Maj
Your Majjiesty
October 18th, 2018
Approx 7:30pm
Suburbia
The fire crackled in the hearth, slow and steady like a heartbeat. The heat of the flames filled the small suburban home with light and warmth. The walls were enough to help shelter the pair from the winds, but Andy had never realized how reliant she had become on central heat and air. Even her own lodge had a wood stove to heat the residence if the generator failed. Despite still being early in the day, the house was dark and damp feeling, the blizzard blocking out most of the sunlight that tried to filter in through the cracks in the boarded up windows.
Andrea Jordan sat cross legged on the floor, dirty and bloodied. Her face was a smear of muck and grime, with tear tracks that ran down her cheeks and over her chin. Her button nose was red and sniffly, cheeks chapped and rosy from the cold. Emerald eyes stared at the dancing flames, she watched as the lapped at the sides of the broken down furniture, cracking the furnished leg of a coffee table. She didn’t want to think about what sort of terrible chemicals were in the air from all the paint they had just burned, all that mattered now was that there was a moment of quiet in the warmth.
“You bully your way into sharing a bedroom with me, but you are too good to cuddle for warmth?” Andy asked the silhouette by the window. Luca had busied himself with checking the barricades for what felt like the millionth time. This moment of peace felt almost too good to be true. Narrowly escaping death had put them both on edge, Luca more so.
“I’m uninterested in your bullshit right now.” The man growled back as he finished pushing a worn sofa chair against the front door.
“I’m serious,” Andy called again. “Would you get your ass over here before we both freeze to death?” She moved her arm as if to open the blanket and make room for him to join her. While cuddling wasn’t her style, not getting hypothermia definitely was.
Smoke escaped his nostrils as he flicked his cigarette butt into the fireplace. It was silent for the first time in what seemed like hours. There weren’t many occasions that Luca was caught without a way out. Without Andy, chances were that he would have been dead hours earlier. The man raised a hand to wipe the back of his palm against his forehead. There was a large gash on the side of his head, which had since clotted over. The area where he had been slashed was devout of hair, not that Luca had seen. Part of his face was bruised; his left cheek was swollen up and cut. His left arm was completely cut up by glass, but he was still able to use it. Luca, too, felt the coldness provided by the blizzard. His adrenaline had kept him operating at a minimal capacity up until now. Succumbing to the girl’s request, the man made his way over to her. He took a seat on the ground with a slight groan, pushing himself under the blanket and wrapping it completely around himself. Luca’s right arm, the one closest to Andy, had been wrapped around her back. He could feel her body convulse against him from the cold, shivering as every molecule in her vibrated, trying to get warm. Light hues were fixated on the fire ahead of him as he recounted the events that had transpired up until that moment.
October 18th, 2018
11:00 am
Hwy 225
“Run, now! GO!”
Andy had started running before she felt his familiar tug on her coat. It was something she had promised herself long before deciding to guilt Luca into helping her find Owen. Luca was her best chance of survival and while they were on this trip, she listened without question. A loyal little soldier.
Still, things had gotten so bad so quickly. If she hadn’t hesitated, she could have taken out that zombie silently with her bow and saved Luca the trouble. But she doubted herself. It wasn’t a super clear shot and the reality of accidentally shooting Luca wasn’t something she was willing to live with.
A quick glance over her shoulder told the girl all she needed to know. The undead were coming out of every hidden crevice at the sound of Luca’s voice. They crawled out from under cars, from the ditches, falling into line behind the others all in pursuit of the fresh meat that had made its way to the highway. It was a cacophony of groans and cries as the heard trudged after them. They weren’t especially fast, Andy realized and with a few well placed turns they would soon be out of the range of danger.
She could feel her heart in her chest, her breath filling her lungs as her long legs propelled her forward. The cold air burned her lugs as her body sucked in large amounts of air. Andy reached for Luca’s hand to help guide him, but her hand grasped at nothing but air. While the red head track star might have no issues out running the monsters, smoker lung mcgee over there had absolutely no chance of staying ahead of them for long.
The girl slowed her pace to keep time with him, grabbing his wrist and turning down the nearest exit she could find. The highway was a danger zone, and the faster they could get out of the open the better. Andy felt like she basically dragging Luca along. There were few that were as fast as her, but she could feel him tiring out quickly. She recognized the cityscape that they were quickly approaching. Andy had spent many nights after school partying in these same clubs that lined the congested city areas in the town.
The sounds of their thudding footsteps only drew out more of the walkers from the bowels of the town. They seemed to come out of alleyways and store fronts alike, with one singular goal in mind. Andy couldn’t let that happen. Again, the girl pulled her male companion down an alley, it was dark and secluded, just as she had remembered it being. The long ladder of a fire escape was only a few feet in front of them. The thing was rusted, ruby red paint flaking off from the age and dilapidation of the structure. There wasn’t time to worry about the way the thing waved in the wind. It held her weight fine the last time she had been here.
Luca looked at the fire escape. He raised an eyebrow as he turned back to look at Andy.
“Up,” She growled, shoving Luca toward the metal ladder. There wasn’t much time, and the girl had a feeling she was likely the better climber of the two of them too. She could hear the chorus of groans growing louder behind them. Monsters that had been smart enough to follow them from the highway were hot on their trail. Another few corpses appeared from behind the pile of large trash bags lining the other side of the alley. He looked like he had been homeless before he died, scraggly and smelly. The man had ripped pants that were unbuttoned, layered tattered sweatshirts covered his torso as he trudged toward them.
Without another moment to waste the man hopped up onto the ladder. He hoisted himself up quickly, ascending the metal before finally pulling himself up onto the first level of the fire escape. The man quickly moved to the ledge and lifted his gun up. Luca lined the aim up with the homeless looking zombie and pulled the trigger, hitting him in the forehead. His body dropped, but Luca continued firing as Andy moved past him and continued making her way up. He would slowly follow, shooting at the crowd of reanimated humans below them. Even though he was putting down multiple zombies with his rifle, they seemed to accumulate at a much quicker rate.
“Did you used to pay your lackeys to think for you too?” Andy hissed at Luca. There was no reason to be shooting the zombies, as far as she could tell the things couldn’t climb and all he was doing was wasting precious ammo. The girl rolled her eyes before pushing the gun down. They didn’t have time for him to sit here and take them out one by one. Andy climbed to the final platform of the grated fire escape, a sliding glass door into the building was exactly where she knew it would be.
“Spent far more time paying them to kill people who talk too much.” The man retorted as he dropped his gun and followed her lead.
The last time she had been up here was because she had way too many shots and some guy with a nice smile and convinced her to step out of the back of the club with him. But that was neither here nor there, the important part was that she knew that this door was always unlocked. The thing slid open without any resistance and Andy poked her head inside.
As far as she could tell in the darkness of the employee lounge, there was no immediate threat. Andy gestured to Luca to follow her inside. It was hard to see, her bow wouldn’t do her much good here. Andy reached down to her boot where she had fastened her hunting knife and drew it, walking slowing into the darkness. She paused in the doorway, reaching into the bag she had slung over her shoulder. It didn’t take long for her to find what she needed. The cylindrical shape of the her flashlight was easy to find, the girl fumbled with it until she got it to turn on. The thing had always been a little temperamental.
“Huh.” Luca placed both hands on his hips, gathering his breath for a moment as he looked around. “Is this where you used to dance, Andrea?” Eyes moved from his surroundings back to the female as a smirk crossed his visage.
“Why? Were you hoping for a dance?” Andy rolled her eyes in the dark of the room. “You couldn’t afford me, capiche?”
The man opened his mouth wide, hunched over, and let out a single exaggerated “HAH” in response. Andy kept moving, keeping her eyes forward as she used the light to search for any signs of danger. The place looked locked up, and it was likely safe. The outbreak happened during the early daylight hours so the club wouldn’t have been opened yet, so the likelihood of people was slim. When it came right down to it, Andy didn’t trust anything. It was better to be paranoid and alive, than over confident and dead.
“We need to find another car now that we are off the highway. We are still a ways off from Moe’s and I don’t know about you, but I would feel safer with a way to get through the streets without having to be out in the open.” The girl looked back at her companion with her own devious half smirk. “Plus I can’t have Mr. Pack-a-day slowing me down if we have to run for it.”
“I’m surprised your legs don’t get tired with the amount you run your mouth.”
October 18th, 2018
Approx. 7:30pm
Suburbia
“Your clothes are soaked,” Andy growled as the two huddled together in front of the fire. She had long striped herself of her jacket and jeans, leaving the girl in nothing but a thin tank top and her boy short underwear. Any survivalist worth her salt knew that wet clothes were your worst enemy and that getting dry was the key to keeping alive. The garments were laid on on the floor in front of her, letting the fire evaporate the sleet and snow from their fabric. “I didn’t save your ass just to let you freeze to death.” She winced as she moved to help him out of his shirt. There was still plenty of glass in her shoulder. Andy could feel every little shard digging it’s way further and further in as she moved around, but he was hurt worse. Andy knew he was prideful, and being cuddled up half naked was not Luca’s style.
The man plopped his wet shirt down onto the floor a few feet away from the fire. Then his hands moved down to remove his pants and toss them beside it. After he had finished taking off his wet clothes, Luca wondered if he was better off. The only two options were to be cold with wet clothes or colder without them. He crossed his legs and rested his chin on his left palm. The elbow belonging to the same arm had been pressed down against his knee as those light hues looked into the fire.
“This is probably the worst week ever.”
Andy snorted in what could have been mistaken as a laugh. He wasn’t wrong. In fact, it was likely the worst day she had ever had. Everything hurt either from the cold or the various cuts and bruises covering her body. They weren’t any closer to finding Owen, and now she was faced with the very real possibility of surviving all the bullshit just to be found frozen to Luca Brasi.
“Hey, at least I’m cute.” Instinctively, her body moved closer to his, seeking whatever forms of heat it could find.
