I woke with a start, lurching up into a sitting position and immediately regretting it. Biting back a virulent curse, my eyes watering from the pain, I flopped back into a prone position, my head coming to rest on… leather? Turning my head, I saw Francis's leather vest bunched up under my head, and my breath caught. In all the time I'd known him, he'd never taken the thing off except to heal himself. Even when he slept it remained hung over his frame, and it was the one possession that he seemed to treasure more than his weapons. Managing to prop myself up on my elbows without too much pain, I saw Francis himself sitting in a chair next to the table I lay on, fallen forward with his head laying on his arms, fast asleep. Louis was curled up on the sofa with a thin blanket flung over him, and Bill stood by the door, assault rifle resting on his shoulder, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. Taking a long drag on the cancer stick, he gave me a hard stare for a few seconds before removing the cig, blowing out a cloud of smoke, and saying "Francis must really like you, kid. He's been sitting there all night." He motioned with the steadily smoking cigarette to Francis's sleeping form, then placed it back in his mouth and said around it "He didn't move from that spot once, not even when Louis suggested taking over watching you." Looking down at the biker, I bit my lip, unsure of how to feel. Could that hulking, half-crazed, zombie-killin', beer-drinkin' bad boy biker really have a soft side? Reaching forward, I tentatively traced a line with my finger down the side of his head, along his hard jaw, feeling the rough beard stubble. He mumbled something, and I jerked my hand back as if burned. Sitting up and wiping sleep from his eyes, Francis looked around dazedly for a moment, his eyes finally coming to rest on me. His face lit up as he took in my conscious state, and he said, in a voice still slurred with the last vestiges of sleep, "Mornin', sunshine." Smiling back uneasily – and a tad embarrassedly – I managed to extract the vest from beneath my head and toss it to him. "Thanks," I said, as he caught the flying garment, and he grinned. "Any time, babe," he said, and stood up, slipping on his vest and retrieving his shotgun.
"Can you walk?" Bill said, him and Francis helping me to my feet after I'd wolfed down some of our provisions. "Sure," I said, and took a few experimental steps. Managing not to keel over, I judged myself indeed able to walk and gave what I hoped was a reassuring nod, snatching my weapons from the table. Sliding fresh clips into the pistols, I started for the door. However, Francis put a hand on my shoulder, whispered "Let me," and walked past. Neglecting to remind him that his injuries were, if anything, worse than mine, I let him pass with an inward sigh. Walking up to the safehouse door, Francis slid the bar out of the way before bringing up a foot and slamming it into the door in a kick that almost snapped the metal door off its hinges. Charging out, Francis twirled the hunting knife like a stage magician would twirl a baton, bringing the long, glinting blade upwards through the jaw of a nearby infected and into its brain. Ripping the weapon out through the unfortunate zombie's face, causing a spray of blood to splatter his chest, he brought the knife around in a lethal arc, disemboweling another nearby infected. Spinning around as three more charged him, he decapitated one with a lateral slice, sending its head rolling and bouncing away, jammed his knife into the skull of the second, and tackled the third to the ground, grabbing its head and slamming it against the asphalt, shattering the zombie's skull. Walking out behind him, Bill surveyed the carnage and sarcastically said "Having fun?" "Hell yeah," was Francis's reply as he picked himself up from the ground, tearing his knife unceremoniously from the corpse it was lodged in. Wiping the blade on the same corpse's shirt, he stuck it back through his belt and grinned at me. Wrinkling my nose as I stepped over the blood and spilled entrails, I gave Francis a reproachful look, at which he chuckled and said "Sorry, Zo. Had to blow off some steam on these vampire assholes." "Goddamn it man, they ain't vampires!" Louis said, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "They're zombies!" Shrugging, Francis growled "Whatever. Makes no difference what you call these things, they die just the same."
We came out from the alley into a parking lot, full of abandoned vehicles. Half of the tall lights scattered around the asphalt field had gone out, and a few were flickering, leaving large portions of the parking lot in stygian darkness. Creeping along between the rows of cars, the empty vehicles looming up out of the darkness in ordered rows like gravestones. After a bit of a hike – the parking lot was ludicrous in size – we reached the supermarket that the lot serviced. A big red neon sign proudly proclaimed "WALTER & CO," with the 'a' and the 'r' flickering on and off. Below this, the storefront was boarded up, the plywood plastered with paperss proclaiming 'QUARANTINED' and 'AREA NOT SAFE' and 'INFECTION REPORTED IN THIS AREA.' "Huh," Francis growled, looking at one of the papers with his arms crossed. "Area not safe? No shit." Eyes widening, Louis exclaimed "Daamn, Francis, when'd you learn to read?" The big biker turned a withering glare on Louis, and all of us except Francis burst out laughing. Even the ordinarily grim Bill chuckled, and Francis wordlessly growled, turning and delivering a vicious kick to one of the plywood boards, which promptly broke in half and fell inwards, revealing the interior of the store. It was pitch black, apparently lacking power, and I inwardly shuddered at the prospect of entering that abyss. Francis stepped through the newly-made gap, shining his flashlight around at the ransacked shelves and the junk and ripped-open boxes and bags strewn across the floor. Spilled food and blood mixed to form grotesque splatters on the tiles, and a few shelves had been knocked over. "Looks safe enough," Francis said, and waved at us to follow him. I stepped through first, swallowing my fear and trusting in the protection of the big man in front of me. Louis followed, casting nervous glances over his shoulder to make sure we weren't followed, and Bill stepped in last, scanning the area with his assault rifle.
"Hey! Look, they've got-…" "Francis don't!" Bill yelled, cutting Francis off and starting forward desperately toward the biker. However, it was too late. Francis tore open the freezer door, oblivious to the little blinking light on the door that told him the security system was turned on. "Goddamn it, Francis!" Bill cursed, pointing an accusing figure at the massive biker as Francis turned, a six-pack of beer in each hand, a grin on his face. Bill was about to say something else, but his words were drowned out as a klaxon started blaring, and Francis's grin broadened. "Watch these for me," he said, setting the beer down and unsheathing his shotgun. Even above the wailing of the alarm, I heard the chorus of countless howls that told us we had attracted unwanted attention. Well, mostly unwanted, I mentally corrected myself, glancing at Francis as he flipped his knife up into the air, letting it spin for a few seconds before deftly catching it by the blade and hurling it forward, directly into the face of the first infected to come near us. "Hell yeah, three points!" he boomed, turning and letting another have a blast with his shotgun. Shaking his head, Bill opened fire, and from the adjacent aisle I heard Louis cutting loose with a long string of obscenities, accompanied by the chattering of his SMG. Extracting my twin pistols from my hip-holsters, I crouched down to steady my aim and blasted away.
Soon, all of us were running low on bullets, I had earned a fresh cut on my forehead that bled freely and rendered my left eye all but useless as blood trickled into it, and Bill was cursing out Francis, had been doing so for well over a minute, and showed no signs of stopping. I fired off my last round, catching a zombie in the head and sending it down, and reached down for a clip only to find my pockets empty. Shit. As if sensing my helplessness, a flood of infected poured down the aisle toward me, and I backed into the freezer doors, heart hammering in my chest. My legs gave out from a combination of exhaustion and terror, and I stared up into the swarm coming steadily closer to me, bottomless hunger and fathomless rage etched on their faces. And then they all stopped as another loud beeping started up, which temporarily annoyed me, as the store's alarm had only recently died away, and I was enjoying the relative quiet. Turning to the sound of the noise, my eyes widened as I saw Francis, having recovered his knife, standing a ways to my right, an unlit pipe bomb held in his free hand. "Bill, get her out of here! I'll meet you at the Burger Tank across the street!" Nodding wordlessly and snapping a salute to the biker, Bill scooped me up and started running. It was only then that my poor overtaxed brain realized what Francis was doing. "Francis no!" I screamed, writhing in Bill's arms. "Jesus, girl, settle down! Do you want me to drop you!?" Bill growled, but didn't stop running. "Take me back! Take me back!" I wailed, twisting around and straining to get a look behind us. I could hear Francis bellowing at the top of his powerful lungs "Come on! You bastards want some of this!? I got enough for all of you, come on! Who's hungry!?" My throat felt tight. Tears stung my eyes. "No…" my voice had died, now little more than a piteous whimper, and Bill gruffly said "He'll be fine." He and I both knew he was lying through his teeth. Francis was Francis, true, but not even he could stand alone against that many zombies. There was no way the 'indestructible' biker was making it through this. Burying my face in Bill's shoulder, I broke down in wracking sobs that shook my entire body. "I'm sorry…" I whispered, as if Francis could hear me. "I'm sorry for doubting you…" As if in response, Francis boomed "That all you got, you goddamn vampires!? I could do this all day!"
The Burger Tank was a good choice of landmark. The fifty-food billboard was not only lighted, blazing forth like a torch against the night sky, but it slowly spun around and around, giving it a striking resemblance to a lighthouse. Louis went in at a sprint, only pausing to rest when he was safely behind the counter, where he slumped down to sit on the floor, panting. Bill tenderly sat me at one of the booths, and walked to stand beside Louis, leaving me alone, still bawling my eyes out. It really is true what the song says: you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. A scant few hours ago, I had been doubting my attraction to Francis, doubting his sanity, doubting the truth of his love. And now it was too late. Burying my face in my hands, I lay down on the booth, curling into a ball and giving voice to my agony, grief and remorse. How I managed to fall asleep, I will never know, but I did.
I blinked open my eyes to reveal my bedroom in my parents' house, back before the apocalypse started. Sitting up, I realized I was stark naked, and pulled the sheets up around me to cover myself. Walking to the window, garbed only in my blanket, I pulled open the drapes to reveal a street full of zombies. Letting out a little yelp of fear, I stumbled backwards and into some new obstacle that had been placed in my room. A muscle-bound, tattoo-covered arm wrapped lovingly around my shoulders, and a familiar gravelly voice said "Shh, it's okay, darlin'. I'm here. I won't let 'em getcha." Turning, I wildly embraced Francis, smothering my tear-streaked face with his familiar scent. I knew this was a dream, but I didn't care. Repeating his name over and over, I hugged him tightly, never wanting to let go. His hand brushed through my hair, surprisingly tenderly for a man of his strength. "Wake up," he said, but it wasn't his voice. It was Bill's. "Wake up," the Bill-Francis repeated.
"Wake up! Come on, girl, you gotta wake up!" Blinking open my eyes, angry at being roused from my imaginary reunion, I sat up groggily, slapping away Bill's hand. "Louis said he saw something coming our way. We need to get ready, it might be an infected." "Get ready? Get what ready, exactly?" I said, bitterness dripping from my voice, motioning to my empty pistols and lack of bullets. "Our bare hands, if we have to," Bill growled, cracking his knuckles. "Francis took on a horde by himself to save us. We'd be doing the poor bastard a disservice to die now." I had to give him that. The mention of Francis's name threatened to bring the tears back, but I furiously held them at bay. I had to be tough, for Francis's sake. Getting up from the booth, I glanced around for anything I could use as a weapon. My eyes fell on a crowbar lying in the corner of the room, and I dashed over, snatching up the crude weapon and returning to stand next to bill, who held his rifle by the barrel like a club. I could hear heavy, dragging footsteps on the sidewalk outside. A grunt of what might have been pain or anger followed, and the door was filled with a huge silhouette. I swallowed, clutching the crowbar until my knuckles whitened. The door was pushed open, and a figure stumbled in, walking unsteadily. Louis had the bright idea of turning his flashlight on and training it on the figure. I swear my heart stopped in my chest. Before us stood none other than Francis, his clothes torn, one eye swollen shut, covered from head to foot in cuts, scratches and bite marks. One leg was twisted, causing his uneven stride, and he left a trail of blood behind him. The crowbar dropped from my now-limp fingers, and my knees felt about to give out. His good eye fell on me, and Francis gave me a lopsided grin. "Hey, darlin'," he said, in a weak, pained voice. Then he collapsed.