[zombie] Welcome Back 3

[mikkeneko]

Welcome Back
Fic rating: R
Pairings: None
Spoilers: Episode 25
Warnings: Blood, guts, cursing, and mayhem.

Continued from Part 2.



Roy finished tying off the last layer of bandage on his arm and smiled grimly at his handiwork. After he’d cleaned all the blood off he realized that the bite wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d thought, but it was still throbbing almost as badly as his poor head. Maybe he’d go in to the clinic tomorrow to have it looked at; to be honest, the thing probably needed stitches, but Roy was entirely too tired to stitch himself at the moment. He’d take care of it in the morning.

The colonel looked down at the blood that he’s smeared all over his bathroom counter and ardently decided to clean it up later; at the moment he was exhausted and just didn’t feel well, so cleanliness could wait. He switched off the bathroom light and moved into his bedroom, glancing up briefly at the form on his bed. After Al had dressed Fullmetal he had managed to coax him out of the bathroom, promising him that he’d be more comfortable on the couch. Roy had immediately offered his bed instead and now Ed was lying on top of the dark blue bedding, looking distinctly miserable and shivering occasionally.

The shivering worried Roy a little. It was probably the very least of Ed’s concerns at the moment, but Roy didn’t take it as a good sign. Ed had been a cold corpse for days and, while his organs seemed to be functioning at an almost normal rate now, his body temperature still remained too low. They needed to warm him up but Ed refused to stay under the blankets.

Al was sitting on the floor next to the bed, his eyes glued to the quietly suffering form of his brother. Neither spoke, although Ed made a soft whining sound like an injured dog and rolled over onto his other side. Roy clenched his jaw and moved closer, sitting on the corner of his bed and looking down as his subordinate helplessly.

Alphonse had privately told the colonel that Ed was in a deep, angry depression over having been resurrected. The pain in his healing body fluctuated between “bad” and “unbearable” and it was clear that his mind was in an equally dire state. Edward would mumble to Al occasionally in response to a question, but the kid had not said one word to Roy. The colonel could practically taste the blame and despair that Ed was feeling, and most of it was directed toward him.

“Uh... Colonel, sir?” Al said after a moment, calling his attention away from the boy on his bed. “Can you sit with him for a while? I need to... clean out my armor.”

Roy looked over at him, eyebrows raised. He’d thought the smell had been coming from Edward in spite of his bath, but it made much more sense for the reek of death to be coming from Al. The younger boy had, after all, transported Ed within him all the way here while Ed was leaking various unsavory fluids. Al’s chest cavity was probably a congealing mess of old blood and liquefied rot; it was no wonder that he was eager to clean himself out.

“Of course. There are rags under the sink if you need them.”

Al thanked him with a tiny bow and exited to the bathroom.

Roy looked over at Ed again awkwardly. What could he possibly say to someone that he’d just resurrected, apparently against his will? The colonel wanted to distract Ed from his pain, but the only way he knew how to do that was strike up a conversation and Ed did not seem to be in a talkative mood.

“You probably don’t care,” Roy began after a moment, saying the first thing that popped into his head, “but you were promoted to lieutenant colonel posthumously.”

“...Don’t talk to me.”

Roy worked his jaw for a moment and considered obeying the soft, biting command. Instead he allowed himself to give a dark laugh and said, “That’s no way to talk to the man who just raised you from the dead.”

Ed lifted his head slightly and glared at his commanding officer. “You say that as if I should be grateful to you. I’m not. You’ve done an evil thing to me, Mustang... don’t you dare ask me for any sort of thanks.”

Roy sighed and reclined back on the bed next to Edward, folding his arms behind his head and not feeling that he should reply to that.

“You have no idea what this feels like...” Ed continued tightly after a moment, reaching up and rubbing his own shoulder with one hand, attempting to massage the jerking muscles there into stillness. “This is worse than when I lost my arm and leg... this is worse than dying.”

“I know.” Roy admitted quietly. “And I’m sorry.”

“What could have possessed you to do this? After all the flak you give me for trying to do it myself when I was just a stupid kid... you of all people should know better.” The anger in Ed’s voice was barely restrained and his breath hitched painfully as he spoke.

“I don’t know, Ed.” Roy answered after a long pause. He knew that Ed was right in his anger, but that didn’t make his reprimand easier to bear.

Ed pushed himself upright and stared down at Roy. “You did this horrible thing... and not only that, but you dragged my brother into it as well... and you don’t even know why you did it?”

Roy didn’t say anything for a moment. He did know why, but he wasn’t about to explain it to Edward. He’d done it out of guilt and despair and temporary madness over Ed’s death. He’d known that it was wrong. He’d known the whole time that his actions were perverse and potentially unforgivable, but he’d done it anyway. He would not let another child die because of him. He could not. Especially not Edward.

“Does it really matter what my reasons were?” Roy asked, looking away from him uncomfortably.

“No... I guess not.” Ed replied after a short pause. Something in his voice betrayed a sudden confusion. Perhaps he had seen the brief, heartsick emotion that had crossed Roy’s face before the colonel was able to hide it. Whatever the case, some of the anger radiating from Ed quieted and was replaced with a sad sort of bewilderment.

“I failed you, Ed.” Roy added abruptly, still not looking at him. “It was my job to keep you safe and I didn’t. I tried to save you... but there was nothing I could do. I just sat there uselessly and watched you die.”

“Well... it wasn’t for lack of trying.” Ed said grimly, his voice surprisingly soft. Roy looked back over at him and saw the corner of Ed’s mouth twitch in a humorless smile. Ed placed his hand over the sprawling burn scar on his abdomen and continued, “I do remember that part...”

Roy returned the kid’s dark smile with one of his own. “I gave you mouth-to-mouth, too... but you were already unconscious by that point.”

Ed’s eyes went huge and his cheeks flushed scarlet, making Roy’s grin broaden. “You what?”

“Mouth-to-mouth, Ed. You know, ‘the kiss of life’. ...And it’s no wonder you can’t land a girlfriend, because you are one terrible kisser.”

“You... perverted old...” Ed sputtered, quite scandalized, as his face became an even more impressive shade of red.

Roy laughed aloud at that, pleased with Ed’s reaction. It was always such a joy to embarrass Edward, for the colonel had never met anyone with such a spectacular aptitude for blushing. Roy realized that it was probably not very nice of him to mortify the kid while he was in such a state... but at least the kid’s self-consciousness had distracted him from his physical pain for the moment.

The colonel’s relief was short-lived, though. The vibrant color in Ed’s face drained away as quickly as it had appeared, leaving his cheeks and lips an unspeakable shade of grey-white. Ed hunched forward over the bed, using his arms to support him as he hung his head and gave a small, gut-wrenching gasp.

Roy propped himself up on one elbow and looked at him, his brow furrowed. “Spasming again?”

Ed nodded breathlessly then gave a sharp little wail of agony as the muscles in his back convulsed. On hands-and-knees, Ed gritted his teeth and clutched the bedding in a desperate death-grip, the knuckles of his biological hand turning white from the strain. Roy could actually see Ed’s muscles writhing beneath the dark fabric of his t-shirt, lurching and rippling in a way that rose bile to the back of the colonel’s throat. It was a disturbing, horrifying thing to witness... Roy couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to actually have to feel that.

“...K-kill me...” Ed pleaded suddenly, his tight voice breaking. “Please, bef-fore Al comes back...”

Roy sat up, his heart in his throat. “C’mon, Ed... it’ll pass. Just bear it for a little while longer...” he said with false conviction, feeling both sick and useless.

Ed shook his head despairingly, panting hard through his clenched teeth. “I c-can’t...” he sobbed harshly, “I shouldn’t even be alive! This is your m-mistake, so fix it! Just t-take back the life that you gave me, I don’t want-“

But Ed’s tearful, heaving pleas were cut short as another violent convulsion tore through him. He choked on the pain, unable to speak or even breathe under its reign. Roy hesitantly moved a little closer to him, a deep parental kind of instinct shouting at him to comfort the boy while the colonel’s logical, stoic side wanted to just leave the room entirely. Roy had no idea what to do.

Luckily, Ed made the decision for him, whether or not he really meant to. Fullmetal bowed his head forward and butted it against Roy’s shoulder like a cat wanting attention. Ed probably wasn’t even aware that he was doing it, but his twitching body was practically crying out for physical comfort with a disturbingly animal need. That was really all it took for Roy’s instinct to overtake him and toss his caution aside.

Hesitantly, Roy shifted and raised his uninjured arm, wrapping it uncertainly around Ed’s shoulders. He could feel the muscles in Ed’s back twisting and contracting like a nest of pythons under his skin, making the colonel’s stomach turn. Ed leaned into Roy’s warmth, the entirety of his being silently begging to be held. Roy complied awkwardly, letting Ed practically climb into his lap. The kid pressed himself against Roy’s chest, one hand clutching the front of the colonel’s shirt as he gasped and wept. Roy curled himself around the boy protectively, drawing up his legs and wrapping his arms around Ed’s cold, trembling body and trying to give the kid some small sense of security in the face of his wracking agony.

A particularly frantic spasm lurched through Ed and he screamed, sending a deep shock of cold into the pit of Roy’s stomach. What if this didn’t stop? What if it was Ed’s fate to be faced with such pain for the rest of his life...? Ed was right, this was Roy’s mistake... but if it came to it, would he have the fortitude to “fix” it? Could he kill the boy again if he had to...?

Al rushed into the room in response to Ed’s sharp cry, freezing in the doorway with soapy water dripping from his hands.

“...Again?” Al asked, upset.

“Yeah.” Roy replied, doing his best to sound calm and a little exasperated when, in fact, his heart was shuddering with fear. “But I’ve got him, go ahead and finish.”

Al hesitated a moment, but then backed out of the room. “I’m almost done, I’ll be back in a second.”

Roy nodded to him and turned his attentions back to the boy in his arms. Ed’s face was pressed firmly against his superior’s torso and Roy could feel his desperate, panting breaths hot against his chest. The spasms were already beginning to lessen, but Ed was still shaking badly in the wake of such agony. While the spasms were only occasional, Ed was in constant pain from the ache that the spasms left behind. This ache couldn’t be nearly as bad as the muscular convulsions themselves, but Ed was exhausted and frightened and the added physical discomfort probably felt much worse to him because of that.

The colonel glanced at his bedside table and the bottle of amber-colored liquid that was sitting on top of it. After a moment’s consideration, he leaned away from Ed a little and reached for it. Ed whimpered and clutched at Roy even more tightly, practically digging his nails into him through his shirt and burying his face into his chest.

“I’m not going anywhere, kid.” Roy consoled him quickly, giving the boy a reassuring squeeze. “Just hold on a minute.”

The colonel reached over again and grabbed the bottle. It was only about half full, but that was more than enough. He unstopped the bottle and leaned down against Ed a little more firmly.

“Ed, I want you to drink this.” Roy told him, holding the bottle out for him to take.

“...W-what is it...?” Ed panted, opening one eye.

“Scotch. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

After a long pause, Ed took the bottle and pressed it tremblingly to his lips. He took a hesitant sip and shuddered.

“It’s an acquired taste, I know...” Roy admitted with a wry smile, “Just gulp it down. It will take away some of the pain and help you sleep.”

Ed paused again, but the promise of less pain was too enticing to be refused by his tastebuds and he pressed the bottle to his lips again, tossing it back and draining it with admirable speed. He gave another shudder and gagged softly.

“That was disgusting...” he coughed, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and letting Roy take the nearly empty bottle from him.

“Hey, I’ll have you know that this is very good-quality scotch.” Roy defended with a playfully indignant sniff.

“It t-tastes like embalming fluid... and I would know.”

“Oh, it does not, you big whiner.”

Ed gave a gentle, tired laugh and pressed himself still tighter against his superior. Roy smiled at that faintly, glad that even in such a state Ed could find the strength to laugh a little.

During the next half hour, Ed was wracked with three more particularly bad spasms, each of which left him gasping and trembling with pain and misery. Al came back and held his brother’s hand through the worst of it, speaking softly to him as the resurrected prodigy screamed and cried against Roy’s chest. After that, though, the muscular convulsions tapered off for the most part and the kid relaxed a little in Roy’s arms. Roy didn’t know if the muscle-relaxant and painkillers in the alcohol was responsible for calming Ed’s frantic body or if the boy’s body had stopped the tremors itself... but it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that Ed’s condition was improving markedly.

“I love Al.” Ed declared drunkenly into the silence of the room, his words slurred a little by the scotch. “An’ I like Colonel Bastard, too, I guess... but not as much.”

Al shot the colonel a dirty look and Roy had to bite back a laugh. Al was not happy that Roy had given Ed alcohol, and now that Ed was seriously starting to feel the effects Al was even less impressed with the colonel.

“He’ll be fine.” Roy told Alphonse, smirking the in the face of the metal kid’s withering glare. The colonel was just glad that Ed seemed to be a happy, affectionate drunk rather than a depressive one like Roy himself tended to be. The very last thing that Ed needed right now was to have his depression intensified. Although-Roy reflected as he looked down at the boy who was still insistently curled in his lap and refusing to be moved-perhaps the colonel wished that Ed were a little less affectionate.

The three of them fell into another easy silence, listening to an owl screech outside the closed window. Roy desperately wanted Ed to fall asleep so that the colonel himself could get some rest. It was probably close to three-thirty in the morning and Roy was so deeply exhausted that he felt physically ill. His body ached, his head was pounding, and his stomach churned queasily as if he were coming down with the flu. And on top of that, the bite on his arm was throbbing badly, the wound burning a hot tail of pain all the way up to his shoulder. He was sure that he’d be fine after a few solid hours of sleep-meaning, of course, that he’d be skipping work the next day-but for the time being he was absolutely miserable.

“Are you okay?” Al asked, breaking the lull. Roy looked up at him drowsily and shrugged.

“Yeah. I’m just tired. That transmutation... it took a lot out of me.”

Al nodded slowly, “You did an amazing thing.”

“...A stupid thing.” Ed added petulantly, his eyes closed.

Al smirked. “That, too. But honestly, sir, you look half-dead.”

“I think I am half-dead.” the colonel yawned, leaning his chin down on top of Ed’s head. “I was so tired that I fell asleep in the crypt for a while after you left.”

“Ah, I’d wondered what took you so long getting back.”

Roy nodded and didn’t say anything else. He didn’t think that he was going to tell the boys about the other things in the crypt that had been brought back to life. Most of them had probably become still again already, so there was no point in disturbing Ed and Al with the knowledge that Roy had created a small horde of soulless undead.

The colonel had read a story about such creatures when he was a kid. What had they been called...? Zombies? Yeah, that was it. The book had scared the hell out of Roy when he was little, terrifying him to the point that he was absolutely convinced that zombies were going to come for him in the dark of night and eat his brain. To think that he’d actually been bitten by one of those “imaginary” things as an adult was kind of funny in an ironic way. Part of Roy felt that he should be a little traumatized by the sudden appearance of one of his greatest childhood fears, but instead he was just a little irritated that he’d accidentally created the things in the first place.

Roy gave a tiny snort of laughter. That’s when you know that you’re jaded: you find the existence of zombies annoying.

“I think he’s asleep.” Al said after a while, reaching forward and brushing a strand of hair from his brother’s face.

“Finally.” Roy sighed, shifting so that he could gently push Ed off of him and lay him out on the bed. “His automail was digging in to my ribcage.” The colonel stretched his arms over his head with a yawn and allowed himself to fall backward on the bed next to the softly snoring boy. “I’m going to try and sleep while I can, too, if you don’t mind.” He added to Al as he closed his eyes.

“That’s fine. You’ve earned the right to sleep. Do you want me to leave the room?”

“I don’t care.” He yawned again, “You can stay if you want.”

“Okay.”

Al didn’t say anything more so Roy rolled over onto his side, facing away from the brothers as he pulled the disheveled blanket up from the foot of the bed and covered both Edward and himself with it.

He was asleep before he even realized that he still had his shoes on.

It worked its way up through the damp, compacted earth that covered its resting place, its tireless body clawing ceaselessly upward. A hand erupted from the grave, followed by a second that scattered clods of dirt and tufts of grass onto its simple, yet elegant headstone. The thing dug its fingers into the earth and dragged the rest of its body out into the night air, seeming almost to birth itself from the dank ground.

Decomposing brain-matter oozed out of the creature’s eye socket and dribbled onto the grass, fouling the air with its rancid stench. It lay there for a moment blankly before raising its head and sniffing the air like a bloodhound. It wanted to feed, but the only nearby flesh that it smelled came from the rotted bodies of its comrades, which were lurching all around in the moonlit cemetery like a swarm of insects.

There were dozens of them, each yearning to consume.

Edward’s eyes shot open, his heart pounding savagely in his chest. He didn’t know where he was and his mind was hazy and befuddled. He sat upright and the unfamiliar room spun around him dizzyingly.

“Ed? What is it, Brother?”

“They... they’re coming!” Ed told Al urgently. It was hard to talk, almost as if his mouth didn’t want to cooperate. “I can feel them...”

“What...? Who’s coming?” Al asked, confused.

“The... the things. I don’t know what they are! They’re dead!”

The body next to Ed shifted and sat up, looking at him blearily. “What are you babbling about?” the colonel asked groggily, rubbing his face with one hand.

“It’s dead!” Ed pressed, taking Mustang’s arm and trying to make him understand. “It has... head-stuff coming out of its eyehole!”

“What’s wrong with him?” Al asked the colonel timidly, reaching out to stroke Ed’s hair in a calming way.

“Nothing.” Mustang yawned. “He’s just drunk and freaked out. He probably had a nightmare. Go back to sleep, Ed.”

“No! You don’t... you don’t get it! They’re dead things! We have to do something! I can feel them coming...!”

“Okay, Ed.” The colonel said after a moment, lying back down. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You... you will?”

“Mmm-hmm... now lay down and go back to sleep.”

Confused but trusting in Mustang’s judgment, Ed lowered himself back down onto the bed and shut his eyes again. He emptied his mind of the putrid, hulking shapes of corpses leaving their graves and lurching into the streets of Central. They were frightening, but there was nothing to worry about now... The colonel said he would take care of it.

“You’re not allowed to give him alcohol anymore.” Al said darkly.

Mustang’s only reply was a noncommittal grunt.

Riza Hawkeye turned the corner and nodded tacitly to the woman waiting for her there. The woman nodded back with a welcoming smile and returned to stretching out her leg muscles. Riza joined her silently, working out the tightness in her calves in preparation for her jog.

The lieutenant enjoyed going for morning runs almost every day and at least fifty percent of the time, this woman ran with her. They had run in to each other a few times right after Riza had moved back to Central from Eastern HQ and after several of these chance encounters at the crack of dawn, they had decided that they might as well run together if they were both running anyway.

In spite of how often these two women jogged down the same path though, Riza knew very little about her running partner. She knew that the woman dormed in the living quarters on the floor above Riza’s, but other than that she was a mystery. The lieutenant didn’t even know the black-haired woman’s name or rank. For all Riza knew, she could be running with a general. It didn’t really matter to Riza what her rank was, though... she was just appreciative of the silent company and needed no more from her than that.

They didn’t speak much outside of greetings and farewells-which was fine with Riza because she’d never been very talkative-but their silence was an easy one. They were just two joggers greeting the sunrise before they had to don their stiff military uniforms and spend another day in the office.

Riza finished stretching and raised her eyebrows at her companion.

“Ready?”

“Of course.” the woman replied.

They took off at a steady pace, breathing in the cold grey fog that had blanketed Central during the night. Their feet pounded the damp concrete rhythmically, bouncing echoes of their footsteps off the walls surrounding the military living quarters. The streets were always hauntingly quiet this time of morning, but within the next hour or so the complex would come to life and thrust itself into the daily grind. But for now, the women had the street to themselves and they enjoyed their brisk solitude.

The pair jogged past the borders of the complex and into the residential district a few blocks down. Riza looked up as they passed by Colonel Mustang’s apartment, frowning to herself. She should probably stop by on the way back. He had come in to work the day before distracted and very hungover. That was hardly surprising, considering the state he’d been in the previous night; what bothered Riza was the fact that he had been nervous about something. It was understandable for him to be sad or angry-or even completely guarded and blank as he tried to be when he was suffering-but this anxiety didn’t fit. Riza was sure that he’d either done something that he shouldn’t have or was about to. She’d tried calling him several times last night, but it seemed as if he’d unplugged his phone. She’d even come by a little before midnight and found his apartment dark and empty. Something wasn’t right and Riza aimed to find out what it was.

The women crossed the street and turned on to the dirt path that cut through a copse of trees that ran the perimeter of the cemetery. Riza loved this particular part of her morning run. She loved the smell of the trees and the soft earth beneath her shoes. The fog was heavy this morning and hung thickly on the hillsides that usually provided a beautiful view of the sunrise, but Riza still breathed it all in contentedly. She didn’t mind that the fog made the trail ahead dark and grey, nor the way that the cold air turned her breath into tiny white clouds with every exhalation... she was just happy to be outside and exercising.

Ahead of them, Riza saw the dim outline of someone standing in the middle of the trail, a vague shape in the frigid haze.

“On your left!” her companion warned the figure as they moved aside to pass him. As they approached though, the silent man made no efforts to get out of their way. He turned slowly and looked at them, his face obscured by fog. He was wearing his formal military attire, but the garments looked filthy and torn. The women glanced at each other curiously, but made no comment as Riza’s companion fell back to run behind her so that they could jog past the man single-file on the narrow trail.

Riza ran past the disheveled soldier, but as her companion did the same the woman shouted indignantly. Riza whipped around and stopped dead. The man had grabbed the other runner deftly and had pulled her in to a pinioning hold. As Riza watched, the man lowered his head and bit into the side of the woman’s face, wrenching back and tearing a chunk of meat from her cheek. The woman cried out and struggled, shifting her stance and throwing him forward over her shoulder.

“What’s wrong with you?!” she barked at the man on the ground, pressing one hand to the gushing wound on her cheek as Riza took a defensive stance beside her. Barely fazed, the man lurched to his feet again and now the two women were close enough to see that something really was wrong with him.

The thing before them swallowed his mouthful of flesh and stepped forward, a low, hungry growl resonating from his throat. His eyes had probably been dark brown at some point, but now they were coated with a thin, opaque glaze of pale blue. His blond hair was a tangle of roots and clods of dirt and the same adornments clung to the damp, tattered cloth of his uniform. The skin on his face was a putrid blue-green-grey color with thin spider-webs of veins crawling across his cheeks. He had no nose to speak of, for it and a good portion of the flesh on the left side of his face had completely rotted away, leaving his eye socket and the bones of his jaw exposed between flaps of worm-eaten tissue.

“What the hell...?” Riza breathed, exchanging another astonished look with her partner. The woman opened her mouth to say something, but the man-creature pounced on her again before she had the chance. Riza threw herself on the thing and succeeded in pulling it off, but not before it could sink its teeth into her comrade’s unprotected throat.

Riza took the half-rotted thing’s head in her hands and twisted it, snapping its neck adeptly. It crumpled to the ground and lay motionless, a stream of blackish, coagulated fluid leaking from its bloodied mouth and trailing down his chin.

The other woman leaned back against a tree, holding the gaping hole in her neck closed with one trembling hand. Blood dribbled worryingly from between her fingers, coating the front of her white t-shirt with a vivid stain of scarlet. Riza ran to her and clamped her hand onto the wound as well, hoping that more pressure would stem the flow.

“B-bastard must have torn the artery.” the woman gasped, trying to smirk at Riza in a reassuring way.

“Looks like it.” she agreed flatly, not about to sugarcoat it. They needed to get the woman immediate medical aid... she was losing far too much blood for comfort. “Come on, let’s get you some help.”

Riza put an arm around the woman’s shoulder and supported her, leading her back toward the colonel’s apartment. It would certainly be a violent wake-up call for Mustang, but she figured that the woman had better chances there than waiting for help to come by out here on the street.

“H-hey...” the woman rasped. “We should go faster...”

Riza looked up at her quizzically, thinking that maybe the woman was about to pass out and wanted to get somewhere sheltered, but then she followed the injured woman’s gaze and stiffened.

There must have been a dozen of them, all stumbling forward with a disturbing kind of ungrace that reminded her of demented animals heaving through the last phase of rabies. They were all military personnel, all in various stages of decay and all drunkenly staggering toward the two women with arms extended and mouths gaping wide.

“Yes, faster. Faster would be very nice.” the woman continued, holding her neck with one hand and grabbing Riza’s arm with the other as she sprinted forward, a sudden burst of adrenaline lending her the strength to run. Riza stumbled after her, glancing over her shoulder at the rotting monstrosities behind them. The things were not moving very quickly and the women had a good head start, but that didn’t quell the sudden terror that tore itself a seat in Riza’s chest. What the hell was going on? This couldn’t be happening...

Riza didn’t have time to explore her panicked thoughts though, for the woman running in front of her suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. The lieutenant plowed into the back of her and they both fell hard against the asphalt. Riza was up again in an instant, trying to pull her companion back onto her feet.

“Come on, come on!” Riza shouted at her, looking back at the creatures moving ever closer. The woman made a wet choking sound that might have been an attempt at a scream and tugged urgently on Riza’s sleeve. The lieutenant looked around and saw what had made the other woman stop running. There were three more of the things directly in their path and well within reach.

A green-splotched had shot forward and grabbed Riza by the hair, pulling her toward its swollen, mold-covered mouth before she even registered that it was there. She spun away from it and kicked hard, feeling its enfeebled bones crunch beneath the force of her foot as it connected with its chest. Another grabbed her from behind and she elbowed it in the face, her stomach turning as the skin on its cheek ruptured and splattered her arm with cold viscous rot.

The woman on the ground cried out again weakly as two more of the undead creatures pinioned her, burying their faces in her neck and breasts and tearing out bloody hunks of meat. The woman’s cries fell silent and her body stopped struggling as the other, larger group of the things approached. Riza looked at the dead woman, then back to the gang of monsters with her heart in her throat. She knew that she was going to have to leave this woman and flee, but doing so felt too much like cowardice.

She stood there and watched the things consume her companion, most of them ignoring her entirely in favor of this easier meal. Blood and strings of flesh flecked the asphalt of the deserted street and the faces of the things as they feasted on the still-warm flesh.

Riza took a breath, turned, and bolted.

Al raised his head as Mustang moaned in his sleep and rolled over, draping his bandaged arm across Ed’s back. Ed was deeply asleep, lying on his stomach with his face turned toward the colonel and gave no response to Mustang’s somnolent touch. In fact, Ed hadn’t really moved much at all since he’d woken up ranting drunkenly about dead things coming to get him. He was sleeping peacefully now, his gentle breathing deep and even. It lifted Al’s spirits to see his brother resting well, the color slowly returning to his sallow cheeks. The muscles in Ed’s back and shoulders still twitched a little occasionally, but not badly enough to hurt or even to wake him. He was almost completely normal again.

In sharp contrast to Ed though, Mustang didn’t seem to be doing too well. He slept fitfully and mumbled as if dreaming, tossing and turning next to Edward. Al could tell that he didn’t feel well, and the colonel had even gotten out of bed around five in the morning and stumbled into the bathroom to vomit. When he came back, he wouldn’t answer Al’s concerned questions and instead curled up on the bed again and tried to get back to sleep.

Al had thought that perhaps the man was just over-exhausted to the point of sickness, but as the youngest Elric watched Mustang sleep he started to think that the colonel really was ill. Perspiration beaded Mustang’s forehead in spite of the coolness of the room, plastering his hair to his clammy face as if he were gripped by a fever. The colonel’s breath came heavily as if he’d been running for miles, a strong juxtaposition to Ed’s quiet respiration. Al also noticed that the bite wound on Mustang’s arm was starting to bleed through the bandage, creating a blossom of color in the middle of the white gauze. The growing spot of blood wasn’t really red though... more of an unhealthy-looking orangey pink. The thing probably hurt pretty badly-although Mustang tried to play it off as a scratch-and that certainly didn’t help the ailing colonel feel any better.

Al felt bad for the man, but he wasn’t really that worried. He figured that the strain of the transmutations the night before had just drained him so much that his immune system was too overwhelmed to fight off sickness. Al knew that the colonel hadn’t really been taking care of himself since Ed’s death-what with the binge drinking and all...-so perhaps the frigid dankness of the crypt had gifted the poor, tired man with a bad cold. Mustang certainly must be miserable now, but he’d probably be fine in a few days.

A sudden banging on the front door jolted Al out of his quiet study of the colonel. Al stood up but then hesitated, unsure of whether or not he should answer the door. He looked back down at Mustang as the frantic banging started again, but the colonel gave no sign that he heard it other than a slight furrowing of his brow. Al paused a moment longer, but then shrugged. He should see who it was at the very least.

“Colonel!” Al heard someone call from beyond the door. He recognized the voice immediately and rushed to open it.

Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye pushed her way through the doorway before Al had even opened it fully. Once inside, she slammed the door behind her and bolted it shut. She leaned back against the wooden surface and closed her eyes, her chest heaving with exertion. Hawkeye’s white t-shirt was stained with fresh blood and Al could practically feel the nervous adrenaline flowing off of her in a wave of confused fear, but her face was entirely blank and revealed nothing.

“...What’s going on...?”

Al looked up and saw Mustang stagger out of his bedroom, glancing around in tired bemusement and he pushed his ragged hair out of his face. His eyes landed on Hawkeye’s bloodied form and his grogginess evaporated instantly. He grabbed the doorknob to the room behind him and quickly shut the door, blocking her view of Ed before she noticed him.

“We were attacked.” Hawkeye said simply, opening her eyes and looking at him with an unnerving sort of calm.

Mustang was frozen for a beat, his dark eyes still dazedly absorbing the alarming amounts of blood on her shirt, but then he asked, “By what, a fucking bear?”

She didn’t deign to reply to that, instead choosing to cross the room to the small closet on the other side. “Do you still keep your guns in here?”

“Yes, but...“ he began, but she ignored him, throwing open his closet and crouching down in front of his impressive-looking gun safe. She turned the dial with an expert hand and the heavy little door popped open without contest. Al glanced back over at the colonel, noticing that he looked a little annoyed but not surprised that she knew the combination to his safe. Hawkeye pulled out three guns and tossed one to Mustang, checking to make sure that each was loaded before holstering them in a belt.

“Riza, what the hell is going on? What attacked you?” Mustang asked finally, his bemusement giving in to his instincts as a soldier as he watched her strap the belt around her hips.

“I don’t know.” She said after a beat, pausing in her task to look up at the colonel. A brief, haunted look crossed her face but she quelled it quickly before continuing, “I was jogging with a friend of mine and these... things came out of nowhere. They were dressed as soldiers, but there was something wrong with them. They were...” she trailed off for a moment, then a harsh bark of laughter erupted from her. “You’re going to think I’m insane... but I swear to you that they were dead. All of them, just walking corpses...”

Mustang stiffened as he listened to her speak, but said nothing.

“There were too many of them for us to fight off. My friend went down fast and... and they ate her, Roy...” Hawkeye stopped for a moment, fear and sorrow entering her voice for the first time since she’d barged in. “There was nothing I could do.”

“...Are you okay?” Al ventured to ask softly, drawing Hawkeye’s gaze away from the silent colonel.

Hawkeye’s face hardened again, becoming the expressionless stone that Al was accustomed to. “Yes, Alphonse. I’m fine.” She stood and turned back to the colonel. “We need to get a handle on them before they can kill anyone else, sir.” she said, brushing a spot of blood from her cheek. “We should alert headquarters, maybe-“

“How could they have gotten out?” the colonel interrupted her, speaking more to himself than to her.

“...Sir?”

“They... they were all latched into their coffins. They shouldn’t have been able to get out.”

Al’s suspicions that Mustang had a fever returned as the colonel spoke those words. It wasn’t necessarily the oddness of the words themselves that reminded Al of the man’s sickness, but more the way that he was speaking; his words were slow and distracted, vague as if he wasn’t entirely aware that he was speaking aloud.

“How many of them were there?” he asked, his eyes snapping over to Hawkeye urgently.

Hawkeye balked for a moment, regarding him with a slight frown before replying, “Well over a dozen, but there could have been more.”

“That’s impossible. The crypt wont hold that many bodies at once...”

A dark chill flowed through Al then. The colonel knew something. He was clearly alarmed by what Hawkeye had told him, but not as shocked as he should have been. He knew about these creatures, and if they had come from the crypt, then...

“Sir, what are you talking about?” Hawkeye asked warily.

“I’ve... done something.” Mustang admitted nervously, taking a tentative step backward from her.

“...Something stupid?”

“Something that I probably shouldn’t have.”

Mustang stood still for a moment, chewing his lip and watching his lieutenant as if deciding whether or not to tell her what he’d done. He looked over at Al for a beat, then turned from him abruptly and moved to his bedroom door. He motioned for Hawkeye to follow him and she obeyed hesitantly, shooting a questioning glance at Al. Al didn’t say anything. This explanation needed to words. The colonel opened the door and allowed his lieutenant to see what was slumbering beyond.

For a moment, there was no reaction from the bloodstained soldier, but then Hawkeye’s muscles tensed under her red daubed t-shirt and she drew in a horrified breath.

“Roy...” she whispered, her reddish-brown eyes roaming disbelievingly over Ed’s peaceful form. The sleeping boy had rolled over onto his side, tangling himself in the dark blue blanket as he slept. Ed’s deep, steady breathing stirred his untidy bangs dreamily, making them brush against his pillow with every soft exhalation.

“...Roy, what have you done?” Her voice shuddered with sick alarm as she turned back to the colonel, the anxiety in her words a violent contrast to the placidity of Ed’s sleeping form.

Mustang glanced at her furtively but then averted his eyes and ducked his head under her terrified, accusing gaze.

“I... raised the dead.” He said needlessly.

Hawkeye stared at him openly, at a loss for words.

“But what about the other things?” Al asked him, “The things that attacked the lieutenant... Did you know about them?”

Mustang didn’t look up, but nodded slowly. “The power of the red stone had surged past my control by the end of the transmutation that brought Ed back. I thought it had only affected the bodies within the crypt... but I guess I was wrong.”

He raised his gaze to Hawkeye, his eyes pleading for forgiveness, “I thought they were contained, I swear. I had no idea that they could get free. I thought the transmutation would have worn off of them by now... If I had known...” He trailed off, unable to put his regret into words.

“Well... what are we going to do about it?” Al asked, feeling a little overwhelmed that he’d played a part in this atrocity.

“Kill them, I guess.” Mustang mumbled, “We have to sever their spinal chords or completely decimate what brain-matter they have left. That’s the only way that I know how to destroy them.”

“I don’t know if the three of us can handle all of them.” Hawkeye said, her voice cold.

Mustang flinched at the concealed anger in her words and sighed. Al could tell that he knew she was right.

A sudden scream outside made Al jump. The three of them ran to the window and looked out as Hawkeye gave a soft, horrified curse.

There was an old woman standing on the other side of the street, rushing toward another woman who was pulling herself across the sidewalk. The woman on the ground was soaked in blood; one of her legs was missing at the knee and her face looked as if several chunks of it had been torn away. She was dragging herself calmly with her hands, scraping her belly and exposed intestines across the rough pavement as she made her way toward the old lady.

“My god, she’s still alive...” Hawkeye breathed as the old woman shrieked again and called for help. The lieutenant turned and dashed for the front door, wrenching it open in her haste to save her friend. Mustang was hot on her heels, grabbing his alchemy glove from a shelf and sliding it on.

“Wait, stop!” a tortured voice said.

She stopped and looked up, her eyes landing on the trembling figure that was supporting himself on the doorway to Mustang’s bedroom.

“Don’t go out there...” Ed continued, his eyes wide. “It isn’t safe.”

“Ed, if that woman is still alive, then we have to-“ Mustang began, but Ed cut him off.

“She isn’t alive.” He rasped, “She’s one of those things... I can feel it.”

“Come back to bed, Brother...” Al said soothingly, stepping forward to push him gently back into the room. “You’re still not well.”

“No, look!” Ed pointed out the open front door, calling everyone’s attention back to the two figures on the fog-blurred street. The older woman was crouching down beside the injured one, her eyes wide as she scanned around for aid. The injured woman lay still for a moment but then she lurched up and knocked the old lady to the ground, growling through her blood-wet teeth. She crawled on top of the screaming woman and opened her jaws wide, a thick trail of bloody saliva trailing from what remained of her mouth and dribbling onto her victim’s face as she bent forward to sink in her teeth.

“SHOOT IT!” Ed screeched to the stock-still audience of this most gruesome of plays. Hawkeye snapped out of her shock first and squeezed off a shot, sending a bullet into the creature’s chest before it could take its first bite. The thing looked up as if vaguely startled, but then turned back to its prey, unconcerned. The lieutenant fired twice more in quick succession and the thing dropped, rolling off of the old woman and into the gutter. It didn’t move again.

“Run home and lock your doors!” Mustang ordered the woman, his voice booming across the nearly deserted street. The woman stumbled to her feet with a confused, terrified sob and ran back in the direction that she had come, looking back only once at the twisted, ruined body sprawled on the road behind her.

Mustang shut the door and turned to Ed, pinning him with his onyx stare.

“How did you know what she was?”

Ed shook his head, a strained expression settling itself on his face as he reached up and rubbed his eyes with his hands. “I don’t know. I can just feel them, like they’re a part of me... or I’m a part of them. I tried to tell you earlier.”

“We didn’t believe you.” Al said apologetically, “We thought you were just drunk and scared...”

“I was drunk and scared.” he admitted, lowering his hands and looking up at the colonel. “That woman was... new. She wasn’t like the others. They made her. She couldn’t have been dead for long... We need to destroy them quickly, Mustang, or else they could turn more people.”

“How did they make her one of them?” Hawkeye asked darkly.

“That I don’t know.”

There was a short silence in the room, but then Mustang spoke up quietly. “I read a book as a child about such creatures. They rose from their graves and fed on the living. Their victims would become like them after they died, rising up again and continuing the cycle... I thought zombies were just fairytales, but apparently they’re real.”

“So... so if you get bitten by these things, you’ll become one?” Al asked, trying to organize his thoughts.

Mustang went still for a moment, his eyes widening as he turned to look at Al. From the look on his face, Al could tell that he’d just realized something... something bad. The colonel nodded slowly, then concealed his sudden uneasiness and shook himself, furtively glancing down at the bloodied bandage on his arm.

“If you don’t think that we can kill them all ourselves, how are we supposed to get rid of them?” Mustang asked Hawkeye. “I don’t know if we have time to wait for back-up.”

“We could reverse the alchemy.” Ed said lowly, “I think the three of us together could do it.”

“...I used the red stone to bring you back, but it backfired and shattered. I don’t have it anymore.” Mustang muttered.

“So?” Ed asked, a slightly apprehensive anger darkening his voice. “Sacrifice me. I should be enough to make up for Equivalent Exchange, right?”

“Don’t be stupid, Edward.” Mustang snapped, looking both alarmed and annoyed. “I’m not going to sacrifice you.”

“Why not? I shouldn’t even be alive in the first place!

“Ed, this is crazy!” Al gasped, terrified at the thought of losing his brother for a second time. “I can’t let you just-“

“Do you have a better idea?” Ed spat, glaring up at Al. Ed was still holding himself up against the wall and looked liable to fall over at any minute, but there was still a fire burning in his eyes. There was fear there, too... but it was masked by the flames of his conviction. He was really willing to do this.

The colonel sighed and massaged his temple with his hand. He had been trying to hide his discomfort since Hawkeye had arrived, but his composure was failing him. His face was pale and his hands were shaking very slightly as he wiped perspiration from his brow. His eyes were fever-glazed as he finally looked down at Ed again.

“...Then we should get moving.” Mustang said to him and Ed nodded grimly in tacit reply.

Just before they left Roy’s apartment, the colonel pulled Hawkeye into the bathroom and closed the door.

“I need your help.” he said, starting to untie the bandage that was on his forearm. He pulled back the gauze, stifling the urge to cry out as the fabric tore part of the wound. Hawkeye cursed when she saw it, covering her mouth with one hand as if she would be sick.

In just the few hours it had been since he was bitten, the wound had begun to fester badly. The ragged hole had turned shades of yellowy green and a deep purple-black and it was still oozing anemic blood sluggishly. The edges of the injury spidered outward in a starburst pattern of veins, showing the path that the poison was working through his body.

“Oh... Roy. Please tell me that this isn’t what it looks like.” Hawkeye said quietly, her voice strained.

Roy clenched his jaw and fished in the cabinet for clean gauze, handing it to her silently. After a beat she closed her eyes for a moment in guarded grief, then took the offered bandages and began to dress the wound without needing to be asked.

It was hurting much worse than it had been a few hours ago, but that was hardly surprising, given how it looked now. He could almost feel the undead infection crawling slowly up his arm in a jagged line of fire, hurting him, weakening him to the point that he just wanted to go back to bed in spite of the terror in his breast.

“You’re feverish.” Hawkeye said after she tied of the bandage, reaching up to press the back of her hand to his forehead.

“I know.”

“We should get you to a hospital, sir. That wound looks bad and you’re well on your way to septic shock if you don’t get it treated.

Roy laughed quietly, bitterly amused by her optimism. “Do you really think that they’d be able to do anything? This isn’t just a dog bite, Riza. You can’t fix this with some antiseptic and a few stitches.”

Hawkeye chewed her lip and didn’t say anything to that. She looked down at the remaining length of bandage in her hands, then glanced back over Roy’s arm thoughtfully. She reached up and wrapped it around Roy’s bicep silently, tying it so tightly that the colonel gave a little yelp of pain.

“The least we can do is try to slow down the spread of the infection.” she said flatly by way of explanation as she tightened the makeshift tourniquet further and knotted it securely.

“Clever girl.” Roy smirked, but then sobered himself. “I need to ask another favor of you...”

“Anything.”

“Shoot me. ...If this kills me, I mean. Blow my brains out, kick my head in, decapitated me... anything. I don’t care what you do, just do it. I don’t...” he faltered for a moment, but then pressed on, “I don’t want to become one of them.”

Slowly, Hawkeye nodded. “I will, sir. I swear it.”

He nodded, relieved that she wasn’t going to argue about desecrating his body. It was not an easy thing to ask someone to do, but Roy fully trusted her to do it.

Their eyes locked for a moment, each silently realizing that this was probably their last moment alone together.

“Riza...” he began, but then stopped.

“Sir?”

“...Don’t tell the boys.”

The lieutenant closed her eyes and inclined her head. “I wont say anything, sir.”

Roy smiled at her tiredly. God, she was so strong... much stronger than he was. As much as she must be screaming on the inside, she always managed to keep her face so expressionless. His perfect soldier.

“We should go.” he said softly, then led the way back out to the front room where Ed and Al were waiting.

Continued in next post.