Note: I do not own VALVe or any of its affiliates. Consider this a disclaimer to the characters/themes/what have you presented in this story.

Six

The three of them were slumped in a room that was hollowed out of anything it used to have when it was still an arena. Black lines could be seen on the walls by the faint light coming through the window on the door where the furniture used to be. They could also see the faces of the other people crammed in there, too.

"This is bullshit," Louis droned.

"No kidding."

Francis kicked at the empty pop can they let him take back into the building with him. He was awfully surprised they did that, considering they stripped him of his scrubs and hosed him down again like everyone else. "Must be carrying the virus." This time it wasn't water, though; it was some shitty smelling, bitter chemical that left them sticky and repulsive. "I feel like a fucking lab rat," he said.

"That's what we are, Francis."

"I got better treatment at my girlfriend's mom's place."

"Louis and a girl?" Francis said with a chuckle. "No shit."

"Yeah. Broke up a year ago. I never did forget her mom. She was Satan herself, I'm damn near sure."

"What makes you say that?" Francis asked.

"We went to her mom's house for Thanksgiving one time, and I stayed in the guest bedroom overnight. I woke up, got up to take a piss, and she was sitting in the corner with a hammer in her lap."

"Hah! Fuckin' right!" Francis jeered quietly, trying not to bother the other people in the room.

Bill smiled slightly. "Sounds like a charming woman."

"Yeah, well, anyway, she asks me in this real angry voice just where in the hell do I think I'm goin', and when I tell her I have to use the men's room, she cackles and says the hell I do, then brandishes the hammer at me." Louis straightened, then put on his best mocking middle-aged woman's voice. "'I'll sooner crush your family jewels before you sneak out to foul my daughter'."

"Christ on a pogo stick," Francis said, his shoulders rising and falling with controlled chuckles. "So what'd you do?"

"I pissed in my water glass."

"You what?"

"Pissed in my water glass. That's all she'd let me do. I was convinced she would actually pound the shit out of my balls if I got too close to her, so when I got ready to relieve myself in the glass, she just sat there watching me, nodding along."

"That's too rich, man," Francis said, rubbing his eyes while just biffing it into the palm of his hand. He was trying to stay quiet, but it looked like he was going to explode from the effort. POP!

"My old Pat was like that," Bill said. "She'd likely hunt you down with a .30-.30 instead of a hammer, though."

"Hey-hey, Bill had a lady," Louis said, folding his arms over his chest and cocking his head to look at him. "Now that's hard to believe."

Bill looked at him sideways, then scratched behind his ear where his cigarette used to be. "Yeah."

Francis's laughter died down to a small rumble. They were silent for a minute. "Sorry, man," Louis said quietly.

Bill shook his head. "Nah. Cancer got her in '78. She didn't have to see any of this."

They didn't say anything for a minute. Then Bill looked up to Francis.

"You had anyone waiting on you?"

"What?"

"A girl? Wife? Kids?"

Francis shook his head, then his eyes snapped. "Oh, what the hell am I talking about? Yeah, I had a wife. Ex-wife. Last time I saw her was... when I got out on parole. That was four years ago."

Francis fell short, then looked to the hem of his tunic. "She had a kid with her. He was around six."

Bill just looked at him. "Yours?"

Francis laughed dryly, still staring at his shirt. "Honestly, I dunno. Never asked. Back then I could care less, but now..."

Bill nodded. "Look like you?"

"No. Looked like her."

"Francis, Jr. Honestly, that sounds a little ridiculous."

Francis stared out into the room, then shook with another short chuckle. "Yeah, just like ol' pop. That'd be a nightmare."

Louis looked at Bill. "What about your kids?"

Bill went still and quiet again, and he started taking immense interest in his hands. "Daughter and I had a falling out after her mother died. Her husband called me three years later to tell me she killed herself. Postpartum depression."

"Ho, man," Louis said, letting out a long, low breath. "That's heavy."

Bill nodded. "I never met the kid. Name was Trish. Just like Grandma."

Francis cleared his throat. "Sorry, man."

Bill chuckled, shaking his head. "Lighten up. Next we'll be blubbering like pussies and clambering in a group hug."

Louis was quiet, but he looked around the room in such a way that suggested he really wanted to say something. Then he turned to Bill and Francis. "I know it's bad that I just thought of this when you said that, but where you think they took Zoey?"

Bill glanced at him. "Hopefully to a good goddamn doctor. Didn't you see how that thing tore her apart?"

"Shit, of course I did," Louis said. "But," he leaned closer, "where do you think they took her?"

Francis went to kick at the pop can again. "Fuck."

"You guys, too?" Bill said.

"What?" Francis asked.

"You can throw 'em farther than you can trust 'em," he affirmed.

"Yeah. These guys... they give me the willies."

"You always see those movies where the government guys are the bad guys," Louis said. "Then in reality you keep on living with them. Armageddon happens, though, and you're SOL unless you crawl back into their arms."

"You be careful who you judge," Bill muttered, running his hand over his head, missing his beret again.

"'Hell with that," Francis mumbled. "These assholes just want us for their freaky experiments."

"You don't know that," Bill countered, almost tiredly.

"Why you siding with them now, old timer?" Francis said harshly, looking at him critically. "You were the one who was all 'Grr, don't let your guard down, ya scumbags'."

"Shut yer hole, Francis," Bill grumbled. "All I'm saying is you're quick to call them your enemy."

"You don't trust any of those guys, either," Francis said, raising his arms and letting them slap against his thighs. "You said so just a minute ago. Now you're telling us we should be best buddies?"

"No," Bill said. "Always be on your guard. Liking people before you know 'em is dangerous enough, but hating 'em just as soon can screw you over, too."

Francis shook his head, then sighed. "Well, then, what do you think happened to Zoey?"

Bill slumped slowly against the wall, shook his head, then closed his eyes. He started fiddling with his hands again, wishing he had a cigarette to break and crush instead.

I don't know.

There were no lights in her room. Did they do that on purpose, or were there no lights to begin with? She didn't know what time it was, what day it was. She'd been in that room so long.

They'd rotated her into a sitting position. Her back throbbed a little—the medicine was probably wearing off—but it didn't feel quite as puffy as before. That was either because the numbing effect of the anaesthesia was fading away, or because her back was healing, and she wouldn't be as horribly disfigured as she once thought.

Zoey looked around the room. They'd removed the monitor from her, and she no longer had a needle sticking out of the back of her hand. Well, that explained why the pain was coming back. They weren't treating her anymore.

They want to see what happens to me without medicine, she thought. Bastards.

After an hour of silent brooding, the door opened. It was the same orderly who had come to see her when she first woke up. She looked like the Abominable Snowman.

"Miss Connor?"

"Yes."

"Just a minute of your time."

Not like I'm going anywhere.

"How are you feeling?"

"A little on the itchy side. My back is starting to hurt."

"Yes, about that," she said, "we found you were having an allergic reaction to the anaesthesia, and we were forced to take it off you. We tried administering other pain killers, but your body is highly resistant to any of them. We've been swabbing your back to keep it as numb as possible, but it's been taking up a lot of our resources, and we can only give you so much."

Zoey suddenly felt she couldn't look the woman in the eye. She still couldn't fully trust them, even after the orderly all but offered up an apology, and she felt ungrateful for it.

"I see," was all Zoey could say.

"Would you like something to eat? To drink?"

"Yeah, I'm kind of hungry."

"Well, you're allowed to leave the wing now, so I can wheel you down to the mess hall. They're serving hotdogs."

Zoey smiled a little. "Actually, in that case," she said, "could I see my friends first?"

"Your friends?"

"I came here with three other men. I'd like to see them."

"Well, I'll do my best to arrange a meeting," the nurse replied, "but your friends are probably listed under another—er, recovery wing, and they might have different rules and regulations."

"'Recovery wing'?" Zoey asked, becoming alarmed. "They were hurt?"

"I'm not sure, Miss Connor," the nurse replied. "There were a few men who were injured in the attack, but everyone has been organized into different groups based on how much interaction they had with an infected. We have to keep everyone separated so that we can contain the virus properly."

Zoey choked back her fears. "Oh."

"They're probably okay," the nurse said, then sadly added, "you were the most severely injured in the crowd."

She looked away, then nodded.

"How about we get you those hotdogs first?"

So the nurse wheeled the portable bed through the halls, then brought her to a expansive hallway filled with empty tables and chairs. The same concession stand that had offered them roast beef sandwiches before had the same two cooks in masks standing behind the counter, putting the hotdogs together and stuffing them into foil wrapper. One of them looked up as Zoey and the nurse approached, and he nodded to the woman. "Hey, Penny. Came for some more meat?"

Zoey narrowed her eyes and let her disgust show. Either Penny wasn't bothered by his joke, or she didn't catch it, and she laughed airily. "Have another customer for you, Hank."

"Oh, a pretty one, too," he said, smiling at Zoey crookedly, though she couldn't see it. "Want some wiener?"

"I want a hotdog. Please."

The man looked her over for a second, either sizing her up for her attitude, or feeling heated in realization that he'd been making innuendos. "Certainly."

He turned away from the counter, picked a bun from an open plastic bag, and slipped a hotdog inside. "Everything on it?" he asked.

"Yes, please."

He returned with her meal, a fully dressed hotdog in the foil wrapper. Zoey was almost certain she'd never eat such a thing as a hotdog again. It had been so long, it felt like years... the smell was of the gods' nectar to her nose.

The nurse grabbed it for Zoey. "Apple or orange juice?" Hank asked.

"Orange."

He dropped under the counter and returned with a juice can. "I'd offer you more, but you're getting the last of supper tonight. Everyone else came by and picked the rations clean."

"That's okay," Zoey said, barely controlling her awe. "I'm fine with this."

Orange juice. Orange juice.

"Well, have a good night," Hank said to them, and turned away. Zoey couldn't help but think he sounded a little cut off, like she'd served him a plate full of guilt for his crude jokes. She started to feel a little guilty herself, because she was starting to believe that all of these people felt just as she did, and she was treating them with scorn and distrust that she shouldn't have been.

"Well, want to eat here?" Penny asked her.

I want to disappear. "No. I'd like to go back to my room."

"Sure."

Penny wheeled her down the halls again, and as they got closer to her room, they could see two men standing over a bed in the hallway, arguing. Someone with discoloured skin and dark, matted hair was lying still on it. The two men saw them coming, and one threw the sheet over the body quickly, but Zoey had seen what it was. It was the same infected who had attacked her.

Zoey was certain that Penny would take her back the direction they'd come, but she kept pushing her down the hall, closer and closer to the body. I've seen plenty of dead bodies before. Get a hold of yourself, Connor.

"Penny," the closest man said cheerfully, pushing the bed to the side to let them pass.

"Hi, Colin."

Zoey held her breath as they passed. She stared at the body under the sheet, its bony limbs and claws jutting under the sheet, the dark colours showing through the thinness; only a weak barrier to separate it from her...

They pushed the bed in the opposite direction as Zoey and Penny passed, and an arm slipped from under the sheet, her blood dried on its fingers.

Zoey was barely able to swallow her scream.