A Zombie Story, part one
Title: A Zombie Story
Fandom: Misfits
Characters/pairings: Kelly, Simon, Curtis, Alisha, Nathan (background Simon/Alisha, mentions of past Alisha/Curtis).
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Misfits related.
Warnings: Language, violence, gore.
Word count: about 12,700 words.
Summary: It was a Monday night like any other Monday night; a night of being bored and broke and and having no other cares in the world (at least, aside from freaky powers they had never asked for, and one or two dead probation officers on their consciences). But then the zombies showed up. Now the gang are running for their lives - Alisha and Nathan's powers manifest interesting side effects when confronted with the zombies, Kelly has to bash a lot of heads, Simon has to make a choice to kill in order to save, and Curtis tries not to succumb to the temptation of killing Nathan instead of saving him. All in all, they'd rather be bored.
A/N: Written for smallfandombang. I've been working on and off on this story for about a year. Honestly, I don't think I would have found the motivation to finish it if not for that challenge! So thanks to the mods of smallfandombang for organizing it. Thank you to roque_clasique for working as a beta on this story even though she wasn't familiar with the show. And of course, thank you to my artist, sentbyfools, for choosing my summary and making lovely art for it. Don't forget to check her post and leave her comments!
Link to the art: here
Link to the fic on AO3
Kelly woke up one day and it was the end of the world.
Okay, so it didn’t really happened like that but that was what it felt like.
It was a Monday night and they were all hanging out at the bar where Curtis and Alisha worked. They were the only patrons left, as was often the case. Curtis had whined at them recently about leaving so they’d stop scaring off other potential customers, but now he was silent and morosely wiping glasses; Alisha was doing her nails and chatting in a low voice with Simon; and Nathan was sitting across Kelly and almost falling asleep in his beer.
Kelly barely needed to focus to know what they were all thinking. With time she had gotten control over her power and could block out most people, but it was different with them. Maybe it was having been in the storm together, maybe it was all the shit they had gone through, maybe it was fucking cosmic karma or something, but it was like they were fading onto her, like a red tee-shirt that turns all your knickers pink. When they were together, they were a constant murmur at the back of her mind. It wasn’t as annoying as it should have been; it was even soothing, in a way, perhaps because they all knew that she was reading their thoughts and mostly didn’t give a shit.
It was a Monday and she was bored as fuck, felt strangely moody, so Kelly did what she rarely did - she retracted into herself and there they were. Alisha’s feet and back were hurting, Simon liked the colour of her nail polish, Curtis was thinking about Nikki who had left half-an-hour ago and going after her in his mind, while Nathan’s muddled thoughts were idly considering what it would felt like to die in an explosion. Kelly was about to yell at him for being so morbid, when a man stumbled inside.
“We’re closed,” Alisha said in a bored voice, even though it wasn’t true.
The man slammed the door behind him, and there he was. He was so scared, his thoughts so incoherent with feeling that Kelly’s mind recoiled and she had to fight off nausea.
“You have to, hide, hide me please, they’re coming, they’re coming…”
“Who’s coming?” Simon said, frowning.
“I, I don’t know, they just attacked and I don’t know, one of them bit me…”
Nathan was waking up, and grimaced at the man. “That guy is fucking insane,” he said.
“No, he’s not,” Kelly said, and it got all of them looking at her, even the weird man. “I can’t make sense of it and he’s scared but…”
She didn’t have the time to say more, because the door opened and there was a dark figure coming from behind the man, tall and ominous. It pushed the man, before unceremoniously trampling him. The man let out some kind of gurgled cry and then became silent.
“What the…” It was Nathan, and he was slowly pushing himself up to his feet.
“Oh my God.” This from Alisha, her voice very quiet and her hand in front of her mouth
There was the sound of broken glass, and it was Curtis, gaping in the direction of the entrance. Simon didn’t say anything, but he was thinking, We need to get out of here.
The figure that had walked all over the scared stranger wasn’t alone, and there were other figures crowding at the door, and they were all moving slowly, careful maybe, and they were kind of… groaning. They looked human but they sounded like animals. And then they were in, the light from inside falling on them. Alisha let out a small cry.
Their pale faces were all atrociously deformed, not by nature but because they were grimacing, like they wanted to express things that human faces had not been made for. One of them turned his - its - face toward Kelly and it looked like the flesh on its cheekbone was rotting. The thing wore glasses and a suit with a tie, but its eyes were glassy, no light at home there. But this wasn’t the worst, no, though it was coming close. The worst was that Kelly couldn’t get anything from them. No thought, no feeling. She may as well have been staring at a wall.
“They’re fuckin’ zombies,” Kelly breathed out; it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing she had seen since the storm, she thought. Then the one looking at her gargled and something dark started to run down from the corner of its mouth, like blood but not quite. Kelly’s own mouth twisted with disgust.
“Zombies? No shit, Sherlock,” Nathan squeaked, his voice high with fear. “That’s just awesome. Why is this one looking at us like that?”
“Don’t worry, it’s not like you can die,” Kelly said. She felt absurdly calm, like her mind knew that what was happening was real but her heart was still suspending its judgement.
“Well, yeah, sure, I look forward to feeling what it’s like to be eaten alive.”
The… - things, zombies, undead persons, whatever - moved suddenly like they were one, towards the bar where Simon, Alisha and Curtis were gathered. They weren’t moving very fast, stumbling, but there weren’t lots of places where Kelly’s friends could go, because the zombies were blocking the front door - and there was a back door but it was locked right now. It was probably the key to it that Curtis was frantically searching for when he crouched behind the bar, reappearing sometimes to throw expensive bottles at the zombies. Simon vanished and he must have taken Alisha by the arm because Kelly saw her being dragged by an invisible force in the direction of the back door.
I have to do something, Kelly thought, so she took a chair and threw it, hoping to distract the zombies from Curtis while he looked for the key.
“Hey, you ugly!” she shouted. The chair fell lamely on the floor, meters away from any zombie, but it still made some of them pause.
Nathan looked at her, his eyebrows raised so high they were disappearing behind his curly bangs. “You’re completely mad, you know,” he said, but he took a deep breath before he grabbed a chair to throw at the zombies, all while screaming like a lunatic and generally doing his best impersonation of insanity. Kelly wasn’t sure why he felt he had to act like that, but it worked. The zombies came at them, and soon Kelly and Nathan were trapped in a corner with only a chair each to brandish like the world’s lamest swords. The zombies were a little bit faster than they had seemed at first.
“I’m trying to remember why it was a good idea to draw their attention,” Nathan said, sounding out of breath.
“We’re buyin’ Curtis some time.”
“Time? Oh, time. That reminds me - don’t we have a fucking time-traveller in our numbers?” He brought the chair he was holding down on one of the zombies’ head, and the wood shattered into splinters.
“You know it doesn’t work like that,” Kelly replied, like they were having an ordinary conversation over tea.
If Nathan had any reply to that, she couldn’t hear it because she was overwhelmed by zombies who were pressing her against the wall. Now they were close enough for her to know that zombies smelled horrible, as zombies would. Their hands were all over her, pushing her, pulling her, and it was when she heard teeth snap somewhere above her that she realized that they were trying to bite her. As, of course, zombies would. She fought with renewed ardour, trying to push them back with the remnants of the back of her chair. She was getting out of breath, her arms were aching and she was feeling nauseous from the smell and the gurgling noises made by the zombies that sounded like they were about to throw up. Kelly tried to feel for the others but all she got was fear and more fear, and she didn’t know what was hers and what was theirs.
Something screamed. It didn’t sound even remotely human, so yeah, something was the word. Kelly almost fell over face first when the zombies retracted, and when they moved aside she could see what was making that noise. There was a zombie rolling on the floor, his hands clawing at its face and neck like it thought it could get rid of whatever was hurting it. The veins on its neck and face had swollen and darkened. Beside it was standing a stunned Alisha, her clothes torn, looking down at the zombie. The other zombies were all looking at the scene, not moving or anything, and Kelly wondered whether they were afraid or fascinated, or maybe feeling nothing but still compelled to look.
“What did you do?” Kelly asked.
“I don’t know!” Alisha exclaimed, a note of hysteria in her voice. “I just touched it and it started screaming and…”
And the zombie just stopped moving, which caused Alisha to stop talking and gape silently at it. The thing looked properly dead, the kind of dead that never moved again.
“I’ve got the key!” Curtis suddenly shouted, and it somehow broke the spell.
Kelly felt a surge of adrenaline and started swinging the single piece of wood she had left in her hand, making a path for herself among the zombies and running in a mad rush to the back door. From the corner of her eye she saw Alisha shake herself off and follow. She wondered about Nathan but there was no time to check on him. Curtis was at the door, fumbling with the key while cursing under his breath, until he pushed the door open. Kelly felt someone press against her side and though she couldn’t see him, knew it was Simon from the feel of his mind. She ran through the door and was welcome by the cool air of the night.
They ran for a long time, purposeless. Kelly felt like she was moving in a dream and the confused and broken thoughts of her friends made it even more difficult for her to think. It was dark outside, no light in the alley where they had gotten out, but when they reached a bigger street the lamps shed a yellow light on how very, very wrong this night had gone.
Curtis had been running in front, the fastest of them of course, but he stopped suddenly; there was a muffed cry of pain that got lost in the air when invisible Simon bumped into him.
“Fuck. Oh, fuck,” Curtis said.
Kelly strained her neck to look above his shoulder, but when she saw what had made him stop she regretted it. There was a group of zombies in the middle of the street - not the ones that had attacked them because from the groaning Kelly could hear, those were still behind them - and they had caught a woman who started screaming, reaching out in their direction like maybe she had seen them and was calling for help. All they could do was watch as she was engulfed by the group of zombies, who were fighting each other to get to her like scavengers on a carcass.
“We should, we should get out of here,” Alisha murmured in a very small, trembling voice.
They could all agree to the wisdom in that. The zombies that had been coming after them seemed to have wandered away; maybe they had lost their trace, or maybe they had forgotten about them, but there were obviously enough zombies in town to be a worry. They went back, away from the big street and the light and the zombies before they finished doing whatever they had been doing to that poor woman. They knocked on doors, hoping for someone to take them in, but there was never any answer. Either people were sleeping obliviously, or they knew what was going on outside and were locking themselves up, or - well.
“Maybe they’re all zombies already,” Nathan mumbled.
“Shut up, Nathan,” Alisha said.
Kelly glanced at Nathan. There was something wrong with him: he was being way too quiet, and he was never quiet, even when he was terrified - especially when he was terrified. He looked very pale, but then Kelly imagined she didn’t look much more colourful herself.
They met several abandoned cars in the middle of the street, some of them looking like they had ran into each other, and there was something wrong with that too, though Kelly couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Hey!” Simon’s voice called from nowhere. “I’ve found an open window.”
He appeared suddenly, standing at the corner of the street. As they went to join him, Kelly thought again of the cars. She thought about it until it dawned on her - in those cars, there were never any bodies. They had seen blood, but no body, not in the cars and not in the streets.
Maybe Nathan had been right, after all.
---
They made their way silently into the house, not daring to make any noise or try to turn on a light. Simon realized he had made himself invisible again when Kelly bumped into him and said, “Simon, is that you?”
“Yeah,” he said, and forced himself to be visible. “We should split up and search the house.”
For the occupants, whether they were sleeping, dead, or zombie themselves. He didn’t say it, but they had probably started to figure it out by themselves. In the movies, zombies bit people to make other zombies. This was the way of the world.
The house wasn’t big so it didn’t take very long to go through it. There was no one. Simon found a room with a big unmade bed. There was no blood, but sadly, it didn’t mean the occupants were still alive.
Kelly and Simon checked that all the doors were locked and the windows were closed with their curtains drawn, before they gathered in the living room and Alisha turned on a small lamp. They sat in circle on the floor like they were at a campfire, Alisha sitting close to Simon and leaning carefully against his side. Simon wanted to bury his face in the crook of her neck, but knew better than do it. They were all silent for a long time.
“So I’m gonna say it for everyone,” Curtis said. “What the fuck?”
“It has to be the storm,” Alisha said. “Everything freaky that happens here is always because of the storm.”
“But how did the storm create a zombie virus? It’s never done anything like that before.”
“Maybe it’s not a virus,” Kelly said. “Maybe it’s just someone’s ability. Someone is like, turning people into zombies.”
“But it’s spreading,” Simon said, “like a virus. The zombies are transmitting it to the people they attack, because…”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Kelly said. “There were no bodies. So the man who came into the bar is probably already one ‘em already.”
They had a general shudder at the thought. Nathan hadn’t said anything, Simon noticed, which wasn’t really like him. He was sitting on Simon’s other side and his head was bowed. Kelly must have realized too that something was wrong, because she called his name.
“Nathan?” And when he didn’t say anything, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Nathan still didn’t answer, but Simon saw that there was blood on the collar of his t-shirt.
“Nathan, are you hurt?” he asked, and dread made his mouth go dry and his whole body feel cold. “They didn’t - they didn’t bite you, did they?”
Nathan made a sound, like he was hurting. “I dunno. There were so many. I feel… kinda weird.”
Simon grabbed his shoulder, a little too hard. “Fuck,” Nathan hissed. “Don’t touch me.”
Simon ignored him and pulled a little at the cloth from Nathan’s t-shirt to look at the wound. Nathan’s jaw was working, from pain or irritation, but he didn’t try to push Simon away.
“Holy shit,” Curtis said.
The others had come closer but after a look at the wound Alisha and Curtis drew away instinctively. Simon couldn’t blame them, because the wound was unmistakably a human bite.
“What?” Nathan said, sounding a little more lively than before. “What is it?” He started to twist his neck to look at his wound, but the bite was too close to his collarbone for that.
“You got bitten,” Kelly said roughly, her voice accusing like this was somehow Nathan’s fault.
“No,” Nathan said reflexively. And then, “Oh, shit. I’m so fucked.”
“Is he going to turn into one of them?” Alisha asked.
“We can’t be sure,” Simon said. His voice sounded like it was someone else talking.
“But that’s what you said earlier!” Curtis said. “You know how it is in the movies. They have to shoot people who are infected.”
“Hey!” Nathan shoved Simon aside but it was so weak that when Simon moved, it was pretty much of his own volition. “Who’s gonna shoot who? I don’t think I’m down with that plan!”
“Well,” Curtis said. “We don’t have any gun.”
Kelly hit his shoulder and turned to Nathan.
“How are you feeling?” she asked. “Do you, like… wanna kill anyone or wha’?”
“Not particularly,” Nathan said slowly, like the question bore reflection. “Okay, maybe Curtis but to be fair he’s the one who wanted to kill me first.”
“I don’t want to kill you!”
Simon shot Curtis a look before turning back to Nathan. “No killing intent, that’s good. What else?”
“I don’t… feel very good, that’s all. I’m cold and kind of dizzy. My body aches.”
“Maybe you’re just in shock,” Kelly said hopefully. “We all need to rest. We should rest and see what happens.”
Curtis, Nathan and Kelly each found themselves a chair to rest on, and Simon and Alisha huddled together on the couch, but nobody actually slept. They just looked at each other warily and especially at Nathan, who had curled up in a deep armchair made of batten leather. His eyes were closed but his body was too tense for him to be sleeping.
An hour passed. Simon knew because he kept glancing at his watch, at the digits changing slowly like water dripping from a tap. He was starting to feel reassured - Nathan didn’t look like he was in the process of getting zombified, and the change had to be pretty quick for the epidemic to have spread so fast - when Nathan let out a pitiful sound, half-way between a cry and a whine.
“Nathan?” Kelly said.
Nathan started to uncurl his long limbs and got to his feet, swaying. He was terribly pale, looking like he was about to throw up. Instead, he crumpled on the floor.
Simon jumped on his feet to get to him. The others did the same but when they got there, none of them actually dared touch Nathan, staring instead at his shaking form.
“I think… I think he’s fuckin’ dying,” Kelly said.
An appropriately shocked silence followed that declaration.
“But he’s immortal,” Alisha said. “He’s not going to, like die die.”
They looked down at Nathan whose face had turned an interesting shade of grey, and he looked… well, like he was already dead, if it weren’t for his laboured breathing.
Curtis spoke for them all. “He doesn’t look too good.”
“We should kill him,” Simon said. They all looked at him in horror and he felt the need to clarify, “I think this zombie…” He paused, looking for the right term. “This zombie thing,” he said resolutely. “It’s killing him. For real. But if we kill him ourselves his immortality will probably kick in and he will come back to life. Hopefully.”
They were thinking about it, he could see, hearing the truth in his words. Alisha was playing nervously with a curly lock of her hair, biting her lower lip. Curtis had his hands firmly planted in his pockets and was looking down, like trying to bore holes in Nathan’s skull. Kelly had her arms crossed under her breasts, hugging herself tightly.
“Fine,” Curtis said. “Who’s gonna do it?” He looked at Kelly.
“Me?” she exclaimed. “Why me?”
“Well, you’ve done it before. With Tony.”
“It was totally different, you dick! It was a fuckin’ accident. And it’s…” She blinked back tears. “It’s Nathan.”
“Should make it easier, no? Just think about the thousand times that prick insulted you.”
The discussion became more heated until Kelly looked ready to hit Curtis, a thunderous look on her face that was generally reserved to Nathan. Alisha wasn’t saying anything. Simon looked at Nathan, at how pale and weak, how unnaturally silent he was. He remembered their first day of community service, Nathan had called him weird kid and Simon had thought that it was going to be just like school, a hell on earth of endless bullying.
He had killed for them. Sally had been an accident and he still felt guilty about her death, but he couldn’t regret it completely. He also had died for them, if he were to believe Curtis. He knew anyway he would do it without a second thought. He finally belonged, and he wasn’t going to let anything take any part of that away from him. Not even some weird zombie thing.
He could very well kill Nathan to save him.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
That shut up Curtis and Kelly, who stopped fighting to gape at him. Alisha looked suddenly alarmed.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“Someone has to. Look at him, he’s not going to last much longer. And if he’s mad at me, I don’t care, it’s not like it’s going to be the first time.”
“Simon,” Kelly said. “I… I can do it. Curtis is right, shouldn’t be hard to find a reason to bash his head in.”
She tried to smile, but Simon shook his head. He didn’t need to have her ability to read minds to know that she couldn’t. She hit Nathan all the time, but she couldn’t kill him.
“It’s alright,” he told her.
His resolution made, he had to find how to do it. Sally had died in a fight, when her head had hit the door handle. This was different, he was going to deliberately take Nathan’s life. They looked around the house and Curtis came up with a kitchen knife. He gave it to Simon, looking apologetic.
“I can…” he started, but Simon silenced him with a hand.
He kneeled by Nathan’s side and grabbed the knife with both hands, raised it above his friend’s chest. His palms were sweaty. The others were standing on the other side of Nathan’s body and they all wore expressions that mixed fascination and fear.
“You should try to hit the heart, yeah?” Alisha said.
“Yeah.” Simon nodded. “The heart.”
He gathered memories from biology lessons and move his knife to the left. He swallowed. He needed to put strength in his blow or it was going to be messy. He closed his eyes, and pushed down. The knife met resistance but he kept pushing. A gurgled moan made him open his eyes again, and he saw blood colouring Nathan’s lips, his mouth twisted in pain as he was trying to roll on his side. Simon let go of the knife hurriedly.
“Nathan!” Kelly cried out. She reached out to his face but stopped shy of touching him, like she was afraid to cause him more pain.
“Fuck, doesn’t look like you hit the heart,” Curtis said, crouched by Nathan’s shoulder with his hands hovering over him.
Alisha let out a whimper and brought her hand to her mouth. Simon could sympathize; he was about to be sick too. But before that, he had to finish it. Nathan was writhing on the floor so it was hard to get a hold on the knife, and when he tried to pull it out he found that he couldn’t.
“It’s stuck! Hold him, hold him!”
Kelly took Nathan’s head between her hands, whispering frantic apologies under her breath, and Curtis grabbed his arms. Alisha held Nathan’s legs, where cloth kept her from actually touching him - not that it would matter much in the state he was in.
With the others pressing Nathan down Simon could take the knife out of his chest, and didn’t wait before stabbing him again, this time with his eyes wide open so he wouldn’t miss. After a few very long seconds, Nathan stopped moving and moaning, and the house fell silent, save for their loud breathing.
“Is he…” Alisha started.
Kelly pressed her fingers to Nathan’s neck and nodded, before wiping the blood from her hands on the floor and turning to puke all over the expensive looking carpet.
“Oh, fuck,” Alisha moaned and pinched her nose with two fingers.
Curtis rubbed his own bloody hands on his trousers.
“Well,” he said, voice a little shaky, “I hope we won’t have any fucking zombie knocking on the door while we wait for him.”
They settled for the wait. They found some bread and ham in the kitchen and ate a little, though none of them was very hungry with the smell of blood and puke lingering in the living room. Kelly didn’t leave Nathan’s side, sitting by him with her arms around her knees. She barely looked up when Simon sat down next to her.
“Do you think it does somethin’ to him? Dying, I mean,” she added at his questioning look.
“What, do you mean like… If he dies too many time maybe he will die for good?”
“That too. I was just thinkin’… maybe it takes something from him, you know? Every time he dies and comes back. Maybe those bullshit powers, they take something from all of us.”
Simon thought about it. He had been afraid at the beginning that if he disappeared too many times he was going to stay invisible. That no one would ever to be able to see him again. He didn’t worry about it that much anymore, but it was something to contemplate. Maybe Curtis could end up lost in time, maybe Alisha could forget what it was like to touch someone. And Kelly…
“Maybe I’m gonna go mental from all the fucked up thoughts from people’s minds.”
She gave him a little smile, an apology for getting into his mind. He didn’t mind it, though. It was easier than speaking up sometimes. He glanced at Alisha, curled up on the couch. Curtis was sitting next to her and his head was bent as he was talking to her in a low voice. Simon felt his stomach twist a little at the sight. He wasn’t really jealous, he knew it was over between them and that Curtis had Nikki now. Still, they had been so beautiful together, so perfect. It was hard not to feel uncomfortable.
“Go see your girlfriend,” Kelly said. “I’m watching over that wanker.”
Simon nodded, a silent thank you, and went to the couch. Curtis looked up at him and stood up. Simon was going to say he didn’t have to leave but Curtis was quicker.
“I’m gonna take a piss,” he said.
Simon sat next to Alisha and she leaned against him.
“How is he?” she asked. “Is he still…”
“He’s still dead.”
“It’s been hours. What if, what if that zombie shit had taken away his immortality? What if he was dead for good?”
“He’s not.”
It sounded a lot like denial, but Simon couldn’t let himself think about that. He noticed that Alisha’s eyes were shining and that tears were pearling on her lashes.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly.
She sniffed and rubbed her eyes with her sleeves.
“I can’t believe I’m crying over Nathan. But never mind me, I should be comforting you.” Her fingers circled his wrist over the fabric of his jacket, as close as she could from his hand without touching skin. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“You have a right not to be fine. Nathan’s like, your best mate or something.” She cringed like the admission pained her. “Not that I understand why, but he is and you had to kill him. That’s some fucked up shit.”
“I’ll be fine when Nathan wakes up.”
They heard Kelly yelp and they both startled.
“He’s alive!”
Simon and Alisha rushed to her side. From the corner of his eyes Simon saw Curtis come running, in the process of zipping up. Nathan was curled on his side, hands pressed against the bloody stains on his t-shirt.
“Ow, shit,” he groaned. “What the fuck happened?”
His eyelids trembled, and then he was glaring at them with blood-shot eyes.
“We killed you,” Kelly said. She hurriedly explained, “Whatever that zombie did to you, it was killing you and we were afraid it was gonna be for good.”
“So you thought it was a good idea to dig at my chest? Because I remember some fucking awful pain, like someone was trying to rip my heart out!” He looked down at himself, at the tear and the blood on his t-shirt. “That was a perfectly good t-shirt! Who did that, huh?”
“Um.” Simon blinked guiltily. “I did.”
“Well, thank you, thank you very fucking much! You think clothes grow on trees? I don’t have a lot of them, you know, remember how I’m homeless and shit? You could have done it a little more cleanly, it’s not like you don’t have practice with what’s her name, the probation worker…”
“Sally,” Simon murmured.
“Whatever. My point is…”
“Oi, prick!” Kelly hit him hard on the shoulder and he let out a high-pitched cry. “Simon saved you, alright? Be fuckin’ grateful!”
“Funny, I already regret saving him,” Curtis said. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” He kicked at Nathan’s thigh. “Stand up, we already wasted enough time because of you.”
“Hey, stop hitting me! It’s not like I asked to be killed or bitten by a zombie. We can switch places, if you want. I’ll be the one hitting you, and you’ll be the one getting stabbed in the chest, see how much fun it is. ”
He started to push himself upright to get up, but stopped mid-motion and frowned.
“What the fuck?” he mumbled.
He twisted his upper body and started to roll over, only to fall back on the ground.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Curtis exclaimed. “We don’t have time for your games!”
“Nathan,” Kelly said, her brow furrowed anxiously. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t move my legs! Maybe you hit something with that knife, something vital and now I’m paralyzed or some shit and…”
Simon felt the blood leave his face, but Curtis hit Nathan again in the leg and Nathan yelped.
“Ow, what was that for?”
“Did you feel that?”
“Yes, I felt that you fucking twat!”
“Can you move your legs at all?”
Nathan frowned in concentration and wriggled one foot, then the other.
“Alright,” Curtis said. “I don’t have a medical degree but I’m pretty sure you’re not paralyzed. Maybe you’re still too weak from what that zombie did to you.”
“What are we gonna do?” Alisha asked. “We spent too much time here, it’s dawn already, they’re gonna come and…”
“We could leave him here,” Curtis said. He didn’t leave them time to react, “Just kidding. I wouldn’t do that to the zombies.”
“You know,” Nathan said gravely. “I feel a lot of hostility coming from you, Curtis.” He pressed a blood-stained hand against his heart. “That hurts.”
Curtis ignored him. “We’re gonna have to carry him I guess.”
Nathan looked up at him, arched an eyebrow, and raised his arms.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Pick me up.”
“What? Why me?”
“Well, look at all those muscles you have. You’re a fine specimen of manhood. You really want one of the girls to carry me? And, Barry, no offence, man, but you’re kind of a midget.”
Curtis and Nathan scowled at each other for a moment, until Simon interrupted them. Now that Nathan was better, or at least not dead or dying anymore, he felt the pressing need to move, the way they surely all felt it.
“We need to go. Curtis.”
Curtis sighed, defeated.
“Alright then.” He glared at Nathan. “One fucking comment from you and you’re zombie food.”
Nathan took on an expression of innocence that looked wrong on him.
“I’ll be as silent as a rotting corpse,” he said.
“Remind me why we worried about him?” Alisha whispered to Simon, but she was smiling and he knew she didn’t mean it.
Part two
Fandom: Misfits
Characters/pairings: Kelly, Simon, Curtis, Alisha, Nathan (background Simon/Alisha, mentions of past Alisha/Curtis).
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Misfits related.
Warnings: Language, violence, gore.
Word count: about 12,700 words.
Summary: It was a Monday night like any other Monday night; a night of being bored and broke and and having no other cares in the world (at least, aside from freaky powers they had never asked for, and one or two dead probation officers on their consciences). But then the zombies showed up. Now the gang are running for their lives - Alisha and Nathan's powers manifest interesting side effects when confronted with the zombies, Kelly has to bash a lot of heads, Simon has to make a choice to kill in order to save, and Curtis tries not to succumb to the temptation of killing Nathan instead of saving him. All in all, they'd rather be bored.
A/N: Written for smallfandombang. I've been working on and off on this story for about a year. Honestly, I don't think I would have found the motivation to finish it if not for that challenge! So thanks to the mods of smallfandombang for organizing it. Thank you to roque_clasique for working as a beta on this story even though she wasn't familiar with the show. And of course, thank you to my artist, sentbyfools, for choosing my summary and making lovely art for it. Don't forget to check her post and leave her comments!
Link to the art: here
Link to the fic on AO3
Kelly woke up one day and it was the end of the world.
Okay, so it didn’t really happened like that but that was what it felt like.
It was a Monday night and they were all hanging out at the bar where Curtis and Alisha worked. They were the only patrons left, as was often the case. Curtis had whined at them recently about leaving so they’d stop scaring off other potential customers, but now he was silent and morosely wiping glasses; Alisha was doing her nails and chatting in a low voice with Simon; and Nathan was sitting across Kelly and almost falling asleep in his beer.
Kelly barely needed to focus to know what they were all thinking. With time she had gotten control over her power and could block out most people, but it was different with them. Maybe it was having been in the storm together, maybe it was all the shit they had gone through, maybe it was fucking cosmic karma or something, but it was like they were fading onto her, like a red tee-shirt that turns all your knickers pink. When they were together, they were a constant murmur at the back of her mind. It wasn’t as annoying as it should have been; it was even soothing, in a way, perhaps because they all knew that she was reading their thoughts and mostly didn’t give a shit.
It was a Monday and she was bored as fuck, felt strangely moody, so Kelly did what she rarely did - she retracted into herself and there they were. Alisha’s feet and back were hurting, Simon liked the colour of her nail polish, Curtis was thinking about Nikki who had left half-an-hour ago and going after her in his mind, while Nathan’s muddled thoughts were idly considering what it would felt like to die in an explosion. Kelly was about to yell at him for being so morbid, when a man stumbled inside.
“We’re closed,” Alisha said in a bored voice, even though it wasn’t true.
The man slammed the door behind him, and there he was. He was so scared, his thoughts so incoherent with feeling that Kelly’s mind recoiled and she had to fight off nausea.
“You have to, hide, hide me please, they’re coming, they’re coming…”
“Who’s coming?” Simon said, frowning.
“I, I don’t know, they just attacked and I don’t know, one of them bit me…”
Nathan was waking up, and grimaced at the man. “That guy is fucking insane,” he said.
“No, he’s not,” Kelly said, and it got all of them looking at her, even the weird man. “I can’t make sense of it and he’s scared but…”
She didn’t have the time to say more, because the door opened and there was a dark figure coming from behind the man, tall and ominous. It pushed the man, before unceremoniously trampling him. The man let out some kind of gurgled cry and then became silent.
“What the…” It was Nathan, and he was slowly pushing himself up to his feet.
“Oh my God.” This from Alisha, her voice very quiet and her hand in front of her mouth
There was the sound of broken glass, and it was Curtis, gaping in the direction of the entrance. Simon didn’t say anything, but he was thinking, We need to get out of here.
The figure that had walked all over the scared stranger wasn’t alone, and there were other figures crowding at the door, and they were all moving slowly, careful maybe, and they were kind of… groaning. They looked human but they sounded like animals. And then they were in, the light from inside falling on them. Alisha let out a small cry.
Their pale faces were all atrociously deformed, not by nature but because they were grimacing, like they wanted to express things that human faces had not been made for. One of them turned his - its - face toward Kelly and it looked like the flesh on its cheekbone was rotting. The thing wore glasses and a suit with a tie, but its eyes were glassy, no light at home there. But this wasn’t the worst, no, though it was coming close. The worst was that Kelly couldn’t get anything from them. No thought, no feeling. She may as well have been staring at a wall.
“They’re fuckin’ zombies,” Kelly breathed out; it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing she had seen since the storm, she thought. Then the one looking at her gargled and something dark started to run down from the corner of its mouth, like blood but not quite. Kelly’s own mouth twisted with disgust.
“Zombies? No shit, Sherlock,” Nathan squeaked, his voice high with fear. “That’s just awesome. Why is this one looking at us like that?”
“Don’t worry, it’s not like you can die,” Kelly said. She felt absurdly calm, like her mind knew that what was happening was real but her heart was still suspending its judgement.
“Well, yeah, sure, I look forward to feeling what it’s like to be eaten alive.”
The… - things, zombies, undead persons, whatever - moved suddenly like they were one, towards the bar where Simon, Alisha and Curtis were gathered. They weren’t moving very fast, stumbling, but there weren’t lots of places where Kelly’s friends could go, because the zombies were blocking the front door - and there was a back door but it was locked right now. It was probably the key to it that Curtis was frantically searching for when he crouched behind the bar, reappearing sometimes to throw expensive bottles at the zombies. Simon vanished and he must have taken Alisha by the arm because Kelly saw her being dragged by an invisible force in the direction of the back door.
I have to do something, Kelly thought, so she took a chair and threw it, hoping to distract the zombies from Curtis while he looked for the key.
“Hey, you ugly!” she shouted. The chair fell lamely on the floor, meters away from any zombie, but it still made some of them pause.
Nathan looked at her, his eyebrows raised so high they were disappearing behind his curly bangs. “You’re completely mad, you know,” he said, but he took a deep breath before he grabbed a chair to throw at the zombies, all while screaming like a lunatic and generally doing his best impersonation of insanity. Kelly wasn’t sure why he felt he had to act like that, but it worked. The zombies came at them, and soon Kelly and Nathan were trapped in a corner with only a chair each to brandish like the world’s lamest swords. The zombies were a little bit faster than they had seemed at first.
“I’m trying to remember why it was a good idea to draw their attention,” Nathan said, sounding out of breath.
“We’re buyin’ Curtis some time.”
“Time? Oh, time. That reminds me - don’t we have a fucking time-traveller in our numbers?” He brought the chair he was holding down on one of the zombies’ head, and the wood shattered into splinters.
“You know it doesn’t work like that,” Kelly replied, like they were having an ordinary conversation over tea.
If Nathan had any reply to that, she couldn’t hear it because she was overwhelmed by zombies who were pressing her against the wall. Now they were close enough for her to know that zombies smelled horrible, as zombies would. Their hands were all over her, pushing her, pulling her, and it was when she heard teeth snap somewhere above her that she realized that they were trying to bite her. As, of course, zombies would. She fought with renewed ardour, trying to push them back with the remnants of the back of her chair. She was getting out of breath, her arms were aching and she was feeling nauseous from the smell and the gurgling noises made by the zombies that sounded like they were about to throw up. Kelly tried to feel for the others but all she got was fear and more fear, and she didn’t know what was hers and what was theirs.
Something screamed. It didn’t sound even remotely human, so yeah, something was the word. Kelly almost fell over face first when the zombies retracted, and when they moved aside she could see what was making that noise. There was a zombie rolling on the floor, his hands clawing at its face and neck like it thought it could get rid of whatever was hurting it. The veins on its neck and face had swollen and darkened. Beside it was standing a stunned Alisha, her clothes torn, looking down at the zombie. The other zombies were all looking at the scene, not moving or anything, and Kelly wondered whether they were afraid or fascinated, or maybe feeling nothing but still compelled to look.
“What did you do?” Kelly asked.
“I don’t know!” Alisha exclaimed, a note of hysteria in her voice. “I just touched it and it started screaming and…”
And the zombie just stopped moving, which caused Alisha to stop talking and gape silently at it. The thing looked properly dead, the kind of dead that never moved again.
“I’ve got the key!” Curtis suddenly shouted, and it somehow broke the spell.
Kelly felt a surge of adrenaline and started swinging the single piece of wood she had left in her hand, making a path for herself among the zombies and running in a mad rush to the back door. From the corner of her eye she saw Alisha shake herself off and follow. She wondered about Nathan but there was no time to check on him. Curtis was at the door, fumbling with the key while cursing under his breath, until he pushed the door open. Kelly felt someone press against her side and though she couldn’t see him, knew it was Simon from the feel of his mind. She ran through the door and was welcome by the cool air of the night.
They ran for a long time, purposeless. Kelly felt like she was moving in a dream and the confused and broken thoughts of her friends made it even more difficult for her to think. It was dark outside, no light in the alley where they had gotten out, but when they reached a bigger street the lamps shed a yellow light on how very, very wrong this night had gone.
Curtis had been running in front, the fastest of them of course, but he stopped suddenly; there was a muffed cry of pain that got lost in the air when invisible Simon bumped into him.
“Fuck. Oh, fuck,” Curtis said.
Kelly strained her neck to look above his shoulder, but when she saw what had made him stop she regretted it. There was a group of zombies in the middle of the street - not the ones that had attacked them because from the groaning Kelly could hear, those were still behind them - and they had caught a woman who started screaming, reaching out in their direction like maybe she had seen them and was calling for help. All they could do was watch as she was engulfed by the group of zombies, who were fighting each other to get to her like scavengers on a carcass.
“We should, we should get out of here,” Alisha murmured in a very small, trembling voice.
They could all agree to the wisdom in that. The zombies that had been coming after them seemed to have wandered away; maybe they had lost their trace, or maybe they had forgotten about them, but there were obviously enough zombies in town to be a worry. They went back, away from the big street and the light and the zombies before they finished doing whatever they had been doing to that poor woman. They knocked on doors, hoping for someone to take them in, but there was never any answer. Either people were sleeping obliviously, or they knew what was going on outside and were locking themselves up, or - well.
“Maybe they’re all zombies already,” Nathan mumbled.
“Shut up, Nathan,” Alisha said.
Kelly glanced at Nathan. There was something wrong with him: he was being way too quiet, and he was never quiet, even when he was terrified - especially when he was terrified. He looked very pale, but then Kelly imagined she didn’t look much more colourful herself.
They met several abandoned cars in the middle of the street, some of them looking like they had ran into each other, and there was something wrong with that too, though Kelly couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Hey!” Simon’s voice called from nowhere. “I’ve found an open window.”
He appeared suddenly, standing at the corner of the street. As they went to join him, Kelly thought again of the cars. She thought about it until it dawned on her - in those cars, there were never any bodies. They had seen blood, but no body, not in the cars and not in the streets.
Maybe Nathan had been right, after all.
---
They made their way silently into the house, not daring to make any noise or try to turn on a light. Simon realized he had made himself invisible again when Kelly bumped into him and said, “Simon, is that you?”
“Yeah,” he said, and forced himself to be visible. “We should split up and search the house.”
For the occupants, whether they were sleeping, dead, or zombie themselves. He didn’t say it, but they had probably started to figure it out by themselves. In the movies, zombies bit people to make other zombies. This was the way of the world.
The house wasn’t big so it didn’t take very long to go through it. There was no one. Simon found a room with a big unmade bed. There was no blood, but sadly, it didn’t mean the occupants were still alive.
Kelly and Simon checked that all the doors were locked and the windows were closed with their curtains drawn, before they gathered in the living room and Alisha turned on a small lamp. They sat in circle on the floor like they were at a campfire, Alisha sitting close to Simon and leaning carefully against his side. Simon wanted to bury his face in the crook of her neck, but knew better than do it. They were all silent for a long time.
“So I’m gonna say it for everyone,” Curtis said. “What the fuck?”
“It has to be the storm,” Alisha said. “Everything freaky that happens here is always because of the storm.”
“But how did the storm create a zombie virus? It’s never done anything like that before.”
“Maybe it’s not a virus,” Kelly said. “Maybe it’s just someone’s ability. Someone is like, turning people into zombies.”
“But it’s spreading,” Simon said, “like a virus. The zombies are transmitting it to the people they attack, because…”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Kelly said. “There were no bodies. So the man who came into the bar is probably already one ‘em already.”
They had a general shudder at the thought. Nathan hadn’t said anything, Simon noticed, which wasn’t really like him. He was sitting on Simon’s other side and his head was bowed. Kelly must have realized too that something was wrong, because she called his name.
“Nathan?” And when he didn’t say anything, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Nathan still didn’t answer, but Simon saw that there was blood on the collar of his t-shirt.
“Nathan, are you hurt?” he asked, and dread made his mouth go dry and his whole body feel cold. “They didn’t - they didn’t bite you, did they?”
Nathan made a sound, like he was hurting. “I dunno. There were so many. I feel… kinda weird.”
Simon grabbed his shoulder, a little too hard. “Fuck,” Nathan hissed. “Don’t touch me.”
Simon ignored him and pulled a little at the cloth from Nathan’s t-shirt to look at the wound. Nathan’s jaw was working, from pain or irritation, but he didn’t try to push Simon away.
“Holy shit,” Curtis said.
The others had come closer but after a look at the wound Alisha and Curtis drew away instinctively. Simon couldn’t blame them, because the wound was unmistakably a human bite.
“What?” Nathan said, sounding a little more lively than before. “What is it?” He started to twist his neck to look at his wound, but the bite was too close to his collarbone for that.
“You got bitten,” Kelly said roughly, her voice accusing like this was somehow Nathan’s fault.
“No,” Nathan said reflexively. And then, “Oh, shit. I’m so fucked.”
“Is he going to turn into one of them?” Alisha asked.
“We can’t be sure,” Simon said. His voice sounded like it was someone else talking.
“But that’s what you said earlier!” Curtis said. “You know how it is in the movies. They have to shoot people who are infected.”
“Hey!” Nathan shoved Simon aside but it was so weak that when Simon moved, it was pretty much of his own volition. “Who’s gonna shoot who? I don’t think I’m down with that plan!”
“Well,” Curtis said. “We don’t have any gun.”
Kelly hit his shoulder and turned to Nathan.
“How are you feeling?” she asked. “Do you, like… wanna kill anyone or wha’?”
“Not particularly,” Nathan said slowly, like the question bore reflection. “Okay, maybe Curtis but to be fair he’s the one who wanted to kill me first.”
“I don’t want to kill you!”
Simon shot Curtis a look before turning back to Nathan. “No killing intent, that’s good. What else?”
“I don’t… feel very good, that’s all. I’m cold and kind of dizzy. My body aches.”
“Maybe you’re just in shock,” Kelly said hopefully. “We all need to rest. We should rest and see what happens.”
Curtis, Nathan and Kelly each found themselves a chair to rest on, and Simon and Alisha huddled together on the couch, but nobody actually slept. They just looked at each other warily and especially at Nathan, who had curled up in a deep armchair made of batten leather. His eyes were closed but his body was too tense for him to be sleeping.
An hour passed. Simon knew because he kept glancing at his watch, at the digits changing slowly like water dripping from a tap. He was starting to feel reassured - Nathan didn’t look like he was in the process of getting zombified, and the change had to be pretty quick for the epidemic to have spread so fast - when Nathan let out a pitiful sound, half-way between a cry and a whine.
“Nathan?” Kelly said.
Nathan started to uncurl his long limbs and got to his feet, swaying. He was terribly pale, looking like he was about to throw up. Instead, he crumpled on the floor.
Simon jumped on his feet to get to him. The others did the same but when they got there, none of them actually dared touch Nathan, staring instead at his shaking form.
“I think… I think he’s fuckin’ dying,” Kelly said.
An appropriately shocked silence followed that declaration.
“But he’s immortal,” Alisha said. “He’s not going to, like die die.”
They looked down at Nathan whose face had turned an interesting shade of grey, and he looked… well, like he was already dead, if it weren’t for his laboured breathing.
Curtis spoke for them all. “He doesn’t look too good.”
“We should kill him,” Simon said. They all looked at him in horror and he felt the need to clarify, “I think this zombie…” He paused, looking for the right term. “This zombie thing,” he said resolutely. “It’s killing him. For real. But if we kill him ourselves his immortality will probably kick in and he will come back to life. Hopefully.”
They were thinking about it, he could see, hearing the truth in his words. Alisha was playing nervously with a curly lock of her hair, biting her lower lip. Curtis had his hands firmly planted in his pockets and was looking down, like trying to bore holes in Nathan’s skull. Kelly had her arms crossed under her breasts, hugging herself tightly.
“Fine,” Curtis said. “Who’s gonna do it?” He looked at Kelly.
“Me?” she exclaimed. “Why me?”
“Well, you’ve done it before. With Tony.”
“It was totally different, you dick! It was a fuckin’ accident. And it’s…” She blinked back tears. “It’s Nathan.”
“Should make it easier, no? Just think about the thousand times that prick insulted you.”
The discussion became more heated until Kelly looked ready to hit Curtis, a thunderous look on her face that was generally reserved to Nathan. Alisha wasn’t saying anything. Simon looked at Nathan, at how pale and weak, how unnaturally silent he was. He remembered their first day of community service, Nathan had called him weird kid and Simon had thought that it was going to be just like school, a hell on earth of endless bullying.
He had killed for them. Sally had been an accident and he still felt guilty about her death, but he couldn’t regret it completely. He also had died for them, if he were to believe Curtis. He knew anyway he would do it without a second thought. He finally belonged, and he wasn’t going to let anything take any part of that away from him. Not even some weird zombie thing.
He could very well kill Nathan to save him.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
That shut up Curtis and Kelly, who stopped fighting to gape at him. Alisha looked suddenly alarmed.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“Someone has to. Look at him, he’s not going to last much longer. And if he’s mad at me, I don’t care, it’s not like it’s going to be the first time.”
“Simon,” Kelly said. “I… I can do it. Curtis is right, shouldn’t be hard to find a reason to bash his head in.”
She tried to smile, but Simon shook his head. He didn’t need to have her ability to read minds to know that she couldn’t. She hit Nathan all the time, but she couldn’t kill him.
“It’s alright,” he told her.
His resolution made, he had to find how to do it. Sally had died in a fight, when her head had hit the door handle. This was different, he was going to deliberately take Nathan’s life. They looked around the house and Curtis came up with a kitchen knife. He gave it to Simon, looking apologetic.
“I can…” he started, but Simon silenced him with a hand.
He kneeled by Nathan’s side and grabbed the knife with both hands, raised it above his friend’s chest. His palms were sweaty. The others were standing on the other side of Nathan’s body and they all wore expressions that mixed fascination and fear.
“You should try to hit the heart, yeah?” Alisha said.
“Yeah.” Simon nodded. “The heart.”
He gathered memories from biology lessons and move his knife to the left. He swallowed. He needed to put strength in his blow or it was going to be messy. He closed his eyes, and pushed down. The knife met resistance but he kept pushing. A gurgled moan made him open his eyes again, and he saw blood colouring Nathan’s lips, his mouth twisted in pain as he was trying to roll on his side. Simon let go of the knife hurriedly.
“Nathan!” Kelly cried out. She reached out to his face but stopped shy of touching him, like she was afraid to cause him more pain.
“Fuck, doesn’t look like you hit the heart,” Curtis said, crouched by Nathan’s shoulder with his hands hovering over him.
Alisha let out a whimper and brought her hand to her mouth. Simon could sympathize; he was about to be sick too. But before that, he had to finish it. Nathan was writhing on the floor so it was hard to get a hold on the knife, and when he tried to pull it out he found that he couldn’t.
“It’s stuck! Hold him, hold him!”
Kelly took Nathan’s head between her hands, whispering frantic apologies under her breath, and Curtis grabbed his arms. Alisha held Nathan’s legs, where cloth kept her from actually touching him - not that it would matter much in the state he was in.
With the others pressing Nathan down Simon could take the knife out of his chest, and didn’t wait before stabbing him again, this time with his eyes wide open so he wouldn’t miss. After a few very long seconds, Nathan stopped moving and moaning, and the house fell silent, save for their loud breathing.
“Is he…” Alisha started.
Kelly pressed her fingers to Nathan’s neck and nodded, before wiping the blood from her hands on the floor and turning to puke all over the expensive looking carpet.
“Oh, fuck,” Alisha moaned and pinched her nose with two fingers.
Curtis rubbed his own bloody hands on his trousers.
“Well,” he said, voice a little shaky, “I hope we won’t have any fucking zombie knocking on the door while we wait for him.”
They settled for the wait. They found some bread and ham in the kitchen and ate a little, though none of them was very hungry with the smell of blood and puke lingering in the living room. Kelly didn’t leave Nathan’s side, sitting by him with her arms around her knees. She barely looked up when Simon sat down next to her.
“Do you think it does somethin’ to him? Dying, I mean,” she added at his questioning look.
“What, do you mean like… If he dies too many time maybe he will die for good?”
“That too. I was just thinkin’… maybe it takes something from him, you know? Every time he dies and comes back. Maybe those bullshit powers, they take something from all of us.”
Simon thought about it. He had been afraid at the beginning that if he disappeared too many times he was going to stay invisible. That no one would ever to be able to see him again. He didn’t worry about it that much anymore, but it was something to contemplate. Maybe Curtis could end up lost in time, maybe Alisha could forget what it was like to touch someone. And Kelly…
“Maybe I’m gonna go mental from all the fucked up thoughts from people’s minds.”
She gave him a little smile, an apology for getting into his mind. He didn’t mind it, though. It was easier than speaking up sometimes. He glanced at Alisha, curled up on the couch. Curtis was sitting next to her and his head was bent as he was talking to her in a low voice. Simon felt his stomach twist a little at the sight. He wasn’t really jealous, he knew it was over between them and that Curtis had Nikki now. Still, they had been so beautiful together, so perfect. It was hard not to feel uncomfortable.
“Go see your girlfriend,” Kelly said. “I’m watching over that wanker.”
Simon nodded, a silent thank you, and went to the couch. Curtis looked up at him and stood up. Simon was going to say he didn’t have to leave but Curtis was quicker.
“I’m gonna take a piss,” he said.
Simon sat next to Alisha and she leaned against him.
“How is he?” she asked. “Is he still…”
“He’s still dead.”
“It’s been hours. What if, what if that zombie shit had taken away his immortality? What if he was dead for good?”
“He’s not.”
It sounded a lot like denial, but Simon couldn’t let himself think about that. He noticed that Alisha’s eyes were shining and that tears were pearling on her lashes.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly.
She sniffed and rubbed her eyes with her sleeves.
“I can’t believe I’m crying over Nathan. But never mind me, I should be comforting you.” Her fingers circled his wrist over the fabric of his jacket, as close as she could from his hand without touching skin. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“You have a right not to be fine. Nathan’s like, your best mate or something.” She cringed like the admission pained her. “Not that I understand why, but he is and you had to kill him. That’s some fucked up shit.”
“I’ll be fine when Nathan wakes up.”
They heard Kelly yelp and they both startled.
“He’s alive!”
Simon and Alisha rushed to her side. From the corner of his eyes Simon saw Curtis come running, in the process of zipping up. Nathan was curled on his side, hands pressed against the bloody stains on his t-shirt.
“Ow, shit,” he groaned. “What the fuck happened?”
His eyelids trembled, and then he was glaring at them with blood-shot eyes.
“We killed you,” Kelly said. She hurriedly explained, “Whatever that zombie did to you, it was killing you and we were afraid it was gonna be for good.”
“So you thought it was a good idea to dig at my chest? Because I remember some fucking awful pain, like someone was trying to rip my heart out!” He looked down at himself, at the tear and the blood on his t-shirt. “That was a perfectly good t-shirt! Who did that, huh?”
“Um.” Simon blinked guiltily. “I did.”
“Well, thank you, thank you very fucking much! You think clothes grow on trees? I don’t have a lot of them, you know, remember how I’m homeless and shit? You could have done it a little more cleanly, it’s not like you don’t have practice with what’s her name, the probation worker…”
“Sally,” Simon murmured.
“Whatever. My point is…”
“Oi, prick!” Kelly hit him hard on the shoulder and he let out a high-pitched cry. “Simon saved you, alright? Be fuckin’ grateful!”
“Funny, I already regret saving him,” Curtis said. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” He kicked at Nathan’s thigh. “Stand up, we already wasted enough time because of you.”
“Hey, stop hitting me! It’s not like I asked to be killed or bitten by a zombie. We can switch places, if you want. I’ll be the one hitting you, and you’ll be the one getting stabbed in the chest, see how much fun it is. ”
He started to push himself upright to get up, but stopped mid-motion and frowned.
“What the fuck?” he mumbled.
He twisted his upper body and started to roll over, only to fall back on the ground.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Curtis exclaimed. “We don’t have time for your games!”
“Nathan,” Kelly said, her brow furrowed anxiously. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t move my legs! Maybe you hit something with that knife, something vital and now I’m paralyzed or some shit and…”
Simon felt the blood leave his face, but Curtis hit Nathan again in the leg and Nathan yelped.
“Ow, what was that for?”
“Did you feel that?”
“Yes, I felt that you fucking twat!”
“Can you move your legs at all?”
Nathan frowned in concentration and wriggled one foot, then the other.
“Alright,” Curtis said. “I don’t have a medical degree but I’m pretty sure you’re not paralyzed. Maybe you’re still too weak from what that zombie did to you.”
“What are we gonna do?” Alisha asked. “We spent too much time here, it’s dawn already, they’re gonna come and…”
“We could leave him here,” Curtis said. He didn’t leave them time to react, “Just kidding. I wouldn’t do that to the zombies.”
“You know,” Nathan said gravely. “I feel a lot of hostility coming from you, Curtis.” He pressed a blood-stained hand against his heart. “That hurts.”
Curtis ignored him. “We’re gonna have to carry him I guess.”
Nathan looked up at him, arched an eyebrow, and raised his arms.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Pick me up.”
“What? Why me?”
“Well, look at all those muscles you have. You’re a fine specimen of manhood. You really want one of the girls to carry me? And, Barry, no offence, man, but you’re kind of a midget.”
Curtis and Nathan scowled at each other for a moment, until Simon interrupted them. Now that Nathan was better, or at least not dead or dying anymore, he felt the pressing need to move, the way they surely all felt it.
“We need to go. Curtis.”
Curtis sighed, defeated.
“Alright then.” He glared at Nathan. “One fucking comment from you and you’re zombie food.”
Nathan took on an expression of innocence that looked wrong on him.
“I’ll be as silent as a rotting corpse,” he said.
“Remind me why we worried about him?” Alisha whispered to Simon, but she was smiling and he knew she didn’t mean it.
Part two