Well, I'm back. Sorry I took so long to update. Thanks for the reviews last chapter and I'll need over 27 for an update. I'm really sorry, but I keep getting like 3 a chapter and I know more than 200 people are reading this, so it really bugs me. :/ And I'm honestly not sure if I want to keep this story going, since it seems to be going nowhere and it seems pointless to write if I'm not gonna get any feedback.
Oh, and Eddie's not in this chapter. TBH, I don't know why I put him in the story seeing as I didn't even like his character in the show since he was just a background character and hid in the background whenever there was a fight scene, but maybe he'll be back in the rest of the chapter's. Just in case anyone's wondering where he is.
Enjoy this update - I hope you like it, I spent ages on it - and remember to review. :)
Jerry didn't know how long the Dojo had been quiet and nearly every occupant had become lifeless shells of themselves, and quite frankly, the recurring pattern of it after something had been said or done, was creeping him out. It was scary enough to think that a horde of Zombie's could break down the door any second and infect the rest of them. Usually someone knew what to say, or had something to say, but everything had seemed to change because Jack had been bitten.
"How're you feeling?" he asked gently, breaking the silence and feeling everyone's gazes drift to Jack still laying on the sofa. It seemed everyone was a lost sheep because their leader could do nothing except lay on a sofa and fight off sleep.
He opened one eye and regarded him sleepily, a light smile on his mouth. "No better than when you asked ten seconds ago," he chuckled.
Jerry felt himself blush. "Sorry," he muttered sheepishly.
"It's alright," Jack told him, not even bothering to stifle the yawn that snuck its way out of his mouth. He rubbed his eyes and folded his arms, shifting around on the lumpy sofa.
"Jack?" Rudy said from the corner, getting an affirmative grunt in return. "We should call your Mum, tell her-"
"No!" Jack bolted up from the sofa so fast Jerry got whiplash, eyes widened and all traces of his sleepy apparel gone. He noticed everyone was looking at him, bewildered, and cleared his throat. "Uh, I mean, she's probably still at a friends," he said, looking uncomfortable. "The house was surrounded by Zombie's when Jerry and I left," he said and Jerry shuddered at the memory.
"She needs to know, Jack," Rudy said gently while Jack licked his lips. "What's her number?" he asked.
Jack shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. "I can't remember," he said after a brief pause. "Sorry," he added, sounding more relieved than apologetic.
Jerry became confused, more than usual. It was definitely clear now that there was something weird going on with Jack's mother, but he couldn't figure out what. He was lying and blocking every turn, just like when Jerry had asked about her. Whether Jack would eventually say what, would be up to him.
He turned his head at the sound of soft snoring and his eyes widened; Jack wasn't supposed to sleep. He leapt on the sofa and shook Jack's shoulders. "Jack?" he called, getting no response except a sleepy grunt. "Jack!" Jerry pulled a hand back and slapped him across the face, not caring if he would get hit in retaliation.
But Jack didn't move. He just slowly opened his eyes and groaned in confusion as he looked at Jerry sleepily. "Wha..?" he trailed off, rubbing a hand through his hair. He yawned and Jerry yanked him up into a sitting position so he couldn't fall asleep again, shaking him into consciousness.
"You have to stay awake, remember?" he reminded him.
Jack smiled sleepily - normally Jerry would have found the sight adorable, but since it could be a fine line between his life and death, he wasn't taking any notice - and laid back down, putting his hands behind his head. "Guess you'll have to help," he chuckled. "Take my mind off it for a while," he said softly.
"I don't know what to say," Jerry said, shrugging aimlessly.
Jack managed a throaty chuckle, smiling briefly. "You always know what to say," he said in surprise. "You're Jerry," he emphasized, but Jerry couldn't smile back.
"Not when you've been bitten by a Zombie, I don't," he said nervously, biting his lip.
It was as if Jack could sense it; he sat up, not saying a word, and just looked at him. Jerry couldn't smile because Jack was falling, and Jack couldn't smile because Jerry wasn't. It was a vicious cycle, but that was how they worked; they were linked together by a chain and dragged the other around, willingly or not, and when one suffered, they both suffered.
"Why don't we do some training?" Jack suggested, seeming to perk up at the idea.
"Jack, you can barely stand up," Rudy said incredulously, walking over to the two of them with a look of disbelief on his face.
Jack rolled his eyes and threw the blanket off his legs, swinging them over the sofa and sitting up, having to use Jerry's arm to pull himself into a standing position. "Can so," he said, playfully sticking his tongue out, looking like a petulant child. Jerry managed a smile at that, and in return, so did Jack.
Rudy pursed his lips, wavering slightly. "Alright, but the minute you feel dizzy, go and sit back down," he instructed and Jack nodded. He then looked around the room and became concerned again. "Hey where's Eddie?" he asked.
"He went home," Kim said with an air of disgust in her voice. "It's nine and that's past five," she reminded him, pointing at the clock.
Jerry couldn't help but feel angered at that. Sure, Eddie was the type of guy who did everything his parents said without asking, but he didn't even have the guts to disobey them because one of his friends was inevitably going to become a Zombie and needed them all there for him?
"Okay, Jack - take it easy - go with Jerry and Kim and Milton, you're together," he said, going to watch on the sidelines and keep a close eye on all of them.
"Y'know, I think this might be the only time I can beat you," Jerry pointed out with a smug grin.
"Hah," Jack snorted in disbelief, trying not to laugh at Jerry's bravado. "Zombie bite or not, I'll kick your ass," he swore playfully and Jerry raised his eyebrows in response.
He leaned back slightly as Jack swung a gentle spin kick at his head, which he followed up with a double one of his own, making Jack slide back slightly. It was easy to see he was playing, from how weak his punches seemed, but Jerry knew he could probably still beat him, so he kept his eyes peeled for an advantage he could use against him.
It came when Jack attacked with a back kick. Jerry stepped to the side in time and grabbed Jack's ankle with one hand and his shoulder with the other. He used all his weight to sweep Jack's grounded leg out from under him, semi-lowering him to the floor so he didn't hit his head.
"Cheater," Jack gasped out as his back hit the ground. Jerry grinned and pinned Jack's wrists above his head.
"It's more like, finding a weak spot and exploiting it," he chuckled and Jack raised an eyebrow at him.
"What, like this?" He wrenched one of his wrists free and pushed on Jerry's shoulder, using his weight to roll on top of him. Jerry grinned - trying to ignore the fact that Jack's leg was snugly fitting between his - but his eyes then widened as he felt something sticky on his stomach.
"Jack..." he started in realisation, bile rising in his throat as he knew what was coming would only be worse.
"Oh no," he groaned. He rolled off Jerry and pulled his shirt up, revealing a deep, heavily bleeding cut on his side.
Rudy noticed almost immediately and ran over to him, skidding to a halt on his knees. "Kim, Milton, towels!" he said to them frantically and they sprinted off towards the bathroom. "Hurry!" he called to them as they came running back out, throwing one towards him.
Rudy pressed the towel to his cut and Jerry saw him wincing in pain. He felt sick as the blood began to soak up in the towel. It was hard to believe that a cut could infect a person further, but it made them more wary about Jack, and the longer they could spend with him as a human, the better.
Jack took the towel from him and kept it pressed onto the wound as Rudy put a hand on his shoulder. "Rudy, it's nothing," he said hastily, trying to brush it off.
"Any bleeding can infect you faster, remember?" Rudy reminded him. "Come on, back to the sofa," he said, helping Jerry pull him up from the floor.
"It's just a tiny scratch," he said nonchalantly and Jerry nearly snorted in disbelief; he was out of his mind if he thought that was just a tiny scratch. It was like something with large claws had torn a chunk of flesh out of him.
"Sofa!" Rudy ordered, leaving no room for discussion.
Jack looked visibly surprised by Rudy's instructive manner, but walked back to the sofa, occasionally eyeing him with a look of shocked disbelief. "Alright, I'm going," he said, rolling his eyes. "Sheesh!" he breathed and flopped back on the sofa.
Rudy sighed and turned his head to the door, briefly looking at the darkened courtyard, the only source of light being Phil's flickering neon sign.
"It's getting late," he said to them in a tired sounding voice. "Go home," he waved dismissively, wiping a hand over his forehead, the day's event's clearly taking it's toll on him.
Jerry glanced over at Jack, before walking over to the sofa and sitting on it with him, a gesture he seemed to appreciate. "Well, I'm stayin'," he said firmly. He wasn't going to leave Jack even for a second, no matter what. Come hell or high water, and he didn't care how dramatic it sounded, he wouldn't leave.
"Me too," Kim agreed, looking over at him with a smile.
"Jack's more important than my ant farm," Milton decided, making Jack snort with laughter.
"I'm touched," he said sarcastically.
Rudy raised his eyebrows in surprise, shaking his head with a faint smile. He walked into his office and wheeled out a whiteboard moments later. He popped the lid off the marker and started drawing a grid with their names on it, leaving a space for Eddie, although Jerry doubted he'd be sticking around this time of night. He was probably tucked up in his bed while everyone else was going dry-eyed over here trying to stay awake.
"Okay, we'll take it in shifts to stay awake with Jack, so the rest of us can sleep," he said, finishing up the rest of the grid, looking at Eddie's name with a pinched face. "Anything goes wrong or any Zombie's get in, just scream," he added nonchalantly.
"Eloquent warning system," Jack piped up from where he was sat, trying not to grin.
"It's for your protection, mister!" Rudy reminded him, sounding so childish he may as well have stuck his tongue out at him. Jack just held his hands up in surrender.
"I'll take 6:30pm to 8:00pm," he said, holding the marker cap between his teeth as he wrote the time slot next to his name. "Jerry?" he asked, turning to him, spitting the cap out onto his hand.
"We'll all help," he suggested, looking around for conformation. Kim and Milton nodded.
"You sure?" Rudy asked apprehensively, putting the lid back on the marker.
"We'll just have to keep each other up," Kim said, her eyes connecting with Jerry's as they nodded. "Good thing I just downloaded a horror story app on my phone," she said with a pleased smile as Rudy began to wipe down the whiteboard.
"Horror stories?!" Milton screeched incredulously, making them all cover their ears. "At a time like this?" he asked in disbelief, glancing out into the courtyard before scrambling further away from the door.
"You won't wanna sleep if you think some woman with a chainsaw's hoverin' over ya," she pointed out, pulling her phone from her pocket.
"Good point," he agreed in a shaky voice.
"And it's just for fun, anyway," she smiled, although Milton didn't look convinced and Jerry was staying out of this altogether, even though he used to love tapping Milton on the back when it was quiet and Kim had gotten to the climax of the story, Seaford was like his own personal horror stories these days.
A few hours later, while Rudy had been watching over them, Kim and Milton were sat together in a corner while Kim was reading him a horror story that he looked like he was trying to get his head around it, and Jerry hadn't left his position sat with Jack on the sofa, even though he was sure his weight on Jack's legs had made them dead by now, but he didn't seem to care.
"So how does her face get eaten off?" Milton asked and Jerry and Jack turned out of curiosity.
Kim rolled her eyes and tried to explain yet again from the looks of it. "She looked in the mirror and then-"
"I get it," Milton said sharply, holding up a hand to stop Kim from talking. She chuckled and then chose another story that the two began reading with keen eyes.
Jerry sighed and shifted on the sofa. "Jack?" he said, almost timidly, reaching out a hand to press at Jack's leg and rouse him from his drunk with fatigue state.
He opened one eye and put his hands behind his back. "Yeah?" he asked.
"What really happened to your Mum?" he blurted hurriedly, biting his lip. He didn't know why he was so on-edge about asking Jack; he had never been a very angry guy to just blow up out of nowhere all the time.
Jack was fully awake at those words, eyes slightly widened although Jerry didn't say anything, and he sat up. "What makes you think something happened?" he asked, with a seemingly nervous chuckle.
"She wasn't back at your house for two days and she probably still isn't there," Jerry said and Jack bit his lip, avoiding his eyes. "Hasn't even called you," he went on, looking up at Jack.
He breathed out deeply and looked up, licking his lips. "She was bitten," he breathed out heavily.
"What?!" Jerry yelled in shock and Jack shot up from the sofa, trying to get him to quieten down, but Milton and Kim had already heard, starting and dropping the phone on the floor.
Rudy's office door swung open and he ran out. "What's wrong?" he asked worriedly and Jerry looked at Jack guiltily, but he looked more relieved than angry.
"I was just telling him about my Mum," Jack said, sounding dejected. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, shuffling up to make more room as Kim, Milton and Rudy gathered around the sofa.
"What about her?" Rudy asked.
"She was bit," Jack spat out harshly, clenching his teeth. Jerry felt his stomach turning; if his mother was turned, he wouldn't know what to do. He'd obviously had to kill the thing she'd become, but she would have been his mother. It was pretty obvious what Jack had had to do.
"When?" Kim asked.
"Few days ago," Jack said, his voice withering slightly. He coughed loudly and sniffed through a blocked nose. "I managed to keep her symptoms under control, but eventually she turned and there was nothing I could do," he went on, becoming more detached with each word he said. "I had to kill her and I was burying her before I went out to hunt down the one responsible, then I found Jerry in the alleyway," he explained, looking at him with a weak smile.
"Jack, I'm sorry," Rudy said, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Jack smiled gratefully. "It's okay," he said, clearly a much stronger person than Jerry would have thought. If he had to put a bullet between Jack's eyes, he'd rather turn the gun on himself. "I've still got my Grandfather, even though he's in Texas," he said, although his tone sounded like he was glad it was better than nothing, having nobody.
"What about your father?" Kim asked, then a look of confusion crossed her face. "Wait, did you say Texas?" she asked incredulously, a faint smile appearing.
"Yes, born and raised in Maypearl for nine years until my family began our endless moving spree," Jack deadpanned, sounding extremely bored on that matter. "My Dad's... my Dad's dead," he got out eventually, sighing again.
"How?" Milton asked.
Jack's demeanour seemed to change; he shifted as if he was trying to barricade himself away from them all. "It was about a year ago; same time all this Zombie stuff started," he said. "The case file says he committed suicide; OD'd on Tylenol, but I don't believe it." He gnashed his teeth together and blinked furiously, his hand clenching into a fist underneath the blanket.
"Why not?" Jerry asked, his throat having gone slightly dry from what he had just heard.
"He was too attached to his work to do it," Jack admitted, sounding confused himself. "He was after a promotion since Mum was struggling to make ends meet and they refused to take a loan from my Grandfather," he said and then he threw his hands up slightly. "It just didn't make sense," he said quietly, more to himself this time.
"You said it was around the time the Zombie stuff started?" Milton asked, getting him to carry on.
"Yeah." Jack nodded. "My Dad worked at an energy firm in Texas, where the Zombies were unintentionally created, and everybody blamed my Dad for it," he explained, gritting his teeth again. It seemed like he had kept all this bottled up for so long that he couldn't stop talking about it. "Mum and I think he was killed out of spite by a bunch of idiots who didn't know what they were talking about," he hissed, spitting angrily on the floor.
"So what happened?" Rudy asked, looking briefly at where Jack had spat.
Jack took a breath to calm himself down. "An experiment in trying to create a special type of renewable fuel went wrong and the firm exploded," he told them. "It was near a morgue and the compound somehow regenerated the corpses and then they went on to make more and more of themselves," he said with a shudder, as if he had actually witnessed it. Although given what he was talking about, Jerry wouldn't be surprised if he had.
"A cure was created, I think," he said, his face contorting slightly in confusion. "But it was destroyed along with the morgue after they tried to set it on fire and get rid of the Zombie's," he said, although he didn't seem to believe it. "No-one knows the ingredients and the Sherrif at the time decided it would be too dangerous to try and re-create it, in case they made a mutation of a mutation that could potentially wipe out humanity faster than the Zombie's are already trying," he got out nervously.
"Would your Grandfather know anything?" Rudy asked.
"I don't know, I haven't spoken to him for a year now," he explained, swallowing hard. "I don't even know if he's alive," he said sadly, blinking quickly once more and wiping under his eyes, even though nothing was there.
"I'm starving," he mumbled to himself, laying back on the sofa, breathing out.
Kim bit the inside of her cheek, before her eyes lit up and she "Here," she said, holding out a handful of gummy bears.
Jack let her drop them onto his hand with a bemused smile, picking some fluff off, and tipped them into his mouth. Almost as soon as the gummy bears hit his tongue, his face screwed up in disgust and he started coughing violently.
"Woah," Milton exclaimed in surprise, backing away a little as Jack spat the gummy bears onto his hand, breathing shallowly, as if he was going to throw up again. Luckily he didn't.
Jerry looked at him worriedly. "Jack, you-"
"Seems like I can't keep anything down," he said in confusion, flicking the gummy bears off his hand, wiping it on the blanket.
Jerry's eyes then widened in shock and he looked at Jack. "Then that means..." he couldn't get the words out, they got stuck in his throat.
"The final stage is next," Jack finished for him, briefly burying his face in his hand. He couldn't give up, not now. Nobody was going to let him.
Rudy swallowed, shaking his head. "No, we're not going to bury you any time soon," he said in a rush. "Do you still have your Grandfather's number?" he asked hopefully.
"Yeah," Jack nodded. "But he never answers when I call, so..." he trailed off and went quiet.
"I need to sleep," he said, quickly shifting the attention from what he had just said and leaving no room for discussion as his mouth opened in a large yawn. He laid down on the sofa, adjusting the pillows so he'd be more comfortable.
"I'll keep watch," Rudy said as Jack's eyes closed. "We'll figure out a plan in the morning." He was yawning himself as he went to his office to get a chair.
Jerry got off the sofa, smiling at how Jack immediately stretched his legs out, and splayed himself across the floor, getting a piece of paper and a pen out of his pocket. He had kept it in case he needed to write something important, and this was definitely important and would give him an outlet without him needing to cry and send everyone into a state of worry.
"Jerry?" Kim said, looking at him in confusion. He stopped writing for a split second and looked at her. "What are you doing?" she asked lightly.
"Getting rid of my fears," he responded cryptically.
"Huh?" Kim's eyebrows raised and Jerry rolled his eyes.
"I'm writing down exactly what I'd feel if Jack died and what I feel about him," he explained, simultaneously shielding his writing with his arm. No-one could know what he'd put there. Not even Jack if he made it out of this alive.
"That sounds like something we should all do," Kim said in a low voice, glancing briefly over at a soundly sleeping Jack.
Silently, Rudy, Kim and Milton tiptoed into Rudy's office and shortly after, came out each holding a piece of paper and a pen. They spread themselves out along the floor and began to write, briefly pausing to look nervously at Jack. Jerry couldn't even glance out of the corner of his eye; he didn't want the visions that came with it.
Instead he pressed the pen back to his paper, and found he couldn't stop writing; he couldn't stop pouring his heart out about how much he loved Jack Brewer, or how big the void in his heart would be if he wasn't around anymore.