Deliquesce: War

Chapter 7

Rated: T

Warnings: Violence, language

Disclaimer: Yes

A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates. Went blank for a while, then wrote two whole chapters in a day so the other one will also be up shortly.

Turrislucidus: Ice breaker indeed! And after he's been hooked she'll play the one that's on his heart. Okay. Last one. last one.

Wilamenawonka: Thank you 3

"Maybe be should just kill him." Daniel said, scoffing down a spoonful of canned spam.

"Of course not. We made a deal." Jackson shook his head, and gave him a look.

"Why not? We have everything we could need here. Why bother with the city."

"Because we are people. Survivors. Not barbarians. We're lucky to be given shelter here."

Daniel replied with a roll of his eyes, and continued eating.

"We're going to start our job tomorrow. No point delaying it too much. So, today, rest up." Jackson continued.

I looked over to Spencer. He sat away from the group, back turned, quietly eating whatever food he got.

Briley was with him, sitting cross-legged on the ground, happily munching away on a pile on candy next to her.

"Mmkay." Daniel said to Jackson, mouth half-full. "Ember, care to join me for a smoke?"

"Where?"

He took out a cigarette and was about to light it.

Jackson swatted the lighter from his hands. "Outside."

"How do we GET outside?" Jackson asked, indignant.

"Find a way."

"You're a dick." Jackson said, but got up, retrieved the lighters and began walking for the Wonkavator. "You comin', Ember?"

"Sure." I said, and got up, bringing my sandwhich with me. I'm not sure how the hell Wonka managed to get bread and other fresh ingredients from. Maybe he had a farm in here, who knows. I followed him to the Wonkavator.

"Okay. There's a front door, I know that." He looked at the wall of buttons before him. "Which one do you think leads there?"

"Maybe the front hall button." I offered. He pressed it and we zoomed off. I had forgotten to sit down, but I managed to stay somewhat balanced during the trip to the front hall. The Wonkavator stopped abruptly before too long, and we found ourselves to be in, well, a hall. It was long, and not brightly lit like the Worker's Quarters. A red carpet ran from one end of the room to the other. From our point of view, you could see the carpet got thinner and that the door at the end of it was actually closer. But from the other end, it looked like it would give the illusion of the hall being far longer than it actually was. There was a large black curtain at the end other end.

We walked down the end with the door, bending over a little more every step we took. "I guess this one leads outside." Daniel said, and bent down to try and push the door open. There was a tiny little illusion door, but up close you could easily see the real one covered the whole wall. "No knob." He continued.

"Does it have a key hole?' I asked. "Look. There. The little door, there's a hole." I said, pointing.

"Ah. Cool. Great. Your point? We have no key."

"I have a bobby pin and picklocking skills, dick." I smirked and took the bobby pin out of the pocket of my new jeans I had found in the drawer of my room. They were a size or two too big, but they were jeans. The bobby pin was mine. It was old and bent, but I kept it just in case. Automatically, even. I'd always been on the lookout for wire and pins in case I would need them to unlock a door

I shoved the bobby pin in and fumbled around strategically until I heard a click. The door was pushed open slightly and I opened it more.

What we saw was… I don't know. It looked like something out of a fairytale. Green grass everywhere. A brown river running through the middle, which I guessed to be chocolate. Colorful 'plants' sprouting up all over the almost neon-green grass. It was beautiful. In the middle, there was a house. Sort of. It looked old and dark and it leaned on a slant. Even given its rundown appearance, it still looked as if it too was from a fairytale.

"I don't think this is the right door." I said. I thought I heard a slight 'ding'.

Daniel made a move to go in.

"Don't go in there." I said. "Wonka said we weren't allowed in rooms without his permission."

"You think he'll see?"

"Good morning!" Came a voice from behind us. We both jumped and whirled around. Mr Wonka stood behind us, holding his cane with two hands in front of him.

"Now, Ember is right. We shouldn't go into rooms we don't know about. How'd you two open the door anyhow? What are you guys doin' down here?"

"I pick locked it with a bobby pin, because we wanted to go outside and we thought this was the door."

He giggled. "The door's that way, and I have a key to open it. Behind the curtain." He pointed, then walked forward, bent down and locked the door again.

He let us out, then left us be, telling us that the door will lock when we closed it. Victoria's corpse wasn't there. I wondered where it went. Daniel and I sat down on the top of the steps and he passed me a smoke, lit up his own, then gave me the lighter to light mine.

"So whadya think of Willy Wonka?" He said.

"He's weird. I like him." I said, and inhaled.

"Weird. Something weird is going on with him."

"Well yeah. He's weird." Exhale.

"No, not that weird. I dunno. He's hiding something. You can tell. I don't trust him."

"Why not?"

"I have a feeling."

"Feelings are for girls, aren't they?" I laughed. He laughed and stared at me for longer than necessary, with a small smile on his face.

"What?"

"Nothing." He looked away. I didn't reply. We both didn't for a while. We just concentrated on the smoke going down into our lungs.

"You look like my sister." He said after a while, putting the butt out on the ground beside him. "She had the same hair as you. Red and curly."

"What happened to her?" I said, noting his use of 'had'. I put my butt out too,

"Same thing that happened to everyone else. She got bit, died, came back, and we got the fuck out of there. Sorry. It's just weird but kind of nice seeing someone that looks familiar."

"I know the feeling. Your family dying and having to get out of there." I said. "Let's head back inside."

"This stays with us." The hardness was back in his voice, and his eyes. I realised that he'd almost pretty cold and dickish since the first moment I'd met him. I bet back before all this happened he would have been a real big douche. No offense or anything. He just seems like the type.

But I also realise that this was the only time I've seen him open up. Soften a bit. The things that happened changed every one of us still alive. We all have one thing in common. We've all lost people.

We went back up the stairs and closed the door. It clicked locked.

The next day, we set off. We got Mr Wonka to open the gates for us, and to reopen them at a certain time. He gave us things like rope, metal poles with grabby things on the end of them, and some ammo for our guns. I wondered what he used his gun for. We were also given some things to protect ourselves. Large bits of plastic that we cut little holes in and tied some fabric to, to create makeshift riot shields. The guys definitely had fun playing soldier this morning, trying to create shitty armour and weapons out of different things. All things considered, they did a pretty good job. We left the factory prepared.

At 12 PM, we were let outside. The fight started immediately as a few lurked around close to the gates. Our mission today was to block off the three roads directly in front of the factory, so we'd have the little square outside the gates to start off with.

It was like a game. I was given a knife, and my task was making sure the dead were really dead. So, stabbing them in the head again in case they got up again because we knew that wasn't an uncommon thing, but mostly because I couldn't really fight.

Jackson and Daniel were the main attackers, they charged right in, trying to take out the most obvious targets while Spencer and Briley worked on the ones a bit further away with their gun and crossbow, and also watching the rest of our backs. Those two were fast and dangerous. They were good for keeping their team members backs safe. Jackson and Daniel were just brute force. They were good at taking down everything in their path. I was good at uh… I dunno. Picking up the remnants.

We finished within a few hours. More zombies started straggling in due to the sound, but when we took out most of them we began to work at building up barricades. Daniel, Spencer and Jackson pushed across cars and piled wood and debris on top of them, building a sort of okay wall on all three roads.

We finished earlier than expected. We spent the rest of our time outside, enjoying the fresh air and trying to clean up some of the scraps. We decided tomorrow we will continue to clean. That would be our routine. Clear, clean, move forward, clear, clean, move forward.

The doors eventually opened and we went inside and showered the gore and dirt off.