Chapter Text
“Somewhere along the line, you stopped hating me.” Troy said as he checked the barrel of his handgun.
“What?” Nick said, opening his fifth candy wrapper. They were in an abandoned movie theater, sitting on top of the concession stand.
“You heard me.” Troy gave Nick a side glance. They both knew that he would be sick within the next hour, but that didn’t stop him.
“How’s you find out?” Nick said, mouth full of KitKat.
“Nicky, you were about to be part of my experiments.” Troy said. “I knew what everyone thought of me.” He set his gun down on his lap.
Nick shook his head, “those weren’t experiments, that was sick.” His words slurred together. Troy wrapped his arm around his shoulders. “But, you love me.”
It reminded Nick of that time they were going after Alicia. After that night, he never saw her again. Nick always looked for any signs that she might be alive, even months later.
They never made it to the dam. The two was shot at, and they barely made it out with their lives. Now, they were scraping by with whatever food they could scavenge up.
Nick ignored him, licking the melted chocolate from his fingers.
Troy scrunched his face, looking out to the rotter filled entrance that he yearned to obliterate.
Troy grabbed Nick’s hand as he reached behind to get another candy bar. “Would falling in love with me be so terrible?” Troy asked. He payed no attention to the saliva, or the blood on his face that made him smell like death reincarnated.
Nick pulled away, it would. Who could love a person like Troy. A person who ran cruel and unusual deeds onto people in the name of science doesn’t deserve to be loved.
So why did Nick have to keep reminding himself of how they met. A person would never forgets that, he still had dreams about it, but the person in front of him seemed so much more than the depot.
The sound of glass cracking drove Nick out of his thoughts. He took the pistol out from his holster, and pointed directly at the entrance.
As soon as the glass shattered, Nick and Troy started firing. Nick slid behind the counter. He made two shots to rotter heads, before his gun started clicking. “I’m out.” Nick said, pulling out a knife.
“Me too.” Troy said, he stood in front of the counter. The dead had them surrounded. He pulled out his machete, and started slicing the heads off.
“It’s too many.” Nick’s eyes glanced around. The entire theater entrance was full of the undead.
Troy groaned, and slid down the glass stand. Rotters followed, blood and yellow liquid smeared across the counter.
They ran down the hallway, Nick opened a door, and pulled Troy in. They were consumed in darkness. The only sound was them panting, and the moans from the dead clawing at the door.
Nick hugged the side of the wall as he went down the steps of the musty, stale room that smelled of rodent urine, and decayed steaks.
Troy hit the side of the wall a few times. Skin flapping on concrete echoed through the room. “Just one.” He said.
Nick winded up a flashlight, and waved it around. They were in the boiler room, on the ground was a rotter that was tied up. Nick bent down, and stabbed the brain. He caught sight of a note underneath its hand.
Nick carefully pealed the paper from the rotten flesh, and said, “he left a note.”
“Does that really matter?” Troy said, looking out the small basement’s window.
“Well if it says how we could get out, or where the stash of movies are hidden.” Nick said, unfolding the paper. “I will pass onto another plane of existence, my time here was short. I have no regrets, except one: I spent my last hour of life watching Avatar the Last Air Bender. That movie sucked.” He read.
“Wasn’t that movie not supposed to come out for another month or two?” Troy said.
“He looks like an employee, how did you know about that?” Nick asked. Putting the note down.
“Gretchen and her friends were planning on seeing it, it was all they talked about for a while.” Troy said. He walked over to another wall, there was a locked door, and jiggled the handle.
“Maybe it’s a good thing the dead rose.” Nick bantered. Troy’s breathing became heavy.
“Troy?” Nick asked. Troy fell forward, into Nick’s arms. “Shit,” Nick yelled wrapping his hands around the other’s back. Nick set Troy down next to the corpse, “don’t die.” Nick said.
He ran around the boiler room, looking for an exit. They both needed out, and the cheap door wasn’t going to keep the dead out.
A door stood in the wall, Nick jiggled the handled, but it was locked. He took a bobby-pin out of his pocket, and placed his ear against the dark gray door.
He grabbed Troy, and dragged his body across the floor to the creaking door.