*PLEASE READ THIS!*MOVING TO ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN*
As it turns out, doesn't allow reader inserts. I've already invested several hours editing this story, so I'm not going to go through and swap every instance of "Y/N" for an OC's name, because it would take more work than just that. If you should care to read the story further, you can find a link to my Archive of Our Own profile on my profile here.
Thx.
Chapter 5
The sky was blue. So blue. Clouds drifted across, gently, cheerfully. It all just oozed happiness. Steve loathed it all.
He rolled on his stomach. Zombies clambered against the side of the semi-truck he was on, moaning hungrily as they smeared their own blood across the white metal.
He rolled on his back again. The sky seemed to sing, and a sparrow swooped by whistling its tune.
Onto his stomach. Blood and gore.
Onto his back. Sickeningly happy sky.
Stomach. Back. Stomach. Back.
He stopped rolling as he reached the edge of the Semi-truck's trailer. He just laid there and glowered at the sky. It should match the ground. It should be raining or something. Thunder. Yes, that was it.
There was little doubt in Steve's mind that he was depressed. He wouldn't be surprised if someone told him he'd lost his mind, either. He could barely move to roll from one side of the trailer's roof to the other, much less scavenge for the massive amounts of food he needed to survive. He'd found several of his friends' corpses, and each hit harder than the last. He gave up trying to fight when he encountered Pietro's zombie. Y/N's sacrifice to save him had been rendered pointless. And… if somebody that fast couldn't stay alive, what chance did he have?
So, he sat on the roof of the semi-truck and rolled back and forth across the length of the roof. Sky, ground, sky, ground.
His mind played cruel tricks on him. Once, he thought he had heard Her singing in the middle of the night. It was a song that she used to sing to him when he would have a horrible nightmare. He wished she was here to sing to him now, to tell him that this real-life nightmare was just something else that he had dreamed up, just another result of his PTSD. But he had no hope, no energy, no drive.
I made it almost a full month into the zombie apocalypse… I can brag about that to Y/N once I'm dead, he consoled himself. That is, if I go to heaven. She's there, for sure. Maybe I'll get sent there too, even though I couldn't save them…
So he rolled some more and waited.
-0-0-0-
Y/N sighed as a crash resounded from the other room.
"Jackson, what did you do this time?" she asked, barely managing to hide her frustration. The boy had enough bad in his life, he didn't need to feel like she hated him because of her tone.
"Um… 'dis bowl here was in my way…" he mumbled, barely audible. She huffed and finished tying up her hair.
They had found a nice little house in a mostly zombie-free neighborhood up in the Bronx, fully stocked with food and water. The owner of the house had hung himself. Y/N stuffed down the selfish idea that she was glad the man killed himself before he had used up the supplies. Just be grateful that you have it, don't be happy for others' misfortunes, she reminded herself. She had to stay positive, she couldn't let the environment change her.
She had plenty to be positive about. For whatever reason, she hadn't died from the bite. She knew it wasn't the peroxide, she had gone very light on that. A horrible week had passed, then another, and finally she accepted that she was going to live.
"Wanna help me clean it up?" she grinned, hiding her worries with the fake smile. Jackson, bless his heart, grinned back and ran to find the broom. Y/N would never understand his obsession with brooms, but it made him happy.
She picked up the larger chunks of ceramic and threw them into a scavenged bag as her charge haphazardly swiped the broom across the floor, sending shards everywhere. She stifled another sigh, resolving to clean them up after he fell asleep that night.
By her count, it had been about three weeks since she had found herself in this strange situation. Jackson said that the zombies had been walking around about a week before the building fell on them. That is, he SAID seven days but he held up four fingers, so Y/N took it with a grain of salt.
When the gallon bottles of water ran out, she blessed whatever had possessed her to read survival books back in her dimension. She knew how to make an effective water filter with charcoal, dirt, sand and rocks, which proved to be entirely necessary.
Between having her new pal Jackson, running a house of her own, and providing food and water, this was starting to feel… homey.
A familiar groan sounded from the general front-yard area.
"Ugh. I'll get it, you keep sweeping," she told her charge. To the front door she stalked, knife drawn, and opened it.
She wished she hadn't.
There was at least thirty of them, and they had been QUIET. As she slammed the door shut and bolted it, they finally began to make noise. She felt them thud against the door.
"Uh… Jackson, grab your bag, we're going out the back door!" she yelled.
-0-0-0-
Steve regretted leaving his truck to head north. Sure, there were less zombies. Sure, he had found plenty of food. But was he happy?
No.
He had planned to die on top of that truck, but something compelled him to leave.
He swung the shield around a bit in a playful manner, trying to get SOME emotion to rise to the surface aside from this black, heavy sensation.
He looked around at the scenery. The houses were awfully close together here. He didn't really like that much. Memories of Germany flooded back. He couldn't say that he missed war, but the open spaces there had been pretty nice. The cities always felt more cramped since he took the serum and got bigger himself.
His dazed daydreaming came to a halt at the distant sound of a kid crying. For a moment he considered ignoring the wails, but it suddenly felt like a fog had lifted. He had to save that kid, whoever it was didn't deserve to die. He took off running in that direction of the loud cries.
-0-0-0-
Y/N knew that this was REALLY the end. With her back to a neighboring house and with Jackson clinging to her ankle, she slashed at the mob pressing in. This would be bad, this would be really, really bad. Being torn apart was one of the worst ways she could imagine to die, and the poor kid was about to have that happen to him.
There was definitely no way out, the horde was about ten corpses wide in every direction. There had to be at least a hundred. Her arm was tiring even now. Jackson's wails were drawing more by the minute. She looked down at him.
She couldn't let him suffer the slow fate the zombies had in store. Gently she put her hand on the back of his head and readied herself to drive her knife through his head. It would be quick and painless. Tears fell from her eyes.
"Don't worry, Jackson, it will all be okay," she comforted him as she raised the knife out of his line of sight.
With a choked sob, she tensed to do the deed, but something stopped her.
It was a flash of red, white and blue out of the corner of her eye.