Russian Roulette
You're next.
Ellis glanced down at the bloody conman in his arms every few seconds to make sure he was still breathing. He was actually rather lucky; the Hunter had only gotten to his shoulder and part of his chest instead of the usual target of the abdomen. He couldn't help but be apprehensive, however. He had already lost Dave and he didn't want to lose this man that had become something of a leader for the group; he would tell them where to go and what to do when they got there. Nick had always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else. He was a quick thinker and even quicker with a weapon. They would be in a bad place if they lost him.
He seemed to be zoning in and out. Every few minutes he'd open his eyes and ask where they were going or how long until they got there. This, Ellis guessed, was probably just because he'd gotten smacked around quite a bit before Rochelle had been able to save him. Were they under normal circumstances, the way he babbled would seem funny, but it was quite the opposite. His wounds continued to bleed.
At the moment, the conman was in his zoned-out mode. He lay limp in Ellis' hands, eyes closed and supposedly asleep or just too weak to stay alert. It was alarming to see a tough, full-grown man in such a state.
"Ro?" Ellis asked, looking at the dark-skinned woman walking ahead of him. She turned around. "What is it?" she asked, and noticeably looked at Nick as Ellis had been doing the past half hour or so.
"How long d'ya think it'll be 'til we find somewhere ta stay?"
Rochelle shrugged. "I don't know, Ellis," she replied. "It could be minutes, could be hours."
"It prob'ly ain't the best time ta say it, but I could go for a nice nap right 'bout now," Keith interjected from the back of the line.
"Me too, Keith." Rochelle agreed. "I bet all of us could."
"'Specially Nick," Ellis said, staring down at the man again. "He ain't lookin' too good. Whatever we're lookin' for, we better find it fast. …Y'know, I can barely see the orange in my shirt anymore." Through all the blood and dirt and cuts, all of their clothes looked more like rags. The only good thing was that most of the blood was from Infected – aside from the blood on Ellis' shirt, which was now mostly from Nick. Most of Nick's suit had been dyed dark red and had soaked through to the blue shirt underneath. He stirred in Ellis' arms.
"God, what the hell!" Nick suddenly exclaimed, his good hand clutching at his bloody arm. "My shoulder's on fire!"
"That was a really late reaction…" Keith pointed out.
"Where's that god-damn Hunter? I swear I'm gonna—oh, hell. Put me down, Ellis."
"But—" Ellis began, only to be interrupted by Nick's shout of "Put me down, god damn it!"
Rochelle rolled her eyes. "Nick, calm down," she scolded. Ellis placed him gently on the grass and stared worriedly down at him. Nick sat with his back propped against a tree trunk. "I'll calm down when one of you gets me a first-aid kit," he spat. All three of them exchanged a glance and replied in unison, "We don't have one." At this, Nick looked quite displeased.
"The hell do you mean, you don't have one?" he said. "I'm feeling like my arm's gonna fall off and you don't have a fuckin' first-aid kit? What is wrong with this place!"
"Stop your whining." Rochelle mumbled. "We're miles away from— well… we don't know how far we are from anywhere that might have supplies. You don't think we've been trying to find help?"
Nick went silent and stared at his injury. There was a lot of blood. The world was still a little blurry and losing so much blood was making him dizzy. "Yeah, my bad," he said under his breath. "I'm just… pissed. That stupid army base, everything's gone to hell, and I'd kill for a sandwich and a pack of Band-Aids."
"We all would." Rochelle replied with a laugh. "Nick, you're gonna be fine. If any of us make it out of this, it'll be you. You're the one usually shouting at us – shut your mouth for once. We'll find a place to stay and fix that shoulder."
Nick nodded and then added in a whisper, "Better be soon."
Ellis picked him up again, at which he looked very annoyed but didn't argue. He had legs that still worked… but at least he didn't have to use them right now.
Miraculously, only another half hour passed by before they found an abandoned town. The place was desolate and trashed, as expected, but it was better than nothing. Nick had been told to walk a while ago when Ellis started to complain, and he had refused to use Keith as transport (the guy was accident-prone as far as he knew). He still held his bloody arm with his uninjured hand and it seemed as if he was trying not to complain anymore, but it was obvious he didn't feel too good.
"Is that a hospital?" he asked, staring at a tall brick building with a large "HOSPITAL" sign over the entryway. "That's perfect!"
Rochelle frowned. "It's probably empty," she pointed out.
"Or full of zombies," Keith added.
"I don't give a damn." Nick said. "There's got to be at least fifty first-aid kits in there." He approached the building with a smirk of determination. The others had no choice but to follow him – they didn't want him to get attacked by another Smoker.
They entered the hospital which had magazines and papers and chairs all over the lobby. The power was out aside from two or three flickering lights down the hallways to the right and left of the front desk. A few dead bodies littered the ground, but the four survivors were used to such sights.
"This way," Nick said, going down the hallway to the right. He peeked into each of the rooms. Many of them had multiple corpses in them and blood-stained floors. Some of them were completely empty but had chairs and machinery strewn on the ground nonetheless. Most of the medical supplies seemed to have been used up when they were needed by so many people. No one seemed to have considered the fact that the ones after them would need help as well; of course, not many of them knew the Infection would last so long or spread so wide.
Rochelle let out a sigh. "Nick, there isn't a lot here to work with," she said, "unless you don't mind gauze that's already been used."
"Aha!" Nick exclaimed, completely ignoring her. He held up a medical kit that was only missing a few of its contents. "Here, use it." He thrust the kit into Rochelle's hands since he trusted her the most. She sighed again but took the kit and cleaned his injuries the best she could, which revealed the source of all the gore underneath – nasty gashes covering his shoulder. His suit had been almost completely shredded on the right side.
Nick took off his jacket and shirt, partially to make bandaging the wound easier and partially to get a better look at it. That, and because he hadn't felt a woman's touch in so long – who could blame him? It was such a nice, gentle feeling. In all this chaos, he missed all those women crowding around him and complimenting his Poker skills.
Rochelle rolled her eyes – she believed Nick was probably just trying to show off – but didn't say anything since it did make it easier to bandage the wound anyway.
Ellis and Keith exchanged a look and thought the same thing: Nick was kind of creepy in a subtle way.
"Done," Rochelle announced after a few awkward moments of silence. She handed Nick's tattered clothes to him. He put them on, the slightest of smiles on his face. "Thanks." he said. "Now for something to eat before I die of starvation."
"McDonald's!" Keith cheered, pointing out the front window of the lobby to an empty restaurant.
"That place is bound to be disgusting," Rochelle said, a repulsed look on her face.
"Rotten hamburgers," Nick said bluntly. "Let's try something that won't be spoiled, yeah?"
Keith frowned. He missed being able to go to fast food places. Searching for food that most likely didn't exist was so upsetting.
"How 'bout we just keep searchin' houses…" Ellis said, grossed out at the mention of rotten food. The others agreed and they went on their way.
Soon they had gone through at least three decrepit houses and gathered several cans of whatever they could find and ran into a few Infected, which Ellis quickly killed before anyone else had the opportunity to announce that they were nearby. He wasn't keen on the idea of anyone else getting injured.
"Cold soup, fruit, and…" Rochelle stared at one of the cans, then set it down on the table they were sitting at in one of the houses. "…whatever the hell this is."
"I don't care if I have to eat dirt for fuck's sake," Nick said. "Just pass something this way."
Rochelle slid a soup can to him, taking one of the fruit cans for herself. Ellis and Keith reached for cans as well and started to argue over who got which one. Soon they were laughing and hitting each other.
"This is disgusting," Nick mumbled after drinking the soup straight from the can. "But I love it so much."
"Cut it out, you guys. Save that energy for fighting zombies," Rochelle said, pulling Keith away from Ellis. She handed them both cans and they ate, still chuckling and occasionally elbowing each other in the ribs.
"Hey, we didn't say a blessing!" Ellis said abruptly through a mouth full of peaches. Keith added a "Yeah!" and Rochelle stared at the two. Nick shot Ellis a dirty look.
"What the hell is there to bless?" he asked. "We've just barely managed to get by. Thanks, God, for letting this apocalypse happen. I really appreciate smelling like shit and human innards. And I guess I don't really need this arm, do I?"
Ellis glared at Nick. "Don' be like that, Nick." He scolded. "At least we got food an' people ta travel with. Someone might be alone starvin' somewhere right now."
"Hey God, thanks for letting that kid starve by himself," Nick added sarcastically and finished his soup.
"At least we're alive!" Ellis countered.
"And Dave's not."
At this, there was a moment of shocked silence. Rochelle gave Nick a look that said "What are you thinking!" Keith looked down at his lap and twiddled his thumbs uncomfortably. "At least he don' hafta suffer anymore," he offered quietly.
"Nick, that was a bad thing to say." Rochelle said, still frowning at him. "Say you're sorry. Man, I feel like a kindergarten teacher!"
"Why should I?" Nick demanded. "God's not sorry. The Infected aren't sorry. You have to realize this is the worst it could get."
"Well, damn, Nick." Ellis said suddenly. "Maybe it should'a been you instead o' Dave. Would'ja be happy then?" He stood up, nearly knocking his chair over, and stormed out of the room. "Ellis!" Rochelle called and went to follow him, then paused. "Nick, you're a real asshole," he said, then hurried out after Ellis.
"You are," Keith commented through the silence.
"Shut it, Keith." Nick muttered. "This isn't a game, you know. This isn't that one time Ellis' buddy Keith ran through a bunch of zombies and only lost his hat. This is the fucking end of the world."
Keith gathered the empty cans and tossed them in the trash, though it didn't make much sense because the rest of the room was still littered. He packed the rest of the cans in the bag he carried. "We're just as tired as you are," he reasoned. "When it all started, yeah, I kinda thought it was fun – but now it ain't fun anymore. Ever since Dave started naggin' – kinda like you are – I realized that it's bad. Don' make it worse, 'specially not for El. He was jus' tryin' ta make things seem a bit better."
He wished he could walk out like Ellis had, but he couldn't leave Nick alone, especially not with his injured arm.
"Where do you get off preaching to me, anyway?" Nick mumbled. "Obviously God's pissed and this is our divine punishment or whatever."
Keith let out a long sigh. "For the leader o' the group, you sure ain't motivational."
"Can you even spell 'motivational?'" Nick taunted. He leaned back in his seat. "Look, you be the work force, and I'll be the brains. Religion doesn't belong in a place like this—in a time like this."
"You don' hafta make such a big deal outta it. I can ignore a few insults an' such, but when ya upset El, we get problems. It upsets me, too. I had ta watch Dave die an' couldn't do anything about it. Y'have no idea what that's like, do ya?"
"I've seen things that would probably make you cry, then." Nick retorted. "Being connected to people just makes everything worse. If Ellis, let's say, gets his head chopped off, you're gonna be really upset; I won't, because I'm not connected to him. The best way to get through this is to care about nothing and no one other than yourself."
"You gotta be by far the worst person I ever met." Keith sighed. "Don't matter ta me if y'care about 'im or not – just come with me so I can make sure 'e's okay."