing noticed is the shelves that have been stripped of boxes and cans, necessities and supplies. Whatever remains is sparse and of cheap quality - perhaps better than nothing, but disheartening none the less. Quinn turns to all of you. "Sam and Mike, start taking any food that you can see... canned food, crackers, that gross fake tea... it doesn't matter. Anything. If you find band-aids and things too, take those. Things that come in creams tend to be a good choice."
They nod and set off into the aisles, packs slung to their front and moving with slow, deliberate steps.
"Santana, Puck and I will go into the back to look for stuff. We have the best weapons, and the storage has all the places a zombie could be hiding. Britt and Tina, you should look for pills behind the counter. You'll be the only ones that have any idea of what'll be useful."
Everybody sets off to their respective tasks, Tina taking you by the wrist and pulling you along. You grit your teeth as her hand clamps directly over your closing wound but choose to remain silent. Carnage has visited here - there are rotting bodies sprawled over the floor, dark smears of blood spattered over all different directions, merchandise scattered and ruined under the trample of many feet. It becomes little more than background these days. Maybe you used to be bothered by it, long, long ago.
"In here." She whispers, jumping over the counter and waiting for you to scramble after her. People have obviously helped themselves, orange little bottles rolling about underfoot. Some of them are open, some closed - all have complicated names of which you can make no sense. The narcotics section has been ravaged, and nothing remains. "See if you can find anything with the word oxy before it." Tina advises, disappearing around a corner to the rustle of pills. You follow her, head hunched to the ground.
In the distance you can hear the progress of others, things shifting about as they shove glorious provisions into their packs. Your mouth waters at the thought of food that isn't tuna.
Your companion cheers as you proudly hold up a large bottle with oxycodone laid out in black letters on the front. Something in you remembers these, nights spent lying in your little bed, staring hazily at the ceiling with no care or thought to your name. People in white would check on you, tending to you, but your body would move for nobody. A zombie with a beating heart. The way they make you feel reminds you too much of the dark times before these wanderers interrupted the silence of your home, and you quickly stuff it far away.
It's easy to lose yourself in the repetitive task of combing the store. Each thing is carefully checked before either being taken or set aside, and the rattle of your pack fills the moments in between. It's so easy, in fact, that you nearly allow Tina to open a heavy door with somebody on the other side.
Your arm yanks her hastily by the collar and you slap your other hand over her mouth, holding her close to you as she struggles. Her shriek is muffled by your palm but you hear the quiet shuffle regardless, almost indistinguishable alongside the hum of the vents, from the body behind it and the hitch in breathing as it registers another presence. You don't know if you believe them about zombies, not when the idea seems so horribly impossible, but you know the rest of the world is sick. Maybe you're sick too?
"Be quiet," you hiss, "don't you hear him singing?" She goes limp and confused in your arms, straining for the slightest sound. The air rushing through warped vocal chords is fetid, twisted and grating. After a small moment, Tina shakes her head slowly.
You let her go, unwinding carefully, fingers trailing apologetically across her throat.
Tina backs up automatically away from both the door and you. Her eyes are nervous, surely, but suspicious. "Prove it." She whispers, nodding to the door. Your eyebrows furrow. "Show me what's behind the door."
One of your hands carefully hoists the tire iron by your face, reaching out for the knob. You feel the... not curiosity, no. Curiosity demands a human mind, something inquisitive and sentient that reaches for things that are not altogether there. This is the mind of a diseased animal - a thing that forgets itself entirely and drives along with nothing more than a frenzied instinct to survive. You remember what it was like. (Such an awful way to live.)
The door swings open to reveal the person you knew was standing behind. It's a supply closet, a tiny thing, and the wooden interior has been gouged out with broken nails imbedded into the surface. Blood has congealed in a messy pool so deep that it sticks to the soles of its ragged shoes and at one point it must have been lying down, because you see the hand prints progress lower and lower until they hit the floor and disappear. Wires from the ceiling hang down and wrap like sparking snakes over joints and limbs, immobilizing any movement apart form the open gape of its mouth. You see the lungs try to move, but the torn throat produces no sound and you count your small miracles.
Tina's gaze is stunned on the side of your face as you walk up to it, stroking its clammy cheek and smiling slightly as it turns towards you momentarily. "See?" You say happily, turning to look at her for a second. "They aren't mean."
"Britt, no-" Fleshy lips prod your fingers and a moment later you are swathed in cold, thick spittle. Broken teeth nip at your flesh but the sting is more of a papercut, a nuisance. Your nose wrinkles as you yank your hand from its mouth, wiping your slimy fingers on its bloody shirt. "Gross."
Tina's hands are on you in an instant, yanking your wrist out, searching for any lacerations. Her eyebrows knit in confusion when she finds nothing but fragile skin bleached pale white. "How... how did you not get your fingers ripped off?"
You laugh, taking your appendage back. The sound is calmer than it's been in weeks, fuller but softer. The hard edge of insanity pulls back the longer you remain around people who talk in words and thoughts, and you don't know yet if you will mourn the absence.
(But you know that it never goes away, not entirely. Madness is something that lingers in the shadows and forgotten corners of the mind.)
"They like me, I guess. Maybe they know I used to have a sister like them. Oh! Maybe we're related!" You like that idea - family members stumbling around in the big, bad outside, always welcoming. Home can be a person and not a place - what else do you have to ask for if your home is the rest of the world?
She looks at you like she doesn't know whether to shake you or hug you, and instead settles for smiling cautiously and squeezing your hand one last time. Sometimes you think they're too closed off, too guarded to truly appreciate everything going on around them, but you suppose you understand. Living beyond your red walls with things that go bump in the night would make anybody wary.
"Come on, we should find the others." As if summoned, the patter of footsteps sound from directly behind you. You hear their breathing and the thunder of their heartbeats, so loud with the absence of sound. Every moment unsafe brings them louder and louder until it threatens to deafen the world. They are the drums that used to pound inside your skull when fever caught you with its scorching claws and licked its tongue up your atrophied spine, moulding itself until it was a part of you. You don't want to admit it, but sometimes it visits you in the dead of night and you walk the abandoned halls to the whisper of their gentle breathing.
Tina turns to them, her whole being relaxing and unwinding when she spots Mike, safe and sound. They revolve around each other like all good things do, bouncing and colliding soundlessly, together again.
They skid around the corner. "We heard you guys, are you okay?" Puck's feet slide over the floor and you laugh at his wide eyes, the fireaxe flailing about in the air and nearing hitting Sam in the face. He scowls at you, hard and dark, like it would make a difference. Little boys with weapons don't scare you anymore.
"Yeah, we're fine. Britt saved me from a walker."
Mike peers over your shoulder at the figure, now snapping and slobbering soundlessly from his bindings.
"Is that the only one?" He asks curiously, looking around.
She nods. "We think so. I almost ran right into it."
The longer it strains against its restraints the more uncomfortable you become. They stand complacent, content in letting it agonize for something that will be forever out of reach. Its eyes unnerve you, so you go to close the door. Puck's hand stops you.
"What you doin'?" He asks lazily, hefting his weapon over his shoulder.
"Um... closing it?" You're never sure which answer is the right one when you talk to him - every response you can give seems not to satisfy.
"Why?"
"Noah, give her a break." Quinn sighs. "Let's just go."
"Give me a second." He says cheerily, swinging the door back open and pulling his axe back. His weapon is a blur as he brings it down hard with the narrow point facing the person trapped in the wires - there is a snap and a groaning crunch as it buries itself deep into the shadow of the socket, jerking the whole body along with it when Puck quickly retracts, leaving the now immobile corpse to dangle limply like a marionette suddenly missing a puppeteer. Your eyes widen as you slowly touch the side of your face, smearing brain matter into your pale skin.
It seems that you are all the same on the inside; its (his?) innards are identical to the ones your sister wept when Shadow drove a hole through her skull. Your gaze turns blankly to Puck. "Why... why did you do that? He wasn't going to hurt you."
His smile is sharp, entirely cruel along the edges. "All of them have to die. If we don't hunt them down, we'll just become one of them. Do you want to be dead?"
"It wouldn't be that bad." You murmur softly, but he ignores you in favour of snatching his pack from the floor. "Come on." He says, grabbing Sam roughly by his bicep to haul him from the store. The squeak of his bloody shoes haunt you the entire way out.
A gentle hand pulls you aside, and you turn to see Shadow with her lips pursed and a rag in one hand. "Let's get you cleaned up." She says quietly, manipulating your skeleton arms and wiping the innards from your sleeves. Pieces of him fall away into her hands that she then casts carelessly onto the floor. The others retreat to offer you a vague sense of dignity, but you fear you lost that long ago.
"Sorry about Puck." She says gruffly, hesitantly touching your jaw to run the cloth up your swan neck. Her skin is porcelain against yours, and your eyes shut to the world as the soft rasp of the rag swipes up your throat. Shadow's nature is to be uncaring and unkind, but she constantly proves herself a contradiction. "He's the one that was hurt the most by all of this shit."
"What happened?" Her movement stutters and in the hesitation is a lifetime of doubts.
"We, uh, we don't come from around here, if you haven't noticed. Turn." You spiral gracefully on her command, baring the bones of your shoulders to her. "On our way from Ohio, actually. It was supposed to be this huge thing that our school would be so proud of, and it was the first time a lot of us had gone out of state. We all piled up on a school bus and left town one day, another one filled with our family members behind us. It was a long trip. We were the classic high school idiots acting like it was the best time of our lives."
She begins the long and arduous task of picking the grey matter from your light hair, her fingers weaving deftly through the strands. "We were just outside New York when the world started really going to shit. Sure, we'd heard about it on the news, but it was far away, you know? Further south. People going nuts and killing their families, running down strangers on the street, breaking through glass windows with their bare hands. It was all bullshit and we called it like bullshit." Shadow snorts harshly, unapologetic when she tugs harder than meant. "Except it really wasn't, and zoms wait for no asshole. We were stopped by a group of them on the highway. Managed to fight them off, sure, but we got separated from our families and had to run deeper into downtown."
The rag prods at your hairline - her expression she makes is obviously uncomfortable with your unblinking stare, but you're far too enthralled to remember silly things like personal space and body language. "There's a but coming." You state, wincing as she presses particularly hard.
"We stayed long enough to watch Puck's little sister get ripped apart. Just... one second they had her, and then there was this horrible noise like old leather tearing and somebody dropping wet food on the ground. She was screaming but it was impossible to miss it when they got to her spine. You ever hear a storm break a wet branch?"
You flinch at the thought, a phantom sound of crying floating into your ears like a distant memory before it vanishes as quickly as it had appeared. "Is that why he's so mean?"
She nods, pulling the last of the ooze from you. "Yeah. He was always an ass, but he was never really mean. Now it's like I don't recognize him."
"You can be mean too, you know." You inform her bluntly, face remaining impassive when she arches an eyebrow at you.
"I know, I'm a bitch." Her hands wipe down on the wall, adjusting the position of the knife strapped to her waist. The observation is forward, but it holds a hint of pride and acceptance both inside it, like she's convinced it's all she'll ever be.
You lean back against the counter. "No, not a bitch. Just mean. It's not nice to call people crazy even if you think they can't hear you."
If you hadn't become so good at watching over these past several weeks, you wouldn't see the hint of guilt flicker over her features. "You heard that?"
"I hear everything."
"Well... you are kind of crazy."
"Oh, I know." You say cheerfully, casually inspecting your tire iron in your right hand. "It's all messed up in my head, but it's still not nice to use it like an insult."
She studies you for a second, sighing. "Speaking of your head... sec, you've got another piece..." Her hand reaches for your temple and her fingers worm slightly under the covering of your hair, finding it. Instead, she digs into your hole to the point where her fingernails scratch the bone hidden underneath your fragile skin. Fire blooms behind your right eye and you shriek in the way a dying animal would its last battlecry, leaping away from her as if she was the one to burn you. You hunch down into a little ball, your spine curling from underneath your shirt, blocking out the booming world.
You vaguely hear her inhale in surprise and a moment later her warmth is next to you, attempting to pry your hands from over your temple. She is muscle where you are bone but she has none of the frenzy that you hold. Eventually she settles for worming her hands around your wrists, her fingers digging, searching much in the way she just did.
"What happened to you, Britt?"
You shake your head, refusing to speak lest she coax all the wounded noises from you. Quinn and Mike come scrambling around the corner with their weapons raised high, only to halt in confusion at the two of you on the floor.
"Are you guys okay?"
Shadow goes to open her mouth, but you grab her knee in time to look her in the eye. "Don't tell them."
Her tongue runs over her teeth before she gives a great, heaving sigh, helping you to your feet. It takes effort to look like part of your face wasn't just spasming violently, but you clench your jaw and vacantly smile through the pain. Perhaps the tear tracks give you away, but you won't be the one to say it.
"I scared her." She mutters to them, pushing through their barrier. "Nothing to see here, let's go. I've had enough of this place."
Tina rubs your back and doesn't notice how your smile turns genuine.
The spoils from your raid may seem meager, but are in all respects impressive. Boxes of instant food and cans of preserved corn, fish and meat tumble out from your packs, along with the distinctive rattle of new medicine. Bandages and gauze are saved and placed on the table of the kitchen that now serves as the main area for meetings, bandaids and polysporin a small blessing for a world that suddenly became too sharp and defined. Bottles of water are stacked and kept hidden away for another time - all of you have a feast, consisting of crackers and a can of your choice.
Despite the hopeful air, there is a tension that has settled over all of you. Even you with your distorted reality sense it, thick and painful, darting between factions that seem to form pseudo-bonds. Sam keeps watching you with a look you can't decipher, and it makes your skin crawl with phantom claws.
All the while you ignore Shadow and her constant scrutiny, the gaze that lingers on your temple cleaned of red.
Rachel breaks the uncomfortable silence as she always does with that constant lack of social rules. In this circumstance, you count it a blessing. "As our first ever raid was a success, I suggest we begin an overhaul of the compound. We've recovered enough cleaning supplies to do a fairly thorough sweep of the main floor. I cannot be the only one that notices the constant odour of rot that comes from almost every room, and I fully believe we need to start using separate rooms for sleeping. I can only go so long with somebody's foot in my back before I lose my patience."
"The dead don't like being erased." You mutter, and she looks at you warily for a moment before overwriting anything you just said. As usual. (Are you one of the dead, too?)
Grumbles of agreement all around, too busy with stuffing their faces to really add in their opinions.
"I believe we should start with the bathrooms and two other rooms. That way, we can split up into reasonable numbers without having to fight terribly over who picks roommates. However, I do think gender oriented rooms would be best-"
Shadow raises her hand for a moment, hastily swallowing her mouthful. "Hold up, midget. Are you forgetting that we've cross-bred so many times here that nobody's actually sure who's slept with who?"
Puck nods sagely. "That's right. 'Sides, I want to shack up with Lopez here so I don't have to move rooms to get laid on the regular, and it would be easier for everybody if they just avoided that hot mess."
"In your wet dreams, Fuckerman." She growls angrily, throwing a spoon at him. "That ship has sailed, and your massive paws are never getting all up on the twins ever again."
"Yeah, you know what else is massive-"
"That is enough!" Rachel shrieks, covering her ears. "Fine, we won't do gendered rooms, but please keep whatever intercourse you have private and away from our ears! We have no protection, and remember that Brittany seems to be able to hear just about anything that goes on around the compound. You would make our host uncomfortable."
"Pretty sure she isn't a host anymore if we're moving in." Mike says, unwittingly spraying the wall with corn before Tina grimaces and slaps his thigh.
Rachel claps her hands, positively ecstatic that people have agreed to her plan. "Very well! We should start right away in hopes of setting up our rooms tonight before dark falls. Grab your cleaning supplies and be on your way." As an example she rises from her chair, grabbing some gloves, a bottle of what you believe to be bleach and windex, and striding determinedly in the direction of the bathrooms. You grimace.
"Is she always so..."
"Obnoxious?" Quinn pipes up, finishing up her meal.
"I was going to say happy, but that works too." You concede, throwing your can into the little trashbin at your feet. "I think I used to be happy before."
She looks at you curiously. "Before what?"
You shrug. "Just... before." You bend down to pick up a bottle of supplies and stifle the groan as your forearm twinges in distaste, the still-broken skin disliking such a heavy load. They've noticed the hand that's slow to close but you always shrug and say it's been there for as long as you can remember - the truth if you've ever told it, and they leave it alone. It heals as the rest of your bodily scars do.
You ignore the fact that the wound in your temple was just beginning to heal and has now split back open into an angry hole. Denial has always been the easiest way to live.
Hearing Rachel's song floating down the halls (she does have a lovely voice, it's true, but she sings constantly and it is starting to wear on your fractured sanity) causes you to make a sharp turn away from the sound, heading instead into one of the rooms marked for use. It has no windows that could be broken into, enough room for multiple people, and desks. This is an important fact as the carpet has long since leeched the death from whatever laid there for ages on end, rotting away and seeping down into the fibers. A quick inspection shows it is a near worthless cause, better ignored if not for Artie's homemade concoction of ammonia he swears will remove anything with patience. It smells like sin and makes you gag, but it's worth a try.
Armed with nothing more than a sponge and some flimsy rubber gloves, you spread it over the whole room, stumbling back out once or twice into relative fresh air for a few precious moments. Eventually the carpet is saturated and on its way to disinfected; spreading the area with towels, you ignore the stinging of your eyes and soak your sponge, getting down on your knees to scrub the walls. Each handprint tells a story you hasten to memorize before it gets erased, painstakingly attempting to remove a life from the drywall. It doesn't work entirely, and there are still echoes even after you run low on solution and the carpet has begun to dry underneath you. Part of you likes it that way - it's like they're still around. The spot where your sister died refuses to clean itself and it feels a little bit like fate.
You're almost done when Tina comes into the room with her shirt over her nose, grabbing you by the bicep. She doesn't say anything as she hauls you out, scattering your supplies, but judging by the red eyes she wouldn't be able to.
Falling into the hallway is a breath of fresh air, and you gasp violently to pull it into your starved lungs. How long have you been holding your breath? You don't remember breathing when everything fell into the tunnel of spray-scrub-spray but surely you must've at one point - the burn in your throat attests to that.
"You're gonna kill yourself one day, girl." Mercedes says as she comes around the corner, staying away from the cloud of chemical one can almost feel actively wafting from the room. "How you didn't notice it was gonna start burning your skin off at any second I don't know."
You shrug, pulling off your pink gloves and casting them aside. Even the walls look brighter, whiter than before. The screams of the dead are mere whipsers in the drywall. "I think I fixed it."
They peer inside, recoiling at the stench.
"It's certainly nicer, if you can get past the burn." Tina admits, touching the wet walls. "I'd totally sleep here once it airs out. I bet even Rachel couldn't get it this clean."
You were expecting to take this room, and your expression must say as much because she laughs. "What, you think we're gonna let you sleep alone? I'm rooming with you!"
Somebody wants to spend time with you? Willingly? You stare at her like one would study an alien, judging her for the truth. "Oh, don't look at me like that. Mercedes wants to be with us too, don't you?"
"For sure. I ain't getting stuck with Puckerman or Finn - boy has gassy baby problems."
"Count me in!" Mike pipes up from where he's materialized, wrapping an arm around Tina's waist. "You've done such a good job, I couldn't help but take advantage of your superior cleaning skills. We'll have the best room in the whole compound."
Mercedes claps, rubbing her hands together. "Good. Now that we've finished with our dibbs, let's go save Rachel from the bathroom before Satan rips off her head and uses it as a rag." The three of them casually pick up their things and make their way towards the influx of curses that storm from the open sprawl of the community showers, and all you can do is hurry along in hopes of catching the show.