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I think Dave is secretly a little bit excited that two musicians think he’s cool and they maybe look up to him a little bit and that maybe hasn’t really happened to him a lot in his life.
- Arj Barker. On Air.
In the end it’s a mistake that is the final tip of the scale and throws the world into chaos. It isn’t because of a nuclear bomb, or global warming, or anything else that the news has been warning about for years. Someone at a chemical plant somewhere in Utah makes a mistake as they are rushing to leave for the day. It’s a mistake, an oversight, that allows chemicals to trickle from the plant. Somehow it goes unnoticed for days.
By the time someone does realize what is happening it is too late to stop the damage. Too late to stop it from spreading.
The government declares a state of emergency. No one and nothing are allowed to enter or leave the country. It’s a futile effort to somehow contain the contamination. Not that it matters in the long run. Water can’t be contained for very long and eventually the chemicals make their way to the ocean. They merge with the water cycle. They poison the air. The land. The people. Everything.
And there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.
i.
The first thing Dave realizes when he wakes up, before he even opens his eyes, is that it’s raining. It’s not a drizzle rain, but a rain that means business as it beats hard and steadily against the windowpane. He yawns as he scrubs a hand over his face, stretches, and blinks his eyes open to find his room still dark. Really dark. Darker than it should be. He furrows his brows before squinting over at the clock on the other side of the room.
Nine in the morning.
Dave groans as he tries to burrow deeper under his blankets and lets his body sink further down into the softness of the mattress. Rolling to his side, he lets the darkness of his room and the pounding of the rain lull him back to sleep.
When he wakes again it’s to the trill of the telephone and he finally moves to leave the comfort of his bed, tripping over the sheets that are tangled around his leg. Cursing, he stumbles around his room, feeling for the light switch. The sun is shining weakly through his makeshift curtains, but it’s not enough to be of much help and the room is pretty much awash in darkness. Idly, he wonders how late he’s slept as his fingers finally connect with the switch. By the time he’s managed to locate the phone that had somehow gotten buried under a pile of dirty laundry whoever it was has already hung up and the phone is silent in his hand. He sets the receiver back down in its cradle and prays that it wasn’t his parents calling to let him know they had arrived in India. He’ll never hear the end of it if he missed their call.
With another yawn he surveys his shambled room with a wary eye and wonders if he has anything clean to wear.
--&--
“Hello, David!” Murray breezes in cheerfully just as Dave is considering bashing his head against the countertop.
Instead he looks up in surprise. “Hey, Murray.” He pauses, waiting for the rest of the trio, but when the door remains closed he raises an eyebrow and inquires, “Where are Bret and Jemaine?”
Murray’s smile slides off of his face like butter from a knife. “Off with their girlfriends I suppose,” his voice is laced with bitterness. “That’s all they ever do now any way. Go off with them and do who knows what all day.”
Skeptically, Dave crosses his arms and shifts his weight to rest his hip against the counter. “Their girlfriends?” he repeats. “Really?”
“I’ve told them time and time again that girlfriends are not a good image for the band!” the older man shakes his head despondently with a sigh. “They just don’t listen.”
“Both of them? Even Jemaine?”
Murray’s eyebrows crease and he regards Dave carefully before saying very slowly, “Yes. Bret and Jemaine.” After a few more moments spent watching Dave silently he adds, “I think you might need to get your hearing checked.”
Dave, however, ignores him as he mulls over what it means for him now that both of his friends have girlfriends. He quickly comes to the conclusion that they probably won’t be stopping by the shop much anymore. It’s always bad enough when Bret gets a girlfriend and Jemaine spends all of his time following around after them like a stray dog. Dave always seems to fall to the wayside and out of the picture for a while as they go out on their freaky dates. There’s already a bubbling of disappointment coupled with a twinge of abandonment settling in the pit of his stomach.
In front of him Murray clears his throat a few times and shifts awkwardly and Dave is drawn out of his thoughts and returns to the pawn shop. He blinks at Murray, refocusing his attention, and asks, “What are you doing here by yourself then, Murray? Did you need something?”
“Well it’s my lunch break.” Murray states in a very matter-of-fact way, like it should be obvious.
Dave tilts his head to the side to consider him. “So?”
“We’ve always had our Band Meetings during my lunch break, but now they’re so eager to be with their girlfriends that they don’t even want to come to Band Meetings anymore.”
“Okay?”
“Well, I asked them which came first the girlfriends or the band.”
“And what did they say?” Dave interrupts him with a mock eagerness that he’s sure Murray doesn’t pick up. He leans forward to rest his forearms on the countertop.
“They chose their girlfriends. Obviously!” Murray’s voice is filled with exasperation and irritation though Dave’s not certain if it’s directed at him for interrupting or the Conchords. He continues, “So, here I am left without a band to manage during my scheduled band managing time!”
Dave eyes him with amusement but keeps a straight face. “Look, I don’t know what you think I do here, but I don’t sell bands, Murray. This is a pawn shop not some kind of Rent-A-Band shop.”
“I know that, David.” Murray scowls at him.
“So, what are you doing here then?” Dave repeats his earlier question with a raised eyebrow.
The older man glances around the shop briefly before his gaze comes back to rest on Dave. He’s fidgeting just a bit and Dave watches him patiently. “I was in the neighborhood,” he explains with a forced lightness, “and I just thought I’d stop by to see how you were doing.”
“Really?” Dave asks with a smirk, rocking back on his heels with his arms crossed over his chest. “That was so thoughtful of you, Murray.”
“No. Not really.” Murray sighs and his shoulders sag with the admission. His glance slides off of Dave and down to the countertop where he examines his fingernails. “Greg’s out sick today so I couldn’t eat lunch with him and I thought that if you weren’t busy maybe we could go get something? If you want too that is.” It all comes out in a big rush and he looks anxiously back up at Dave.
Dave is completely thrown off at this and he stares back at him with his mouth agape. “Wait, what?” he replies, struggling to get his thoughts back together. “You what?”
Murray’s expression shifts to one of concern. “I asked if you wanted to go get something to eat. I really think you ought to have your hearing checked.”
“You want to get lunch,” Dave frowns, confused, “with me?”
Crossing his arms defensively Murray scowls. “Look, I just thought...if you don’t want to just say so.”
The younger man straightens up almost instantly. “Wait. No.” The words fly out of his mouth on their own accord and Murray halts, halfway turned to walk back to the door.
Drawing out the words he tries to give his brain time to figure out what the fuck is going on. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to go.” He glances around his empty store and then he finally shrugs his shoulders. He’s been bored out of his mind for hours, and he can’t really think of an excuse to prevent him from going. “I mean...why the hell not right?” he asks. “It’s not like this place has seen much action today any way.”
“Really?” Murray turns back around and smiles, fucking beams, at him and Dave catches a small one of his own tugging at the corners of his lips.
“Just give me a minute to close up,” he tells the New Zealander and leaves him to poke around at all of the clutter in the front as he heads to the storeroom to grab his things.
“We have been assured by the Ronald Johnson, the head of the safety department for the Utah Chemical Plant, that they are handling it promptly and there is no need for any immediate alarm.”
The midday news greets him from the small television he has set up on the table as he walks through the door to the back, but he ignores it as he reaches for his jacket and begins to stuff his wallet and keys in the pockets.
“Do they know what happened yet, Tracy?”
“Not to my knowledge, Tom, but we will be here with the answers as they are given so make sure you check back with us.”
From the other room comes a crash and Dave rolls his eyes, switches off the television and heads back to the front to do some damage control.
Murray gives him a sheepish shrug when he reemerges. “It was like that when I came over here,” he proclaims, stepping away from the shelf and towards the door.
“Sure it was, Murray,” Dave agrees with a weary sigh as he holds the front door open and ushers the other man through it. With one last scan around the inside Dave shuts and locks the door behind him.
Together they set off in the fall air of New York towards the small cafe a few blocks away. Dave doesn’t really know what to talk about with Murray as they walk so he lets him babble on and on about this and that and the fall seasons he spent in New Zealand and the useless trivia facts about the locations they happen to be passing. Dave nods his head and makes the appropriate noises in the appropriate places to show that he’s pretending to pay attention.
The longer they walk on, however, the more he finds he’s struggling to listen to what the other man is saying. Some time between Murray talking about the Toothbrush Fence and when he starts talking about how his ex-wife is keeping Toby from him for some reason Dave doesn’t really follow he starts to get this weird feeling that something is a little bit off. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but as he splashes through puddles, only to receive Murray’s disapproving frown, and sidesteps trash there’s this prickly feeling all along the back of his neck. It’s the kind of feeling he gets when he’s being watched and he swiftly turns his head to check over his shoulder.
There’s no one following or watching them. Everyone is going about their business as quickly as possible to get out of the cold and completely ignoring them. It does nothing to alleviate his unease. Exhaling deeply, he rolls his shoulders and tries to shrug it all away, tries to focus on what Murray is saying instead.
“So, I looked that sheep right in the eyes and I said - ”
“Murray.” He can’t take it anymore and stops suddenly. Murray stumbles as Dave’s hand darts out to snag his elbow. “Do you feel that?” he almost whispers, scanning the partially empty street. The hair on the back of his arms and neck are beginning to stand up and he shivers.
Murray stands motionless beside him for a moment. He bends his head forward just slightly as if this will help him figure out what Dave is talking about before turning to stare at him in confusion. “What? What am I supposed to be feeling?”
Hesitating with his reply, Dave gaze darts all around them. The small street is barren of cars and there are only a few people braving the chilly air that the rain has left behind. Everything is silent and he shivers again. “Doesn’t something feel...off to you?”
Shaking his head, Murray tells him, “The only thing that feels off is my stomach, David. Now come on. It’s just up here.” He takes him by the arm and tugs him the rest of the way to the cafe.
Inside bustles with people talking and going about their business as if nothing is wrong but Dave can’t help worrying his lower lip as Murray pulls the door open and gently pushes him inside. The tinkling of the little bell and the clatter of dishes distracts him when he enters. The scent of coffee and sandwiches reach his nose and his stomach starts complaining loudly. After ordering their food they find a spot to sit down at that is against the wall, out of the way, and and towards the back.
“See?” Murray says, placing his plate down carefully on the table, “Everything is fine.”
Dave just shrugs and leans back in his chair. “I know,” he says stiffly. Under the bright lights of the cafe and in the warmth of the building he’s beginning to feel somewhat foolish. “I was just trying to scare you. It’s almost Halloween, Murray. That’s what people do this time of year.”
The other man frowns at him in mid-bite. “Well, you didn’t do a very good job now did you? I didn’t even know what you were on about.”
With a pained expression Dave picks at the plastic on his soda bottle with his fingernail but doesn’t reply. From his seat he can look over Murray’s shoulder and out of the window to the street. The clouds are hanging ominously low in the sky and he forces himself to tear his attention away and play with the food in front of him.
Eventually, he begins to relax and, surprisingly, even to enjoy himself. He and Murray part ways a few hours later and when he gets home his apartment is an eerily silent and unwelcoming change.
--&--
As they walk beneath the trees and pass by the empty park benches Dave begins to get the same tingling feeling all along the back of his neck and his stomach drops because what the fuck is wrong with him these days? Anyone else would be thinking about how peaceful it is to be the only ones in the entire park with the cool breeze pushing fallen leaves up against their ankles, and the crunch of gravel beneath their feet echoing around them, but he can’t help but feel unsettled.
Looking at his surroundings he can’t seem to find anything out of the ordinary. Everything seems perfectly normal. The sun is trying its best to peek out from behind the relentless storm clouds. Rain is dripping down on his head from where it has collected in pools on the leaves. The air smells like dirt and plants and rotting wood. Everything seems ordinary. Except for one thing.
“It’s Saturday, isn’t it?” Dave asks suddenly and beside him Murray nods. Dave’s mouth twists in thought. “Shouldn’t there be people here? Where are all the kids on their skateboards and families having picnics or whatever it is they do?”
“It’s been quite rainy, David,” Murray tells him, “no one wants to be outside in weather like this.”
But he still can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong and as they traipse across an open field he says nonchalantly, careful not to look at Murray, “Are you sure nothing feels off to you?” His voice sounds out of place in the stillness enclosing them.
“This again? Is this like the other day?” Murray responds, suspiciously giving Dave a slanted look with his nose scrunching up. “Are you trying to scare me again? This is the whole ‘Halloween thing’ is it?”
Dave reaches up and scratches distractedly at the back of his neck. “No, seriously, Murray,” he says, glancing around. “Something’s wrong.”
“What specifically? I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“If I knew specifically I wouldn’t have said something,” Dave shoots back. “There’s just,” he struggles to find the words without looking completely stupid and wimpy, “there’s just something in the air, alright? Something different about the rain or I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right, does it?” He’s irritated that he’s the only one who seems to be bothered by this unknown threat. Irritated that Murray can’t feel it, and that he’s making himself look like a fucking moron by trying to explain something he’s not even positive is really there.
Murray stops, pulling Dave to a stop as well with a hand reaching out to grasp his wrist. “Are you okay, David? You’re not running a fever or anything are you?”
“No, Murray.” Dave shakes free of his grip and crosses his arms against his chest, hugging himself tightly. “I’m not. I’m fine.”
“Good,” Murray nods, “because if you were I’d be rather upset with you for letting me drag you out in this weather.”
“How sweet of you to care,” Dave answers him sarcastically. “Just forget I said anything, okay? It was stupid.” There is water soaking into his shoes from the wet grass they’re standing on and he frowns down at his feet. “Can we just get out of here?” he demands a little bit harsher than he had intended.
Hurt flashes across Murray’s face for a brief second but Dave pretends he doesn’t see it as he takes off. The other man hastens to keep up with his stride and they rush along in a tense silence. Dave keeps his chin tucked down to his chest and his shoulders hunched, and avoids making any kind of eye contact with the New Zealander. The rain is picking up again and all he wants to do is get home as quickly as possible.
“This is my stop,” he announces as they reach the door to the pawn shop. Fishing his keys out of his back pocket, he hesitates with the right one stuck in the lock. “Look, Murray - ” he starts but Murray cuts him off.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” When Dave looks up at him and catches his gaze he looks so genuinely worried that Dave is slightly touched.
Reaching up to clap the other man on the shoulder he gives him a small, fake, half smile all the while reassuring him, “I’m fine. Really. You better get back to work doing whatever the hell it is you do.”
“Yeah,” Murray looks doubtful as he agrees but Dave is already slipping through the door and closing it behind him with a push.
Inside, he breaths a sigh of relief and rests his back against the door. His face feels flushed and his heart is racing in his chest though he’s not sure why. His stomach is churning over and over and he feels ridiculous. Turning around, he places his forearm against the shop window and watches Murray walk away with his head bent forward to keep the rain off of his face. With a sigh and a shake of his head he pushes himself away from the entrance and reaches behind him to flip the closed sign back to open.
--&--
It’s weird at first. Dave’s not really used to being around the other man all that often. They’ve never really spent any time becoming friends. They’ve always just been kind of acquaintance-friends by default because of Bret and Jemaine and he’s never had to deal with Murray one on one this frequently before. He’s not used to having attention focused solely on him because when he’s with Bret and Jemaine they’re both there. It’s always easy with them. They’re too wrapped up in one another to pay much attention to him and all his has to do is slip in an occasional cool, witty saying in order to earn their respect and keep their friendship.
But now Murray’s visiting by himself. There isn’t that one other person buffer to take the focus off of Dave, and Murray’s not as easily impressed as the other two seem to be. He’s never exactly been taken in by the stupid things that Dave says to dazzle them. In fact, Dave’s pretty sure the other man’s eyes are constantly rolling whenever he so much as opens his mouth. To be honest, that’s part of the reason Dave doesn’t spend time with him, because he actually listens to him when he speaks.
Murray’s dangerous, uncharted waters and he has to move through them cautiously because he’s worried if he says too much, or speaks too freely Murray will realize that he’s kind of a fraud and ruin everything he has going for him.
So they slog to lunch in the rain a few more times, but Dave still gets that same jittery feeling each time he steps outside and soon they’re taking turns fixing each other lunch and spreading it out on the floor of the pawn shop instead. To save face he makes up some excuse for Murray about how he doesn’t want to spend money buying lunch every day that the New Zealander happily accepts, or happily pretends to accept.
They talk about how awful the weather is, and about the weird reports of the accident in Utah that happened a few days before Dave’s parents left. Murray talks quietly about how he misses New Zealand and Dave doesn’t talk about how he misses his parents. Instead he keeps things light and teases Murray about his accent.
And it’s good. It’s easy and safe and Dave doesn’t mind the company as much as he thought he would because Murray makes him laugh and makes him forget about the empty apartment waiting for him upstairs.
One day, Murray comes into the shop with a paper grocery bag and a secretive twinkle in his eyes and Dave is instantly on his guard. He doesn’t say anything just lets Murray set the bag on the counter and look at him with growing impatience.
“Well?” he demands finally and Dave glances up from his book.
“Well what?”
Murray sighs heavily in exasperation. “Aren’t you going to ask me what’s in the bag?”
Dave carefully closes the book that he wasn’t really reading to begin with and asks, “Oh, did you want me to?”
“Yes!”
“What’s in the bag, Murray?” Dave’s lips quirk up and he gets off of his stool to go over and investigate.
Murray reaches into the bag and slowly pulls out a big pumpkin and sets it gingerly on the counter. He reaches in again and pulls out another. “See?” He gestures at them with elation.
Dave raises his eyebrows and rests his arms on the sliver of space left on the counter. “Pumpkins?” he asks incredulously. “For what?”
“For carving!” Murray folds up the bag and places it on the floor next to his umbrella. “They were the last two in the store. Can you believe it?”
He bends down to study the pumpkins critically for a moment. They’re lopsided and kind of misshapen, but Murray is obviously delighted. “No,” Dave finally replies, standing back and shaking his head in amusement. “No. I really can’t believe that.” With another shake of his head he makes for the back to get some old newspapers and yells over his shoulder, “You got yourself quite the steal there, Murray.”
Outside the rain continues to pelt steadily against the windowpanes, but inside is warm and smells like fresh pumpkin. They sit side by side on the pile of newspapers that Dave spreads around the floor in the middle of the shop and start to fill garbage bags with pumpkin guts and pieces.
Murray gets pulp all over his face and in his hair within minutes, and he almost cuts himself twice with the knife but he’s beaming and working diligently to carve intricately on his pumpkin. Dave watches him from the corner of his eye as he gathers up the seeds from his own.
“I hear that there are a whole bunch of people getting sick from that accident.” Murray says suddenly, breaking the happy silence and Dave looks up from his pumpkin. “People who work in the plant and their families.”
Dave makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat, and examines his knife when he replies, “That’s too bad. They should have been more careful.”
“Yes,” Murray sounds distant and he’s stopped carving, “but accidents happen.”
“How long ago was that anyway?” Dave asks and Murray looks over at him.
“There were mentions about it in the news before we started having lunch together so maybe three or four weeks ago? Don’t you watch the news, David? They’ve been talking about it now every night. A chemical spill like this is a big deal.”
Dave shakes his head in the negative. “I don’t have time for shit like that, Murray,” he tells him. “There are plenty of other things I could be watching. Things of the more naked variety.” Pausing he adds for elaboration, “Chicks.” The remark comes out of his mouth out of habit and he immediately wishes he could take it back.
Murray makes a slightly disgusted face and rolls his eyes. “Of course that’s what’s more important to you.”
“Besides,” he says lightly, feeling himself flush, and he ducks his head to inspect the design he’s worked into the front of his pumpkin, “It’s in Utah. That’s like forever the fuck away from here. They’ll get it cleaned up long before it gets out of hand. It doesn’t really affect me.” He can feel disappointment radiating from Murray but the other man doesn’t push it any further.
“What did you carve?” he questions instead and Dave twists his pumpkin to face him. Murray blinks at it, brows furrowing, and then squints. “What is it?”
Dave turns it back so he can look at it again before proclaiming with a small smile, “Boobs!”
“Oh, honestly, David!” Murray forcefully exclaims. “Is that all you ever think about?”
Cradling his work protectively to his chest to hide it from Murray’s view he insists, “It’s funny,” but Murray just shakes his head. “What did you carve then? he demands, putting his aside to reach over and grab Murray’s.
“The Toothbrush Fence!”
Dave’s mouth twists to the side in disbelief. “I don’t know, Murray,” he says slowly. “It just looks like a bunch of lines to me.”
Murray scowls at him. “Well, it isn’t. It’s the Toothbrush Fence.
With a shrug, Dave hands it back and gets to his feet. Wiping some of the leftover pumpkin strings on his jeans away he looks down at Murray and smiles. “Wanna go get some candles and turn these babies into full, functionable jack-o-lanterns?”
“Functionable? I don’t...I don’t think that’s a word.” With a frown Murray holds his pumpkin carefully and climbs to his feet. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t one.”
“Sure it is.” Dave’s hands go to his hip. He had realized his mistake as soon as the word was out of his mouth, but he’s pretty sure that he can cover his tracks and come out of this without looking silly. “It means...it means functionable. It’s pretty self explanatory, Murray!”
The older man eyes him warily. “Functionable,” he says thoughtfully, “well, I guess I’ll have to start using it then.” He doesn’t seem fully convinced and he’s still looking at Dave with a mixture of apprehension and disappointment.
Dave nods seriously. “Yeah, see that you do.” He bends down to snatch up his pumpkin and avoid Murray’s eyes. Somewhere along the road the day had taken a turn for the worst and now Murray’s sizing him up and making him feel self conscious and overly aware of himself. “So, are we gonna go get those candles or what? I’m pretty sure we’ve got some upstairs.”
But Murray hesitates, glancing over at Dave and then back at the window. “I think I’d better go,” he decides instead, “before the rain gets any worse.
Dave feels his face fall and struggles to keep it from showing. “Oh,” he says trying not to let his dismay bleed into his voice, “okay. Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.” He sets his pumpkin down on the counter and listens to Murray shuffling about behind him before turning around and leaning backwards, resting his hands next to the pumpkin. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?” he asks lightly.
“David,” Murray turns to him with one hand on the door, giving him a solemn look, “try watching the news once in awhile. Okay? It’ll be good for you.” With that he’s walking through the door and leaving Dave with his mouth open to reply.
“That didn’t answer my question,” he sighs to an empty room, deflating as he looks at the mess on the ground.
--&--
And then, just as suddenly as he had disappeared, he’s back. He comes waltzing through the door and chirps in a voice just as happy as can be, “Hello, David!”
Dave’s head jerks up from where he’s been tossing a ball against the back wall and he stares at him, mood lifting incredibly just from the sound of his voice. Unfortunately, it quickly takes a dive when he sees Jemaine and Bret entering behind him and it all becomes clear because, really, who was he kidding thinking that Murray would still want to hang out with him once he had the Conchords back? He had always known somewhere deep down that it wouldn’t last.
“Hey, Murray. Jemaine. Bret. It’s been a while,” he says giving them all a nod as they come to stand before the counter. “Murray told me you got girlfriends, guys. They still around?”
Bret’s eyes are downcast as he shrugs with his hands stuffed partly into his pockets. “Not anymore. It wasn’t working out,” he informs him. “She said we had ‘conflicting interests’.”
Dave raises an eyebrow at this, but nods in what he hopes is a sympathetic, understanding kind of way. “Sure, sure,” he says with a wave of his hand, “that happens all the time with chicks. Don’t sweat it, man.” Shaking his head he looks over at Jemaine. “What about your girlfriend, Jemaine?”
The taller Conchord is slouched against the counter, but he straightens up as he’s addressed. “Oh, her?” Jemaine’s brows crumple and he shrugs in a casual way. “I dumped her a long time ago.”
“You mean she dumped you three days ago,” Bret pipes up. “Remember how she threw that glass of water at you and shouted about you guys being over?”
Jemaine shoots him a dark look. “Okay, yes. She dumped me, but I was going to. I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
Bret nods sagely. “Which is why you let her dump you.”
“Point is,” Murray cuts in, “that neither of them have girlfriends anymore and they no longer have an excuse to not come to Band Meetings! We’ve been hard at work. Haven’t we, guys?” He’s practically bouncing up and down but the Conchords just shrug.
“Not that hard. We haven’t had a gig yet have we, Murray?” Jemaine reveals.
“Well, that’s great that you’re back at work, guys.” Dave’s smile never lessens but his fingers tighten minutely on the countertop. “It’s too bad about your girlfriends, though, but you know what they say.”
All three of the New Zealanders look at him expectantly and when he does nothing more than to look steadily back at them with a blank expression Jemaine finally asks, “What? What do they say?”
Dave rolls his eyes and shrugs, palms face up. “Shit happens.”
Bret grimaces ever so slightly. “It’s not so bad about them really.”
Murray claps a hand on both of their shoulders and the guys flinch. “Not so bad indeed, Bret.” He beams, looking at each of them happily. “Not so bad indeed.”
Reaching up, Dave fiddles with the back of his bandana and rests his hands back on the counter while leaning forward to rest his weight on his arms. “So, I guess that’s that then? You’ve got your Band Meetings back and you guys can all go back to being one big, happy family.” His voice remains strong and light but he’s staring intently at Murray and the other man’s smile starts to slip.
“It, well, I mean,” his face flushes red and he can’t meet Dave’s eyes, “it’s not - ”
Jemaine moves forward then, cutting Murray off and positioning himself in front of the older man so that he has to take a step backwards and he lowers his eyes to the floor suddenly interested in the tops of his shoes.
“Not for very long. They’re saying it’s the end, you know,” Jemaine proceeds to tell him and Bret also moves in as he nods the affirmative.
Dave’s gaze slips from Murray back to the two standing in front of him. “The end of what?” he asks.
Jemaine leans in closer and whispers loudly, “Of the world.”
“People say the world is ending all the time,” Dave scoffs, mouth twisting sideways in a sneer, “what’s so different about this time?”
Bret also leans forward. Glancing back behind and all around him to make sure no one else could possibly be listening even though they’re the only ones in the store he explains, “This time it’s true!”
“Says who?”
“Murray,” Bret states solemnly as he points his thumb back over his shoulders to where their manager is pacing. “We heard it from Murray.”
“I see.” Dave places his elbows on the table and tilts his head conspiratorially in towards the other two. He quickly looks at Murray who is worrying his bottom lip and watching them all carefully and he whispers, “Who did he hear it from?”
Jemaine’s brows furrow in thought and he says slowly, “Jim. I think.”
Beside him Bret nods soberly. “Yeah. He heard it from Jim.”
“I did,” Murray cuts in, shouldering his way between them and meeting Dave’s eyes finally. “I heard it from Jim. He heard it from one of his friends and told me.”
Dave straightens up, rocking back on his heels and regards them all. “Well, this is serious,” he says letting out a breath in one big puff of air. “This is pretty damn serious. What do you think we should do?”
The three New Zealanders exchange looks. Bret shuffles his feet and stares down at his hands on the top of the counter while Murray coughs once and scratches his arm.
Eventually Jemaine clears his throat. “We were, uh, kind of hoping that you’d know what to do.”
Dave surveys them with a sigh. “Murray, where’s Jim now?”
Murray tilts his head in thought and says hesitantly, “I haven’t seen him. I think he went up to stay with his family.”
“Does he know what’s going to cause this alleged end of the world?”
This time Murray shoves his way forward even more and catches Dave’s eyes before he can look away. “He said it had something to do with the accident. Have you beet watching the news? They said it’s much worse than they originally thought,” he informs him.
Rolling his eyes Dave makes an exasperated noise. “That again? It happened in fucking Utah, Murray! Utah. There’s no way it’s going to bring on the end of the world. Plus, it was like a month ago. Wouldn’t we know by now if it was something that was that serious?”
Murray gives him a grave look. “Not necessarily! Chemicals are tricky things. Did you ever take Chemistry in school?” When Dave shakes his head Murray continues, “Well I did. Almost blew up the entire school. They’re tricky, David.”
“You know what I think, guys?” Dave asks them and they all shake their heads. “I think that Jim is playing some kind of elaborate Halloween joke on you and you all fell for it and that’s all.”
“Why would he do that?” Bret asks, puzzled, mouth turning down. “That’s not a very nice thing to do.”
“Well, Jim’s kind of a dick.” Jemaine chimes in and Bret elbows him in the ribs.
“Don’t you guys have Halloween in the Netherlands or wherever the fuck you guys are from?”
“This is different, David!” Murray practically shouts and immediately blushes. Lowering his voice a notch he hisses, “This isn’t some kind of practical joke. Just look at all the rain we’ve been having lately. Don’t you remember how uncomfortable it made you to go outside? Isn’t that just a little bit odd?”
Dave stares at him with a stony expression. “It didn’t make me uncomfortable, Murray. I just,” he stops and turns his scowl on Bret and Jemaine who have been watching this exchange curiously and they swiftly avert their eyes. There’s a knot twisting in his stomach that tells him Murray might be on to something, but he resolutely ignores it. “Look,” he starts again after taking a deep breath to calm down, “the world is not going to end. Stop worrying. It was just a joke.”
Murray’s face is skeptical and he narrows his eyes, but the other two seem relieved and Dave forces himself to smile lightly at them.
ii.
The rain stops the day the earth begins to shake. It’s subtle at first. In fact, for the first few days Dave barely notices it. He’s just glad the fucking rain is gone.
But then, one day, he starts awake as his bed rattles and shakes violently and he clutches the sheets so tight his knuckles turn white as he tries to clear his sleep-addled brain enough to figure out what the hell is going on in his apartment. Just as suddenly as it started, however, it subsides to a slow rumbling that, if he’s really still, he can still feel emanating from somewhere within the earth below him.
He waits a few minutes, heart pounding wildly in his chest, before slowly loosening his grip and willing his body to relax. When he gets himself out of bed he discovers that the power in his apartment is out and he wraps his shaking arms tightly around himself. He can feel the tremors in the ground, the floor shaking ever so slightly beneath his feet, and he suddenly finds himself wishing his parents were home with a pang in his chest. He spends the rest of the day curled up in their bed with their blue and yellow blankets wrapped around him like a cocoon and the blinds pulled up to let in what little sunlight is able to break through the thick clouds.
The power eventually comes back on, but it’s in flickers that short out after only a few brief seconds. He is able, thankfully, to find snatches on T.V. of panicked news anchors and public addresses trying to explain what is going on, though he can never make out a definitive answer through the static and he has to piece the information he gathers together himself. It’s about that damn chemical spill that he really should have been paying more attention to in hindsight. Something about how it has gotten completely out of control. How the chemicals have spread to the water, the air, the soil. They’ve started destroying the land all around Utah and moving to the surrounding states. They’ve somehow shifted the weather patterns.
But the main tidbit of information he clings to, the part that has the anchors white-faced and trembling, is the reports of the workers recently turning violent, biting people, lashing out and spreading whatever it was they had come in contact with at the plant to their families and their friends who in turn become just as violent.
The managers of the plant had thought it was all under control until, without any warning, it wasn’t anymore.
As he watches attentively a newswoman’s grim face breaks through the static for one precious moment and informs all of the viewers that the problem is being worked on and that they should remain indoors as much as possible. She doesn’t look very convinced, and her face is ashen as the television goes blank and he loses power again.
It’s like something straight from a bad horror movie and Dave refuses to believe that the world is actually going to end with zombies and fucked up weather from some stupid chemical spill. He curses, loudly, because Murray was actually right, because the whole situation is absolutely ridiculous and because he doesn’t really know how else to react.
--&--
Every day he drags himself to the shop for a change of scenery even though no one needs much from a pawn shop. The guitars and laptops sit untouched on the shelves but going there helps to restore a sense of normalcy. It comforts him to do something so routine and familiar. He doesn’t hear from Murray or Bret and Jemaine, and he senselessly fills his days with reorganizing the storeroom just for something to keep his mind off of how worried he is about all of them. They’re part of the reason he continues to go there at all. He keeps hoping deep down inside that they’ll come barging in.
Every night once it gets too dark to see in the storeroom, he treks back upstairs to his apartment and tries to call his parents but the line is always dead so he just sits on the floor by the window and stares up at the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the moon and feeling the Earth moving beneath him. The earthquakes only get stronger as the days go by, but if he closes his eyes he can lie back on the floor and pretend he’s on some kind of ride at the amusement parks his parents used to take him to as a kid. One of the ones where the seats vibrate and move about with the movie on the screen.
He falls asleep every night with his heart in his throat and dread in his gut.
--&--
“David.” Murray greets him with a somber nod and Dave echoes it with one of his own. “We didn’t know where else to go.”
“Okay,” he says. He’s never been more glad to see them, and all he wants to do is gather them up in a big group hug and tell them how relieved he is that they aren’t dead and how worried he had been when the didn’t hear from any of them. Instead, he steps back without another word and holds the door open so they can all file in silently. “The kitchen is this way. You guys can unload your stuff there.” He gestures for them to follow and they head to his cramped kitchen. They walk behind him silently and set the boxes on the table.
Once the food has been properly put away in the pantry they all congregate back in the living room. Outside the wind has started to pick up, sending branches scraping against the windowpanes, and causing shadows to dance along the wall. Dave crosses his arms and surveys them all quietly.
“You guys can share my roommates’ room,” he tells Bret and Jemaine eventually. “They’re out of town, and I guess we’re all going to need a place to sleep.” He points towards the door leading to his parents’ room and hands them a flashlight. The musicians gather up what is left of their stuff and start to make their way over already bickering about who gets the bed.
“And we can share my room,” Dave says to Murray as he leads him in the opposite direction across the apartment. “You can have the bed, or we can take turns. Whatever.” He opens the door and heads inside expecting Murray to follow. “This is it,” he announces with a grand flourish of his arms that sends the beam of his flashlight bouncing around. He kicks some of the mess under his bed as he walks in. “I wasn’t really expecting company,” he explains, scratching at the back of his head with a shrug. As an afterthought he adds, “Or, you know, the end of the world.”
But Murray isn’t paying attention and from behind him he asks, “What’s this?”
Dave turns around just in time to see him shine his light on a book by the side of the bed and start to bend down to pick it up. “No!” He reaches the other man in less than two strides and snatches the book away. Pressing the cover tightly to his chest he growls, “Don’t touch that,” with his heart hammering away beneath his ribs. “You can’t just go around picking up other people’s things, Murray. It’s rude.” However, Murray is peering at the part of the book that isn’t hidden by his arms and Dave moves them down just a bit trying to cover up more.
“Is that a map of New Zealand on the back of it?”
Dave huffs out a laugh. “What? No. Of course not. Like I would own a book about New Zealand.” His face feels hot and he refuses to meet Murray’s eyes as he busies himself with picking up some dirty clothes and shoving both them and the offending book into his dresser. “I don’t even know anyone from New Zealand.”
Murray watches him patiently, and Dave kind of hates him for not being as easy as Bret and Jemaine. “Yes, you do. Why do you have a book on New Zealand, David?”
Squaring his jaw and bracing himself Dave turns around. “I don’t know,” he replies. “I don’t know where it came from.”
The older man’s expression doesn’t waver but his eyes show his disappointment, whether or not it’s because Dave is lying to him or whether or not it’s because he believes the lie, Dave doesn’t know. He suspects it’s the former. Murray might not be the most observant at times, but people don’t give him nearly enough credit for all of the things he does see.
“I see you still have that poster I gave you.” Murray thankfully changes the subject and points his light towards the one on the wall over the back of the bed. “I’m glad I found it in my collection. Hopefully it’s doing it’s job of inspiring you. I knew you’d like it.”
Dave shoots him a weak smile, face flushing even more, shoves his free hand into his pocket and hunches his shoulders. “Oh, that?” he asks, eyeing the picture. It’s the ocean with a whale’s tail sticking out and the words BE INSPIRED written across the bottom. “Yeah. I, uh, I only put that up to cover a crack in the wall,” he mutters, still not able to meet Murray’s eyes.
Murray doesn’t seem to have heard him as he drops his pillow on the bed. “Oh,” he says looking at Dave from over his shoulder, “I should probably warn you that I’m a sleep-groper.”
“A...sleep-groper?” Dave asks.
“It’s kind of like sleepwalking only instead of walking I grope people sometimes,” he explains. “I’m on medication for it and it does seem to keep it relatively under control otherwise we’d all be in for some trouble.”
Dave doesn’t quite know how to respond to that and he shakes his head in disbelief. “As long as you promise not to rape me in my sleep,” he says slowly.
“No promises, but it should be fine. I just thought I’d give you a fair warning in case I run out of the pills.”
Dave’s mouth twists sideways warily as he says, “Thanks I guess.”
“Not a problem!” Murray straightens up with a cheerful smile. “Now, lets go check on Bret and Jemaine. Make sure those two haven’t killed each other over the bed or something.”
Still shaking his head, Dave follows Murray from the room and closes the door behind him. They find the other two already back in the kitchen talking amongst themselves quietly. They look up when the other men enter and fall silent leaving whatever they had been discussing hanging in their air between them. Dave can feel the shift when they enter and Bret looks troubled before schooling his face and giving them an acknowledging smile.
“Are you guys hungry?” Dave asks and Jemaine immediately perks up.
“Famished,” he replies and Dave nods.
As he sets about getting the things they’ll need Bret pipes up and asks the question he’s been dreading since he saw them on his doorstep. “Where are your parents, Dave?”
Dave pauses, fingers tightening just a bit around the can he’s taking out of the cupboard before he forces them to relax and replies nonchalantly, “Oh, you mean my roommates?” He pulls the can-opener out of the drawer and starts to open the beans as he keeps his back to the table and rolls his shoulders to try and release some of the tension building there. Turning back around and walking over to them he continues, “I think they said something about visiting one of their sisters in India or some shit. I don’t know. I don’t keep track of them.” With a small shrug he puts the can down in the middle of the table and plops himself in the free chair. There’s a sudden pang in his chest and he’s lost the will to do host activities.
Murray raises an eyebrow and tries to clarify, “So, they’re visiting your aunt then?”
“No, Murray.” Dave rolls his eyes as he sighs and leans back in his chair with one arm slung across and holding on to the other side of Murray’s while he tips himself backwards on two legs. His denial is lacking its usual fervor, but he’s not sure when the last time he heard from his parents actually was and he can’t get his mind off of that long enough to muster up some real vehemence.
Bret and Jemaine exchange a look, but with a subtle hand gesture Murray successfully gets Bret to close his mouth before he has a chance to say anything else.
“Is this what we’re having for dinner?” Jemaine asks instead. “A can of beans?”
“Are you...are you going to cook the beans at least?” Bret follows up and Dave glances over at them.
“With what, Bret? The powers out. It’s been out for days. You guys have legs and hands, don’t you?”
Jemaine looks down at his hands on the table and then over at Bret. “Well, yes,” he admits, “but - ”
“Then you have the means to fix something yourself if you don’t like it!” Dave pushes his chair back and stands up abruptly. “I’m going to bed now,” he informs them all. “You know where the food is.” He leaves the three of them staring after him as he storms out of the kitchen. He only stops to grab the spare pillow and blankets his mother keeps in the hall closet next to the bathroom before reaching his room.
Inside he sets the flashlight next to his sword rack and a bunch of crumpled up pieces of paper on his dresser so that the ceiling is illuminated and the light spreads weakly to the floor and then he goes about spreading his blankets on the ground at the foot of the bed and up against his dresser. There’s a photo album from when he was a kid that he keeps tucked in the back of his bottom dresser drawer and when he’s finished settling down he wraps one of his blankets around his legs and sits with his pillow that he had yanked from his bed between his back and the footboard with his album in hand. He can just barely make out the pictures but he knows them all by heart. Thumbing through the pages slowly he lets himself linger on each photo and traces the edges of the pictures gently before moving on with his heart in his throat.
There’s a quiet knock on the door and Dave’s head snaps around in that direction. Quickly, he stuffs the album behind the pillow and under the edge of the bed. When he calls out, “Come in,” his voice cracks. He wipes a hand across his cheek and is surprised when it comes away damp.
The door opens just enough for Murray to enter. He’s carrying a plate that he holds tentatively in Dave’s direction. “I thought you might be hungry,” he explains as Dave accepts it wordlessly. “It’s just peanut butter.”
Dave gives him a feeble smile and scoots over so that Murray can join him. “Thanks.”
Sitting down on the floor next to him Murray says, “The guys went to bed. It’s been a rough couple of days since...well everything.”
Picking at his sandwich he nods in agreement but doesn’t reply. Murray’s sitting close enough for their knees to just barely touch when he shifts a fraction of an inch over. The floor trembles beneath them and Dave takes a shaky breath as the sandwich crumbles beneath his fingers. He can’t bring himself to actually eat it. Doesn’t think he’d be able to swallow around the lump in his throat to get it down.
“You really miss them don’t you?” Murray asks, studying his face, as he takes the plate away from him before he completely destroys his dinner.
This time Dave doesn’t bother pretending like he doesn’t know what the other man is talking about. He’s tired, and worried, and sick of pretending. “Yeah,” he admits softly and it feels good to say it out loud. It’s like a weight that he’s lifting from his chest for the first time that he never even knew was there. “I guess I do.”
“How long have they been gone?”
“A month?” Dave estimates. “They don’t go very often so when they do it’s for a while to make it count. It’s just weird not having them around all of the time and now with...whatever is going on... I haven’t even heard from them.”
Setting the plate off to the side Murray turns back to him. “It’s okay to miss them you know,” he says gently.
Dave laughs. It’s strained and watery and he pulls the sleeves of his shirt down to cover his hands. “Sure it is,” he agrees without much conviction.
Murray reaches out and puts his hand on his shoulder. Startled, Dave turns to stare down at it and then back up at the other man. “Really, David. It is. Especially now.” The New Zealander is looking at him intently and Dave’s locked into his stare. “It’s also okay that you have a book about New Zealand. I don’t understand why you try and hide so much of yourself all of the time.”
When he jerks away quickly Murray’s hand slips from his shoulder and Dave manages to break eye contact with him to firmly state, “I don’t hide. I told you I don’t know where that came from,” because he can’t, can’t, go and put all of his cards on the table in one hand. Can’t let Murray see him this way. Weak, and vulnerable, and scared. He scrambles to his feet and grabs the flashlight off of the dresser. “I’m going to bed,” he announces.
With one quick press of the button the room is plunged into darkness.
--&--
Dave starts keeping a journal the day after his friends arrive. He’s not calling it a journal, though, because journal keeping is for the lame, nerdy types. His is more of a calendar where he keeps daily track of the weather and if anything interesting happens to occur he makes note of that too but it definitely isn’t a journal. It’s just a record so that the survivors will know what happened to them. So his parents will know what happened.
“What’s that you got there?” Jemaine says as he sits down next to Dave on the couch.
“Nothing,” Dave replies, closing the notebook and setting it off to the side as he reaches for his paintball gun instead. “Just some paper.”
Jemaine nods distractedly and obviously bored. “That’s a nice pumpkin,” he comments as he peers over at where it’s sitting on the mantle. “What, are those like boobs or something?”
Dave smirks at him while looking up from pretending to inspect and clean his gun. “Yeah, pretty clever right?”
The musician chuckles and says, “Yeah, clever. Now you can see boobs whenever you feel like it.”
Glancing over at him from the corner of his eye Dave replies, “I guess but they’re not real boobs so it’s not the same.”
“No, I suppose it’s not.”
The conversation falls flat and the mood shifts to an awkward, uncomfortable silence after that until Dave asks, “What’s Bret doing?”
“Having a sleep I think.”
Setting aside his gun Dave gets to his feet, grabs his notebook and looks back down at his friend. “Well, I’m gonna go see if Murray’s heard anything on his radio recently.”
Jemaine nods and absentmindedly drums his hands on his thighs a few times before hollering after him, “Hey, while you’re in there ask him if he’s got any more of those biscuits he’s been hiding!”
“He’s been hiding biscuits?” Dave yells back as he heads down the short hallway to his bedroom. “Murray, you’ve been hiding - oh!” He stops short, hand on the doorknob and halfway into the room when he catches sight of the other man. “Shit, Murray. Sorry, I didn’t know you were changing.”
Murray doesn’t jump, doesn’t seem bothered or embarrassed by Dave’s sudden appearance and he makes no effort to pull the rest of his clothes on any quicker than normal. He just stands there with his pants hanging low on his hips, feet bare, his shirt grasped in one hand and Dave gawking at him. “That’s what knocking is for, David,” he says and Dave is almost positive he detects a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Uh, sorry,” he apologizes again and tries to avert his eyes from Murray’s exposed chest, but he finds himself having trouble even moving to finish entering the room let alone being able to look away. “I, uh, I,” he stammers and shakes his head to clear it because what the fuck? He should be making some smart-ass remark right now about the situation but his brain isn’t functioning at the proper speed. “I was just wondering if you had managed to pick up anything on the radio.”
“A little bit,” Murray tells him as he begins to pull on his shirt. Dave watches, transfixed, as it slides down to cover all of that pale, freckled skin and he swallows as his mouth runs inexplicably dry, “but I think the batteries are almost dead.”
Letting go of the doorknob, Dave fully enters the room and shuts the door behind him. He glances around and finally settles for sitting down on the edge of the bed. “What did you hear?” he asks. “Good news?”
Murray shakes his head. “More of the same. They’ve closed the airports and stopped sending out ships,” he pauses looking troubled, “I think the woman said there have been reports of...well she didn’t exactly say the zombies...but she said there have been reports of incidents all the way in Nebraska. I lost signal after that.”
“Already?” Dave feels like he’s been punched in the chest. “Why hasn’t this been stopped by now?”
Tilting his head, Murray studies him. “I don’t know, David. I think maybe it’s something too big to be stopped quickly.”
Dave tosses his notebook on the floor near his bed and rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands. “At least the earthquakes have subsided for now,” he says dismally staring at the ground. “That’s gotta count for something.” Murray makes a sound of agreement and goes about picking dirty clothes off of the floor and tossing them into the hamper. “Murray,” Dave looks up at him and frowns, “you don’t have to clean my room.”
Murray doesn’t spare him a look. “Well, someone has too. I’m not spending God knows how long sharing a living space with you when it’s in this condition.”
Dave gets to his feet and takes the t-shirt out of Murray’s hand. “Stop. It’s weird. I’ll do it later.” Murray looks doubtful but Dave insists, “I will,” and drops the t-shirt in the vicinity of the hamper. “I was hoping for some good news when I came in here,” he goes on to admit to pick back up their conversation. He sits back down on the bed next to Murray with his back against the headboard. “What about the,” he starts to say the zombies but stops because if no one else is going to call them that he’s not either, “what about the infected people? How are we supposed to know where they are if the radio runs out of batteries?”
“The radio was kind of sporadic with what it could pick up.”
Dave frowns down at his knees. “That’s true, but at least we had some kind of connection with the world.”
In the somber silence they sit together and then Murray says, “Things’ll be alright.” He sounds like he needs to be able to believe it just as badly as Dave needs to hear it.
“What’s this I hear about you hiding biscuits? When did you even make biscuits?” Dave asks him trying desperately to lighten the mood and change the subject and Murray laughs.
“Jemaine’s favorite.” He leans over the bed, head disappearing over the side, and feels around beneath of it before sitting up triumphantly with a package in his hand. “If I left them in the kitchen they’d all be gone within a day or two and then we’d have to listen to him whine.”
Dave scrutinizes the package. “Those aren’t biscuits. They’re cookies.”
With a shrug Murray says, “They’re like cookies.”
“It’s weird New Zealand food,” Dave mutters. Their fingers brush as Murray hands him a biscuit which causes Dave to nearly drop it. Berating himself for being ridiculous he averts his eyes from Murray’s fingers and focuses on the cookie in his hand and tries to ignore the thoughts flitting through his head. He’s never thought of Murray like that before. Never saw him in quite that light because, well, Murray’s a guy and Dave isn’t into that and he sure as hell isn’t going to start seeing him like that just because he accidentally saw him without a shirt. It’s not like he’s never seen other dudes without shirts before in changing rooms, locker rooms, at the pool and places like that. This time isn’t any different than those. At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself but he can’t seem to stop chancing looks at him while Murray is busy putting away the biscuits.
“Well?” He inquires expectantly when he sits back up.
“They’re okay,” Dave admits. “Not as good as a regular cookie, but not bad.”
Murray beams at him and Dave ignores the tug on his heartstrings to smile cautiously back.
--&--
October 25th - fire sighted. still pretty far away, but keep eyes open. fires are unpredictable. beginning to go stir crazy locked in this house with the guys.
He scribbles the information down and snaps the notebook shut with a sigh. From the other room the sounds of faint arguing drift through the closed door. It’s Jemaine’s voice, mostly, but every so often he catches Bret’s and Murray’s. He glances in that direction briefly when Jemaine raises his voice but this is the first time he’s been able to snag a room alone since the other three had shown up and he’s not about to leave the sanctity of it to find out what’s wrong.
It’s not that he isn’t glad that they’re with him. It’s just that he’s never had to have this extended amount of time with all of them at once and he had already started to grow used to being alone during his parents’ absence. Now, every time he goes anywhere in the apartment someone is already there, and trying to keep up his tough guy facade is slowly starting to wear him out. He’s cracking at the seams, spread thin and stretched to his limit, and he knows it.
All of a sudden there’s a crash followed by an uneasy silence and then he hears some hissed whispers followed again by more silence.
He shifts his gaze back to the window and resists the urge to sigh when there’s a tentative knock at the door. Momentarily, he considers just ignore it but the knock comes again a split second later much more forcefully.
He hears Bret say, “I know how to knock on a door, Jemaine,” and an answering mutter in return.
Dave calls out, “What?” without looking away from the window. When he hears the door click open he tries to sound aggravated as he continues with, “I’m kind of busy right now.”
Bret stops halfway into the room, frowns slightly, and looks him over once. “Are you?” he asks in disbelief. “Cause you look like maybe you aren’t very busy at all.”
“Yeah, well I am,” Dave clips out, turning his head to stare at the smaller man. “I’m doing some really important research and shit. We have to be prepared for the strike. You never know when it’ll come. Know your enemy and all that shit,” he says the first things he can think of while keeping a stern face.
Wrinkling his nose in confusion Bret inquires, “But what are you going to get from looking out the window except that everything is on fire? You should be listening to the radio.”
“The radio died, Bret. Batteries are all used up except for the ones in the flashlights and all we got from it was days of static anyway.” Dave raises his eyebrow and tilts his head towards Bret and says slowly, “This is the best we have now so unless you don’t want to be prepared...” Bret’s eyes are wide and he shoots a panicked expression over his shoulder to where Dave knows Jemaine is hiding, “...is that what you want, Bret? To not be prepared? Because if it is I can just stop my research right now.”
“No, no,” Bret hastens in reply. “We want to be ready.”
Dave nods curtly. “Okay then,” he says, pleased, and leans back against the wall again. “I suggest you leave then so I don’t miss anything important.”
Bret bobs his head in agreement and backs out of the room. As the door clicks shut Dave hears Jemaine asks, “What about - ”
But Bret cuts him off. “Later, man. He’s doing some research now.”
Their voices fade away as they get further from the door and Dave slumps down with a sigh of relief. The relief is short lived, however, because in less than ten minutes the door is opening again and Murray enters the room.
“Bret said you were in here doing some research,” Murray tells him as he invades his privacy.
Dave mutters, “Trying to at least,” and resists the urge to scream in frustration by clenching his jaw tightly and counting to ten, then twenty, before slowly relaxing.
“What was that?”
Turning his head Dave smiles wide and fake. “Oh, nothing, Murray.”
The other man nods. “Right.” He looks about the room seemingly uncomfortable for a moment and then he sits down on the bed. “Mind if I help you out?”
“Might as well. You’re already here,” Dave says. Under his breath he adds, “Not like I have much choice in the matter anyway.” He’s feeling irritable, and overly stressed with the anxiety of never being able to get away but he moves to sit on the bed next to Murray.
“What is it that you’re researching exactly?”
Dave pauses for a moment before answering. “What does anyone research in times of crisis?” he asks and Murray blinks at him.
“I...I guess it depends on the crisis?”
Shrugging, Dave says, “Yeah, probably,” and flops backwards so that he can stare up at the ugly stucco ceiling. “I just told them that so they’d leave me alone,” he confesses.
Murray doesn’t respond, but he does lie back beside Dave so that their shoulders are touching, and he rests his hands beneath his head.
“They’re just...they’re always around. They’re everywhere I go,” Dave justifies, suddenly feeling a little bit guilty. The circumstances aren’t really any better for them either. At least this is his apartment. These are his familiar surroundings and his comforts. He leans up on his elbow to search Murray’s face for any signs of judgement, but much to his astonishment, finds none.
Instead Murray tells him very quietly while still staring at the ceiling, “Yesterday I reorganized the entire cupboard by the colors of the packages because I knew they wouldn’t want to help.” His face is somber and Dave stares at him in shock.
And then the New Zealander catches his eyes and gives him a secretive, sudden grin, laughter dancing in his eyes and Dave loses it. He cracks up, laughing so hard that tears start leaking from the corners of his eyes which sets Murray off and they roll around on the bed laughing until their stomachs hurt and they can’t catch their breath.
It’s just what Dave didn’t know he needed and he can feel the tension he’s been carrying around start to bleed out as he lets himself finally relax and thinks that maybe it’s not all bad having them here.
--&--
Above him he can hear Murray restlessly tossing and turning and moving all around. When the other man’s hand slips off of the side of the bed Dave reaches up and touches his fingertips with his own for some reassurance. Murray responds by curling his index finger around Dave’s.
Dave clears his throat. “It’s just a storm.”
Murray’s answer is almost too soft to hear, but Dave manages to catch it anyway. “It’s not just a storm. You know that.”
With a soft sigh Dave whispers, “It is,” to himself. He lies there in silence staring at the outline of the window on the opposite wall and watches the silhouettes of the branches swaying and reaching and clawing until he eventually drifts off into a fitful sleep that is littered with fragments of nightmares and creatures he can’t fully see or understand.
He’s torn from his sleep abruptly just before dawn by the screams of sirens and he bolts upright, confused, from the floor. His heart is racing and he wrestles with his blankets trying to get to his feet. Murray’s already standing by the side of the bed peering out from behind the sheet hanging in front of the window and Dave stumbles over to him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, thankful to see a familiar face as he gets his bearings. He peeks out reluctantly from over his shoulder to figure out what’s going on.
The sun hasn’t quite come up yet, and the flashing blue and red lights of the police cars as they hurtle down the street distort the empty tree branches and paint a contorted, sinister picture of the once pleasant block.
Dave can feel the tension in Murray’s body and without thinking he reaches forward and presses his hand against his lower back. Murray leans, almost imperceptibly, back into the touch and they watch the cars in silence until they round a bend in the road and disappear.
When the sirens have died away Murray turns to look at Dave. His face is white, jaw clenched, and Dave’s free hand comes up to grasp the other man’s tightly as fear seizes him like a vice. There’s a knock on the door and it’s creaking open to allow Bret and Jemaine to slip through before they have a chance to move apart, but neither comment and Dave doesn’t pull away. In the dim light of the moon he can see that Bret’s hands are trembling and Jemaine’s face is tense as they cross the room to huddle at the window.
They don’t speak. They don’t have to speak. They all know what those sirens meant. Somehow, they just know somewhere deep within themselves.
The first infected person has been spotted somewhere in their area.
iii.
Dave doesn’t sleep much anymore. He can’t. Every night he sits with Murray until the other man drifts off, curled up and looking so impossibly small in his bed, and then he slips out of the room. He sits numbly on the couch and watches the light from the sun as it takes it’s slow path across the floor, chasing the shadows from the corners of the room, and thinks that maybe this is all just a bad dream and maybe the light of day will make everything better. Maybe it will make the nightmares go away and all of the bad things disappear.
But it never does, because he’s not sleeping. That’s the big problem. He’s not tucked safe and sound in his bed while his subconscious battles his invisible foes. It’s much more difficult to vanquish nightmares that happen while awake.
October 30th - it’s been five days since the sirens and it’s still quiet outside. no signs of zombies the infected yet. the calm before the storm? I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. still can’t sleep.
It’s just another day and long after the sun has finally risen he’s still sitting in the living room, doodling in his notebook and playing with a few paintball pellets he found in a candy dish on the end of the table. That’s when he first hears something that just barely breaks through the silence of the apartment. It’s a quiet murmuring sound coming from his parents’ room, and he stops rolling the pellets between his fingers to listen. At first, he’s not sure what it is but then he realizes - it’s Bret and Jemaine singing softly together.
Straining his ears, he sits immobile on the couch, hoping to catch what it is they’re singing, but the snatches of words that he does get he doesn’t recognize. Not that he would ever admit to being able to recognize any of their songs. He can’t help but wonder if they’re working on some new material. It seems silly, though, to write new songs when the world is going to end and there will be no one around to hear them.
Carefully, so that the couch springs don’t squeak, he climbs to his feet and shuffles over to stand in front of the bedroom door. Not daring to breath, lest he be heard, he listens closer as they play together. It’s not a typical Conchord song. It’s something much more achingly sweet and serious. It’s lacking their usual playfulness and wile and as he listens he begins to feel more and more like he’s intruding on something private. Something special meant just for the two of them to hear and experience together.
Moving quietly away from the door he slowly lets out the breath he had been holding in. His skins feels itchy and uncomfortable, and the walls in his apartment suddenly feel like they’re closing in on him. Everything is too small, too close, too constant. It’s like he’s trapped in a cage and he can hear the Conchords through the door and the wind outside rattling the windows and he bolts.
The only place he can go is the stairwell leading up to the roof. He desperately wants to go outside and get some fresh air to clear his head and quell that claustrophobic feeling creeping up the back of his neck and rising in the pit of his stomach, but it was decided long ago that they shouldn’t go outside anymore. It’s too risky. They don’t know what’s going on out there. Don’t know what’s bad for them and what isn’t.
As he steps into the stairwell he breathes a sigh of relief as the cooler air hits him and rests his body against the door to calm himself down.
“David.”
Nearly jumping out of his skin at the voice his fists fly up, ready for a fight, before instantly relaxing when he realizes who the voice belongs too and he spots where Murray is sitting on the steps one level up.
“You know,” Dave tells him as he squeezes himself onto the step Murray’s occupying, “you can call me Dave. Everyone else does.”
Murray shakes his head. “Your name is David. Not Dave.”
“Yeah, but Murray, Dave is short for David. It’s the same name.”
Skeptically glancing over at him Murray decisively says, “I don’t go around calling Jemaine Jem or Jema do I? His name is Jemaine and yours is David.”
Dave huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, okay,” he says and leans his head against the coolness of the railing, closing his eyes. “How’d you get out here anyway? You would have had to go right by me without me even noticing.”
Beside him Murray shrugs. Their shoulders are pressed so tightly together he can feel the movement as they rise and fall. “You didn’t notice I guess,” he says in way of explanation. “I just walked out the door like anybody else would.” His voice has just a hint of the same mocking sarcasm Dave typically uses. “You were caught up in your thoughts.”
With a smile, he knocks his knee against Murray’s and then leaves it there so that his leg is pressed against the other man’s along with his shoulders. They sit noiselessly soaking up each other’s body heat and warmth and for once Dave feels safe, and comfortable, and like nothing could possibly hurt him because Murray is there.
“Do you think we’re going to die?” Murray’s voice is quiet, almost inaudible, but Dave catches it and that comfortable feeling evaporates instantly and is replaced by a dull ache in his chest because he wants to be able to reassure him and say no.
He wants to be able to look him in the eye and play his big, brave, macho manly man persona that he can so easily slip into for Bret and Jemaine and tell him that everything is going to be fine, but he can’t. This is different. This isn’t about pretending to be tough to get respect, or pretending to have been in a gang to seem cool for once in his life. This is bigger than any of that and he can’t bring himself to pretend with Murray so he doesn’t answer right away.
Murray’s hand finds his and their fingers twine and clasp together. Dave stiffens at first, but then allows himself to relax after a moment’s breath. They hold on to each other keeping themselves grounded as Dave takes a breath. “I think,” he starts off very slowly, “that we won’t go down without a fight.”
There’s a tremor in his voice as Murray says, “I don’t really know how to fight,” and his fingers tighten just the slightest bit. “It’s not in my nature.”
Dave gives him a sidelong look. Murray’s head is down and the fingers of his free hand are tapping restlessly against his knee. The light from the small window shines faintly over their shoulders and it causes their shadows to blend together on the floor. He can’t tell where Murray ends and he begins. He looks down at their joined hands and closes his eyes briefly as he presses his lips together in a thin line.
“You won’t think about it when the time comes,” Dave tells him. “You’ll just do what you have to do.”
Turning his head to the side Murray laughs softly in disbelief, giving him a once over, but he doesn’t say anything. There are bags under his eyes and his face is ashen as Dave studies him. His fingers are still locked together with Dave’s and when Dave stands up and takes the step down to the landing he pulls the New Zealander up as well. Murray’s body towers above him from his step advantage and Dave takes an uncomfortable step backwards to haul Murray off the steps and back down to his level.
“Listen, Murray,” he whispers, loosening his grip so that he can toy with Murray’s fingers. He looks at him and flashes the other man the best, dazzling smile he can. “If all else fails I’ll protect you. Don’t worry.” He says it because now seems like the best possible time for him to be making exorbitant promises that might bring a smile to the other man’s face.
Murray looks up at him from under his lashes, mouth twisting to the side. He doesn’t look fully convinced but he takes a step closer, and lowers his gaze again. “I don’t think you should be making promises you can’t keep, David,” he mumbles and his voice is sad and lost.
The air around them feels electric and not just from the lightning outside. It’s charged with something that flows between them. Something that connects them through more than just where Murray has moved to grip his wrist and run his thumb across the soft skin and Dave doesn’t want to question it because thinks that it might take him down a dangerous path.
Who leans in first is and will always be a mystery. All Dave knows is that one minute Murray’s standing in front of him with those sad eyes of his that have Dave’s heart caught up in his throat, looking at him cautiously with a downturned mouth, and the next moment Dave’s hand is coming up, cupping his cheek, and the other hand is reaching out to pull him closer by the belt loop as their lips press tentatively against one another. The bumps and ridges of the wall that he finds himself pushed up against cut harshly into his back and he gasps when Murray shuffles closer, slipping a leg between his and snakes his hand down to rest on Dave’s hip.
It’s weird because he’s kissing a dude. It’s weird because he’s kissing Murray, but it’s right because he’s kissing Murray too because Murray’s the first person to see him for who he really is in a long time and because he had somehow managed to worm his way inside of Dave’s carefully constructed bubble and care about him. About the real him.
Dave breaks the kiss first, pulling away abruptly and leaning his head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling as he tries to catch his breath and to not hyperventilate. Murray takes a step away from him with his eyes staring resolutely at the floor.
“We should go back inside,” he suggests softly after clearing his throat, “before Bret and Jemaine wonder where we’ve gone.”
Unable to form any sort of coherent thought on his own Dave just nods dumbly, “Yeah,” he exhales and blinks, watching the other man turn away from him. “Yeah, sure.”
--&--
He ends up leaning against the doorframe in the kitchen listening to Murray prattle on about something he can’t follow as he drains beer after beer and tries not to think about his parents, or the end of the world, or how he inexplicably wants to brush at the hair that never wants to stay to the side Murray’s combed it too. He’s ignoring how his eyes keep drifting to stare at the other man’s mouth as he talks because that’s fucking sappy and weird and he’d never, ever think about something like that sober - or maybe he would - but his brain is just not in control anymore and before he knows what he’s doing he’s reaching forward with one hand clutching the doorframe for support and tousling his hair instead. It’s soft and silky beneath his fingers and he smiles, content, as he leans back against the frame again.
Murray’s speech halts and he gives him a startled, resentful look. “I’m a grown man, David,” he’s informed with an arched eyebrow and somehow he manages to look indignant and sullen all at the same time. “Grown men don’t have their hair tousled by other grown men.” Regarding Dave carefully he adds, “Or at all come to think of it.”
But Dave just shrugs and takes the full beer out of Murray’s hand for himself. When he lets go of the doorframe to move to the couch the room starts to tilt and his vision goes a little bit wonky. The colors in the room start to blur together as he looks around at his home. It’s one big, bright mess of nonsense and he stumbles through the kitchen doorway into the living room before just barely catching himself with one hand on the end table. He can feel Murray watching him with concerned eyes and a frown and Bret and Jemaine have stopped scribbling in a notepad and fiddling with their guitars to openly stare at him. Their flashlight blinds him as Bret points it in his direction. He wants to laugh and tell them all to stop worrying but there’s a tightness in his chest that stops him when he tries and he can’t breathe as the panic suddenly rises.
Murray’s there in an instant to steady him with one hand on his shoulder and the other gently prying Dave’s fingers from the can he didn’t realize he was still clutching in his fist. The other man’s touch distracts him sufficiently, and he blinks to try and focus on Murray’s face and give him a sloppy smile.
“Hi, Murray.”
“All right there, David?” Murray’s voice is soft and sweet in his ear and Dave loops his arm around the other man’s neck and grins.
“All right there, David?” he slurs in his best attempted accent and lets his weight fall against Murray’s side, leaving it up to the older man to support him. He mumbles, “Can’t ever understand what the fuck you’re saying,” as he rests his head against Murray’s shoulder and shuts his eyes to close out the room.
He feels Murray’s nervous chuckle vibrating through his body and Dave’s pretty sure he’s never been this drunk in his entire life.
“I’m glad it’s you, though,” he exhales and goes to move his hand in a wide sweeping gesture but decides at the last minute that it’s too heavy to lift it for that long and brings it up to rest on Murray’s other shoulder instead, turning his body so that they’re facing one another. “You know. You guys. Here at the end with me.”
Murray’s arms encircle his waist to keep him upright and they stand chest to chest with Dave’s forehead resting on Murray’s shoulder. He stands as still as he can just breathing him in. He smells like he hasn’t showered in a long time. He smells like dirt and sweat and fear but most of all he smells alive and Dave presses closer, tightening his arms around his neck. They had tiptoed around each other the rest of the afternoon and haven’t discussed what happened in the stairwell and he doesn’t think they ever will but he wants to kiss him again. Wants to feel him trembling beneath him, alive and just as scared as Dave is.
Clearing his throat Murray finally says, “I think you need to go to bed.”
Dave tries to shake his head and tell him no but the motion unbalances him and he closes his eyes briefly before agreeing, “maybe.”
Somehow, because he’s some kind of superman Dave is almost positive, Murray manages to get them across the apartment without breaking anything in the darkness or running into any walls, and he even manages to keep Dave upright as he snags a couple of water bottles from the cupboard. When they reach the bedroom, though, he ends up tripping over a book or something and they fall in a heap on the bed with Dave’s arms still locked around the other man’s neck.
Dave giggles. “I forgot to clean.”
Murray laughs awkwardly and stilted. “Yeah, I noticed,” he says as he tries to disentangle himself from Dave’s grasp but he’s not about to let that happen and grabs at his arm instead and holds on with all of his drunken strength.
“Don’t. Don’t go,” he pleads and under any other circumstance he would never say it, never admit it, but he’s drunk and he keeps saying things that he doesn’t want to say and he can’t seem to stop himself. “I don’t. I don’t want to be alone.”
Making a soothing, shushing sound the New Zealander gets Dave to let go of him and works to get him settled in the bed. “I’m not going anywhere,” he tells Dave gently as he lies down on the bed next to him on his side so that he’s facing Dave.
Wriggling closer he whispers against Murray’s neck, “there are zombies out there, Murray. Fucking. Real life zombies coming!” Saying it out loud has a sobering effect that leaves him shaken to the core. It’s all just now really sinking in and he presses himself against the other man. “I never thought it would happen. Ever.”
He’s having trouble breathing again, breaths coming in rapid succession as he lets go of Murray. Rolling onto his back he presses the palms of his hands against his eyes in an attempt to calm down.
Murray sits up and takes Dave’s hands in his. “Look at me, David,” he demands and Dave lets him slowly lower his hands. Murray holds them tightly in his own and says with a good amount of force behind the words, “Everything is going to be okay. It’ll be fine. You said so yourself. Remember?”
Barking out a slightly hysterical laugh Dave practically shouts, “I was lying, Murray! I was lying! How will any of this ever be okay?”
Letting go of one of his hands Murray reaches back to get a bottle of water. “Drink this,” he demands and watches Dave eye him before carefully sitting up and taking the bottle of water with his free hand, “and these,” he adds, handing him some aspirin. He watches until he’s satisfied Dave’s gotten enough and then takes it back and places it on the floor. Dave flops back on the mattress with a groan and shuts his eyes tight. He can feel the covers being drawn up to his chest and a kiss, so light he almost thinks he imagined it, being dropped on his forehead as Murray settles back down beside him. Their fingers are still laced together and they lie side by side.
“If all else fails,” Murray murmurs in the darkness as Dave is drifting off, “I’ll protect you.”
When he wakes in the morning there is an arm slung heavy and warm across his chest. his head is pounding just slightly and his legs are tangled up with Murray’s. He rolls over to his side and presses his nose against the other man’s collarbone and lets his eyes drift closed again. He thinks that maybe he should be freaking out about this, but he can’t bring himself to figure out why. He’s still in the cozy, sleep-buzzed state somewhere between sleeping and fully waking and Murray’s weight against his body and his steady breathing makes him feel safe and secure.
Murray mumbles something unintelligible as Dave shifts closer and his hand moves against Dave’s back, thumb brushing along the hem of his rucked up shirt and coming to rest on bare skin. Dave sighs, content, and lets himself fall back to sleep.
--&--
“There’s no way it could spread all the way here without the government capturing and containing the infected, right?” he tells rather than asks Murray. They’re sitting in the kitchen together with a deck of cards and he’s feeling a bit more rational now that it’s been more than a few days and nothing major has happened outside of the weather growing increasingly worse. “I mean, it’s ridiculous to think that they don’t have some protocol about this already in place just in case something were to happen.”
Murray glances up at him, eyebrow raised, and shrugs. “Maybe,” he responds, “but we haven’t heard anything about it being over yet. They were in Nebraska last we heard. If they could get that far without being stopped...” he trails off and leaves his sentence unfinished.
“Yeah, I guess,” he mumbles, bouncing his knee nervously. Another thought comes and he swiftly leans forward and folds his arms on the top of the table whispering, “But the power is still off. Maybe they just haven’t fixed the power and that’s why we haven’t heard anything.”
The ginger haired man gives him a half smile, but Dave can see right through it by now. He knows that Murray is only humoring him and he deflates once again, collapsing back in his chairs and stretching his legs out in front of him, kicking Murray in the process. Murray gives him a pained expression and Dave tilts his head as he shrugs his shoulders in way of an apology. He leaves his feet caught between Murray’s and laces his fingers together on the table as the other man deals out the cards.
As Dave is positioning his cards in his hands Jemaine enters the kitchen looking perplexed. With his hands tucked into his front pockets and his shoulders hunched he nods hello to them and then stands awkwardly by the table.
“Yes, Jemaine? What is it?” Murray asks him as he studies his cards.
Clearing his throat Jemaine inquires, “Have you guys noticed anything off about Bret lately?”
“You mean more than usual?” Dave mutters.
Jemaine shoots him a dark look and tells them, “He’s just been over there standing at the window for hours. Just standing there. Not responding or anything. I kept calling his name and he just stood there. Didn’t even look up or say hi.” He pauses. “It was pretty rude of him actually.”
Dave doesn’t take his eyes off of his hand of cards and says, “Maybe he’s just ignoring you.” Shifting a few of the cards positions he grins at his luck and continues, “Your voice can get pretty annoying after awhile you know,” and then looks up at Murray. “Threes?”
Murray shakes his head triumphantly. “Go fish,” he tells Dave as he turns his attention to Jemaine. “Have you tried snapping your fingers at him? Sometimes that works.” He demonstrates by snapping his fingers in Jemaine’s direction.
Jemaine bats at Murray’s hand irritably before scratching his head. “Well I, I pushed him a little bit. I got mad he wasn’t answering so I...pushed him,” he admits and Murray frowns at him.
“You pushed him? Jemaine, that’s no way to solve your problems!”
“Yeah,” Jemaine concedes, “coz it didn’t work anyway.”
The older New Zealander opens his mouth to retort but Dave breaks in. “Look, Jemaine. We’re kind of in the middle of a game here so was there something you wanted us to do or did you just come here to bitch?” Beneath the table Murray kicks him hard and Dave winces but bites back the curse ready to fly from his mouth.
“It’s just worrying behavior, s’all.” Jemaine ducks his head, seemingly embarrassed. “I thought maybe he’d answer to one of you.”
Brushing him off with a wave of his hand Dave repeats, “Game.”
Murray, however, has a different idea and taps the bottom of his cards on the table a few times before lying them face down and standing up. “All right,” he agrees. “Lets go see him.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Dave exclaims. “You’re just looking for an excuse to stop because I’m winning aren’t you?”
“I am not,” Murray informs him. He grabs Dave around the bicep and hauls him to his feet. “And you were not.”
Grumbling, “I was so,” Dave allows himself to be easily pulled up.
Jemaine has been hovering over them anxiously through the entire exchange and as they squabble amicably with one another on the way to the living room he follows so closely behind them that he steps on Dave’s heel multiple times .
“See?” He gestures at Bret who is standing by the window peeking out through the blinds with one hand stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans. “Just like that. He’s been there for hours.”
Dave and Murray fall silent, exchanging a suddenly solemn glance, before Murray takes the lead and steps ahead of them. “Bret?” He approaches him cautiously like Bret is some kind of wild animal who might go crazy at any moment. “Bret?” But Bret doesn’t move a muscle, eyes glued to an image outside and Murray looks helplessly over his shoulder.
“I told you,” Jemaine hisses. “I told you it was weird.”
Dave rolls his eyes and crosses the room to stand on the other side of the smallest New Zealander. “Bret,” he says sharply, “you’re being pretty freaky, dude. What’s going on with you?”
After a very long moment Bret finally lifts his hand and takes a step away from the blinds as he points towards them. Jemaine moves forward quickly and grabs his arm to steady the younger man as he suddenly stumbles on shaky legs. Murray rushes over to grab his other arm and help Jemaine move him to the couch while Dave turns back to the window curiously. There’s dread pooling in his stomach and a knot that tightens as he reaches forward and slowly moves the blinds to see outside. He already knows what he’s going to see. Already knows what waits for him beyond the safe cover he’s lifting away but that doesn’t mean he’s prepared.
The sight that greets him as his blood running cold and his heart freezing to a stop. He turns back around slowly to face the other three and he can feel the blood draining from his face.
Bret strangle a sob and whimpers from the sofa, “They’re finally here.”
--&--
He hates how trapped he feels. How powerless and helpless they all are. How there’s nothing that they can do to stop things and even if they tried it wouldn’t make a difference. All they can do is wait. Wait for the food to run out. Wait for the zombies to realize they’re in the apartment. Wait for them to swam the building. Wait for the end.
Every morning when he wakes up he hopes it will be the morning when the Earth can’t take it anymore and finally splits in half and opens up beneath them to swallow everything up and put an end to everything once and for all.
But it never happens.
November 5th - they’re everywhere and we’re running low on food. amazing how fast food goes with four guys in the house. I don’t know what to do anymore. I look outside and they’re all I see. we can’t run for it. where would we go? we should have left a long time ago. but the weather. who knows what would have happened. staying was the best plan I guess. all we can do now is keep our voices down, stay under their radar, and hope.
He sets his notebook aside and peeks out the window again. The sight outside makes him gag and he tries his best to suppress the violent shudder that runs through his body. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before but he keeps coming back. He can’t stop himself from looking. It’s fascinating in the way only truly horrific things can be.
Their skin is a sickly yellow-green color and it seems to almost be melting off of their bodies and it must have something to do with the type of chemical that was spilled, but Dave’s not a chemist. He has no idea what could do that to the human body. It’s terrifying. Some of them have parts of the bones in their arms and up around their collarbones exposed. Their eyes are sunken and sallow and they stare blankly out in front of them as they stumble along with an inconsequential path and no direction.
Dave can hear them making sickening moaning sounds even through the closed window and when he listens closely he can hear something else that he can’t quite put his finger on. It sounds like someone slogging through slush and it takes him a few minutes before he realizes what it is. It’s their skin dropping off as they walk and mixing up with dirt and loose bits of asphalt. It’s not slush they’re walking through it’s flesh.
This realization leaves him feeling ill and shaky on his feet.
“Come away from the window, David,” Murray tells him, coming up behind him and placing his hand gently on Dave’s arm. “We don’t want them to see us.”
Dave’s voice is strained when he replies, “In a minute,” and doesn’t move. Can’t move. “Do you think we’re the only ones left? Do you think there are others out there?” he asks quietly.
“There have to be,” Murray says. “If we’ve managed to get by for this long there have to be others.”
With a twist of his mouth Dave dubiously says, “There are a lot of them out there.” He looks back down and there’s one standing in front of the shop staring back up at him. Her head is twisted in an impossible angle and Dave’s entire body locks up. His muscles tense and he stares back down at her in horror for what feels like an eternity before managing to regain control of his legs and stagger away from the window in panic.
“Shit.” he curses, heart hammering in his chest. “The girl. She saw me. She fucking saw me.”
--&--
“I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Toby,” he whispers out of the blue. “I wonder if he’s doing alright.”
Dave’s heart leaps to his throat and he swallows thickly, wringing his hands in his lap, before saying, “I’m sure he’s fine, Murray. He’s a dog. They can take pretty good care of themselves.”
“I guess you’re right,” Murray says softly but he still sounds miserable.
The silence of the room enfolds them and Dave closes his eyes and lets himself get lost in the feeling of Murray’s nails scratching rhythmically across his head. It’s soothing and he nuzzles at Murray’s knee without thinking as he makes a sound somewhat akin to a purr. Murray’s hand pauses and Dave, utterly mortified, immediately pulls back.
He moves to get of of the bed as he stammers out, “I should go make - ” but when he meets Murray’s eyes there’s something in them that stops the flow of words and makes him hesitate from getting all of the way up. It stops him from bolting out of the room like a frightened child runs from a monster.
The other man sits up a little bit straighter, situating his legs so that he’s mirroring Dave as Dave eyes him cautiously. He already knows what’s going to happen. He’s been waiting for it to happen. Knew it would happen the moment they kissed in the stairwell. They’ve been dancing around one another ever since. It was just a matter of time. He knows that Murray is fully aware of it as well as Murray’s gaze drops to his mouth and he unconsciously bites at his lower lip. So Dave moves in, crawling forward little by little, until he can fit his lips against the other man’s tentatively asking a silent question that doesn’t need to be asked. Never needed to be asked. Murray responds immediately with a broken whine, surging towards him with a reckless abandon that takes Dave aback and gives the New Zealander the upper hand.
They shift and adjust until Dave is pinned flat on his back with Murray hovering over him, supporting himself on his forearms and breaking from the kiss to nip at the soft skin of his jaw. Dave whimpers as his eyes close and his hands find themselves sliding beneath the hem of Murray’s shirt and over the warm skin he finds there. He tugs and tugs and Murray finally relents his assault on Dave’s neck long enough to pull his shirt off. His fingers reach down to pull on Dave’s and he lets the other man work it up and over his head, baring his chest to the cool air of the room and he shivers, goosebumps breaking out all across his skin, but Murray is right there again, mouth finding his and capturing.
When Murray finally, finally, lowers his body to press right along Dave’s and Dave feels his erection through his pants against his leg all he can do is groan helplessly, mouth falling open and head lolling to the side as he tries to catch his breath. His head is spinning and he’s not sure which way is up anymore. Nothing makes sense and nothing is happening the way it should.
All he knows is this is now, and all of the bruises on his skin that Murray makes with his fingers are real and he can feel them and everything is messy and clumsy and desperate and all he wants is to press closer, dig his nails in deeper, leave his own bruises and feel everything and nothing.
Above him Murray is speaking in whispers and broken sentences that Dave has to force himself to focus on to understand. He’s saying, “Dave,” and it’s gruff, and reverent all at the same time. His accent is thick around the word and it’s Dave, not David. It feels significant and has his heart clenching and Dave reaches out, drawing him down for a kiss and working his hand between them to pop the button of Murray’s jeans.
“Yeah,” Dave responds breathlessly. “Yeah. Here. I’m here.” He’s got his fingers on the zipper now and he hesitates with one hand against Murray’s chest to hold him back and looks up at his flushed face. “Murray,” he whispers and the other man stops trying to press into Dave’s hand and looks at him with a damaged smile and wild eyes and Dave’s heart skitters in his chest as he begins to slowly lower the zipper so that it unhitches notch by notch at the rate of his choosing that forces Murray to go with it.
Feeling anxious and awkward all of a sudden Dave freezes and Murray whines and tries to buck his hips. “I’ve never,” he tries to explain, not able to look at Murray’s face, “with a guy.” There’s so much more he wants to tell him. So much more he wants to say, but he can’t so instead he rolls them so that they’re on their sides, facing each other and he can press his forehead against Murray’s.
And Murray finally stills. Finally slows down. With one hand he reaches up, tipping Dave’s chin so he can kiss him slowly and deeply. With his other hand he reaches down and then his hand is covering Dave’s and they move together and Murray whines and whimpers and makes soft noises into the crook of Dave’s neck and Dave bites his lip and tries to remember how to breath. He can feel Murray’s heart thudding in a rhythm that matches his own.
Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door, startling them both so badly that they end up banging their foreheads together as they both flail and turn their heads to stare at the door. The first knock is quickly followed by another and then the door is swinging open to reveal Jemaine entering the room with Bret close behind him before Murray and Dave even have a chance to react. They freeze when they catch sight of the pair on the bed and Bret’s eyes go wide.
“Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” Dave demands with a voice that is husky and rough as he glares daggers at the two of them. He knows his hair is disheveled and his lips kiss swollen and red but there’s nothing he can do about it now so he stares at them as steadily as he can.
Jemaine raises a hand and points at the door with his thumb in a strange gesture that Dave doesn’t really get the meaning of and says, “I did knock. I knocked twice.”
Murray has his back to the door and he’s pressed his face against Dave’s chest to try and hide, but he irritably tells him, “One knock and then another knock right after it doesn’t mean you knocked twice, Jemaine.” His voice is muffled and his lips tickle against Dave’s skin.
“Well you didn’t answer now did you?” Jemaine’s voice raises to slightly hysterical. “How was I supposed to know you’d be in here half naked and doing,” he waves his hands frantically at them, “that!”
Dave runs his fingers lightly up and down Murray’s back as he scowls at Jemaine. “Was there a reason you decided to barge in here, or do you frequently go around banging into rooms where you aren’t invited?” he snaps out.
Jemaine opens and closes his mouth a few times, clearly trying to work out everything happening around him. Dave can practically see the gears turning in his head and then Bret elbows the taller man and Jemaine jumps like he had forgotten Bret was standing there.
“Tell them,” Bret whispers and when Dave finally spares him a glance the smaller man seems unsteady on his feet.
Jemaine looks down at him, and then reaches over to pull him tight against his side before looking back up at Dave. “I think they’re in the building,” he says soberly and Dave feels like he’s been punched in the stomach but his expression doesn’t waver, doesn’t falter to show the fear coursing through his body.
“Give us a minute,” he tells them with a steady voice, swallowing around the lump in his throat. When neither Jemaine nor Bret move to leave the room Dave raises an eyebrow and points at the door and barks, “Get out!”
After they’ve gone he slides back down until his face is even with Murray’s. He runs his fingers along the other man’s arm catching up his hand in his own. He tightens his fingers and Murray squeezes back.
“Happy Halloween,” Murray whispers. “This is about as scary as it can get.”
Dave doesn’t respond, doesn’t mention that it’s November, he just kisses him hard and with everything he’s got bottled up inside.
--&--
Beside Jemaine, Bret suggests, “What if we build some kind of a barricade? Something that would hold them off for a while longer?” He gives them an embarrassed, half smile, blushes and averts his eyes quickly.
Murray’s mouth turns down a bit in thought. He seems to not notice the tension in the room. “What would we use? It’s not like we have bits of wood that we can nail across the door or anything lying about suitable for a job like that.”
Dave narrows his eyes and looks between Bret and Jemaine a few times, studying their faces attentively, before he rests a softer gaze on Murray. “We can use the furniture. The couches, tables, chairs. Shit like that,” he decides. “We’ll just stack them up against the door and maybe they won’t be able to get through all of it.”
“We won’t be able to get out either,” Jemaine points out, finally meeting Dave’s eyes with a quarrelsome expression firmly in place. “We’d be stuck in here until they got through. Sitting ducks.”
“We’re sitting ducks anyway. We don’t really have very many other options, Jemaine. Do you want to run for it? What do you think your chances of survival would be if you did?” Dave bites out. Jemaine’s face falls into a pout and he sinks back against the cushions. Bret touches his elbow gently and Dave frowns at them. “Right now I think it’s the best idea that we have so that’s what we’re going to do until we can come up with something better.” Climbing to his feet decisively he says, “We don’t have time to waste on any more brainstorming. We need to do something and we need to do it now.”
Next to him Murray rises as well. “He’s right,” he agrees. “We need to do something to stop them from getting in here in the first place otherwise we have no chance at all.”
Bret stands up and forces Jemaine to his feet with one arm hooked around his friend’s elbow. “Let’s get started then,” he declares, blushing again when he catches Dave’s glance and Dave rolls his eyes in exasperation.
They quickly, but as quietly as possible, get to work dragging the larger pieces of furniture across the apartment and stacking them against the front door. The dressers from the bedroom go first because they’re the only things that will stack almost flat. The two couches from the living room follow and Dave is glad that all they have to do is slide them across the floor. Moving furniture has never been something high on his to-do list. For the lighter objects they form an assembly line formation. Dave goes from room to room gathering up end tables and chairs and he passes them to Murray who passes them to Jemaine who passes them to Bret. Bret hums the Tetris theme to himself as he arranges and positions everything to fit solidly together and his soft voice fills the emptiness of the apartment.
Every little bit helps. Everything they add makes it all the more difficult for them to be reached so when they’re done with the substantial pieces they begin to add books and lamps and all of the other hodgepodge items they find lying around. It might not be enough to stop them, but hopefully it will be enough to trip them up.
“I have swords,” Dave announces to them when they’ve finished and are critically surveying their work for any weak spots. “In my room I have a few Samurai swords that I used to keep on my dresser.”
Jemaine glances over at him and rolls his eyes. “This is not surprising,” he says dryly.
Dave scowls at him. “We need weapons, don’t we? I have some. Now, do you want to use them or are you going to fight off these creatures with your sarcasm?”
Looking slightly chastised Jemaine bows his head and mumbles, “Weapons, please.”
“You should be grateful I have anything at all,” Dave tells him sourly over his shoulder on the way to the other room. He returns with them along with his paintball gun, simply because it makes him feel better to hold a gun even though he knows that, logically, it isn’t going to be of very much help. “I only have three,” he notifies them when he enters again. Automatically, he hands one of them over to Murray and then looks between Bret and Jemaine. “Guys?”
“That’s okay,” Bret says looking at the sword in Dave’s hand with some wary trepidation. “I’ll just make do with something else.”
Dave shrugs. “Suit yourself,” he says, handing the weapon to Jemaine instead. “You can hold the paintball gun if you want. You might be able to, I don’t know...blind them with it or something.”
Bret looks skeptical still but when Dave hands it over he takes it carefully and says, “Thanks.”
“I don’t think that will really work very well,” Jemaine mutters and Dave turns angrily towards him.
“Look, Jemaine. Do you have some kind of a problem tonight?”
Jemaine looks taken aback by the confrontation and he ducks his head as he says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you sure?” Dave clips out, crossing his arms over his chest and gripping the scabbard in his hand so tightly his knuckles turn white. “Because I kind of feel like maybe you do know what I’m talking about.” Beside him Murray shifts his weight uncomfortably and reaches out to lightly touch the middle of Dave’s back but Dave doesn’t back down. His heart is pounding away in his chest but he’s not going to let them see how nervous he is or how important it is to him that Jemaine doesn’t turn him away right now.
Jemaine stays quiet for the longest time. Dave can see the battle raging inside of him in the way his hands clench into fists and how he chews on his lower lip and Dave’s ready to storm out of the room when the New Zealander finally shakes his head, looking up and straight at him and declares, “No. There’s no problem.”
Dave narrows his eyes and studies him. Jemaine matches his gaze steadily with one of his own and they stare at each other in silence until Dave nods once. “Okay,” he says. There’s still a small amount of distrust and suspicion in his voice, but he allows his body to relax.
“It’s just,” Bret speaks up suddenly and three sets of eyes turn to stare at him, “it was just unexpected.” Quickly he tries to explain, “Not that...that isn’t okay. It was just, you know...” he trails off at the end and shrugs. “You’re Dave.”
“Unexpected,” Dave repeats, deflating. “Yeah, I know.” Without sparing any of them another glance he crosses the room and sits down with his back against the wall, staring straight ahead at their makeshift barricade and placing the sword across his lap.
Murray follows and sits down beside him. “He doesn’t mean anything by it,” he whispers into Dave’s ear. “He’s just Jemaine.”
“I know,” Dave responds with as much indifference as he can muster. He chances a look over to where the other two are still standing and talking amongst themselves. They’re too quiet for Dave to hear but it’s clear from their body language that they’re arguing and after a few moments Bret grips Jemaine’s hand and drags him over to join them. He pats Dave’s knee as he settles down, yanking Jemaine down as well, and Dave gives him a brief, weak smile.
“Now what do we do?” Murray asks, letting his head fall back to rest against the wall.
After a few long moments Dave responds with, “Now we wait.”
--&--
The next few days are spent listening to the creatures outside shuffling into the walls and staggering up the stairs as they groan and moan and progress through the complex. The squish of their skin makes Dave sick and his own skin crawls in disgust when he catches the sound. They decide to relocate to the living room to keep a watchful eye on the door and with all of them together there’s a false sense of comfort and safety that settles in the air. They’re together and still alive and that’s what counts.
Their days become filled with fear and desperation and panicked glances every time there’s a creak or a crack near the barricade. Every step they take is deliberate and cautious to avoid any complaining from the floorboards and they move around as little as they can. At night they sleep in shifts. Two of them stay awake while the other two sleep curled up on the wooden floor. Dave’s hand is never far from his weapon and he doesn’t think he could sleep if he tried. There’s too much going on in his head to let him sleep. The end could happen at any moment and he wants to be awake when it does.
That’s why he’s the only one who has managed to stay awake tonight. Murray had fallen asleep during their shift with his head dropping to rest on Dave’s shoulder about an hour ago and Dave hasn’t bothered to wake him up just for the company. From where he’s sitting with his back against the wall he can keep an eye on the entire living room area as well as the front door and it’s been a relatively quiet night anyway. He isn’t too concerned about being the only one up.
It’s kind of peaceful this way. The moonlight rests on Bret’s sleeping form and creeps across the floor as the wind rattles the windows gently. The zombies are abnormally quiet which makes Dave a little bit wary, but with the silence it’s almost how it was before all of the shit hit the fan. Before their lives became one giant nightmare. Suddenly there’s a rustling and Dave is instantly on his guard but it’s only Jemaine climbing out of his blankets and crawling over to him. Dave relaxes and nods in greeting when he settles down.
“I’m sorry about the other day,” he mumbles after a few seconds. He slouches his shoulders and looks like he wants nothing more than for the wall to open up behind them and swallow him up. “Bret says I didn’t handle it very well. Said I should apologize.” His fingers tap restlessly in a silent rhythm on the hilt of his sword and he looks everywhere but at Dave. “So...sorry.”
Dave is startled by the apology and he opens and closes his mouth a few times before managing to reply, “Yeah. It’s cool, man. No worries.”
“I just never thought you,” he stops and shrugs, “especially with.” He stops again and gestures vaguely instead.
Murray makes a soft sound in his sleep. His hair brushes at Dave’s cheek but he manages to stop the gentle smile that wants to come out when he says, “Me either.” He still hasn’t really thought about everything that has happened between them, or about where this attraction came from in the first place. Under the circumstances the whys and hows of it all don’t seem too important.
“Okay,” Jemaine says.
They fall into a comfortable, companionable silence and after a while Dave’s eyelids begin to drop. Murray’s body is warm against his side and Jemaine is humming softly under his breath, and suddenly he’s so tired. He can’t remember the last time he actually let himself sleep and he rests his cheek against the top of Murray’s head and allows his eyes to slip shut.
He’s not sure whether he’s dreaming or if he’s awake when he first hears it. It’s the creaking of the wood and the metallic sound of a handle being turned with the lock still in place. He is certain, though, that there’s a hand on his shoulder shaking him insistently and he blinks to find Jemaine’s terrified face inches from his own.
“What?” he whispers. “What is it?” The door rattles and realization dawns and he slowly, slowly shifts his gaze from Jemaine’s face to the front door. “Shit.”
He straightens up as much as he can without dislodging Murray as he tries to clear the sleep from his brain and he stares in horror across the apartment. The door shakes and the doorknob jiggles in place. Terror races through his body and his heart is pounding so loudly he’s sure that it’s going to give them away. He can’t breathe and has to fight the rising panic. He can hear them breathing heavily on the other side as the doorknob clinks once more and then it falls silent once again.
They sit immobile on the floor for what feels like hours after that trying to get themselves under control. Once Dave regains command of his muscles he looks over at Jemaine. His friend’s face is ashen when he looks back. Neither of them speak. They’re too afraid that something might still be out there.
Beside him Murray stirs. Coming back to himself bit by bit he yawns, “How long was I out? Did I miss anything?”
At that, Jemaine lets out a shaky laugh. “Just a near death experience s’all.”
--&--
On the other side of the room Bret is crawling out from under his blankets. His hair is standing up every which way and he gives the three of them a sleepy smile. “Was there some kind of top secret meeting last night that I wasn’t invited to?” he croaks out before yawning.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Jemaine tells him.
Bret makes a thoughtful sound and then shrugs. “You guys want some breakfast?” he asks with a jerk of his thumb towards the kitchen. “I’m gonna see if we have any cereal left.” The other three shake their heads and Bret shrugs again. “Okay, but I’m not going back in there to fetch stuff later.”
Dave watches him leaving before leaning his head back against the wall and allowing his eyes to drift shut. He’s feeling serene for once as his body relaxes but then the sound of something bumping against the door cuts through the air and Dave’s heart stops beating. He can feel the blood draining from his face and turning cold as his eyes fly back open.
“Guys,” Bret whispers urgently as he tiptoes back in from the kitchen. He hastens over to where he left the paintball gun and snatches it up.
Dave gets to his feet and steps forward. “We heard it.”
“Maybe if we don’t move they’ll go away,” Murray suggests as he casts a nervous glance at the door and gets to his feet as well. He moves subtly closer to Dave and fidgets with the handle of his sword.
Dave wraps an arm around Murray’s waist and tugs him closer. Murray fingers anxiously at one of Dave’s belt loops and Dave’s hand slips beneath the hem of the other man’s shirt. “Maybe,” he says without much confidence. “It worked last night but I don’t know if it’ll work again.”
The color drains from Murray’s face. “They were here last night? Why didn’t you tell me?” he hisses as a scowl passes over his features for a moment. “Why did you let me fall asleep? You should have woken me up to keep watch with you.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“We thought it’d be better not to make everyone worry,” Jemaine explains. He picks up his sword and gets up of the floor to come and stand beside them. “We didn’t think they’d come back after that.” Dave glances at Jemaine from over the top of Bret’s head and they share a grim look.
“But they did,” Bret whispers. He clasps his fingers around Jemaine’s wrist nervously. “They came back. They must have figured out that we’re in here.” He’s got the paint pellet gun clenched in his fist so tightly that his fingers are turning white.
“It’s okay,” Dave tells them as the banging becomes more intense. “We’ll be okay.”
They all stand together in the middle of the room and they wait, and they watch, and each of them crosses their fingers in the desperate hope that somehow luck might be on their side today. They can hear the door groaning with insistence and little cracks and faults start spreading slowly throughout the wood until the door begins to splinter bit by bit and fold beneath the pressure applied by so many hands pushing and shoving against it.
The first thing to reach them is the smell and Dave actually takes an involuntary step backwards as he gags and chokes. It’s like nothing he’s ever smelled before. It’s putrid and rancid like burning garbage mixed with rotting fish and he’s pretty sure that normal decomposing bodies aren’t supposed to smell like this. His eyes start to water as he fights to get his gag reflex under control and focus. There’s a sizable gap in the middle of the door and he can see them pushing and stumbling over one another as they reach and claw to be the first one through.
The barricade is still holding strong but he can see the weaker areas. The areas he knows won’t hold for very much longer. All they can do is stand there and wait in terror as one of the beings finally breaks free of the others and manages to get a leg through the gap. The dressers get pushed to the side and topple over as he tries to come through properly.
All of a sudden there’s a loud pop and the monster is staggering backwards, ripping the rest of the boards from the door, and crashing to the ground where he is promptly trampled. They turn, mouths open, to see Bret lowering his gun.
“Why wait until they’re inside?” he asks simply.
This ignites something deep within Dave and he announces, “Bret’s right. If we keep them out there it’ll be easier to deal with all of them. He looks from his friend’s back to the door where another is starting to come through. “This is it, guys. It’s time to show these bastards what we’e made of,” he says while trying to keep his voice from quavering and trying to sound as strong as he can.
Bret nods and shoots again successfully sending another back through the door.
Dave turns to Murray and there’s so much that he wants to say, wants to tell him, but they don’t have time and he doesn’t know if he’d be able to find the right words anyway. Murray smiles weakly at him with sad eyes and for a second everything fades away as Dave leans down to kiss him one last time.
“Guys,” Jemaine shouts and they break apart as the kitchen table goes sliding across the room.
Reluctantly Dave turns his attention back to the attack. He raises his sword and with one more glance at the other man he charges towards the door.
Epilogue:
November 12th - just a quick update because we made it out. if we die now I want it to be known that we at least made it out of the first attack. somehow we made it out alive. no fucking idea how we managed it. it’s all a bi blur. all I remember is charging at the door. the rest is gone. blanked out. bret’s hurt. not sure if he was bitten or not. god, I hope not. I don’t know what we’d do. what the hell are we supposed to do now? I don’t think any of us thought we’d make it out alive.
Stuffing his notebook in his back pocket with a sigh Dave wipes his forehead. His fingers come away sticky with sweat and dirt. They have no food, no supplies, and no where to go. They can’t go back to the apartment. There will be another surge of them soon and who knows if the ones they left behind are really dead. Surveying his surroundings with a grim face he frowns. They’re in the open and unprotected and they need to get moving before night falls and they can’t see where they’re going anymore or see what’s coming towards them. They need to get inside before they’re spotted.
He watches as Jemaine rips at the bottom of his shirt and sets about tenderly bandaging up Bret’s bleeding arm. Beside them Murray shakes with his arms wrapped tightly around his body. He’s got blood in his hair and something else that Dave doesn’t want to think about. They’re standing in the shade of an old tree and when Dave walks over to them his legs are unsteady but he tries his best to look in control.
Slinging his sword over his back so that the hilt rests on his shoulder he says, “We need to get moving and the sooner we do the better.”
“He’s right,” Jemaine agrees as he ties the last knot to secure the cloth around Bret’s arm. Bret winces and Jemaine immediately looks up at him. “Too tight?” he asks, concern etched across his features as he studies his friend’s face.
Bret shakes his head and cradles his forearm against his chest. “No,” he replies. His voice is barely above a whisper and it’s weak. “No, it’s fine.”
With his free hand Dave takes up Murray’s and laces their fingers together. “Come on,” he says and with a gentle tug he leads him out from under the shelter of the tree.
Bret and Jemaine fall diligently into step behind them and they set off down the road with the hopes of finding some place better than what they were leaving behind.