After the storm - part three
They find a new car a few blocks from the store with almost a full tank of gas and load their bags and their extra supplies into it. Reid and Joanne are leaning over the map lying on the engine hood and discussing which road they should take next but Luke zones them out, wanting to enjoy the spring sun on his face. It´s warm enough to take off his jacket and while the nights are still chilly, the days are getting brighter and warmer. He lets himself think of his parents and siblings and wonders what they are doing right now, if they´re thinking of him. No matter what Reid says, he refuses to give up the hope of them being alive. He imagines that he would feel the loss if they were gone, surely the strong bond he shares with his family would alert him in some way if they had died.
He shakes his head and opens his eyes.
Such depressing thoughts do no good for him, keeping faith is the only option he has. Luke looks around him and his eyes land on a building on the opposite them. It´s a regular six floor apartment block made of yellow bricks. Luke tries so very hard not to think of what happened to the people that had lived there. It´s still so hard to comprehend how the hell so many people died or got turned in to something else because of a stupid virus. He desperately hopes that some of the people here made it out safely and are somewhere else. He stares at the building for a little longer when he catches a movement out of the corner of his eye. He quickly directs his gaze at the window in question and he was right, there is a person standing with their back towards him, and beside them is a smaller person who looks like a child. Luke takes a few steps towards the building and squints, and yes, it´s definitely a child. He feels hope rushing through him, it must mean that there are other survivors up there.
“Joanne,” he says excitedly, “Joanne, I think I saw another survivor up there!”
Joanne and Reid both look up from the map and tries to see where Luke´s pointing. “I don´t see anything,” Reid says dismissively and turns back to the map.
“C’mon, don´t tell me you can´t see them, sixth floor, second window from the left.”
“I don´t know Luke, there might be someone but it can just as well be zombies.” Joanne sounds unsure.
“But it´s a small kid, I´m sure it is! Shouldn´t we help them?”
“It´s too big of a risk, Snyder, now get in the car.” Reid folds the map and walks over to the driver’s side, sensing danger afoot. Luke turns his gaze towards Joanne.
“I´m sorry, Luke but Reid´s right. It´s too big of a risk,” she says apologetically.
Luke shakes his head disbelievingly. “I can´t believe you two! I can’t just leave a child to die - I can’t-I have to go and help.”
He turns around and heads for the door to the building, ignoring Reid´s angry shouts for him to wait. He quickly gets inside and runs up the first set of stairs, thinking that if the survivors were hiding out on the highest floor it shouldn’t take so long to get to them. He´s two floors up when he hears someone behind him and while he hopes that it´s Joanne, he expects it to be a pissed off Reid, so when he turns around and is met by a young woman who´s clearly out to eat him, he´s surprised to say the least. Although he shouldn’t be, he knew exactly what he was getting himself into.
He hadn’t seen an undead since Seattle and despite what Joanne and Reid had told him, and what he had seen in the church himself, he had thought they were safe now. Reid had warned him from going anywhere alone, but clearly Luke´s just as much of an idiot here as he is at home. He can´t even follow the simplest of instructions.
There´s no way out and back to the safety of his companions, so he turns back and continues to run up the stairs. She´s fast though, and when he reaches the top floor and sees that one of the doors are open, he quickly runs inside and slams the door in her face. He leans his back against the door while trying to catch his breath when he hears a growl in front of him and when he looks up he sees five zombies watching him, and one of them is indeed a small child.
Somehow Luke hadn´t even thought of the possibility that children could get infected too. It’s an odd thing to think but Luke thought that maybe their innocence would be spared. The zombies move towards him, looking just as terrifying as Father Stevens had looked in the church. Luke has nowhere to go. He´s trapped and curses his own stupidity because this is his own damn fault. He takes a firm grip on the bat and raises it into a standard batting position. When the zombies are less than five feet away, he hears a shot being fired from behind the door. He reaches for the door handle when the door suddenly slams open and Luke is thrown to the floor. He has never before been so grateful to see a gun.
Reid shoots the closest two zombies with perfect headshots and Joanne takes out the two and Luke blows out a breath, relieved. But that’s until he sees the girl who had chased him up the stairs moving up behind Joanne. She has a hole in her chest but as Reid had told him, that doesn´t seem to stop her. He opens his mouth to warn her, but it´s too late. At the same time, he hears Reid fire another shot for a zombie he hadn’t quite put down but the girl wraps her arm around Joanne´s throat and bites her in the neck. He sees the teeth sink into Joanne´s skin and watches the girl quickly chew and rip at her skin. Luke can´t look anymore and turns his gaze toward Reid, who´s scanning the room for more zombies and looks rather pleased with himself after thinking he got the last one.
Luke finally finds his voice. “Reid!”
Reid quickly turns around and when he sees the zombie eating from his friend, the pleased expression on his face falls and he raises his gun and shoots it, the zombie falling backward.
It´s too late though.
Joanne falls to her knees, clutching the bite on her neck and Luke´s feeling sick from all the blood she´s losing, it’s soaked into her shirt turning it sickeningly crimson. Joanne and Reid are staring at each other and Reid doesn´t even try to help her or stop the bleeding.
“Don´t just stand there,” Luke says incredulously. “Do something!”
“Reid,” Joanne says, her voice´s surprisingly firm and her gaze is focused on Reid. He stares right back at her and they seem to be having a whole wordless conversation that Luke isn´t a part of.
Finally, Reid gives her a curt nod and Joanne gives him a shaky smile and closes her eyes. Luke has no idea what´s going on and before he can react Reid raises his gun again and shoots Joanne straight in the head.
“No!” Luke screams and crawls over to Joanne, lifting her lifeless body into his lap. “You killed her.” He runs his fingers through Joanne´s bloody hair. He raises his gaze towards Reid, who´s still staring at Joanne. “You killed her,” he says again, accusingly.
Reid tears his eyes away from Joanne and meets Luke`s instead. “She´s infected, I did what I had to,” he says dismissively which only fuels Luke´s anger.
“You didn´t have to kill her,” Luke objects. “You both told me it takes 24 hours before you turn into one of those things. You could have helped her.”
Reid shakes his head. “There is no help, how many times do I have to tell you that? There is a 100 percent certainty that she would´ve turned.”
“I can´t believe you,” Luke says vehemently and despite the anger he feels rushing through his body, he carefully puts Joanne down on the floor before standing up. “You could´ve at least given her those last 24 hours.” He takes a few steps closer to Reid, who´s wearing that emotionless mask Luke has come to hate and looks him steadily in the eyes. “But no, you just shot her in the head, as if she didn´t mean anything to you. You might be a doctor but I don´t think you have any feelings at all.”
To say he´s surprised when Reid suddenly grabs his arms and slams him against the wall would be an understatement. “You have no idea what you´re talking about Mr. Snyder, so shut the hell up.” Reid looks absolutely furious and Luke fleetingly wonders if he prefers this Reid, instead of the one that shows no feelings at all.
“You think I should have let her suffer through another 24 hours, fully knowing what she would´ve become when they ended? Maybe I didn´t explain clearly what happens after one gets bitten, so listen closely, Mr. Snyder, because I´m going to give you all the details.”
Luke swallows hard and meets Reid’s steady gaze as he continues. “The first five hours wouldn´t be that bad, there would be increasing pain and discoloration of the infected area, but there´s also immediate clotting of the wound so at least she wouldn´t have to worry about dying from blood loss.”
Luke huffs and tries to push Reid off of him. Reid´s much stronger though and easily holds Luke to the wall. “It´s after that though, that the fun begins. Her body temperature would rise, she´d start to vomit uncontrollably and from time to time she´d forget where she was and wouldn’t know what’s going on.”
Luke´s arms are starting to hurt and he´s going to have bruises the size of Reid´s hands there tomorrow so he forces his body to relax but Reid`s grip is relentless. “That part only lasts for thre to four hours though. Then her fever would hit 106 degrees, she would slowly lose control of her muscles and eleven hours in her lower body would be paralyzed and her with no memory would be shot to hell. The only thing she would know is this excruciating pain that no painkiller in the world could lessen.”
Reid suddenly lets him go and takes a few steps back. “After sixteen hours she would slip into a coma and in another four, her heart would stop beating. After that there would be nothing left of the Jo we knew.”
He walks over to Joanne and crouches beside her. “Jo and I made a deal after we found out what was happening.” His voice is soft now and there´s no anger in it anymore. “I held up my end of it, I´m certain she would have done the same if the roles were reversed.”
Luke flushes with shame because this is entirely his fault. If he hadn´t run off, if he had just listened to what Reid and Joanne had told him, if he hadn´t been a complete idiot then Joanne would still be alive now. Reid hadn´t killed Joanne because he didn´t care about her, he did it because he did care and Luke can´t believe that he´d been so blind and didn´t see it. He takes a few steps forward and tentatively puts his hand on Reid´s shoulder.
“Red, I´m so sorry, I….”
“Save it Mr. Snyder,” Reid snaps and shakes off his hand. “I´m not interested in your excuses and if you ever run off again, I´m leaving you on your own.” He picks up Joanne´s gun and pockets it before walking towards the door. “And should you ever get infected, I´ll remember to let you enjoy your last hours as a human.”
Reid stomps out the door and Luke kneels beside Joanne. “I´m so sorry,” he whispers, feeling tears run down his cheeks. “This is all my fault and I´m so, so sorry.” He brushes his fingers against her cheek before hastily following Reid out to the car.
The car ride is heavy with an uncomfortable silence. Luke misses Joanne, he misses her stories and questions and her good mood. He even misses Reid´s sarcastic remarks and their never ending bickering. He tries to sleep but every time he closes his eyes he sees Joanne´s face after she got infected and he realizes that her last smile meant that she was grateful to Reid for keeping their promise. He feels his cheeks flush with shame again, his skin crawling with guilt.
“Reid?” He tries when they´ve been silent for over two hours. Reid doesn´t answer or give any indication that he´s even heard him, but Luke continues anyway. “I thought that maybe it´s time for me to learn how to shoot?”
Reid still doesn´t look at him but after a while he nods and Luke relaxes enough to finally fall asleep.
***
The next few days are awkward and tense. They continue towards Chicago and since Joanne´s not there to share the driving with Reid, he lets Luke drive when he´s too tired to keep his eyes open. They pass through several small towns and only stop when they need a new car or supplies. When they go into a store or a gas station, Luke stays behind Reid and does exactly as he says. They come across a few dead bodies but just like before there are no signs of any zombies, or survivors. Luke can´t help but think that this whole scene is out of a book, something like Phantoms by Dean R. Koontz. The towns are empty and everything is deserted.
It´s both scary and unreal.
They don’t talk more than absolutely necessary. Luke tries to keep up a conversation at first, asking Reid questions about his job and if he really thinks there´s a way to produce a vaccine and when he doesn´t get any response he talks to Reid about anything and everything, something to fill the silence. Reid never responds to that either and Luke guesses that if there still was a radio broadcast Reid would have turned it on just to shut Luke up. He can´t help it though. He feels so bad for accusing Reid for not caring about Joanne and the guilt over her death is overwhelming him. Reid´s his only hope of getting back to his family and he can´t risk getting left behind.
He knows he should give Reid some time. Whether or not he shows it, Luke knows Reid is mourning. While he´s not sure if Joanne and Reid were a couple or not, she was at least a very good friend and it´s Luke´s fault that she´s dead and he knows Reid has a right to be mad at him. He knows all of this but he can´t stand the silence. When Luke´s nervous or scared, he babbles and Reid´s constant ignorance of him is getting on his nerves. It takes three days until he snaps.
“I know you hate me but could you at least stop ignoring me?” He suddenly blurts out somewhere between Lewiston and Missoula. They´ve been walking for what feels like hours in the burning sun, his feet are hurting and it doesn´t feel like the sun screen he put on that morning is doing its job anymore. His bag, which contains his sleeping bag, two water bottles and their medical kit, is heavy and his back is completely soaked with sweat. He wants a shower or at least a five minute break but Reid just keeps on walking. They´d had to abandon the car earlier and hunting down a new one seems to get harder and harder. Sometimes Luke wonders if walking the I-90 wouldn´t have been faster than choosing to drive through the smaller roads when they seem to end up walking most of the time anyway.
“I´m not ignoring you.” Reid answers to Luke´s surprise.
“Oh please,” he says sarcastically. “You haven´t said a word to me for three days besides giving orders.” He lowers his voice a little in an attempt to imitate Reid´s. “Snyder, grab all the water bottles you can find. It´s your time to drive, Mr. Snyder.” He goes back to his normal voice. “My name is Luke! And I was wrong, okay? I should have listened to you and I´m so sorry, but could you please stop punishing me and just talk to me?” He takes a deep breath, a little surprised by his outburst but he gets even more surprised when Reid stops walking and turns towards him.
“Look, it´s not like I don´t like to talk, I´m just not interested in participating or listening to that inane small talk you´ve been pestering me with. I don´t care how many times your mother´s been married and I don’t care about any of your other insane childhood stories.”
Luke wonders briefly if he himself even knows how many times his mother been married, but the thought of his family hurts so he quickly changes the topic. “Well, what are you interested in then?”
Reid sighs, rubs his eyes and starts walking again. “Brain surgery, chess and baseball.” He thinks for a minute. “Sex. Not necessarily in that order.”
Luke raises his eyebrows. “Wow, isn´t that material worthy of an online dating profile.” He glances at Reid who seems unable to hold back a smile and Luke feels a little bit better. He had almost forgotten how much he liked Reid´s smile.
“So, chess, huh? I´m actually pretty good, we should play sometime.” Reid´s smile grows wider and Luke makes a mental note to try and find a chess board the next time they´re doing a supply run.
After that it gets easier, Reid isn´t exactly friendly but he answers when Luke asks about something and sometimes they manage to keep up a conversation without Reid insulting him for more than five sentences in a row. They´re still walking most of the time and finding a car seems to be getting harder and harder. Once whilst walking, they heard a car approaching and while Luke relished in the thought of more survivors he didn´t hesitate to follow Reid´s order to hide. They hid behind some bushes on the side of the road and watched the car pass by and come to a halt just a few feet in front of them. Two heavily armed men jumped out and searched the two crashed and abandoned cars on the road. They dragged a body outside and to Luke´s horror it looked like one of the men was removing the jewelry and the wallet of the deceased before going back to their car and driving away.
“Scavenger hunters,” Reid whispers as an answer to Luke´s raised eyebrows. When the car is gone they continue walking and Reid tells him about what he and Joanne have seen the other survivors do thus far and also about their obsession with gold and money. As if that makes a difference now. Luke feels extremely grateful that the first people he met when he’d woken up were Reid and Joanne.
“Maybe now´s the time for you to learn how to use a weapon,” Reid says and Luke can only agree.
***
Weapon training is not what Luke imagined it would to be. Besides Reid and Joanne, he´s seen people fire guns way more often than most guys his age and it always looked pretty easy. Well, either looks can deceive or Luke´s just appallingly bad. If he were to ask Reid, he would probably go with the latter. Reid had set up a straight line of ten soda cans and given Luke one of the smaller guns and while Luke has no problem with loading it or aiming, he can´t hit a single can no matter how many times he tries.
“For God´s sake Mr. Snyder, stop closing your damn eyes every time you pull the trigger.”
Reid is more irritated than usual and it´s not like Luke can blame him. He knows he´s beyond bad at this whole shooting business but he wasn´t lying when he told Joanne he wouldn´t be able to shoot someone. He doesn´t like guns and no matter how hard he tries he can´t keep his eyes open whilst firing. While he´s physically strong enough to hold up the gun for longer periods of time, he is still having trouble handling the force of the guns release. Even if he´s not staggering anymore, his wrist hurts and his eyes snap shut every time he pulls the trigger. After his umpteenth attempt that ends up being a failure, Reid seems to lose his patience completely and stomps up to him and while he´s prepared for Reid to snatch the gun out of his hands and give up on him, he´s not prepared for Reid to press up right along his back and put his hands on his hips.
“W-what are you doing?” Luke asks, going completely rigid.
“Look, I’m not enjoying this any more than you are, but the fact is that Jo´s gone and while I´m an excellent shot, I may need someone to back me up.” Reid´s warm breath tickles his ear and Luke shivers involuntarily.
“Sadly, that someone is you,” Reid continues and he doesn´t sound even the slightest bit affected by their proximity. If anything though, he sounds a little friendlier than usual, as if he´s making an effort to be nice.
Luke is about to say that there´s no way he´ll ever be able to hit anything with a gun when Reid´s right hand slides along his thigh and down to his knee and Luke is horrified to realize that the feeling of Reid´s groin pressed against his ass is making him hard.
“Your stance is terrible; spread your legs a little bit more.” Reid takes a firm grip on said knee and pulls a little and Luke´s legs fly apart embarrassingly fast. “Not that much, you´re not supposed to do splits,” Reid huffs amused and Luke feels his entire body flush. His heart beats so hard and fast that he´s sure Reid can hear it. He wants to do nothing more than to turn around and kiss Reid´s stupid mouth, but he forces himself to relax because Reid is straight and he doesn´t want him to dislike him anymore than he already does. Besides, he doesn´t even like Reid, he only needs him so he can get back home to his family and that´s more important than getting off, even if his dick doesn´t seem to agree.
When Reid is satisfied with his stance he lets his hand slide agonizingly slow all the way up along Luke´s body until his hands are clasped around Luke´s on the gun, helping to support and aim it. His hands are soft and warm, with long fingers and Luke imagines those hands on other parts of his body. His breathing is becoming more and more erratic and he´s certain that his face is roughly the same color as a tomato. Reid keeps on talking but Luke doesn´t hear a word of what he´s saying.
When Reid finally lets go and takes a few steps back, Luke´s so turned on and freaked out about the way he feels, that he is unable to concentrate and misses the next ten shots. He lowers the gun and glances at Reid, who´s pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, eyes closed. Luke suspects it´s his way of praying for patience to not tell Luke exactly what a terrible shot he is.
“How about we take a break for dinner?” Luke asks tentatively, because food always puts Reid in a better mood.
Dinner is canned mushrooms and canned beans and Luke would give away everything he owns to eat something that doesn´t come out of a can. He misses freshly baked bread, he misses steaks and vegetables more than he could ever imagine, probably because he´s never been in a situation where he couldn´t get any of it for this long before. At least Reid had decided that it was light enough for it to be safe to make a fire today, which means that they can heat up the food before eating it. Canned beans aren’t particularly tasty normally but eating it cold is just disgusting. Reid shoves the beans into his mouth like it´s filet minion and Luke suspects that eating was and is a hobby for the doctor before the world ended and turned into this madness. Not that it shows, but Reid is extremely fit with toned muscles and nicely defined abs. Maybe he is a bit too skinny but food is scarce these days and they have to ration it. Luke shakes his head and tries to get rid of the mental image of Reid´s naked chest.
“So, when did you learn how to shoot?” he asks as he eats another spoonful.
“About eight weeks ago,” Reid answers with his mouth full of beans, and it should probably be disgusting to watch but Luke finds it more endearing than anything else.
“You´re messing with me,” he says, a little annoyed. He doesn’t know why he feels this way because of the obvious lie or the fact that he finds Reid´s appallingly eating habits cute. He stares at Reid, who just meets his gaze steadily with eyebrows raised. “´C’mon, no one gets that good in eight weeks.”
Reid snorts. “I´m a brain surgeon, it´s my job to remove bullets from the brain, not to put them there in the first place.” His face darkens and he looks away. “At least that was my job.”
“Hey, it`s a good way to get new patients, if nothing else,” Luke jokes and to his relief Reid smiles.
“I don`t need any new patients, I´ll have you know that my waiting list is over a year long.” Reid scrapes up to eat what’s left on his plate and glances, not exactly discreetly, at Luke´s still almost full plate. “Besides, I´m a surgeon, I need to protect my hands. You have no idea how many injuries can occur to your hands and fingers when simply firing a gun.”
Afraid that Reid will recite all possible injuries handling a weapon can cause and not interested in hearing about them Luke quickly continues. “Still, how can you be so good if you´ve never done it before?”
“I made a choice,” Reid answers after a long time and his face darkens again. “Joanne told you how we knew about the virus right?” When Luke nods he continues. “Well, I knew it was complete crap, there´s no way you can come up with a drug that can regenerate brain tissue, if it´s gone it´s gone and there´s nothing you can do about it. Anyway, we went to the hospital, expecting them to need our help, instead we got trapped there with some of the infected for several days while the hospital was on lockdown. I saw several of my colleagues getting bitten and dying only to wake up as monsters again.”
The thought of having to watch people you knew and cared for dying and then turning into zombies must have been terrible and Luke completely loses his appetite. He gives his plate to Reid who happily accepts it. “I´m so sorry.”
Reid shrugs. “It is what it is,” he says between bites. “We almost thought we wouldn´t make it when luckily we managed to recover a gun from one of the dead security guards. After that it was either get killed or kill, I chose the latter.”
“I´m not sure I could kill someone, even if my own life depended on it,” Luke says thoughtfully. “Though that doesn´t mean I don´t think you did the right thing,” he quickly continues, because even if he can´t kill anyone, he´s grateful that Reid can. Reid and Joanne saved his life and he´ll never forget that.
“I´m not saying using it the first time was easy,” and the fact that Reid´s even admitting it gives Luke an idea of how hard it must have been, “or that you ever get used to it.” He shrugs. “I guess it´s all about survival instinct.”
Luke tries hard to think of anything to say when Reid suddenly snorts. “But considering what a terrible shot you are it´s unlikely you´d be able to kill someone even if you tried.”
***
The following days pass by pretty well.
They stay away from the larger towns, unless they need more supplies, and Reid continues to forcefully train Luke to shoot. At the end of the week he can hit five cans out of ten which Reid declares a goddamn miracle. His mouth twitches when he says it though, so Luke takes it for the compliment it is and not as the insult he would have thought it was just a week ago.
The more time they spend together, the more Luke is beginning to understand what a complex person Reid is. He seriously lacks every social skill there is and he´s brutally honest, which makes him seem ruder than he actually is. He doesn´t like talking about his family and when Luke insists, he only tells him that his parents died a long time ago and that he has no other relatives he´s interested to keep in touch with.
He briefly mentions sharing an apartment with Joanne and that confirms Luke’s speculation of her and Reid as a couple. The knowledge gives him a funny feeling in his stomach but he chalks it up to the fact that he´s responsible for her death and that the feeling wasn’t because of his growing attraction towards Reid. He doesn´t try to pretend it´s not there, he just blames it on the fact that he´s gay and Reid´s a good looking guy. He isn´t in love with him or anything so the confirmation that Reid´s straight doesn´t mean anything.
What does mean something is that Joanne was right. Reid is a good man.
As the days go by, Luke learns a lot about Reid. Like the fact that he doesn´t need much sleep and seems to be just fine with getting only four or five hours every night, while Luke needs at least seven so he doesn’t feel like a zombie for the rest of the day. Okay, bad comparison.
Also, Reid is a really light sleeper, it doesn´t take Luke more than saying his name for Reid to open his eyes and he’s already awake and alert. Reid needs to shake and swear at Luke for at least ten minutes until he´s sitting up, eyes barely open. It´s really unfair an unfair skill to have and when Luke asks him about it Reid just shrugs, points at himself and says, “Doctor, remember?”, like that explains everything, which Luke guesses it does. Still, it is unfair.
He also learns that Reid wasn´t joking when he said one of his interests was brain surgery. At the time Luke had thought it simply meant that he was invested in his job but the more they talk, the more he comes to realize that Reid practically lived for his work, pre-zombie outbreak. Sometimes Reid goes on long rants about different operating procedures concerning tumors and Luke usually lets him talk even though he doesn´t understand a word of it since he enjoys the fact that Reid´s actually talks to him. Besides, he listens because Reid has a really nice voice and he really likes falling asleep listening to it. Though, he can´t help but wonder when Reid and Joanne actually had time to see each other if Reid spent all his waking hours working.
“How did you and Joanne meet?” He asks when he´s face down on an uncomfortable sofa and if he wasn´t so tired he would have thought before mentioning Joanne. As it is, the words are out before he can help it and his head snaps up to meet Reid´s gaze. “I´m sorry, I shouldn´t have...” he trails off.
Reid looks a little bit tense but not angry. “Why do you ask?”
“I don´t know, it´s just, you know almost everything about me and I hardly know anything about you.”
“You know the important parts.”
Luke scoffs. “Clearly you and I have a whole different idea of what´s important.”
Reid sighs, closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall. “I met Joanne at medical school, she was two years ahead of me and we became friends. When I graduated she recommended me to her Chief Of Staff and we´ve been working together ever since.”
“Wow, that wasn´t so hard was it?” Luke jokes. Reid snorts but doesn´t reply.
“Must have been pretty intense though,” Luke continues, “working together, living together?”
“It was fine. Now sleep, I´ll be waking you up in less than five hours.”
Luke grumbles but closes his eyes and falls asleep.
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