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Beginnings are always hard.
It’s a grind and twist of friendship that forms between the four of them. The only thing they have in common is that they’re alone, and maybe that they all want to survive – though this one changes from day to day; sometimes it’s just hard to get up in the morning. Nevertheless, they stick together, because that’s what happens when people are alone, they look for others in the same situation. It’s not about holding hands and skipping under rainbows, it’s about pumping shotguns, with fingers shaking so bad it’s hard to pull the trigger to blow out the brains of the infected.
Ellis tries to like them all, but it’s hard when he knows nothing about them. He tells stories, because he’s sure that’s how people bond, but most of the time they just tell him to shut up, and he doesn’t mind because a lot of his tales are made up anyway.
Eventually, they start opening up and Ellis learns that Rochelle once met the president, Coach plays a mean guitar, and Nick – well Ellis doesn’t learn much about him, except that he’s from the north, but he keeps trying, because as soon as the awkward beginnings are over, it means they’re nearer to the end.
*
“Hey, look,” Ellis says, pointing towards the broken sign of a Hardee’s. “Man, I used to eat there all the time. One time, Keith ordered twelve cheeseburgers and ate the lot in under five minutes. He threw them all back up in the trashcans in that alley over there and I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. I’d give anything for a burger about now.”
He walks with his neck craned, watching the building, and notices as the side comes into view that part of the wall has caved in and there are flames curling up towards the roof. It almost smells like barbeque and Ellis’s mouth waters. He accidentally knocks into Nick’s shoulder and the elbow jab in return turns his attention back to the road in front.
“Yeah, well we can’t all get what we want, can we, Overalls?” Nick snaps, loading shells into his gun and cocking it. Ellis blinks, thinking that he should say that Yeah, duh, he knows, but doesn’t, because he’s not an asshole like Nick. Instead, he tells about the time he and Keith found an unexploded bomb and that’s why Keith only has one thumb and seven fingers.
*
He and Keith once went to the races on opening day. Ellis wore his favourite cap and Keith found an old straw hat to wear. They didn’t bet, it wasn’t as though they had spare cash to waste, but after the fourth race, on the way to the bar, Keith found a ticket next to a trashcan that told him he’d won – number six, Destiny’s Love Child, had definitely just finished first.
They kept it and while Keith had a smoke outside, Ellis sat at his feet and tried to calculate their winnings.
“Man, math ain’t my strong suit,” he complained, brushing ash off his shoulder as Keith absentmindedly flicked the end of his cigarette before taking another drag. “But I think we won $150.” He nudged at Keith’s leg with his elbow and looked up, squinting against the bright sun.
Keith wasn’t paying attention, he was chatting up a pretty, blonde lady with killer legs.
That’s when the man, who was barely a man at all, more a small child, or at least as tall as one, came marching over, his face like thunder.
“Hey, dickhead,” the man shouted, as Keith laughed at something the woman said. Ellis stood, flicking up the peak of his hat and glaring hard, ready for a fight. “That’s my girl.”
He shoved Keith full in the chest, forcing him backwards into a wall with a solid thump, and Ellis was on him like stink on shit. His first punch landed clean across the man’s jaw and before he could even throw another, the man slumped unconscious to the floor.
They were escorted from the premises by security, who told them that the racetrack didn’t need their business anymore.
They never got to collect their winnings, and, to be honest, Ellis is still a little sore.
*
It’s a clear shot from one side of the street to the next. Two or three infected lie at their feet, limbs askew and pieces missing where shells have ripped through spotted skin and degenerating muscle. Coach peers round the edge of the building, voice low as he whispers the all clear.
Ellis goes first, the butt of his gun resting snugly against the curve of his shoulder. He sweeps his aim from side to side, double and triple checking for signs of movement. Nick is at his back, he hears his breathing and his posh Italian shoes sounding upon the asphalt. Rochelle stumbles on something not quite visible in the falling darkness, but they keep moving.
“Sweet Jesus, I hope that weren’t a body,” she says as Coach catches her under the elbow and keeps her steady.
They’re almost to the others side, just a few more steps and they’ll be under the alcove and out of the open.
He hears the laughter before he sees it, but it doesn’t make it easier. He swivels around, waiting for signs of life – or death – and he can feel Nick against his back, facing the other direction, and knows his pistol is raised in a steady grip. If their backs are covered, what can the Jockey grab onto?
It’s like it’s been planned from the start and Ellis doesn’t doubt it. These lot are tricky sons-of-bitches.
“Spitter!” Nick cries, stepping forwards and firing rounds. Ellis turns his head to see the girl stumbling out of a side alley, acid dripping from her mouth. She drops before she even has time to spit. Nick puts an extra hole in her head to leave no doubts and she doesn’t get back up.
In that split second, when Ellis turns and offers his back to the darkness, something’s on him, clawing at his face and forcing him back into the street. Ellis yells out in surprise.
“Get it off me, get it off me!” he cries, grappling with the creature’s arms as they swing wildly, bashing him across the side of the head and knocking into his nose painfully.
One clear shot rings out in the air and he’s able to shrug the weight off. A hand tugs him back against the cold bricks and he wheezes and coughs as adrenaline pumps through his body. He brings his fingers up to touch his nose and finds blood upon them when he pulls them away.
“Mother fucker,” he drawls, bending at the waist and using the sleeve of his jumpsuit to wipe the mess away.
Coach pats him heartily on the back. “You alright?”
“Course I am,” he replies, checking his gun, making sure the safety is still off; it is. “When aren’t I?”
Ellis glances to his right and finds the barrel of the gun still smoking gently as Nick reloads it, not meeting Ellis’ eyes. He straightens his shirt and gives the dead Jockey a kick.
Ellis really goddamn hates them. Dead or alive, Jockeys are all assholes just looking for a fight.
*
They’ve had a hard few days and Ellis offers Nick some pills, noticing the way he winces as he lowers himself to the ground.
"I don't need that shit," he spits. "What I need is the end of this goddamn zombie apocalypse. I need a decent bed to sleep in and a good night’s rest."
Ellis sees right through him but says nothing. He pretends to forget to put the medicine away and leaves it resting in the space between their bodies.
"Night," Ellis says quietly, tucking his knees up and resting his head against them. Nick doesn't answer.
When he wakes the pills are gone and Nick is sleeping soundly next to him, his breathing soft and even.
*
On the roof of a block of apartments, Ellis sits, dangling his legs over the edge, his rifle in arm as he lines the sight up and blows away the head of an infected with one clean shot.
“Headshot number ten!” he calls out, grinning and looking over his shoulder. Coach is busy barricading the door leading to the stairwell, Rochelle smiles as though she doesn’t really mean too and that she’s just humouring Ellis, and Nick looks as serious as ever.
He pumps the gun, watching as an empty shell clatters out and falls and falls and falls all the way down towards the ground a hundred million feet below, where it’s dark and hazy. On a balcony about three quarters of the way up the building opposite, a zombie picks itself up, looking around as if to find where the gunshot came from.
“Got the reactions of a brick wall,” Ellis says as he makes it number eleven with a loud whoop.
He holds the rifle in his lap and swings his legs as the breeze picks up around his body. It’s muggy, as though a storm is about to roll in. It’s like the time when it rained for three days straight in Savannah and the roads in town flooded. He and Keith had found a dinghy, a couple of paddles, and had rowed their way through a McDonalds drive-thru. It had been the funniest goddamn thing, up until Keith had waved about his oar in excitement.
Turns out it had been a metal paddle, as he’d been struck by lightning seconds after and had spent the subsequent three days in a hospital with third degree burns over ninety-percent of his body.
Ellis sets the gun down beside him on the ledge and eyes the sky suspiciously.
“Where do we go from here?” he asks, picking at some dried blood on his shirt.
“Well,” says Coach, wiping his hand on his pants, “it don’t sound fun, but we got to go across the rooftops and try to avoid the ground as much as possible. The infected are like a pack of wolves down there, snarling and shit. I figure the higher up we are, the safer it’ll be.”
Ellis believes him, not because it’s sound logic, but because he trusts Coach.
“Seems like a mighty good plan, Coach,” he says, swivelling around to slip off the ledge and back onto firm ground. In the second his foot lifts to slide down towards the gravelled rooftop, he hears a cough, but it’s too late. He can almost hear the wind whistle as something flies through the air towards him. It latches onto his ankle and locks into place; Ellis realises all too late that it’s a tongue.
“Smoker!” he yells, as the muscle tenses and begins to draw him in. He slips off the ledge, clutching at the edge with just his fingertips as he tries to fight the endless tugging. He doesn’t glance down, can’t bring himself to do so, because he knows he’ll see nothing but darkness and that’s not something he wants to spend his lasts seconds looking at. Instead, he lifts his head and peers over the ledge. Coach is calling out for him and Rochelle has her gun up and aimed. She fires three shots over Ellis’ shoulder and the tongue loosens suddenly, but so goes his grip.
Son-of-a-bitch, he thinks, of all the ways to go. He should have gone out in hail of bullets with fire in the background and maybe a Tank or two thundering across the ground towards him, but no, he gets a goddamn Smoker. Could have been worse, he reasons, as his hands leave concrete and meet air, could have been a Jockey.
His stomach shoots into his mouth as he begins to plummet, however it jars straight back into place as a hand catches him around the wrist at the last second and stops him dead. He brings his other hand up to clutch at Nick’s forearm, hoping to God that he’s stronger than he looks, else there’s still time for Ellis to fall to his death. Perhaps even to take Nick with him, though there would be no end to it. The rest of eternity would be spent having to listen to Nick ramble on about how Ellis had killed him before his time and how much he hates him.
Nick pulls, grunting and clenching his teeth, until Ellis feels him shift a few inches upwards. He toes the edge of the building, hoping to find a crack to take some of his weight. There’s nothing, but as Nick keeps lifting him, Ellis finds he can once again cling to the concrete ledge to help get him back onto the rooftop. It’s then that another set of hands grip him under his right arm and heft him up completely. Coach is as strong as he looks, he’s just one-hundred percent pure muscle – sort of – and Ellis is happy he’s around, especially in this moment.
He falls to his knees and breathes heavily. Something swats him at the back of the head and his cap falls off. He looks up as he pulls it back into place and finds Nick staring down at him angrily.
“Don’t be a dumbass next time!” Nick yells at him. “Don’t sit on goddamn ledges forty fucking stories up and think you’re going to be okay, because more than likely you’ll get your sorry ass into trouble as per fucking usual, and don’t think I’m going to save you every goddamn fucking time because – ”
“Nick!” Rochelle yells, interrupting him with a sharp voice. Nick glares at her, but holds his tongue for the moment.
“Jesus Christ,” Ellis wheezes, his hands on the floor in front of him. “I think I almost shit myself.”
“Fucking pleasant,” Nick murmurs under his breath, just loud enough for only Ellis to hear.
Ellis climbs to his feet and claps Nick on the shoulder.
“Thanks, man,” he says around a grin. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me four million,” Nick deadpans, but Ellis’ smile doesn’t falter.
“Well, I guess I better start now.”
Ellis pulls his pistol out of his waistband and cocks it, pulling the trigger three or four times. A hunter drops dead inches behind Nick’s back with a sickening crack.
“We better get moving,” he suggests to the others and Nick has the most perfect face of shock he’s ever seen on anyone. He reloads the gun as he accepts a friendly squeeze on the arm from Rochelle and heads to the other side of the roof. He tucks the pistol back into place and takes a flying leap across to the neighbouring building.
“Did you see that?” he calls back, cupping a hand around his mouth to be heard above the weather. “I was like Spider-Man.”
*
The worst part, Ellis thinks, about the end of the world, apart from the growling, dribbling infected, is the lack of space. Sure, the whole state is their playground for now, but that doesn’t mean they get a lot of privacy.
Back in the day, he could hoot and holler as much as liked and no one would hear a damn thing for miles, but now, crammed into a safe house with three others, Ellis hears every tiny noise. He hears the gargling undead just outside the windows, hears the floorboards creak as one of the other three moves around in the room above, hears the clanking of pipes in the walls and the steady patter of rain coming down from the sky. The closed door does nothing to abate the noise of Nick grumbling about some shit or other. He hears the phrases Why me? and This is bullshit. and knows they’ve been bunked together.
He lets out a sigh and moves to lock the door because what he needs is five minutes alone with four fingers and a thumb.
He keeps his loaded gun on the cushion next to him as he perches on the arm of the sofa, his hands already unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. He’s not really in the mood, never really is these days, but he knows it’ll ease the tension in his shoulders and stop the frustration from growing too out of control.
He pictures a girl he’d been with once – well, technically, she had been Keith’s girl, but that hadn’t stopped him from noticing her round hips and full breasts, and getting her as naked as the day she was born and making her moan his name with her easy drawl. He imagines her candy-pink lips and the soft curve of her jaw as he slips a hand into his pants.
*
When he wipes his hand off on the moth-eaten, olive curtains and turns around, he finds Nick leaning against the doorjamb, one hand in the pocket of his slacks, as he chews at the thumbnail on the other.
“You finished?” he says, inspecting his nail then flicking his gaze up to meet Ellis’. Ellis pulls a face.
“That’s messed up. You pick the lock so you could watch me?”
“I didn’t come here to watch you jack off, jerk off, and the door was open, so don’t blame me. I came down because the other two already called the upstairs room. They’re taking first shift and they told me you needed a babysitter, that I was the best choice to keep your ass out of trouble, so do me a favour and go to sleep already. You can’t do any damage if you’re asleep.”
Ellis snorts, grabs his gun, and slips it into his waistband.
“Where are you going?” Nick asks, slipping his fingers into the crook of Ellis’ elbow and halting him. Ellis glances down at him and tugs his arm away easily.
“To get some water, mom.”
Nick doesn’t laugh at the joke, just lifts his eyes skyward, as if to say oh god, why me?, and pushes past him into the room. Ellis doesn’t look back, just walks to the kitchen to their stock of water and takes a bottle. It’s warm and tastes vaguely of chlorine, but it does the job.
When he goes back to the living room, he finds Nick curled on the sofa, a dirty, fraying blanket spread over him. He’s pretending to sleep and Ellis doesn’t give a rat’s ass. He turns out the light and takes the floor furthest away from the window, using his medical pack as a pillow. It’s not much, but there have been worse nights.
He lies awake for a long time listening to the old house groan and creak under the weather. At one point, Rochelle’s faint laughter drifts downstairs.
“Go fish, Coach,” he hears her say and he wonders where they found the deck of cards.
Nick mumbles something in his sleep and shifts; Ellis hears the soft rustle of the blanket falling to the floor and doesn’t think twice before he sits up and quietly crawls over to steal it. He notices the unevenness of Nick’s breathing and it’s only when he’s a foot or so away that he realises his mistake. Nick isn’t asleep.
The streetlight outside filters through the window and Ellis is close enough to see that Nick’s pants are open and there’s a hand wrapped around the cock straining out of Nick’s boxers. He holds his breath and closes his eyes, because, maybe Nick hasn’t noticed him yet.
When he finally looks up towards the other end of the sofa, he finds Nick staring at him, the whites of his eyes glossy in the half-light.
Ellis hears Nick’s hand moving, continuously stroking, never once faltering. He forgets about the blanket, forgets how to swallow. He digs his fingers into the denim of his overalls and pushes bruises into his skin.
Nick doesn’t look away.
Ellis should move back, turn his head, anything, but his body stays frozen.
Nick draws his far leg up and his knees fall open. He lets out a broken noise from the back of his throat and Ellis’s free hand moves of its own accord to press over Nick’s mouth. Nick doesn’t draw away and it’s starting to annoy Ellis that he’s so passive; where’s the snarky, shoot-first-ask-questions-later Nick that he knows? He should have a busted nose and a split lip by now. Instead, he’s got a fistful of Nick’s breath and not much else.
Warm lips rest against his palm and three-day-old stubble rubs against his skin every time Nick shifts. His hand blocks out the sounds, stops the others from hearing, but there’s thunder rolling through the clouds outside that muffles everything anyway. It doesn’t stop him from pulling away, because, for Ellis, nothing is louder than the noise of skin against skin as Nick flicks his wrist and pushes his hips up into his own fist.
All Ellis can feel is heat radiating from Nick and pouring from within himself. The back of his neck feels clammy and he knows that Nick must taste nothing more than the saltiness of his skin against his mouth.
Nick’s jaw tenses under his hand and Ellis realises he’s close to finishing. Ellis keeps his eyes on Nick’s face, refusing to watch him come, to see him spill over his own knuckles. With a hand like lightning, Nick grabs the front of Ellis’ shirt and holds him steady; Ellis can feel the way Nick’s arm shakes in the build up, but it’s nothing compared to how it feels when Nick’s mouth opens wider under his palm and he tips his head back.
Ellis hears the exactly moment Nick’s hand stops moving, but it takes him a few moments to pull his arm back finally. The first breath Nick lets out is shaky and loud, and is followed by the loudest clap of thunder yet. It seems to snap Nick out of his daze, as he finally looks away, turning his head and staring up at the ceiling instead.
“Go to sleep,” he tells Ellis, without glancing at him, pushing his fingers into his chest and forcing him backwards.
Ellis listens, grabbing the fallen blanket and shifting away, back to his pack. Lying in the silence, the noise as Nick pulls his pants back into place and tugs the zipper up is far too loud. Ellis shuts his eyes and waits for Nick’s breathing to fall into a steady rhythm.
The room is drafty and smells all too much of Nick. Ellis falls asleep, but it only seems like minutes later when Coach shakes him gently awake.
“It’s your shift, kid.”
He blinks and stretches, then looks towards the sofa. Nick is gone.
*
They’ve almost made it to another safe house and Ellis knows it’s yet another feat, because Nick has threatened to blow him away at least three times in the last hour.
The door is only a football field’s length away and they start picking up the pace, firing wildly at anything that moves in the vicinity. At first Ellis thinks – hopes – it’s just the vibrations from his submachine gun, but then he stops firing and the ground continues shaking. It’s a tank and it’s close.
“Tank!” Rochelle screams as it bursts through a clump of trees and starts charging towards them.
Nick’s to his left loading round after round of bullets into the creature and Ellis doesn’t take his finger off the trigger until he’s forced to reload. Infected swarm around them and Coach stands at their backs, picking off those that get too close. Ellis can’t see Rochelle, just hopes she’s safe because they need her in their team; she’s part of the glue that sticks them together.
They manage to back the tank towards a dilapidated barn and Ellis plans to throw a pipe bomb between the open doors as soon as it moves inside, because he’s sure it’ll bring the wooden structure down atop its head and he knows it won’t get up again after that. It’s almost there, just a couple more steps backwards – but then he spots Rochelle and it doesn’t look promising.
Rochelle runs, her machete poised in the air, ready to bring it down between the tank’s shoulder blades, but then the tank swings its arm back as it goes to throw a punch at Nick who taunts it with loud curses and the biting gunfire from an AK-47. Ellis watches, screaming all too late for Rochelle to watch out, as the elbow swings back and knocks her full in the chest. It sends her soaring backwards, through the wooden wall of the barn behind and Ellis can’t hear anything that says she’s alive, no cry for help, no screams of agony, just silence.
The anger inside fuels him as he throws his empty gun away. He tugs his axe from the straps across his back, swings it in a figure-eight, before bringing it up and charging.
It’s a shitty idea from the get go, but he’s already halfway there and it’s too late to turn back.
The tank notices him and lets out a thundering yell, turning to face him and lifting its arms high above its head. Ellis skids along the ground as though aiming for the home plate and whacks the blade into its leg as hard as he can. It screams and stumbled backwards one or two paces, but it’s right on top of him, before he can even stand back up. He keeps hacking at it, ignoring the blood that sprays into his face with ever slice and he sees the shadow of an arm looming above his head. He waits for the crushing force to hit him, but it never comes. Instead, the tank topples over backwards, finally dead.
He scrambles across the dirt, away from the body, and stands on shaking legs.
“Goddamn fucking son-of-a-bitch, that was close,” he says, wobbling slightly, before remembering Rochelle. He jumps over infected bodies, ones that are bloodied and blown to pieces, axe still in his hand, because screw not running with sharp objects. He finds the barn wall splintered around Rochelle’s tiny body and he throws his weapon aside as he crawls through the space to crouch next to her.
“’Chelle?” he calls out, shaking her shoulder gently; she doesn’t answer.
It’s then that he notices the blood leaking from her side. He peels the edge of her torn shirt up and finds a jagged piece of plank piercing her body. He touches her arm gently, as though hoping she’ll feel the comfort, even unconscious, and briefly shuts his eyes. He says a quick prayer, then carefully wraps a hand around the wood. He remembers a video he once watched in high school about first aid, which said not to pull embedded objects out of a victim’s body, but it never made much sense, and it certainly doesn’t now. It’s the only thing keeping Rochelle down and he’s pretty sure he can stop the bleeding after it’s out; all the wound needs is a bit of pressure. He tugs it free in one quick move and throws it aside.
He grabs his last remaining medical kid and pulls it open, tugging out lengths of bandage and gauze and pressing everything up against Rochelle’s side.
It all turns red quickly: the white dressings, his overalls, his hands.
Nick and Coach call through the small gap, asking if Rochelle’s all right, and Ellis answers them, but he guesses they can’t hear him over their own gunfire, as they don’t throw him the pills he asks for.
The calmness he usually has deserts him and he’s left panicking and hoping to god that he doesn’t fuck things up. He needs Rochelle around because they’re friends and friends are important when he only has three left in the whole state. He lifts her into his arms and emerges into the open, watching as Coach shoots the tongue off a smoker before it even has time to strike. They notice him immediately and move to his sides, keeping the infected at bay as he begins to carry Rochelle to safety.
Twenty yards, eleven, six, four, zero, and the door slams shut behind them.
*
Ellis sits barefoot upon a kitchen counter eating a can of syrupy pineapple rings with his fingers. He doesn’t look up when Nick enters, but lets out a small noise of annoyance when a hand pushes past his own and fingertips dip into his food. Nick tips his head back and drops the fruit straight into his open mouth then licks his fingers one by one.
“Get y’r own food,” Ellis tells him around a mouthful as Nick hops up onto the countertop next to him.
They fall quiet and all Ellis can hear is the watery sounds of his fingers fishing for leftover chunks in the bottom of the can. When it’s empty, he drains the sugary, sweet juice and sets it between them.
“Rochelle will be okay,” Nick says quietly and Ellis takes off his cap and rubs his forehead; it’s his own version of a sigh of relief.
“That was close,” he replies, slipping his hat back on and looking down at his hands.
“Coach is keeping an eye on her and she keeps insisting that she’s fine; you know what she’s like. The bleeding’s stopped, but that doesn’t mean she’s in the clear.”
Ellis nods like he understands, even though he doesn’t. He doesn’t know why they’re in this mess, why the south’s so fucked up now, or why shit like this happened to someone like Rochelle. He doesn’t know why everything’s so goddamn hard now. All he wants is an end and a familiar face and a soft bed to sleep in at night, and a shower and clean clothes, and four million other things that he just can’t have because someone fucked something up somewhere and now there’s infection and necessary slaughtering and blood that just gets under the nails and won’t come out. He takes a deep breath.
Nick reaches behind and grabs a half-empty bottle of wine from a rack that’s in three or four pieces. He tugs the cork out then sniffs over the bottle’s mouth. He shrugs, swills it, then tips it back and takes a mouthful. He promptly spits it back out onto the floor and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Nasty ass shit,” he complains and Ellis can’t help but laugh. It’s like the time he dared Keith to drink a suicide of everything in the soda fountain at KFC and he took one sip and threw up in the bushes beside his truck. Nick pulls a face, sets the wine back where he found it, and looks around as though searching for something to rinse his mouth out with. Ellis gently elbows him and passes him the lukewarm can of coke he’s been drinking. Nick drinks the rest, but Ellis doesn’t care; there’s a twenty-four pack in the pantry and that was the first can from it.
Nick jumps down to the floor, belches, then tosses the can into a nearby trash bag.
“Too much excitement for one day,” he says sarcastically. “Night, Farmer Joe.”
Ellis watches his back retreat into the living room, waits approximately two seconds, then follows after.
Nick’s spread himself out along the sofa and before he can say anything, Ellis pushes an armchair closer, curls up into it, then reclines it back. Lights from outside shine between gaps in the boarded windows, but that’s all that illuminates the room. Despite the darkness, Ellis still sees the way Nick glances over at him. He shuts his eyes and tries to sleep.
*
He wakes with a mouth against his neck and a palm pressing against the crotch of his pants.
He grunts in surprise as he recognises the soft material under his hands as Nick’s suit jacket and he drags a hand up to hold Nick’s head where it is. He knows he probably tastes like dirt and sweat, but if Nick’s going to lick at his skin on his own accord, he isn’t going to be the one to stop him.
Teeth nip and a tongue soothes, and Ellis breathes out ragged and harsh because he can’t quite find his voice yet, but he doesn’t need to tell Nick he’s awake, because he’s pretty sure he already knows.
He slips his hands forward to touch Nick’s body, sliding his hands under his jacket and running them down his sides. Nick jolts into Ellis’ body and Ellis finally realises that Nick’s much closer than he first thought; he has one hand flung over the back of the chair holding himself in place, while his left knee rests between Ellis’ open legs.
Nick draws back from his throat and Ellis can feel his breath on his face; it smells sweet, but Ellis isn’t going to find out whether it tastes as much, too.
“We don’t talk about this,” Nick says as though Ellis really has a choice. Ellis nods before he realises that Nick can’t see him.
“I like tits,” Ellis tells him, “I fuck gals and sometimes my own right hand, but even then, I have some bird on my mind. I don’t do guys; this is only because there ain’t nobody else.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nick says, his impatience clear as he attempts to untie the knotted mass of Ellis’ overalls. “Ditto.”
He yanks Ellis out of the chair and they stumble back a few paces.
After that, it’s a rough push and pull between them as Ellis tugs at Nick’s belt and unfastens his pants, while Nick drags Ellis’ yellow tee shirt straight over his head in one swift movement. Nick’s pants drop straight to the ground, thin hips doing nothing to keep them up, and Ellis finally has to help him with the twisted arms of his jumpsuit. It falls in a matter of seconds and Nick’s hands push at his holey boxers until they follow after.
Nick’s still wearing his jacket and shirt, but Ellis rids him of them with hands that shake at the idea of what’s to come. Nick steps out of his underwear and brings them together, pushing their cocks against one another and grinding forwards, as Ellis grips his shoulders. Ellis is still soft, but Nick’s half-hard and rutting into him, as though all that matters in the world is that he gets off. That might be true.
Ellis finds it difficult; Nick’s hard to imagine being anyone other than Nick. He starts to move away because it’s not going to work for him, but Nick somehow gets a foot behind his own and they topple to the floor. Nick lands with his thighs either side of Ellis’ hips and Ellis knows Nick is unbelievably lucky that he didn’t accidentally knee him in the balls in the fall.
Ellis can’t quite catch his breath, winded by the weight on him, and he lies still as Nick moves backwards, down his thighs until he wraps a hand around both of them and begins stroking.
Nick’s hand is warm and way past the good shade of rough and when Ellis shuts his eyes and thinks of skinny little Jenny Cast, who gave him his first hand job after their high school graduation ceremony, he finally gets a twitch and some interest from his cock. He thinks about the summer he spent hanging around Keith’s homemade swimming pool with some twins who moved into town and remembers how responsive the youngest twin – by one minute, her nineteen-year-old sister said – had been under his hands upon the grass, with the moon almost full in the humid night sky.
Ellis is hard now and Nick’s strokes pick up speed, thumbing at the heads of their cocks smoothly.
Ellis bucks up, almost lifting Nick completely off the floor, before crashing back down and jarring their bodies together. Nick stops for a second then carefully climbs off him.
“Hands and knees,” he tells Ellis without touching him and Ellis breathes out steadily before doing as he’s told.
The closest he’s ever been do doing this was when some hot chick Keith had found asked for a threesome and they’d been wasted on some cheap beer they’d bought. Ellis really hadn’t enjoyed it, though mostly because Keith and his girl had fallen asleep halfway through and had left him horny and rubbing himself against the mattress. Nick seems to know what he’s doing, though.
It’s a few minutes before anything happens, but then a fingertip pushes suddenly into him and it’s warm and wet, and he was definitely not expecting it to be.
“Jesus,” he says, “where’d you get that?”
The whole finger slips inside and Ellis bites his forearm to keep quiet.
“It was in the med kit,” Nick replies, twisting his wrist and putting a hitch in Ellis’ breath. “Perhaps if you paid more notice to things you’d have realised that by now.”
Ellis tosses a glare over his shoulder, though it crumbles to pieces when Nick pushes in another finger; he hangs his head and focuses on breathing. There’s no fucking doubt in his mind that Nick hasn’t done this before. The way his fingers curl and shift deeper, the way he thrusts his hand, pushing into parts of Ellis he didn’t even know he had. He rolls his hips and kicks backwards as Nick forces another finger into him too soon. He feels full and stretched, but the flip in his stomach is still there, telling him that this is definitely something his body is interested in.
Nick keeps moving, doesn’t stop until Ellis can’t think of anything else except finally coming.
“Goddamn fucking tease,” Ellis whispers, trying not to let too many wayward noises escape around the words as Nick pulls his fingers out and pushes the head of his cock against Ellis’ slick entrance; he doesn’t push in, just holds himself there and rubs gently over the sensitive skin. Ellis tries his best to rock backwards onto it, but Nick moves just out of reach.
“We do this my way, or no way at all,” Nick breathes into his ear and Ellis twists away from the tickling heat.
“How about you just fucking do it?”
In an instant, his elbows give way and Nick has him pinned down to the floor with a hand on the back of his neck. The side of Ellis’ head throbs in pain and he knows he’s going to have a bruise across his cheekbone in the morning. The tortuous rubbing stops as Nick finally begins to press into him, holding Ellis’ waist up high and leaning over his back, pushing most of his weight onto Ellis’ neck. It hurts and it makes it hard to breathe, but Ellis doesn’t push him off, too boneless from having Nick slip further inside him.
With a movement that makes his shoulder ache painfully, Ellis gets his hand underneath himself, runs it down his stomach, and tangles his fingers around his softening cock. The rough shove and slide of Nick inside him does nothing to help, but when Nick bumps against his prostate, he turns moan into stuttering breath and pushes back, ignoring how cheap it makes him feel as he does so. He’s soon completely hard again.
Nick never once stops to make sure he’s okay, just keeps thrusting and taking for his own pleasure, as Ellis grapples against the floor with his free hand, jacking himself off with the other, using harsh tugs and twists to make it worthwhile. Nick’s fingers bite into the back of his neck and they pinch and burn, but even when Ellis tries to shift away, he clings tight.
For a moment, Nick pauses and Ellis almost believes he’s finished, but then he knocks Ellis’ knees further apart and thrusts in again sharply. He pushes deeper into Ellis’ body and Ellis lets out a half-broken noise at the feeling; it’s nothing but heat and fullness and the quick slick slide of Nick’s cock.
He thinks of everything he can to help; he pictures the first girl he ever slept with, spread out underneath him, long hair tangled across yellowing pillows; he imagines the woman from page seven of a well-loved and well-worn skin magazine he had hidden under his mattress back home. His cock twitches with interest and the swollen red lips of Dixie Sux flash through his mind as he wonders what they might feel like wrapped around him.
Nick grunts from behind and it throws Ellis off for a moment, as he remembers where he is and whom he’s with. He strokes himself faster and hopes it’s enough.
Nick doesn’t let go of him, but he pushes his fingers into the hair that’s sweaty and sticking wetly to the nape of Ellis’ neck, scratching at the sensitive skin below it with broken nails. The hand on Ellis’ hip slips, shifting up along his side and over his ribs. It moves away then lands firmly against the small of his back, pressing down enough that Ellis has to arch his spine in a way that makes his chest strain and ache.
Ellis pushes his face into the floor, breathing in the musty scent of damp, mildewed carpet, as the slight change allows Nick to slide roughly against his prostate with every thrust. The pleasure is blinding and he doesn’t need any flat, suntanned stomachs or silicone breasts to help him anymore.
The wet sound of Nick driving into him is almost deafening, as is the way Nick breathes, whispering quiet curses miles above his head.
Ellis feels his body begin to tense with telltale signs and he doesn’t try to stop it, or rush it, or anything at all, just lets his orgasm roll over him until he’s pretty sure he’s not even inside his own body anymore. He comes over the floor and his own hand with nothing more than a hitch in his breath and the long steady stream of a lazy exhale.
Nick’s thrusts falter, but don’t stop. He pushes down, presses until Ellis starts to think that something’s going to have to break and give because he can’t deal with the pressure along his body. He hopes it won’t be his back.
He’s pretty sure Nick doesn’t know he’s already come. He knows this because Nick reaches around under their bodies as though to jerk him off, but draws his arm back as soon as his hand finds Ellis’ cock hanging soft and spent between his legs.
Nick’s thrusts suddenly pick up, but it’s still a few minutes of him sliding into Ellis’ aching, sore body before he shudders and goes still.
Nick lets go of his neck, leaning back and taking his weight off, and Ellis wastes no time pushing himself up and throwing Nick off. The sharp drag of Nick from his body pulls a huff of breath from him, but he pretends it never happens and crawls forward, away from the heat behind him. He collapses back with a thump against the sofa, his legs splayed and hands in his lap; he feels boneless and more satiated than he’s been since this whole apocalypse started.
Nick sits on his heels and appears as though he feels the same way. He slowly meets Ellis’ eyes in the dim light and the look he gives says he definitely got more than he bargained for.
Serves him damn right, the stupid sonofabitch, Ellis thinks. He’s not the nobody he knows Nick thinks he is; he’s Ellis, the twenty-three year old mechanic from Savannah, Georgia and ain’t nobody going to fucking change that, not even some sleazy douchebag from Jersey.
*
Three weeks pass before Nick comes back to him, tail between his fucking legs, just as Ellis had predicted about thirty seconds after Nick had dressed and called him a few choice names before leaving to stand guard by the front door.
They find a church that’s been barricaded to the teeth, probably by previous survivors, and smash their way in through the glass round the back. A quick sweep lets them know that they’re alone and Ellis helps Coach board the broken windows up with bits of splintered pew and thick iron candlestick holders, until they’re sure they’re safe enough to last a night. They sit around on hassocks and eat Funyuns and Famous Amos cookies Rochelle stole from the last vending machine they passed.
Ellis lightens the mood by telling a story of the time Keith chugged a three-litre bottle of Faygo as a dare. He doesn’t even get to the good part before Coach shoots him a tired look and asks if now is really the right time. He supposes it’s not because they all look pretty beat; now’s no time for laughing, he’ll save it for when they’re rescued, when the infection’s gone and then he’ll be able to tell his tales all day, every day and it’ll be the right time.
He gets up, stretching his arms above his head and rolling his shoulders as he drops them back down to his sides.
“Where you going, Overalls?” Nick asks, as though he thinks Ellis is going to get himself into trouble.
“To explore.”
“Why can’t you just sit here, be quiet, and try not to get our asses into trouble for once?”
“Because that ain’t never going to happen.”
He walks off before Nick can respond, because he’s pretty sure Nick’s just doing it to make sure everyone knows he’s still a dick.
*
Nick finds him as he’s flipping though half a bible he’d found behind the altar; the other half is strewn about in pieces, looking like fake snow scattered across every surface. He nudges him with his foot and motions with his head towards one of the back rooms.
“We’ve got that one for tonight.”
Ellis looks towards Coach and Rochelle who are leaning next to each other, talking quietly between themselves, then back up at Nick.
Ellis knows they don’t have to sleep in a separate room, knows that Rochelle and Coach probably know it too, but Nick looks at him as though he might be missing the bigger picture and he figures it’s not worth arguing about. He sets the torn book down and wipes his palms on his overalls as he stands. Nick doesn’t wait for him and Ellis follows after, straightening his cap with one hand.
Nick shuts the door behind them and everything goes pitch black. They both switch their flashlight on, lighting up the room with artificial light.
Nick pushes broken chairs aside and forms a bed for himself out of tapestries off the wall and a small rolled up mat that’s resting in the corner of the room.
“You’re going to hell for that,” Ellis tells him as Nick lies across the embroidered face of Jesus Christ himself.
“I’m going to hell for doing a lot more than this.”
Ellis shuts his mouth and slouches against the wall, sliding down until his knees are bent completely and he’s sitting upon the hard floor. They shut their flashlights off and the room falls dark and silent; they can’t even hear the outside from where they are and it might actually be the first time they won’t be lulled to sleep by the sound of hacking Smokers and rumbling Boomers.
Ellis shuts his eyes and dozes.
When he wakes, it’s because there’s a hand slowly sliding around his ankle. He lashes out before he thinks, throwing himself forwards and knocking over whoever – whatever – it is that’s touching him. Nick swears from underneath him, his voice choked from the way Ellis grips him tightly around the throat.
“Oh,” he says as his brain finally catches up.
Nick delivers a sharp jab to his ribs with his elbow and Ellis lets out a soft oof noise and draws his hands away. He turns his flashlight on and points it towards where Nick’s sprawled on his back.
“The fuck was you thinking?” Ellis asks quietly as Nick sits up and rubs at his shoulder as though it hurts.
“You were snoring and making too much damn noise. I couldn’t sleep.”
Ellis knows for a fact this is a lie; he doesn’t snore, never has. He slumps back against the wall.
“I’ll stay awake then,” he says, “so’s you can get your beauty rest. You need it.”
“Don’t fucking bother,” Nick tells him, ignoring Ellis’ quip and shifting around loudly, “you make more damn noise when you’re not asleep.”
Ellis shines the light into Nick’s face.
“Then why’d you wake me up?”
Nick squints into the light and blinks before he leans over and bats it away, making Ellis point it across the room instead.
He turns the light back off and sets it on the floor next to him. They fall silent and he drops his chin to his chest and closes his eyes again, not to sleep, just to rest.
He hears the sound of Nick moving and the touch on his leg isn’t really unexpected.
“I ain’t in the mood,” Ellis tells him, knocking the hand away, and it’s the truth. He’s tired and sore and his stomach keeps rumbling loudly.
“I didn’t ask if you were,” Nick replies and his hand is back, pinching Ellis’ skin.
“I’m not going to sin in a house of the Lord, anyway.”
“God sees you sin whether you’re in church or not, dumbass,” Nick retorts, pushing Ellis’ knees apart.
Ellis kicks him, catches him hard in the stomach and makes him cough. There’s a second’s pause before Ellis finds himself being dragged away from the wall and pushed flat onto his back. A punch grazes his nose and lands just under his eye. It throbs painfully and distracts him enough that Nick gains the upper hand and straddles his waist, grinding down and letting Ellis know that he’s been thinking about this for a while.
Ellis digs his hands into Nick’s slick hair and forces his head back, until he lets out a grunt of pain and jars Ellis’ elbow with a sharp swipe of his hand. He easily throws Nick off him and catches him in the mouth. Ellis feels his knuckles split as they meet the edges of Nick’s teeth and quickly draws them away in pain.
Nick’s back on him, breathing loudly and twisting his fingers around Ellis’ wrists, pushing them above his head and pinning them to the floor. Ellis tries to throw him off against with a jolt of his hips, but Nick’s thighs grip his waist tightly and all it does is make Nick moan.
“I hate you,” Ellis grinds out because Nick doesn’t stop shifting and rolling down and Ellis’ body begins to respond.
“It’s a good thing we don’t have to like each other to still do this, then, isn’t it?”
“We? This is all you. I don’t want this.”
“Try telling that to your dick.”
Ellis knows he’s right, because he can feel himself pushing into Nick’s leg, but he thinks it’s probably there out of anger and adrenaline, not actual lust. He knows it won’t go away until he deals with it, but he struggles and fights against Nick, until Nick’s body begins to shake then finally stills.
He heaves Nick off him, then turns his face away as he pushes the heel of his palm against his aching cock and rubs through his pants. He doesn’t know where Nick is exactly, but he can hear him breathing somewhere to his left. He lets go with a quiet groan then drags himself off the ground to lean against the wall.
It’s quiet for a few moments, but then Ellis’s stomach breaks it with a loud growl.
“You got any food, Nick?”
Something crackles then bounces off the wall by his head and lands in his lap. He flicks the light on to see and finds it’s a small bag of M&Ms. He quickly opens it and offers some to Nick, who moves to sit beside him and holds out his hand. One crunch and Nick spits the candy into his other palm in disgust.
“You didn’t tell me they had peanuts in them.”
“Thought you knew,” Ellis replies around a mouthful of chocolate. “Yellow wrapper means with peanuts, brown wrapper means without. You’re not allergic or anything, are you?”
“No,” Nick says cleaning his hand off on the floor. “Peanuts are just fucking disgusting.”
“Too bad,” he replies, as he brushes crumbs of the sugary shells out of the folds in his shirt and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You’re a real asshole, Ellis.”
“Yeah, well, you too, Nick.”
*
The touching is always rushed, always hard and fast, and beyond comprehension.
Nick palms him though his jeans in some back alley, seconds before a hunter lands clear on Rochelle’s chest around the corner and then they’re moving and ducking and firing and saving another life, erections gone in seconds flat.
Ellis corners Nick in a safe room, while Coach and Rochelle hunt the surrounding area for food and water. He slides to his knees, unbuckling Nick’s belt and tugging past the fastenings of his pants to get to Nick’s cock. Nick’s head lolls back against the wall and he sighs out a moan as Ellis gets him hard with his hand. With Ellis’ mouth around him, he doesn’t last long, but he only just buttons his pants in time before the others return. Ellis wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and no one appears to suspect a thing.
Ellis doesn’t know when it changes, but it does, because one day, Nick pins him to the floor and grinds down against him, using slow, steady movements, meant for drawn out pleasure, not quick release. In that moment, Ellis doesn’t give a shit, just grapples at his back, twisting expensive suit jacket between his fingers, and bucks upwards. Nick trails his mouth over Ellis’ neck and breathes wet heat against his skin, while Ellis spreads his legs and lets himself fall backwards into pleasure. When they use up two of the hours they’re meant to spend asleep with nothing but careful teasing, Ellis begins to question what they’ve got going for themselves.
Ellis doesn’t know if he does it on purpose, but Nick seems to have memorised the spots on his body that make him arch his back and twist for more, as he finds them every time, without fail.
Nick stops pushing and starts pulling, and Ellis lets it happen.
He’s seen this happen before. Keith once had a dog, named Digger, and a horse once accidentally stepped on his paw. Digger had lost his leg, the vet chopped it clean off in surgery, but that dog had come out stronger. He had hopped around on three legs as happy as a bird with a french fry. Still played fetch, still ran after the turkey vultures that landed on the fenceposts in the fields, still barked like a motherfucker at every hint of someone outside the house, everything any other dog would do, just looking more badass doing it all.
Time changes everything, Ellis tells himself, but for them it’s just survival, it’s just adapting to an apocalypse. Nick doesn’t ever say a word and Ellis is perfectly okay with that.
*
“Ready?” Coach asks, hands on the barricade bar.
Rochelle nods and Ellis cocks his gun. Nick doesn’t move, but when Ellis glances over at him, he shrugs and looks ahead.
The safe room door swings open slowly and in the distance, where the sun is sinking just behind the supports of the towering bridge, Ellis sees a horde sprinting towards them.
Endings are never easy either.