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Did you ever think we'd let it carry on this far?
Look at yourself
Are you even still alive at all?
Can't you see the beauty in everything we are?
I can't believe I waited all this time
To figure out what's missing
I can't believe that this is happening
to me.
- Sleeping With Sirens, Parasites.
J’ai des idées romantiques
Consistant à faire aux flics
Des choses que le grand public
Qualifierait d’infâmes
[...]
L’amour rend aveugle ceux
Dont on crèvera les yeux
Nos soirées en amoureux
Seront sans état d’âme
Pas de discrimination
Cassons tout sans exception
que l’enfer et la prison
Nous ouvrent leur sésame*
- GARGÄNTUA - La Mort Avec Toi
*I have some romantic ideas/Involving doing to the cops/Things the general public/Would call despicable/[...]/Love blinds those/Whose eyes we'll pierce/Our romantic evenings/Will be ruthless/No discrimination/Let's smash everything, no exception/May Hell and prison/Open their gates to us
⁂
The night is chilly. The air is humid. It's a little suffocating, even in November. A loud slap on Abed’s skin makes Troy jump.
“Finally,” his best friend mutters.
Troy watches as he wipes his palm over a paper tissue, and tosses the latter in the bushes nearby. He does his best to keep from scratching the now wide pimple he got on his left leg from a sting he doesn’t even remember. The fact there remains mosquitoes this late in the year makes them all the more insufferable.
There is some movement, near the gates. The security agent is closing the main door, while making the last students rush out of the building. He wouldn’t have guessed before that the med school’s library closes this late.
“Okay. Follow me,” Abed whispers.
They crawl over the damp grass, partially hidden by the thick hedge, and reach the chainlink behind the building. Troy is glad his athletic skills will be useful once again since he gave up any chance of becoming a professional football player.
“You’re sure the camera doesn't see us?”
“I told you it’s safe. My cousin from Detroit studied here and has stolen test answers multiple times.”
They are wearing black hoodies and a scarf above their nose as extra precaution. Troy almost feels like they were about to reenact a game of Payday: the Heist — stealth mode. It would have been funny, if Troy’s stomach hadn’t been growling and twisting around itself for two whole days.
They knew Abed’s shoulder wouldn’t be enough.
His friend is very good at lying. When asked by the meds how he got his wounds, he said he fought with a hound thinking he could adopt it, and played crazy until they thought he was too out of his head to actually think properly. The most surprising thing of that night had been Abed eventually agreeing to see doctors.
“Does it hurt?”
“The painkillers are working, don’t worry. C’mere.”
They manage to slip by a window kept open, because the lock is broken — Abed has checked the day before — and in no time, they are crossing the library and running in the main hall. They cross a sort of underground parking lot, and at this point, Troy is simply following his best friend. He doesn’t know how they end up in the clinic’s basement.
“Quick. Cleaning services will arrive in the library in less than an hour.”
There’s a maze of gray corridors, and their footsteps bounce over the concrete walls in a sinister way. Abed pulls out the card he’s stolen, and opens the door.
The room is cold. They must have stepped in a fridge or something. It smells like disinfectant, steel, and… Troy prefers not to think about it.
There’s clatter and ruffle in a corner. They didn’t light the room for more discretion — and because Troy didn’t want to see. He doesn’t know how Abed can be so chill with—
“Troy, can you help me? It’s heavier than I thought.”
His heart misses a beat. It almost puts an end to the endless begging of his empty stomach.
He walks towards his friend, who hands him the end of some thick plastic bag and pulls, and a loud ‘thump’ follows. Then, the sound of a zipper.
“Enjoy your meal,” Abed says flatly.
Troy tries to swallow back the ball of disgust that has started to reach the back of his throat. He feels like a big vulture, but with hands, and no wings. Maybe hyena would be more appropriate.
The man — body — looks in his sixties. He's kind of fat, yet looks strong. Must have been a construction worker or something. He's cold, and rigid, and smells strange. Troy’s stomach growls quite loudly as he crouches and leans down, and pulls a calf to his foaming mouth.
‘This is technically not profanation,’ Abed had said, ‘since these people asked for their body to be given to science after their death.’
The taste is acrid. It feels like the corpse has been left to dry under the bright sun of Nevada’s desert, except it's as cold as ice, and chews itself pretty badly. Troy swallows with difficulty.
“How is it?”
He wipes his chin with the sleeve of his t-shirt.
“... Weird?”
“Are you feeling any better?”
Troy shrugs. His stomach isn't empty anymore, so that's probably fine.
It feels nothing like Abed though, Troy thinks in a twisted way. Nor like that driver from two weeks ago either.
When he thinks he's done, he helps Abed carry the body to the incinerator, and lets him finish the job himself.
⁂
Things are sort of okay for a while. Troy is tired most of the day after, but at least he’s able to go to class again without any pain in his guts and this incessant need to bite on someone.
But soon, very soon, there's the fever. Every hour or so, Troy wakes up and rushes to the toilet, still trying to keep whatever is still left in his stomach in. He first thinks he caught something like the flu or gastroenteritis (he's actually proud of remembering the whole word), yet it feels like he's almost dying.
Abed pays him a visit on the weekend. Pierce makes a comment about him being Troy's 1950s wife, and he's surprised at how it's not racist for once.
Abed sits on the side of the water bed, and lays a hand over Troy's sweaty forehead.
“It's even worse than yesterday. Have you taken any meds?”
He nods tiredly, and squirms at the painful tinge inside his stomach, and the overall feeling of sickness that follows.
“It's like… my body’s trying to get rid of…”
He doesn't finish his sentence.
His throat is suddenly full and in no time he's vomiting all he has left in him in the basin Abed hands him from the floor.
It smells… coppery, and like an open trash bin.
He opens his eyes, and blinks through his tears.
There's blood.
He throws up once more, until his insides twist too much, and he slowly, yet soon, starts to feel better.
Abed writes something down in his yellow notebook.
“It looks like food poisoning.”
Troy's heart drops.
“It can't…”
“It confirms that whatever you turned into, you’re not a scavenger.”
Tears start forming in his eyes again; not from the pain of vomiting this time.
“What does that even mean?” Troy whines.
Abed looks at him with a strangely cold gaze.
“You have to hunt.”
⁂
Troy’s body itches all over. He and Abed silently lie next to each other on the bottom bunk. The only sounds that fill the room are occasional cars passing by, and the high pitched buzzing of that mosquito that has been stealing blood from them since the beginning of the evening.
In all honesty, Troy kinda prefers getting stung over and over again, rather than killing the bug. He thinks that's unfair, since mosquitoes probably aren't aware they are annoying. Britta also once told him that only the females stung, because they need all the blood to feed their babies.
Troy doesn't have any baby to feed. Only himself. Tears run down his cheeks like they know the path to take by heart now.
Troy cries a lot these days. The more time passes, the more hunger is getting its vicious grip around his whole mind. Yet he keeps pushing it back.
Jeff once told him that mosquitoes are probably the only living beings totally useless in the whole ecosystem. No bigger animal feeds on them, at all. They don't help pollinize, nor keep the bulls’ blood pure or something. And they carry some of the most deadly illnesses with them sometimes.
They simply exist, and annoy everyone.
A nuisance.
A threat.
Troy's head suddenly feels sort of empty. As if only his bodily functions are still working. Abed is very quiet, probably sleeping. Like on autopilot, he gets up, and walks towards the kitchenette area of Abed’s dorm. Ruffles through the drawers. He's disappointed he can't find any actual knife, but it's not really surprising, since Abed's diet mostly consists of butter noodles and cereals.
Oh, but there's Abed’s bathroom kit right next to his desk, he remembers.
Troy walks there, grabs his razor, and walks to the communal bathroom.
He sort of feels bad for the cleaning staff when the blade digs in his forearm. It hurts. It doesn't matter. No one else will hurt. He tries to fight his instinct of backing out from pain and digs again. Blood spills for real this time. It's strange that he's still able to bleed, after all this. He doesn't really know if he's even human anymore.
But there's something twisting his guts and clenching around his heart. I must. What?
He throws the blade over the floor.
Carry on. Live.
He can't. Yet it's visceral. Like he's done a very bad thing, on the biological level. After all, Troy doesn't really want to die, he’s just protecting other people.
Eat.
Eat eat eat eat eat—
He feels cold. And light. He…
Wakes up in a hospital bed. His first thought is: thankfully. Then: damn it.
He’s hungry. Hungrier than ever. Starving. Abed is slotted right against him.
He hurts. He can't really feel his arm but he hurts so damn much and the second he can walk he’ll feed and eat and—
“Don't you ever try to do that again.”
Troy speaks with a weak voice.
“What else could I do…?”
“We’ll find a solution.”
“You said that last time and it didn't work!”
“Who said this was the only sol—”
“We’re not killing anyone, Abed!”
His friend looks startled. He’s lucky the nurses aren't there yet.
“How— how am I…”
“They had to perform several blood transfusions, but apparently only one was enough. You’re recovering quickly, but are still fragile. They told me to look after you.”
“Thanks,” he whispers. His hand brushes Abed's. They haven't talked about what they are yet. Troy doesn't know if this is relevant right now.
After they signed all the papers and Troy agreed to apply for group therapy — even if he’ll probably never attend — Troy goes back to Abed’s dorm. Seems like his dad doesn't really care. His mom doesn't know, and Troy prefers it to stay that way. Pierce has no clue about what happened, and neither does the rest of the Study Group.
One of the worst things in that whole situation is that whenever she tries to send him sweets or invite him to the restaurant once a weekend, he has to fake being sick, or tells her that he indeed loved the stuff that she sent him. He has a small metal tea box where he keeps every candy he's ever received since Halloween. It's better than nothing.
Abed opens his laptop, and in no time, he's posted an advert on Craigslist.
“You’re sure someone will agree to do this?”
“I don't know, but I'm afraid that you'll need to eat within the next forty-eight hours minimum.”
“...and if no one answers?”
Abed says nothing.
“I won't let you die, Troy.”
“Me neither Abed! I’m not eating you, that— I'll never do that, and you’ll have to fight me actually. You can't make me kill you. You— I—”
“Okay.”
The silence was heavy.
“Then you’ll need to accept the new conditions for your survival.”
“...why?”
Abed shifts a little. It's clear that he has something in mind. Something he's thought of for a while. That's what makes Troy even more stressed out.
“You can't die. You're the protagonist of this new genre movie.”
“This isn't a genre movie, Abed! You’re legit talking about — about killing people and eating them! This is not Silence of the Lambs or shit, this is real life and I'm not a fucking murderer!”
There’s a loud bang from behind the wall. Troy is a little out of breath for screaming.
“I won't let you die,” Abed says. “You can't die. You have to live. You can't leave me, and you have to live.”
He sounds pained, as if he's the one who needs to do the dirty job. Well, he pretty much did at the med school three nights ago.
It feels like a very, very long nightmare. The more time stretches, the less things make sense. Except what Abed just said.
“Is this what it's all about?” Troy asks in a small voice.
“You’re important. You matter.”
“No I don't! Then why are you fucking killing mosquitoes when they sting you?!”
Troy has a hard time to breathe between sobs. Has a hard time thinking too. He just wants to lie down and sleep, and maybe pass away from hunger when he’s not even aware of it.
Abed tilts his head.
“Nobody likes mosquitoes. I like you.”
Troy blinks through his tears. Abed’s eyes are staring at him like he’s able to see his insides, and what they actually contain. Abed comes closer.
“I love you.”
⁂
No one answers their Craigslist request. They are lucky they aren't being reported anyway. After all, there are more affordable and efficient ways of committing suicide than flying one’s way to Colorado and getting eaten by some desperate half gay college dude.
The more time passes, the longer Troy's head hurts. He’s not able to go to class anymore, and spends most of his days lying in bed, waiting for the end to come. He’s learned to sort of forget the continuous ache in his stomach. At least he doesn't attempt to shorten the waiting anymore, just like he promised.
He receives a text from Annie.
Have you seen Abed??
is he not w u? He replies, and something drops in the bottom of his stomach.
A rock hits his bedroom window. Troy wonders if that's rain, but clouds don't usually cry a single drop.
Gathering all his strength, he kneels over the mattress, and watches Abed standing on the large alleyway.
“You know you don't have to sneak around with your boyfriend? I'm not yer dad.” Pierce yells from the other side of the corridor. “Now hurry up and let me sleep!”
He goes downstairs with difficulty, and crosses the living area to open to his friend. He still feels a little weird when walking past the kitchen, where he stumbled upon Pierce’s mom’s corpse.
Because she died there. She used to be a person. Now she’s just a body, six feet under ground. Or vaporized. He’s not really sure.
She’s bones and dirt. And nothing else anymore.
“Put your shoes on and follow me,” Abed says. So Troy follows him.
He doesn't really know what’s real or not. Abed throws Troy's arm around his lean shoulders, and it reminds him of war heroes or pilots crossing the battlefield.
They are no heroes.
They’re survivors in a horror movie.
“Hey.”
Abed shakes him awake. He looks a little blurry. They are in a car, and Abed opens the door for him.
“Wh—”
“It doesn't matter.”
The bitumen becomes soft, and that's how Troy knows it's not bitumen anymore. Everything is so dark here, and branches creak under their feet. It almost feels like a camping trip. He almost falls a few times.
They stop.
Abed turns a flashlight on. Someone's laying down on the rotting leaves. He’s got some neon yellow paint on his hair.
Troy falls to his knees, and there's this stinging ache right inside his belly, and he feels his chin getting wet, and all his senses wake up as he leans over and—
Sweat. Salty smell, mixed with dirt and late night dew. His breath smells like alcohol and it almost makes him throw up. Yet he has nothing to throw up. He’s empty. So empty.
Hungry.
He can't do that.
The man breathes. His neck is warm. Arms bare. Thick. No t-shirt. Pink skin. Thick, pulsating neck.
He can't—
A hand pushes his head down, and Troy's lips meet the man’s skin. Too hard. His teeth bump and pierce the skin and then muscles and blood fills his mouth then throat and it's tender against his teeth oh my god oh my god—
They are startled by a loud scream. It's only now that Troy figures out where they are. The undergrowth. Abed didn't kill him. He was unconscious and his friend is now picking his paintball gun, but it’s too late.
The man starts fighting back, and Troy's whole body moves before he can even think of his next move.
He straddles him and his nails claw at the skin he’s already ripped off, and the pain makes the stranger fall back on the ground, and Troy throws himself at him, bites a chunk of cheek off in the process, his fingers dip in the man's eyes, and something snaps. Troy’s lips suck at the cavities, while his knee dives in his neck.
The body spasms, then lets go after one last convulsion. Troy doesn't. He’s now tearing up the flesh of his throat with renewed intensity and gnaws at his shoulder. He’ll never have enough. His teeth are sharp and his jaws are strong and his stomach screams, begging to be filled.
He can't even see the face. The features. There's a hundred and fifty pounds of raw meat under him. The flesh is soft, yet the muscles are firm, sustaining. The thighs are stringy and some of it gets stuck between his teeth. There's something hard at some point. It hurts to bite it.
“You’ve reached the bone,” Abed whispers, a gentle hand cradling his neck. “Here.”
He hands him a limp forearm, and Troy finishes it in no time.
After that, he’s a little bloated. Too full. The skin of his belly is stretched. He’s not felt like that for a long time. He’s out of breath.
Fed.
Peaceful.
Abed watches him with dark eyes. He almost glows under the moonlight.
He carries a shovel aside his paintball rifle.
Troy lies there. Over the moss. Surrounded by blood, and mushrooms, and the earth. Bugs already come for the corpse. Maggots will appear soon. It's simply a matter of time before he’s part of nature again.
Troy’s skin tingles with a cold breeze. He releases a soft, shaky exhale, and closes his eyes.
⁂
Abed drives them to his dorm instead of Pierce’s mansion. They don't say anything. They don't have to.
Troy is unable to speak anyway.
They walk to the shower stalls. It's dim in here. They undress and throw their clothes away. Water pours all over them.
Abed takes a washing cloth, and gently rubs Troy’s chin. His cheeks. The sides of his mouth. The tiled floor is bright red around their feet.
His body is warm, and soft. Troy helps him get the dirt away from his fingernails.
Abed’s eyes are warm too. They look at him intensely, a strange smoldering glint in the iris. It looks like pride.
He doesn't know what takes him, when he leans up and kisses his lips, a little too harshly. Abed doesn't seem to care. Abed doesn't push him back. Abed lets himself get devoured. Troy takes everything.
His heart pounds like it has never done before.
And he’s struck by the realization that he can have all this. He can have them.
As long as he’s alive.
He leaves marks everywhere he can, and Abed pushes him against the wall, but for the first time in his life, Troy’s strength makes it difficult. It’s like a second body in his. Like it takes him no effort to do anything.
He kisses Abed's shoulder. The wound is ugly; in the process of scarring, yet not closed yet. It's somewhat putrid, yet Troy kisses it with reverence, and Abed lets out a strangely euphoric laugh. And then bites Troy in return. Hard. So hard it pierces the skin.
Troy shivers under the pain. Hooks his leg around his waist. He lets himself be carried to the floor.
“Stay with me,” Abed murmurs in the midst of their embrace.
It feels good. Never in his life someone made him feel whole in this way.
“I'm not leaving you. Never.”
Ever.
The fog surrounds them and the running water covers up their cries.
⁂
They make it a habit.
Abed writes every step down in a notebook he keeps locked in a special drawer he’s put a lock on. They buy new tracksuits every time. They find a dispenser where they are sure the trash goes to the incinerator then.
They drive far away, probably outside Colorado. Never at the same place. Abed runs in the middle of the speedway when a driver comes by. If they are lucky, the car crashes on a tree or road sign while trying to avoid him.
Tonight, they aren't.
The car stops brutally, and the driver doesn't come out of the vehicle.
The boys waste no time rushing to the doors, and Abed shoots in the glass with his paintball gun, which is enough to break it. He hits the driver — a woman in her forties — in the temple with his weapon, and Troy surges, grabs her face, and breaks her neck. They make it as quick as possible.
As they drag the body off the car, Troy's guts twist with an alien, almost euphoric feeling. He’s learned how to dissociate the fact that the body is human, has a driving license, a name. A family. He’s able to see the flesh beneath the clothes, probably carefully picked this morning. He's able to anticipate how the meat will taste. If the limbs are lanky, or thick, or fat. How rich it might feel under his palate. Down his stomach. How intensely Abed will watch him eat.
He once tried feeding alongside Troy. It had felt awful for him. But he still did. He tried to understand.
Only Abed knows.
And Troy has never felt so alive.
Sometimes, it eventually hits Troy. The very nature of what they are doing. And it’s mostly at random moments. History study sessions, daydreaming in class, playing chess with Pierce.
Lying naked against Abed.
But then he remembers. He does this for him. For the both of them. Because he made a promise. Because friends don't lie. And that strange, sudden clarity vanishes as fast as it appeared.
Because they love each other so much they will do this kind of stuff at night, and never talk about it later. It's their secret, and in a way, it’s awfully thrilling.
He’ll always have Abed, and Abed will always have him.
He enjoys that feeling.
⁂
“You look better,” Annie tells him as they walk to Duncan’s classroom.
He's been told that a lot lately. He didn't really pay attention. All he can think about now is how long he'll have to wait before the next hunt. He stares at the window, notebook empty and brain full of flashes from those nights of feeding.
The smell of blood, the blue light of the sky, and Abed's gaze. Enveloping him, like the shadows of the trees.
Abed always showers him afterwards. And they end the night in his dorm. And he tells him how beautiful Troy is, and how lucky he finds himself to be near him.
When he goes home this afternoon, Troy locks his door, slowly undresses, and stands before the tall mirror of Pierce’s spare bedroom. He straightens his back, and takes in the full view of his bare form.
It’s true. There are changes in his body. Subtle, yet visible.
His skin, too pale-looking a few days after the Halloween party, now shows again his usual rich brown complexion, and shines with a healthy glow. The dark circles around his eyes have finally disappeared. His cheeks look fuller. In a way, this makes him look younger. But that softness is sweetly contrasted with the firm fullness of his muscles, more defined than they ever were.
He traces the soft skin of his chest, and skims down his abdomen. Where his stomach stays beneath the muscles. Tightly attached to the rest of his insides. Powered by the low pumping of his heart.
Troy has always known he looked good, because he never had a hard time getting laid, or being approached by girls in high school. But for the first time in his life, he’s able to find himself beautiful. Not in a way that is useful for the football team, or his parents, or his reputation; but in a way akin to how he felt during his first dance lesson, or when Abed touched him for the first time.
He simply exists.
And a somewhat sick thought takes him. Only one person can see him whole like this now. Now that he looks his best. And it makes Troy shiver for some reason.
As his fingers travel down, he thinks about Abed. About his tall, lean frame. About how warm his skin feels against his. His lips. His eyes.
He pictures him, standing behind his back, long arms circling his waist. Abed wants him. He wants Abed to want him. He likes that he’s able to recall now, and not simply imagine, what Abed's touch does to him. He likes that he doesn't have to ask himself before touching him. He likes knowing how he feels inside. And his flesh, in him, and his taste on his lips. It all mixes in a blur of memory snippets and flashes his imagination produces.
And he sees what Abed must see in these moments. The beauty of what he has become.
⁂
Concerning news reports don't take a long time to show up.
Strange car accidents keep happening all around the Fort Collins area, and bodies are found missing. Troy can't help but wonder how long they’ll be able to keep going like this.
One day, a bloodhound smells the place where they buried the first one. The one they hadn't been able to burn.
Troy gets increasingly anxious day by day. It doesn't help that he’s soon going back home for winter break, and won't be able to hunt for a while.
Everyone talks about it at Greendale. It's not everyday that gruesome murders happen in the middle of nowhere near Colorado. Abed keeps making references about dark movies Troy hasn't seen. Annie tells them about wanting to become a forensics major. Jeff says stuff about his lawyer skills. And Troy remains silent.
One night, they are back from a hunt and try to cross the Nebraska to Colorado border, but the road is blocked. Dozens of cops aligned near the toll gate. Drivers being interrogated one by one.
Troy and Abed quickly remove their tracksuit tops and wipe his face and hands with moist toilets. Hawthorne ones.
“Good evening,” an agent greets.“I will need to ask you to open your trunk for me. I’m sorry, sirs, but this is the procedure.”
Troy’s ears ring. They have not anticipated this turn of events.
A corpse is wrapped in trash bags in the back of their car. They are on their way to the recycling center. There's an incinerator there. They've done this at least ten times.
This must be the end. It was too easy to last.
Abed tenses besides him. Troy’s face is turned to the car’s open window, yet he feels it. He knows him way too well.
“Why?” Troy can't help but ask.
The man casts a suspicious look.
“Haven't you heard the news reports? We’re looking for a serial killer who operates on roads and disposes of the bodies elsewhere. Now may I please take a look in your trunk?”
Cold sweat dashes over Troy's body. His heart pounds so hard that it makes his breath tremble, and he hopes it doesn't show. Abed says something like ‘sure’, and undoes his seatbelt and moves to open the door.
They are dead.
This is it. This is where it ends. Troy hopes they will be locked in the same prison cell, so he can finish his days next to him at least, but then he remembers that they will probably not spend much time in prison, since death penalty is a thing here. He hopes Abed will come with an escape plan for himself like in Shawshank Redemption and…
“Huh?”
Troy jumps, and almost bumps his head on the car ceiling. But Abed is still in the car, and the man is still standing next to the window. He's speaking in a talkie. Then pulls it down, and says:
“You two stay here. I must check on… something.”
Troy watches as he walks away. He hears the ‘click’ of Abed’s belt being plugged back in.
“Floor it.”
“W—what?”
“Classic chase trope opening,” Abed says. “Go, go, go.”
Troy doesn't think twice and pulls the speed lever. The car rushes and smashes the gate broken, and they can hear screams in the distance.
The car is on full speed but all he can hear is his heart drumming so fast it hurts. They hear sirens afar, so Troy drives past a few cars, almost brushing them, and crosses a red light or two before impulsively turning right.
When they reach the speedway again, they are no longer chased. For now.
It's the middle of the night. A faint smell of expired meat and coagulated blood starts to fill the back of the vehicle.
Troy’s vision gets blurry.
“Abed… I don't feel good.”
His voice sounds weak.
“Park on the stopping lane. I'll take the wheel.”
Troy manages to mutter a “thank you”, then does. They trade places. He lets his head fall back on the headrest, and his breathing slows down as Abed starts the car again.
They drive for what feels like hours. Troy doesn't know where they are. They pass near a few rivers, and the road has become more winding again.
“We're heading towards Salt Lake City. It’s pretty far from our usual perimeter.”
“Okay.”
“How do you feel?”
Troy lets out a shaky sigh.
“Freaked out.”
“Me too. I wasn't expecting the action scene to come so soon. We have to be more careful.”
They eventually stop near a deserted summer camp. They’re lucky it’s late November. Troy shivers a little when Abed opens his door.
“Help me.”
They open the trunk. It’s reeking. Troy hides his nose in the collar of his undershirt, and grabs the corpse by what remains of the legs while Abed carries the top of the body. They manage to drag it down a muddy slope, and Troy almost slips a few times. He's exhausted, and all he ever wants is for this night to end.
“There’s nowhere to bury him. It'll show.”
“Fuck.”
Troy shoots in a tiny rock. And then he sees it.
“Do you think this river goes far enough?”
“I don't know. But the water decay will make it impossible to identify.”
“How do you know all this?”
Abed shrugs.
“Criminal minds. Law and Order. NCIS. Dexter. Never thought this would actually be useful one day.”
Troy almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of this whole situation.
They carry the body to a run down concrete bridge, and start to strip him from the bags. The smell almost makes Troy want to puke.
It looks quite different from the one he ate at the medical school, almost one month ago, now. This one’s skin has already started to turn gray; an ashy and dark one. His nails are almost black. He looks a little bloated, and an acrid smell somehow escapes from below when they are moving his legs. The various open wounds have stopped bleeding. Bits of half-chewed flesh hardly hang from where the meat was too hard.
Troy must say that he kinda looks like a zombie. Pretty ironic, as Troy's bile is currently digesting what flesh he took away from him.
It’s strange, how the view before him, so appetizing a few hours ago, now makes his stomach turn and twist with disgust. How fast the process of decay happens. One moment, someone drives a car, and the next, Troy is contemplating rotting remains of flesh. Strange color patterns and smells. It's a little dizzying to think about.
They attach the plastic bags to one of his arms, so that it gets taken and washed up by the water, and throw the carcass into the steam. Troy has a little thought for the meat-eating fishes.
They use an empty trash bin and a plastic bag to light a fire, and toss their stained clothes inside. The smoke is black like the sky, and the smell is somehow worse than the carcass they just got rid of.
They take the road again the morning after.
⁂
His phone is full of text messages. Mostly from the study group. Abed doesn't answer his calls either. A sudden wave of panic rushes up Troy's guts, and itself around his lungs. What will their life be? They can't return to Greendale like this. Soon, an investigation will be started. They are already chased down by the cops from the Nebraska border.
But they were already living dangerously at Greendale. The campus would have been locked down and searched for proof. Troy is pretty sure that they are already suspected since he’s like this since he’s eaten the military surplus meat at the Halloween party. Why is he the only one still dealing with the side effects? Why isn't his body dying like he’s seen the others do before he turned the AC to freezing mode?
On the contrary, he's never felt more alive than at this moment.
According to Abed, the virus hasn't had the time to fully operate on his body. This probably makes sense, but that doesn't explain why the roofying didn't work on him.
They reach a motel nearby. It’s cheap, but it will do. When the lady behind the counter tells them about the breakfast prices, Abed and Troy exchange an amused look. It's nice to remember that they won't have to pay for two meals tomorrow. They still need money for gasoline.
“How the hell do you keep wanting to be with a literal zombie?” Troy says as they close the door of their room, and toss their bags aside.
“You’re not a zombie in the proper sense. You’re not mindless. That's the basic survival instinct that everything that lives experiences. You choose to live.”
“And kill people.”
“You chose me.”
Troy looks at him and gets overtaken by a nervous, almost hysterical laugh.
“I chose us. Instead of good. We’re definitely going to hell.”
He laughs now fully.
“We're going to hell. We're so going to hell! Man, we’re awful. Why… Why do I feel good?”
“I think we’ve stepped out of the zombie flick genre to enter the vampire genre a while ago.”
“Huh?”
“This is gothic horror. It's not about the core, but the feelings behind it. That's why it doesn't feel awful, I think.”
Abed opens his laptop and clicks on a VLC player file. The orange cone takes a while to disappear from the screen and instead, a movie starts. The streets of late century San-Francisco at night. A hotel room. A man facing the window is telling his story to a sort of obnoxious reporter. They sit against the headrest of the bed, snuggled against one another.
“I've never seen this movie.”
“Interview With The Vampire. A classic.”
Troy recognizes himself a lot in Louis, at first — well, if he forgets the whole slavery thing. Abed wraps an arm around him, and Troy leans further against his chest.
There's something strangely erotic to the whole transformation part, and then the first hunts. It’s clear that there is something between the two male leads. Troy stretches his neck, and kisses Abed's throat, slowly.
“I love you,” he whispers.
Abed's arms tighten around him.
There's a lot of nakedness going on on screen. Blonde Tom Cruise is trying to get Louis to eat, and it becomes painfully familiar. More blood. And tension. Ambiguity. Something ignites deep inside Troy's guts, and makes his heart beat faster. A cold thrill takes over his spine as he figures out why.
He wants to hunt. Not because he’s hungry, but simply because he wants to. That crippling anticipation that makes his muscles flex and ready to motion; the adrenaline as the skin finally breaks under his teeth. The taste. The fullness afterwards. The exhausted satisfaction. Repletion.
The thought chills him to the bone, and yet it’s the burning skin of Abed’s fingertips against his stomach that makes him shiver, in a delicious way.
He’s licking Abed's lips open, and soon, they roll over the mattress, and Troy is being pinned down with his friend all over him.
The movie is soon forgotten.
“I love you too.”
Abed's voice is heated. His breath too. Troy has never ever loved someone like this before, like it's the most logical thing for his feelings to do. It's obvious, so obvious he sort of wants to cry for not having found out sooner.
Their breathings and bodies intertwined, Troy thinks he has never looked as beautiful as in this very moment, fed in every sense possible.
⁂
They still pay for breakfast the morning after, because well, Abed still has to eat real food, and because there’s pancakes on the menu. A buff man looks at them strange.
“Ignore him,” he says, mouth full of cereals.
Troy shrugs and makes him another strawberry jam pancake.
“He’s just jealous,” Troy grins.
Their fingers brush as he hands him the soft toast. And Troy can't resist locking his ankle with Abed’s.
Someone clears their throat.
“Excuse me sirs, but what are you doing here?”
Troy frowns. He wants to answer something mean or shocking that will make him choke on his own saliva. Yet Abed is faster.
“Eating breakfast.”
The man leans down. His mustache is ridiculously thick, and Troy can't help but stare at the patches of baldness he must have tried so hard to conceal with his comb earlier.
“You think I'm stupid? They’re looking for two men around your age in the area. Doing shady stuff and killing car drivers.”
Troy’s heart misses a beat. He tries his best to not let it show, and scoffs.
“And why are you talking to us specifically? Who even are you?”
“Troy.”
Abed lays a hand over his forearm.
The man looks disgusted. It's clear it has something to do with how they're acting. But Troy stopped giving a damn a long time ago. Life is too short to live for other people.
“Show me your IDs” the man eventually says, slipping a small black wallet from inside his shirt pocket, and Troy's blood gets cold.
A cop. In a basic outfit, but still. It's like life has decided he’ll simply have no fun.
“I—”
Troy searches nervously in his pockets, and backpack, but there's nothing. Shit.
“I think we've left them in our car,” Abed says.
“This better be the case, I have a right to arrest you.”
“No shit,” Troy mumbles between his teeth, low enough not to be heard.
This dude reminds him of some of the guys from his football team back in high school. The ones who’d push nerds inside lockers.
They get up, pick up their bags, and walk him to the empty trail of gravel behind the building, where they were parked. There's nobody else here. No camera either. Troy’s heart feels like it’s ready to explode.
“One second,” he tells the man, voice empty, and walks towards the back of the car.
Abed looks at him strangely. And then proceeds to chat with the agent about how zombies have become a metaphor for capitalism and greediness in modern cinema, and the man looks a little annoyed. Troy opens the trunk.
It happens quickly. He grabs the shovel, walks towards the cop silently, and smashes the flat of the steel against the back of his skull. He falls heavily to the ground. Abed wastes no time straddling him and gathering his hands and ankles, and Troy grabs the laptop charger and ties the man's limbs in tight knots.
They manage to carry him and toss him in the trunk. It barely fits. Abed removes his shirt, folds it in a small ball and stuffs the cop’s mouth with it. Then he picks his phone from his back pocket and tosses it in an empty trash bin.
Troy's hands tremble while he sits on the passenger seat. He's never talked to one of his preys before. Even if this one’s a douche, he probably doesn't deserve what they are about to do.
Abed says nothing. He drives them towards somewhere he doesn't even know. Troy is not even hungry.
They are purely and simply about to commit murder.
“Breathe in, Troy.”
He hasn't realized he's starting to hyperventilate.
“We've done this before. You’re doing good.”
“But this one's different.”
“How?”
There is no anger in Abed's voice. Only genuine incomprehension. Everything feels way too real all of a sudden. Like he’s slowly waking up for the first time in weeks. He remembers that they haven't texted the Study group for a while now, that they are probably looking for them. That their families don't even know where they are. What they do.
“He… he… he was talking…”
Troy’s head is starting to hurt really bad now.
“He’s a cop… what if… if we get caught?”
“Why does that matter? And we’re not getting chased right now.”
“I— I don't know… he was talking to us, and…”
“You know that all the other ones knew how to speak too, right?”
Yes. He’s forgotten it, for some reason.
“H—how are we any different than them, then? How? How?!”
He realizes he’s screaming now. It's like his body has been keeping all that tension and it finally snaps now. Right when they are in the middle of nowhere, a police officer tied up in the back of their trunk.
“We’re not. That's just how the food chain works.”
“How the fuck can you be so calm about all this?!”
Abed stops brutally. They're lucky that no one else is on the road. He still thinks of turning the warning lights on.
“Troy.”
He turns to face him. His gaze is strangely glossy, yet his face betrays no emotion. Quickly, he grabs his face, and presses his mouth against his. Troy has no power to resist. This is probably the only thing that feels normal, now.
“You did it for us,” he whispers against his lips, “you took the shovel and—”
“I know.”
Troy doesn't recognize his own voice. He can feel Abed’s breaths becoming sort of ragged. His palms are sweaty over his cheeks.
“There— there’s nothing really different. I don't know… what we are… it’s all we have now. That's what makes us different. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Don't leave me, Troy… please…”
Abed starts shaking. He never looked that desperate before. In a way, this grounds him. Slowly, he leans forward and kisses him back, tenderly.
“Never. I promised.”
“I'm sorry, Troy…”
He takes a shaky inhale, and cradles his fingers through Abed’s soft locks.
“Thank you,” he simply whispers.
After a while, they trade places, and Troy drives them to a small path of dirt and rocks, and then it becomes clear that no car can progress further there. They are surrounded by tall pine trees, and mountains, and the soft smell of resin and decaying leaves.
They pull the man out of the trunk. He breathes with difficulty.
Troy takes his ID. He’s a little proud of having one in hand for the first time. He slips it in a pocket of his jeans, and starts to undress the man, whose efforts to defend himself end up useless.
The mid-day sun casts long shadows over them. They bury the man's clothes somewhere nearby, and Abed breaks the man’s legs with a hash hit with the side of his shovel. Abed always thinks ahead for the both of them. It’s comforting.
After that, they decide to go for a walk.
There is a lake nearby. The weather is way too cold for them to bathe in it, but they still enjoy the view. Surrounded by the wilderness, Troy feels like he’ll be able to do anything.
They spend the afternoon like this. Discussing some theories about canceled shows until the sun goes down and the sky turns pink. It reminds Troy of their wishing fountain near the campus flagpole. Strangely, though, he doesn't miss it. The water stretches before them endlessly, and disappears at the mountains’ feet. He feels small; like he’s part of a bigger whole. It’s comforting.
They light a bonfire. Troy likes how the flames warm up his face. And the melody of the creaking wood, and the orange light they've stepped into.
The man looks like nothing more than a pig. His legs are hairy, and the swell of his stomach suggests he must have indulged too much on beer. The flesh of his arms looks pink, and goosebumps cover his entire body. And Troy remembers.
He's not different from the others. They’re simply going to have dinner. Like they’ve already done. He doesn't even know his name. He doesn't want to.
With a quick motion, he throws the black wallet in the flames, and crouches down. Abed stands, a shade lit up from behind by the orange glow.
Troy grabs a thigh, and suddenly digs his teeth in the skin. He ignores the pained groan the man lets out, muffled by Abed's shirt, and continues ripping the muscle off. It's a little tender, and definitely firm. Just how he likes.
He’s soon covered in blood, and the meat has ceased to fight back. Troy moves to the calve, then the other leg; tears down everywhere he can. It tastes good — no big difference with how it usually tastes, and Abed's gaze has the same warmth in it as before.
The body is torn open, and barely looks like a man anymore, yet it’s undeniably human. It’s so obvious that Troy sort of wants to laugh at this. His stomach is already full, yet he indulges some more. What can stop him after all. Troy licks where blood has spilled, and locks eyes in Abed’s doing so. It’s like a staring contest.
Abed has never looked down when he’s doing this. Abed has never tried to hide from the view. Abed is the only one who knows. And he always watches everything. And Troy always feels strangely powerful in these moments.
They undo the knots of their made up rope, and carry the carcass to the fire. It dies down a little until the flames eat it in turn, and spiral up in the air like a giant bird. It’s beautiful.
Troy lies there, letting himself be fed with its warmth. Abed comes at his side. He lays against him, and rests the side of his face against his chest. Next to his beating heart.
It’s simply the two of them, and the woods, and a bonfire. The air smells good. The dark of the night falls over them, like a secret.