Archive of Our Own ^beta

Figures that the two people most capable of fishing for the camp were also the two most prone to sunburn. Andrew detested everything about the day; sitting in a small boat in the middle of a quarry with no shade in sight, feeling his legs stiffen up from not moving and his skin start to redden in the heat. 

He’d been sitting in this boat for two hours and they’d only managed to catch three fish. 

Aaron was looking just as red as he sensed he did, no doubt also grumpy about the situation. It didn’t help that he hadn’t caught anything. Meager as it was, their entire lot was currently owed to Andrew. And Aaron hated fish. 

These things made the entire ordeal a little more bearable, in Andrew’s opinion. 

Andrew stared on at nothing, gaze fixed on the shore, while his hands held the reel, waiting for some movement that might be considered a bite. 

Aaron reeled in another trick pull of the line, and grumbled as he set up to throw it back out and likely not catch anything all over again. 

Andrew slid his gaze over to Aaron, who was far too focused on huffing about his continuous lack of fish. If Andrew was someone who rolled his eyes, he would have. But he wasn’t, so he settled for something he did rather well: disdain.

“You’re not going to catch anything with that knot, idiot.” 

Aaron scowled at him, “this is the knot you taught me to tie.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow. “That is not at all true.”

Aaron did roll his eyes, because he was someone who did that. “Yes, it is.” He grasped the end of his line and his hook and shoved it towards Andrew. “A fisherman’s knot, like you taught me, asshole.” 

Andrew stared at the knot Aaron had shoved in his face and then looked back up to meet his brother’s eyes. “That is not a fisherman’s knot.”

Aaron removed his hand and hook from Andrew’s face and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Andrew blinked at him. Fishing was, for some reason, marginally less boring now. Aaron was too easy. 

“Are you going to continue being difficult, or are you going to show me again how to tie the knot properly?” 

Andrew shrugged and didn’t say anything, but he did reel his own line in and untie it so he could re-demonstrate to Aaron a few more times how it was done properly. 

“Like this?”

“No.” 

“...Show it again.”

“Stop sighing, do it one more time.”

“Like this?”

“No.”

“Asshole.”

Aaron tied yet another knot, furrowed his brow at it, and then held it up for Andrew’s inspection. 

“Yes.” 

Aaron nodded, having finally got it down on his own. Andrew threw his line out and went back to staring at nothing towards the shore that led up back to camp. 

After a few moments when Aaron hadn’t also resumed fishing, Andrew glanced at his brother. Aaron was still looking at him, his brow furrowed. He was thinking. Andrew preferred it when he wasn’t, he’d rather not deal with the implications. 

“You’re not going to catch any fish with your line out of the water.” 

Aaron made a noise that might be interpreted as a laugh by some, but that couldn’t be. The Minyard twins weren’t the kind of people who laughed. 

“I’m not going to catch any fish anyway.” 

If they were those kinds of people, Andrew might have almost-laughed back, but they weren’t, so he glanced at his brother again, and then back to the shore. 

“Where did you learn this stuff?” 

“What stuff?” 

“You know what I mean, fishing—where did you learn to fish?”

Andrew did know what he meant, but if they were doing this attempt to talk to each other thing, then he was going to make Aaron work for it, as he was sure Aaron would make him do the same. 

“The fifth home.” 

“Was it a good one?”

Andrew looked at his brother. He knew better than to ask such stupid questions. Aaron took that as the answer that it was and changed his question.

“How’d you learn?”

“He thought he would take it upon himself to teach us troubled kids ‘discipline.’ Apparently fishing was the way to do that.” 

Aaron nodded, accepting that answer. 

This is where they always ended up; a few exchanges, then the conversation would come to a brief halt. They were never good at fanning flames, they both recognized when embers became ash and fire turned to smoke. Better to know when it was done than try and push it forward anyway, watch it crash and burn. They returned to silence. 

Aaron’s arms went up, and he cast his line back out into the water, sniffed once, looked around all too casually. Andrew ignored him. 

It was five minutes later that he felt his brother startle beside him again, and as he reeled in his line, Andrew knew somehow, this time, it would be a success. 

Sure enough, just as the bottom of the line was coming to view from under the surface of the water, they could see the shadow of what could only be a fish. 

“Ha! Yes,” Aaron exclaimed, and Andrew had to amend his previous comment about the Minyard twins and laughter. It seems learned behavior can be un-learned. He didn’t hate hearing the sound. 

Andrew put down his own rod and grabbed the net to hook around the fish Aaron had managed to catch. His brother watched the fish break the surface, and directed it towards Andrew. Together, they managed to add it to their small pile, and somehow the task of setting back up and throwing their lines out again got a little easier. The sun got a little nicer, warm rather than burning. The breeze picked up. 

It could almost be nice—if they forgot the circumstances that led them to be fishing, here, today. 

But Andrew Minyard never forgets.

He let the boat still again after their moving had set it shaking in the water, and he returned to staring at the same spot on the shore he’d been familiarizing himself with. It was no longer empty though; their new acquire, Neil, was jogging laps in the rocky-silt material along the water’s edge. Andrew only looked for a second more, and then turned away. He could not watch the shore any longer, he would need to find somewhere else to focus his attention. 

Turning his head back he glanced at his brother, who was still smirking to himself about his catch. 

Andrew looked at the water this time. He closed his eyes for a second. He could work for it a little too.

“Fucking finally,” he muttered.

He didn’t look at his brother, but he didn’t need to; he could feel his smile like the sun. 

By the time they went in, they managed to catch 12 fish total. 

_____________

“Are you coming to the fish fry?” 

Neil opened his eyes to see Nicky standing over him; Despite his height and rather large presence, he managed to miss the sun and was doing nothing to block it from Neil’s view. Neil had to hold his hand up just to be able to see enough to even look at Nicky, and still his eyes were struggling to open fully under the brightness. Neil hated Georgia in the summer. 

“Umm,” he said. He didn’t really know what else he was supposed to respond. So far for the most part, everyone had been very welcoming of his joining their group. Matt was still by far the easiest for Neil to talk to, and sure he avoided most everyone else, but avoidance was okay. It was easy. They didn’t need to be devoted, affectionate—they just had to co-exist; it was already more than Neil had ever had. 

Nicky, though, didn’t take well to Neil’s avoidance. He was social by nature, Neil knew, but his advances confused Neil only because he wasn’t sure what to do with them. His childhood wasn’t exactly stacked in his favor here. 

“You haven’t heard?” 

Neil managed another “um,” before Nicky jumped in and continued. If there was one thing he did appreciate about talking with Nicky, it was that he always took the lead in the conversation; Neil never ended up having to talk much at all. 

“Aaron and Andrew managed to catch a whole bunch of fish earlier, so we’re going to have a big ol’ fish fry later! Come hang with us, promise it’ll be a good time!” 

Neil had seen a small boat out on the water earlier while he was running, he hadn’t known the outcome though. Hard to have heard when he spent a lot of time trying to pull his weight without having to interact too much. 

It wasn’t anything against the group. They were fine—in fact, Neil liked them a lot. He just wasn’t sure what to do with that. Him and Matt got along fine, better than fine, actually, if Neil wanted to be generous. He avoided Seth because Seth was an asshole, and Neil didn’t think running his mouth around him would end in his favor. Renee and Betsy…made him uncomfortable for reasons he didn’t quite understand; they were both kind, but their kindness felt to Neil like it had ulterior motives. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he didn’t have to trust them individually, just the group. Marissa was…fine, he didn’t really pay attention to her. 

And then there were the twins, Kevin, and Nicky. Though Neil had practically taken the fall for Kevin upon his arrival concerning Aaron, Kevin had barely come within 5 feet of Neil in the time he’d spent at camp. Neil wasn’t too bothered by it. Aaron avoided him like the plague, which was just fine by Neil. Andrew…

Andrew didn’t ignore Neil. If he’d been ignoring Neil it would have been more deliberate. They hadn’t interacted at all in any significant way since they arrived back from Atlanta with Aaron. Sometimes they’d end up in the same place at the same time—grabbing water, at the quarry washing clothes. One odd night, Neil had woken up from a rather unpleasant dream and left the tent Matt had kindly given him to find Andrew sitting at the then dead fire they usually use for meals. He didn’t look up as Neil wandered over, but Neil knew Andrew knew he was there. They sat on logs on opposite ends of the charred fire pit, and neither of them spoke for however long it took Neil to decide to try and get more sleep. Andrew was still there when Neil woke up that morning to go on a run. 

To mention it, Andrew would have had to be speaking to Neil, and he wasn’t. So Neil didn’t mention it either. 

He wasn’t sure what the purpose of the cold-war between them was, but he didn’t want to accidentally breach a wall he didn’t even know existed. Did attending the fish fry do that? Neil had no idea. Nicky did say Andrew and Aaron were the ones who caught the fish. 

“I didn’t know I was invited?” Neil said, because Nicky was still waiting for an answer.

“There are no invitations, Neil. You’re with us now! You either come or you don’t.” 

Neil blinked a few times, his eyes were protesting the prolonged sun exposure. He dropped his head back against the tree he was sitting beneath and closed them again. 

“I don’t know then.” If Nicky was framing it like he had a choice, then it might be best if he just didn’t go. 

“What? Why not? You’ve been here like two weeks and I barely know anything about you. We’ll make it worth your while, I swear!” 

Neil relented and squinted up at Nicky. He didn’t trust the smile that he was wearing. 

He shut his eyes again and deflected. He didn’t know what else Nicky needed to know about him, there wasn’t much there. Not much he could share, anyway. “Does Andrew know you’re telling me to come?” 

“Andrew?” Confusion, that’s what Neil was hearing as Nicky spoke now. Neil could guess what he was thinking; as far as Nicky knew, Neil and Andrew didn’t interact enough for something to be up. Exactly, Neil would say, but then again, he didn’t interact much with anyone else either. He didn’t get why it felt different, but it did. “What does Andrew have to do with anything?” 

Neil couldn’t answer that question if he wanted to; he didn’t know—that was the problem. 

“Look I don’t know what you’re referring to, but whatever it is it has nothing to do with you. That’s just Andrew, don’t let him get to you. Come to the fish fry,” Nicky paused a minute then added a rather embellished, “pleaseeeeee.” 

Neil sighed, deeply. “I’ll think about it, Nicky.”

“Jeez, you’re mysterious. Okay, Neil-io! Maybe see you later then.” 

Neil didn’t need to open his eyes to know that Nicky was gone. 

_____________

“Why aren’t you coming to the fish fry?” 

Neil stood up from where he was filling his water bottle and sighed. Andrew was standing behind him, looking utterly bored as he always did—but then he wouldn’t be asking Neil about later, right?

“So we’re talking now?” Neil responded, because what else was he supposed to say? He did not understand why everyone was so hung-up on his attendance. 

Andrew didn’t answer that, and just continued staring at Neil, blinking occasionally. 

Neil looked away then looked back. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going.”

“Nicky seems to think you’re not.” 

“So you’re concerned because Nicky is?” 

Andrew narrowed his eyes, “I’m not anything,” He was playing with something in one of his pockets, and Neil’s eyes focused on the movement. He wanted to know what it was. “He keeps asking me what I did to make you stay away, imagine his surprise when I said nothing at all.” 

“Exactly,” Neil muttered, turning back to the bucket of water they’d been refilling their bottles from. It was a little under half empty, Neil should probably grab someone else and lug the bucket to the stream they’d been filling it with, about a half a mile into the woods. He stared off in that direction, considering. It was still so hot, maybe he’d wait until the sun went down just a little more. 

Andrew sighed from behind Neil, who had almost forgotten he was there. “Answer the question and I’ll let you ask one in return.” 

Neil turned back to Andrew. “Okay.” 

“Why aren’t you coming to the fish fry?” 

Neil shrugged. “I didn’t know I was allowed.” 

“Allowed,” Andrew repeated. 

Neil clarified. “Well, you and Aaron caught the fish.”

When Andrew just stared at him Neil explained a little further. “I didn’t know if the two of you would want to be sharing your catch with me.” After all, what reason had they given him to think otherwise?

Andrew’s face made a brief digression from apathy into antipathy, as he said “don’t be stupid.” 

Neil rolled his eyes—he really had no idea where he could have gone wrong, but whatever. He asked his question. “Why did you decide to start talking to me now?”

“I was never not talking to you.”

“Right,” Neil said, looking up at the sun and then into the woods again, in the direction of the stream. Maybe he could lug the bucket there himself? No, he wouldn’t be able to bring it back when it was full. 

“You do not believe me,” Andrew said, not quite an accusation, definitely not a question. 

Neil glanced at him but his gaze didn’t linger. “No,” he said. 

“It is not my job to make you believe me.” 

Neil tugged on one handle of the bucket, he wasn’t sure he was having this conversation right. He wasn’t usually sure he was having any conversation right, but something about talking to Andrew was different. It felt like every single thing he said had double, triple meanings; like what they were saying was as much not at all what they were saying as it was. It left Neil with more questions than it answered. 

“No I suppose not,” Neil conceded. “But next time don’t lie to a liar.” 

“I don’t lie.”

Neil quirked an eyebrow, “right, neither do I.” 

Andrew stared at him a second longer and then turned around. He was almost out of range when he said, without turning around, “come to the fish fry.” 

Neil smirked; if it was an invitation he was waiting for, he guessed that was as close to one as he was going to get. 

_____________

They hadn’t had this surplus of food in a while. With the dozen fish that Andrew and Aaron had managed to catch and the few cans of food they rationed per night, there was enough for everyone to get a full helping plus a little extra left over at the end. It was clearly the reason for the high spirits, and Matt couldn"t have been any happier about it. 

It had been tense in the few weeks following the failed group run. Aaron was being…well, less than friendly with him and Kevin but especially Neil since his return, and Andrew was being…well, Andrew, about it. Everyone else was acting normal, but Matt knew it was a front. They were disappointed; the reason for sending more people on this run had been the desperate need for supplies, and they’d come back empty-handed and in crisis. 

Matt had always had good runs when he went alone. Sure, sometimes he came across issues, but it’s so much easier to manage the situation when it’s just him. It hadn’t been his idea to invite others along, and if it had been up to just him he would’ve told them no. Well, if he didn’t think it would cause a problem, he would have. 

Next time, he’ll speak up, hard feelings be damned. 

But as the fish fry began, tensions finally eased for the first time since he’d left camp with Kevin and Aaron that day, and Matt smiled easier than he had in a long, long time. It got even better when Neil wandered over after everyone else had already taken seats on logs or folding chairs alike, first circling the group like a skittish cat but then settling down on the small stump that was left over. 

Neil was the only good thing to have come out of their last run, Matt could definitely attest. He didn’t know how the others felt, but he liked the kid. He was intuitive, it was a good skill to have in a time like this. 

Kevin liked to plan, and for the most part his plans worked out for them, but when they didn’t he became paralyzed, tunnel-visioned—the plan Kevin came up with was the only plan, and there would be no other. They didn’t fail often, but when they did it was hard to move him past it and begin work on something else. 

Neil had stepped up in the city, but also a time or two after in the camp with little things. He worked on intuition, like Matt said—he liked it. 

And…Matt had the feeling Neil could use a few good friends. He seemed inclined to be alone; even after being acclimated to life in the camp, Neil wandered around by himself and avoided interaction if he could, but Matt knew he’d get through to him yet. 

If he could get some of the others to cooperate. 

It’s not like anyone was making it particularly hard, but Neil for some reason seemed preoccupied with Andrew, and Matt wished he knew how to politely tell him to let it go. 

The fry was a good example. Neil sat down, glanced around the circle, at the fire-illuminated faces of his camp-mates, the food, the stars, and still Matt watched his gaze settle and rest on Andrew, contemplative. 

Andrew was staring into the fire, present but only as much as he had to be, and fumbling with something in his pocket. After a second, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and used the small starting fire to light up. Matt watched Neil watch this, and then watched Neil look away. He didn’t know what he’d discovered, but he hoped it enough to satiate his curiosity. 

Matt let his attention wander from Neil as the night went on, as people ate and laughed and talked. The breeze was consistent and nice in the way the heat seemed to condense in the darkness, and Matt could almost close his eyes and imagine a time before this. A campfire in his backyard, his college friends around him, a beer in his hand. 

Almost. 

Laughter died out, conversations stilled, and everyone sat around leaning back in their seat and on each other, full for the first time in a long time, and just drank it all in. 

Betsy moved, and Matt instinctively turned to look at her, a few seats to his right, as she raised his wrist to eye level and turned the dial on her watch, setting it for the next day. 

He shifted in his seat, thinking, and before he knew it he was calling the silence to an end.

“Okay, Betsy. I have to ask.” 

She looked up at him politely; there was nothing Betsy did that wasn’t polite, even when she was in the midst of telling them they were wrong about something, telling them things they couldn’t do. It was disarming, and Matt knew that was probably the purpose when she was a therapist before, now it was just comforting. 

“Yes, Matt?”

He smiled, because with Betsy he always felt he had to. 

“Every night I see you winding that watch back, I gotta know why.” 

“I’ve been wondering this myself, actually,” Renee said from Matt’s left. 

To Betsy’s right, Andrew turned his head from the fire to look at her. That was the magic of Betsy, she could command anyone’s attention—no, not command. She would simply request it, and the audacity of such politeness was hard to ignore. Even Andrew afforded her the respect she deserved. 

Neil, however, shifted in his seat a little. Matt’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t let his attention divert. He’d asked the question after all. 

“Don’t you think it’s important, time? Keeping track?” She implored. That was also like Betsy, to welcome others into a conversation even when the topic had been purely her own. To answer a question with a question, but in an inviting way, not a frustrating one. Matt had no trouble believing she’d been a shrink. 

“No offense,” Matt started, because disagreeing with Betsy felt disagreeable to him. “But why?”

Aaron gestured loosely at Matt and went, “last I checked the world ended months ago.”

Seth snorted, “That’s one way to fucking put it.” 

Matt couldn’t say he thought they were wrong, he didn’t. Maybe he would have worded it differently, but they had a bit of a point. Or at least ground to stand on.  

“Well, I think that even in the end of the world keeping track of days gone by is important.” Betsy smoothed her hand over the face of her watch. Then she repeated the motion again; Matt watched her look down and do it one more time, before forcibly returning her watch-encircled wrist back down to her lap and look up at the group smiling once more. She met each of their eyes in turn. 

“No one agrees?” She made that face that adults make when they realize their notions may be older than present company; Betsy’s always comes across like oh silly me, out of touch. Matt doesn’t believe it for a second.

She starts again. “I think about…what a father once said to a son as he passed down a pocket watch that had been in their family for generations. ‘I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire, which will fit your individual needs no better than it did mine or my father’s before me; I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you may forget it for a moment now and then and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it.’”

Matt’s brow furrowed. 

Andrew said, “Faulkner.” The first time he’d spoken all night; it didn’t shock Matt that Betsy was the one who got him to do so. 

Betsy nodded and smiled at him, “yes, you don’t agree?” 

Andrew looked down at the can of mixed vegetables in his hand. He had, prior to joining the conversation, been systematically peeling the label off of it and tossing pieces into the fire. There were scraps littering the folding chair he occupied and the ground in front of him. 

He spoke again and Matt wasn’t expecting it, so he instinctively looked up to his face when Andrew said, “you forgot the end of the quote. ‘Because no battle is ever won, he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.’ You proved your own point wrong.”

Betsy hummed. “I think it proves my point, actually, don’t you?”

Andrew didn’t answer, back to tearing his can wrapper into pieces. 

Matt looked to his other side as Renee joined in again. “I think it’s a nice idea.” 

He smiled at her, ever the good sport. He guessed he could kind of understand the idea. But what was there now that was worth keeping track of? The idea of conquering time felt outlived, it was a preconceived notion of a life that was no longer accessible to any of them. There was nothing to look forward to now, and so nothing to keep track of—likewise nothing to detach from. 

Matt was an optimist at heart, but even he felt lost at the idea of keeping track of time. If this were all to end tomorrow, he doesn’t think he’d want to think back on any of it, much less remember how long it went on. 

Seth groaned, “it’s all a bunch of bullshit if you ask me.” 

To her credit, Betsy didn’t seem phased by Seth’s crass attitude. She shrugged one shoulder, simply. 

Seth stood up and stretched his arms over his head before making his way to the woods on the far side of the group. 

“Where are you going?” Matt questioned. 

Seth looked at him over his shoulder with a what-does-it-matter-to-you face on. “I"m taking a piss, is that okay with you Matt or would you like to help?” He stalked off further until he was behind the cover of the trees and out of sight. 

Matt sighed. 

Silence fell over the group again, and this time Matt let it be. He leaned his head back against his own re-foldable chair—the kind of cloth ones that parents sit in at soccer games—and closed his eyes. 

Matt thinks, just maybe, that he could live with it if things were this way forever, as long as it was filled with nights like this one. He could almost sit and pretend that things weren’t the way they were, and though he didn’t think it was smart to let himself get carried away in that, still, he thought. Maybe it wouldn"t be so bad. 

It was Kevin who brought the peace to the end, as Kevin usually did. He sat up so straight that even Matt who was sitting a few feet away from him felt the reverberations and opened up his eyes. “Did you hear that?”

Aaron gave him a look, “No, Kev, just you.”

Matt glanced between them, and then looked over at Neil, who was staring, brow furrowed, in the direction Seth had disappeared into the woods. Matt thought if anything maybe that was a little odd, but not enough to warrant real concern. 

He closed his eyes again. 

A sound came from the woods, a scuffle of leaves, the comical-movie-worthy snap of a twig. “There.” Kevin said, “that was definitely something that time.”

“Yeah, moron, it was Seth taking a leak.” Aaron said again.

Kevin opened his mouth to defend himself, as Kevin usually did, but a glare from Andrew shut him up. 

Renee leaned forward to bypass Matt and get a good look at Kevin. She smiled, “it probably is Seth, but I did hear the noise before as well.” She offered. 

Kevin still didn’t look pleased, but he relaxed his posture once more, and said nothing else about it. 

That is, until they heard the shout. 

“What the—AGH, FUCK!”

Matt was the first one upright this time, “Seth?” 

Nobody could deny hearing anything then, and people at once sprang into action. As everyone got up and gathered anything that could be used in defense—weapons and blunt objects alike—only Marissa and Betsy had enough good sense to stop and put the fire out before they left it there on the ground unwatched and in the midst of their camp. 

“Seth? Buddy?” Matt shouted again, despite the fact that he received no answer the first time. 

Though he was seated the furthest from the corner of the woods that Seth had entered, Neil was the first one through the trees and darted off towards where they’d heard the cry. 

Andrew, Aaron, and Kevin weren’t far behind him, and Matt brought up the tail end after he looked back at the rest and had Renee confirm she would stay behind and guard the others and their camp.

When he entered the trees, he reached the group just in time to see Andrew grab the back of Neil’s shirt to stop him from barreling on, and then hold up a finger to his lips and quiet them all to listen again. 

A much quieter yell to their left and then, “shit shit shit shit, fuck, GOD,” and Matt turned on his heel to follow the noise. 

But knowing something was going to be bad and seeing it upon arrival were two very, very different things. Matt knew what he was going to find when he arrived at the scene. Matt had no idea what he was going to find when he arrived at the scene. 

There was a dead one on the ground—or, well, Matt hoped it was dead, but something looking dead was no longer a good determining factor. 

Matt remembered when he was a teenager, sometimes he and his dad would have these really good days—days where they felt like an absolutely normal father and son, and his dad pretended like Matt’s wellbeing was not only the center of his attention but the highlight of his day. On those days, they’d go to this barbecue place they loved and fill the table with baskets of meat—brisket, and pulled pork, slow roasted chicken, all of it—but their favorite were the ribs. His dad, ever the careful executive, truly revelled, Matt thought, in getting his hands dirty picking up a large, dripping, spare rib, and ripping into it with his teeth. He would make the same joke every time, and there was always something unfunny about it, but Matt never thought to care. 

His dad would wait until they were halfway through their feast, until they each had a spare rib in their hands, and he’d look Matt in the eye and say “I guess we are carnivores after all.”

The ribs on the dead geek on the ground in front of him were exposed, and Matt, for just a second, could imagine his dad wrapping his hand around each end of just one of them, and bringing it to his mouth. 

He wasn’t talking about him and Matt every lunch, every time he’d made his stupid joke. He was talking about mankind. Matt felt sick with the realization that he was right. 

But it was looking up and seeing Seth that really drove the point home. Seth lay half on the ground, half against the trunk of a tree, his pants haphazardly pulled up his waist, buttons left undone. 

This was, of course, the least of his problems. 

The main problem was that Seth’s torso now resembled more anatomy lesson dummy than actual human form, his side ripped into, the layers peeling back. And here, students, we see the layers of skin, fat, and muscle protecting the abdominal cavity. Anatomy dummies weren’t usually so bloody, so textured. They were all smooth lines and painted details. 

This was nothing like that. This was tissue that wasn’t meant to be torn, muscle that wasn’t meant to be examined. 

Another thing, those dummies were stationary, and this was anything but. Every piece and part of this scene moved—walker grabs shoulder, walker leans down, walker takes a bite, and Seth just screams.

In that split second hesitation where Matt takes this all in, everyone else arrives. 

Andrew shoulders past Matt in a way that can’t be unkind—because it would only be unkind had he no reason to do so, and at this moment he certainly did. He pulled a knife out of his sleeve and jammed it into the back of the skull of the geek still attached to Seth’s upper body, and like a puppet whose string had been cut it collapsed easily forward, motionless, the way it should have always been. 

Neil moved around Matt in a much subtler way and checked the dead-one on the ground to ensure it too was finally at rest. 

It was the elimination of the threat and the decisive way Neil and Andrew stepped in that made Matt move his feet, one in front of the other, until he reached Seth and could sit down on the ground beside him. 

Seth’s eyes were unfocused, but his hand reached out into the air, and Matt knew what to do—he reached out too and grabbed it. 

“It’s—’s bad, right?”

“It’s—” Matt began, but what could he say to that?

He looked back at the others. Kevin and Aaron were closest, and neither of them seemed ready to offer anything up either. Aaron was steadfast and pointedly not looking at the pair, while Kevin was the opposite—practically liquified and staring nowhere else. 

Andrew and Neil were hauling the two walkers out of the way, but Matt wouldn’t have looked to either of them to help him with this anyway. 

“Matt,” Seth said again—more a gasp, a choke, than a word—and Matt turned back to him quickly. “It’s, it’s—it’s bad, right? It’s—”

Matt gripped Seth’s hand tighter 

He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, and hoped he sounded steadier than he felt, “yeah, buddy. It’s pretty bad,” Matt said. Because it didn’t feel right to lie in a moment like that. Not when Matt’s other hand found its way to Seth’s side and came away wetter than it had meant to. 

“Fuck,” Seth replied, with only a glimpse of the way he would have said it had it been two weeks, two days, two hours before. 

Another scream, and then a shout or two cut back through the quiet they’d now reached after the threat in their immediate area had been cleared, and Kevin immediately said “that’s camp,” and dashed back the way they’d come. 

Aaron and Andrew were quick to follow, and Neil only hesitated to glance first to Matt. Matt looked back down at Seth, eyes closed and breathing ragged, and nodded once at Neil. Neil nodded back, and then was gone, back through the trees after the rest. 

“Don’t go, don’t—don’t go.” 

Matt closed his eyes for a second, and then opened them to look at Seth once more. “I’m not going anywhere, buddy. I’m right here.” 

Seth stopped breathing, and Matt stopped thinking things might turn out okay.

_____________

The rest of the excitement was dealt with quickly and swiftly. Neil finally figured out what it was about Renee that caused his unease—he’d watched her dispatch two walkers with a level of skill that couldn’t be a few months of apocalypse old; no, Renee had known how to fight prior, like Neil had. Like Neil assumed Andrew had. 

He didn’t know if her polite soft exterior was meant to be protection for her or disarming for everyone else, but Neil decided he’d steer clear either way. 

He didn’t much like people who knew how to handle knives. 

Besides the two Renee had taken out, there were really only a few more of the dead to take care of, and once Neil had followed Kevin, Aaron, and Andrew back to camp things had gotten back under control pretty quickly. 

Marissa had managed to give herself a nasty scrape trying to back into safety when she instead backed into the jagged rear bumper of one of their cars, but Aaron was surprisingly adept at first aid—a skill Neil hated to admit made him useful. 

She was limping from the awkward placing of the cut on her calf, but besides that and Seth’s demise they had come out okay. Shaken, but okay. 

Neil thought perhaps it was time to move on. 

But first, before they could even begin to discuss that, they had to dispose of the dead. 

It didn’t take long to round up the corpses now that they acted like them too. 

Neil was helping Kevin lug another biter into the pile to be burned, struggling a little because of their vast height difference, and then struggling more because of a disturbance behind him. 

“Hey, hey!” 

It was Matt. Neil dropped the legs—what he could only call legs because that’s what he knew them to be, and not because they bore any resemblance—he was carrying and turned around to assess the situation, despite Kevin’s protests.

Matt’s back was to Neil, and he was clearly blocking the path to the disposal pile, though from what Neil couldn’t see until he took a step or two to the left. 

Andrew and Aaron—a much fairer pair for carrying things, Neil noticed, somewhat bitter—were standing opposite Matt, and it was Seth’s corpse that was between them. 

“Where do you think you’re going with him?” Matt said, one hand still raised in the air, halting them from moving. 

Andrew did nothing, as Andrew was expected to do, and Aaron opened his mouth, as Aaron was expected to do. 

“Where do you think?” Aaron was still gripping Seth’s shoulders—or again what Neil knew logically must have been his shoulders—but he nodded at the growing pile further down the line. 

“No.” Matt said, and just that.

“We have to burn them, Matt, you know that. What the fuck’s the problem.” 

“No,” Matt said again more forcefully, and Neil was struck for a second by Matt’s large size. He was so friendly, so very kind that Neil had almost forgotten the strength that was there too, and not just physically. “That pile’s for geeks.”

“They’re all infected.” Aaron said, shifting his weight from one foot to another. It was clear he was annoyed at being held up. Neil still didn’t step in, content for now to watch until things shifted in either direction. 

Matt stood up straighter, he lowered his hand. He stood his ground. “We don’t burn our people. We bury our people.” 

When nothing else was forthcoming, Matt pointed behind him in the other direction than the pile of dead-ones. “Place him down over there. We’ll bury him when we’re done.” 

Matt walked off and Neil watched. Andrew and Aaron adjusted their grip on Seth and moved him into the shade by the edge of camp, awaiting burial. Neil waited until Kevin prompted him to get moving again before picking up his load, and moving on. 

_____________

“Absolutely not.” 

“And why not?” Neil asked. It was the second group fire he’d attended, and he hoped this one would end with less disastrous circumstances. So far, he wasn’t thinking it would.

“Because it’s a dumb fucking idea.” Aaron said, as if that was obvious. 

“Let’s not dismiss it right away,” Renee said, and though Neil was grateful for backup he had to hide his displeasure at its source. “Don’t you think if there’s a chance anywhere it’d be there?”

“You’re missing the point.” Aaron said back, scooting forward so he was at the edge of his chair, as if the distance were the barrier blocking their agreement. “There are no chances anymore, there isn’t anything left, no point in trying.”

“I think it would do well to separate fact from opinion here, Aaron.” 

It was easy to forget Betsy was among them; for the most part, she let them figure things out on their own. It was almost like she was still a therapist and was guiding them, hoping they’d make their own right decisions. Neil wasn’t fond of it. 

Aaron leaned back in his seat again, recognizing Betsy’s higher authority. That Neil was fond of. 

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Nicky said. It was the first time he’d spoken up in a while; he and Seth didn’t get along, but his death had hit them all, and it scared Nicky badly. Neil hadn’t known Nicky for long, but it’d been long enough that even he was unsettled by Nicky’s silences; they didn’t happen often, but when they did they were stark. 

“Oh come on, not you too.” 

“Aaron, you’ve shot the idea down every other time Kevin’s brought it up. That was fine then because we didn’t have a reason to move, but now we do. It’s worth a try.” 

“One attack is not reason enough to abandon everything we have here.” 

“Okay, so then what is?” Neil asked. “Three attacks? Five? Ten? You stop me when I’m getting there, Aaron.” 

“It’s not about attacks,” Aaron spit across the fire at Neil. “It’s about resources, as in, we don’t have enough.” 

“We’ll get more.” Kevin said. He sounded almost bored, he had the audacity to believe they had already decided and would be leaving before they’d actually done it. Neil would like to say he was as confident in their argument, but he couldn’t.

“How?” Marissa asked, clearly skeptical as well. She was hurt, it was fair to be concerned about taking any trip.

“We’ll be in the city, won’t we?” Neil prompted. What better place to stock up? It was where he’d go. It was where he’d been going before he got locked in a tank and where he’d planned to go before Andrew asked if he was staying. 

“And we know how well that worked out last time.” 

Neil turned to meet Andrew’s eye, but Andrew hadn’t been looking at them as he’d spoken. He remained only as present in the conversation as he had to be, or as present as he’d like them to think he was. His gaze was fixed steadily into the woods off to the side, and if it were anyone else Neil would think Andrew was looking for a threat in the wake of the attack at the fish fry, but that likely wasn’t the case. Andrew was just looking. 

Matt jumped in at Neil’s hesitation. 

“It won’t be like the run. We’re just passing through, and if it doesn’t pan out then we grab what we can and we move on. I saw we do it.” 

Neil turned his gaze away from Andrew and looked back at Kevin. 

“I have been suggesting this plan for weeks and you’ve all made excuses before as to why it wasn’t the right time. We aren’t going to get a better time than this. We should do it, we should pack up and be gone in a few days. We’re wasting time.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment, contemplative. Neil watched them all think about it, looking from face to face. Betsy was already looking at him when his gaze made his way to hers, and he narrowed his eyes a little before looking away. 

“I still think it’s fucking stupid.” Aaron offered, but it didn’t sound like a no. 

“Yes, we all heard you the first ten times.” Neil said, eager for a final decision. 

Matt waited a second longer. “So it’s settled then?” 

Renee smiled, “I think so, yes.” 

Kevin looked triumphant, but the arrogant kind that said his victory was never in serious doubt. “Finally. Everyone start packing and rounding up supplies tomorrow. We’re leaving in a few days, and we’re heading to the CDC.”

_____________

Andrew watched as Neil went around their water bucket and station, picking up all the empty water bottles—reusable plastic and plastic plastic alike—and stuffing them in a backpack he’d commandeered from god-knows-where.

Everyone was in preparation mode. They were to be leaving tomorrow to head as a group into the city, and out the other side towards the CDC. 

Kevin had finally done it, the bastard. He’d convinced them that if there was anywhere left standing, it would be there, and now they had to act because of it. 

Andrew hated giving Kevin what he wanted, but since in this case what Kevin wanted translated to was-in-everyone’s-best-interest rather than just was-in-Kevin’s-best-interest, he had no choice. He had too many people he’d promised to protect to justify denying Kevin this one thing. 

Neil had filled his backpack with as many water bottles as it would take, it seemed, and he stared at the three empty bottles left on the ground to be collected. 

Andrew could feel him contemplating them from here. On one hand, they’d need as much water as possible for the trip. On the other, the backpack was full and carrying them would be frustrating. 

Neil’s brow furrowed. He looked up into the woods towards the creek. He looked back down at the water bottles. 

Andrew felt his eyebrow raise on its own accord at the dramatics he could bet Neil was pouring into this decision.

Andrew sighed, infinitesimally, and made his way over, stopping only momentarily to pick up the three remaining water bottles and lumbering past Neil into the woods and towards the creek. 

The creek wasn’t really that long a walk into the woods, and when they arrived they began the slow task of filling each individual water bottle carefully, and making sure they were sealed tight enough as to not leak. 

It was a weird mash up of bottles that they’d assembled at the camp. There were the dozen or so throw-away plastic ones that they’d been washing out and reusing, and then another dozen assorted reusable water bottles of varying sizes and colors plastic. It was a game trying to get them all back into the backpack now that they were full and the single-use ones less malleable, and Andrew and Neil ended up having to carry more than they’d had to there. They’d need to find another bag to pack bottles for the road. 

Neil stood with the backpack, now full of water, on his shoulders and took a second to re-adjust the straps so the added weight was comfortable. Andrew stayed on the ground, watching. 

“Your scars.” 

Andrew hadn’t meant to draw the silence to a close first, but there were things about Neil that begged to be asked after. His guardedness, his attitude. His skill with knives, little displayed though expertly noticed by Andrew when it was. But most of all, his scars. They demanded attention, and by the way Neil tried his best to hide them, he knew it too. 

But there was little room for privacy in the apocalypse, and little room for modesty in the hot Georgian summer. 

It wasn’t much, a shirt that ripped hunting here, or a dip in the quarry just far enough away to reveal only what was necessary there. But Andrew noticed—maybe more so for the fact that Neil wasn’t casual by nature but by practice, and maybe to others who paid less attention the act was convincing. 

But Andrew was never half as inattentive as he seemed. 

Neil glanced at him but glanced away, his face impassive, playing indifference yet again. Andrew didn’t believe him for a second. “What about them?”

Neil jostled the bag around now that the straps were adjusted, getting comfortable. Andrew remained on the ground, the remaining water bottles waiting for him to pick them up and bring them back to camp. 

“They’re from before.” 

Neil stopped moving. “Are you asking me or telling me?” 

Andrew considered. 

“Asking.”

“Then I get one in return, isn’t that how this works?” 

Andrew’s face remained blank, but he gritted his teeth a little in frustration. Fuck Neil for paying attention. 

“Yes.” 

Neil nodded. “Then yes, they’re from before.” 

Andrew said nothing. He handed two water bottles off to Neil, picked up the rest, and stood up.

“Your knives,” Neil said, Andrew didn’t look at him. “They’re also from before, right?”

“Yes.” 

Neil looked at him a second longer, Andrew didn’t look up to see why. Neil turned on his heel and stepped back onto the path that would bring them back to camp, and Andrew followed.

Andrew glared at his back the whole way there.

_____________

“We were college roommates.” 

Neil looked over at Matt. They were, thankfully, the only two people in the big blue truck that was one of the few cars they’d had around camp. Neil was glad, he didn’t mind talking to Matt, and it took a lot less effort than talking to Andrew. 

When they’d been ready to leave, Andrew had grabbed his people—Nicky, Aaron, and Kevin—and shoved them in the back of the Maserati before heading out. Kevin wanted to be in the lead, directing them his pre-approved route. 

Behind them was the small silver car that Renee would drive her, Betsy, and Marissa in. 

Even if they didn’t have the extra room, it was likely no one else would’ve been in Matt’s truck anyway—the backseat was small because of the way it was jammed between the front and the cab, and it was easier to just use it for storage. 

Matt had seen the way Neil hesitated though when Renee had asked if he’d be joining them, and had clapped Neil on the shoulder and said, “nah, I think I’m gonna steal Neil and make him ride with me.” 

Neil was grateful. He had a feeling Matt was saying it because he’d picked up on Neil’s unease around half the occupants of that car, but Neil could’t find it in him to care. 

“Seth, you mean?”

“Yeah.” Matt adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “He was an asshole, but he was my friend, you know?”

No, Neil didn’t know. He didn’t have friends for the sake of having friends. Even before, it wasn’t likely Neil would have gone to college.

“I guess we really can’t hold onto anything from before.” 

Neil wanted to comfort Matt; to tell him that things would be this world"s version of okay, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t a very comforting person. He knew Matt was mourning Seth and mourning a world where days like the other day ended. A world where days like the other day existed only in movies, and as soon as the sun went down, the screen would go black and credits would roll. 

But Neil could only think about what Matt had said, I guess we really can’t hold onto anything from before, and feel unforgivably relieved. 

Thank god.

_____________

“I told you this was a stupid fucking idea,” Aaron hissed in his direction. Neil didn’t care enough to protest, but if he had he’d point out what they all knew—this was Kevin’s idea, not his. 

“Shut up,” Kevin whispered back, continuing forward, gun raised. “Keep your eyes open and keep moving.” 

Neil could understand his determination, but he had to admit, things weren’t looking good. 

It seems the military did understand the importance of keeping the CDC afloat amidst the crisis, but their success looked admittedly dismal. There were sandbag borders lined up around the sidewalks, a few sections of the asphalt, but they were lacking guards, soldiers, anything living (in the right sense of the word). There was a tank or two scattered about, and some military tents and collapsibles. But they, too, were abandoned. 

It, unfortunately, was not a shocking sight. It was directly in par with what they could only assume was the rest of the world, and yet they’d gotten their hopes up for something else. 

“We should get out of here,” Matt whispered towards the front of the group, where Kevin was leading them on. 

Neil glanced at him. He’d hate to give up so soon, too, because this truly did feel like their one chance, but Matt might be right. The longer they stayed in the city, the longer they were calling upon themselves something worse than this missed chance. 

“Kevin,” Neil whispered, too.

Kevin either didn’t hear them, or elected not to. 

Andrew did glance back at him though, and Neil looked him in the eye. It felt like an agreement. Wordless permission to do what they had to to get everyone out of there if things went from bad to worse. 

Neil nodded, once, and Andrew turned back around. 

They made their way to the doors, or what Neil assumed were likely doors, though they were hidden underneath big metal shutters. 

Kevin was disconsolate. He was standing in front of the shutters like he could will them open simply because he needed them to. 

Aaron was having none of it, “Kevin, it’s gone, let’s fucking go.” 

“Hey, guys?” It was Nicky, Neil turned to his right to look. Two walkers were slowly making their way over from the parking lot.

“I’ve got it,” Renee said, pulling out her knife and hustling over. Next to him, Matt was watching her, so Neil looked back to Kevin, Andrew now at his side ready to demand he move in a few if they needed to. 

“It’s supposed to still be here.” He said. “No, it needs to still be here.” 

“Kevin.” Andrew said.

“Andrew it’s.” Neil watched Kevin’s head shake from behind, “it has to still be here.” 

“Kevin,” Neil walked up until he was flanking Kevin’s other side, “I thought it might be too, but it’s not, we have to go now you know that.” 

Andrew grabbed Kevin’s arm and pulled him back from the door. It got the job done. His head still over his shoulder, looking at the doors, Kevin turned and re-joined the group, convening now that Renee had cleared any threat in the area. 

Neil, however, remained. He gave the entrance one last look. 

Neil had always been pretty practical. He was bred to survive, it was what his mother had beat into him his entire life. But that didn’t mean he never hoped for anything more, for something to be easy for once. For more doors to have been open than closed. 

Neil turned away, and as he faced the group again he realized he was being watched. Andrew didn’t look away when Neil caught his gaze. He felt, suddenly, entirely too seen, so Neil looked down. 

It was when they were finally taking the first steps back the way they’d come, back to where the cars were parked, that Neil heard it.

Click-click-click-click 

The slow sound of mechanical adjustment. He could have imagined it but—no, he had to know. Neil turned back around, scanned the entrance to the building. 

He stopped when he saw it—there, in the top left corner there was a camera, and as Neil watched, it moved.

“Hey,” he said, quietly at first, then again. “ Hey!”

Dimly he heard that he was being shushed from behind. Neil ignored it, he stared at the camera, and dared it to move again.

“Hey!” He shouted again, looking directly in its face, “you can’t leave us out here.” 

“Are you trying to get us fucking killed?!” Aaron accused, shoving one hand into Neil’s shoulder from behind. He felt more so than saw Andrew intervene and stop his brother from doing it again, and then he came to stand in front of Neil, looking like he was about to move him himself like he had Kevin. Neil swallowed and broke their eye contact, looking back up. 

“There’s a camera up there, it moved.” 

“Neil,” Andrew said, and it sounded like a warning. 

Neil frowned with his frustration, he saw it, it fucking moved. 

The idea of it moving was enough, Kevin was back and standing next to Neil scanning the door again. Andrew glanced between them, and then behind them, and Neil pretended he didn’t see. He could guess who he was looking at—Renee, they were both prepared to get Neil and Kevin moving if they needed to. Neil had to stop that from happening. 

“We’ll die out there, you have to let us in!” 

Nicky came and stood next to him now on the other side, “Please!” he shouted as well, “Please, we’re desperate.” 

“You imagined it,” Andrew said to Neil only, and Neil pulled his gaze away from the camera to look at him. 

“No,” he implored, “I didn’t.” He knew he didn’t.

“We have to go.” 

“I—” Neil closed his eyes. He knew that too.

He looked at the camera one more time, and begged it to move again, but it didn"t. He nodded at Andrew, grabbed Nicky’s arm and turned around, leaving Andrew to deal with Kevin. 

“Kevin, come on.” 

No answer. 

“Kevin.” Andrew tried again. 

“You’re killing us.” Kevin said, low, almost like he hadn’t meant to say it at all. Once it reached open air, though, he gained confidence. “You understand?” He shouted at the camera, as Andrew tugged his arm and pulled him bodily away. 

“Kevin,” Aaron warned.

“You’re killing us!” Kevin yelled again, still staring directly at the camera, fighting Andrew’s grip on his arm. 

It was when they finally got him to step off the curb and turn away that the metal shutters made a noise that they can assume meant they hadn"t opened in a long, long time, and they retracted into their sleeves, leaving the door wide open.

_____________

Aaron was not ready to admit that either Neil or Kevin were fucking right, but he was ready to enter a building with armed-fucking-doors. He made sure Nicky, Marissa, and Betsy made their way in, and then followed up behind them all pulling the door shut behind them again. 

The metal shutters didn’t go back down. 

“Why are you here?” 

He turned. There was a man. He was in his fifties by the looks of him, average height and build, perfectly normal looking except for the crazed look in his eyes. If Aaron had to guess, he’d say this guy hadn’t spoken to another person in a really long time. 

“We didn’t know where else to go. We thought if anything was still standing it’d…” Kevin cut off. Aaron could guess why. 

They weren’t sure whatever this was counted as still standing. Maybe Aaron would be proven right after all. 

“What do you want?” 

Kevin didn’t answer this time; Neil was watching him, and when he said nothing, he looked at the guy and spoke up. “A chance.” 

Aaron watched his gaze sweep from one end of their group to another. He tried to see them as this guy must have, but he didn’t know what could possibly have made them look any different than any other group that might have arrived off the street. 

Did they look like decent people? Aaron didn’t think decent people existed anymore. 

“That’s asking an awful lot these days.” 

“We know,” Kevin found his voice. 

Aaron walked to the front of the group. “You’ve got labs here, right? We’ll all submit to a blood test. We’re not infected. None of us are.” 

His eyes immediately landed on Marissa and her bandaged calf. “You’re sure?”

“It’s a cut,” Marissa said. “I can show you, it was a car bumper.” 

The man looked up at all of them again. 

“I’m Dr. Towns. Follow me.”

_____________

If Matt had been any less hungover, he’d have thought to find it really cool that there was a computer system waiting to respond to Dr. Towns" commands. Yes, hungover, because Dr. Towns happened to have a very nice collection of wine that he didn’t mind the group drinking the night before, celebrating their safe arrival. 

Matt had never been much a fan of wine, but he hadn’t had an alcoholic drink in months and they were celebrating. It might’ve been the circumstance, but it tasted better than any wine he’d ever tried before. 

Until he’d woken up the next morning with the first hangover he’d had in months, and man did he not miss those at all. 

The computer system (vi, it has a name!) was still cool, but his pounding headache dimmed a lot, including how cool it probably really was.

Besides Vi, it was just them and Dr. Towns. In the doctor"s words, everyone else had “opted out.” Matt guessed that was one way to put it. 

Now, only Dr. Towns remained, and he continued studying…it…every day, but what he didn’t say was that, with no one to share or analyze his results with…things weren’t going anywhere. 

Still, he had to know something they didn’t before. That wasn’t nothing. 

“Vi,” Towns said, “give me a playback of TS-19.

The room they were in was round, and there were circular rows of computers and desks making rings on the floor, with a walkway down the middle leading to one giant screen. It flickered now to life; the room going from a dark, midnight blue, to a hazy electronic lightning color. 

On the screen was a giant MRI-type scan of a brain. 

They all turned to face the it, the silence growing thicker. 

“Vi, initiatie EIV.”

“Enhanced internal view initiated,” the computer spoke, its voice echoing around the round room. 

Matt looked around for the speaker, but he didn’t see where it was coming from. He looked back to the brain. The computer zoomed in—that wasn’t really the right word for it; the computer, it seemed, entered the brain. They were no longer looking at a scan of the brain from the outside, this wasn’t your ordinary this section will light up when x function is occurring. This was life as it happens, this was…

“Extraordinary…” Kevin stepped up even closer to the screen. 

“What exactly are we looking at?” Betsy asked. 

“That, is a human life. Those lights, those are neurons firing. This is a recording of the electric impulses in the brain. This is…thinking.” 

Matt looked away from the screen and to Towns, but he too was just as transfixed by what he was seeing as the rest of them were, though it was obvious he’d seen this many times. “Who’s life?”

“Test subject 19.” It was said with the kind of emotion that didn’t convey the same detachment as the descriptor test subject demanded. “Someone who was…bitten and volunteered to have the infection process recorded and studied.”

“This person died?” it was almost too quiet for anyone to hear, but Towns turned to Nicky and nodded. 

“Yes. Vi? Skip to the first event.”

The computer scan fast forwarded, and all the lights blurred into one. When it paused, it was evident immediately that something had changed. 

There was a blackness like vines growing up and around the person"s spinal cord, then spreading, grabbing, strangling the curves of their brain. It dwarfed the electric blue color that had filled the screen before. Matt didn’t even really know what he was looking at, and yet he sensed the wrongness in the image immediately. 

“It invades the brain like meningitis, causes your adrenal glands to hemorrhage, and then the brain begins to shut down. Your major internal organs follow, and then soon after—”

“You die.” Neil sounded preoccupied; Matt had no idea what it could possibly be with. 

“You die,” Towns repeated, sounding oddly preoccupied as well. Matt didn’t know how anyone could look at what they were looking at and think about anything else. You didn’t have to understand medicine to understand tragedy. “Vi, bring us to the second event.”

The computer jumped ahead again, and the stark difference in the blue screen to this one was burned into Matt’s retinas, because there was nothing to be seen on the screen now except for black. 

It was the same image they’d begun with, minus the bright color, the firing lights. It was…decay. It was lifeless matter. It was wrong. 

And then, a shimmer of orange, right at the brain stem. Another flash, and then a third and fourth closer together; more and more dim little orange lights until there were enough of them that the skull holding the brain moved again. The mouth opened weakly, the head tilted back and forth. It had come back. It was a mockery of human life. 

Matt felt himself visibly recoil, and he took a step back to find he was already backed up against the desk behind him. He leaned on it for support. 

“The…reanimation times vary. We’ve recorded as little as 3 minutes, and the longest we’d heard of is about 8 hours but…there’s no saying.”

“It restarts the brain?” 

“No,” Aaron answered Nicky before Dr. Towns could. “Just the brain stem, right?”

“That’s right.” Towns looked a second longer at Aaron. 

“I was pre-med.” 

“Ah,” he said, taking that explanation. He looked back to the screen and took a breath before continuing. “They’re not alive, it only gets them up and moving but they’re…the part from before the…the thinking part that makes you you that’s…gone.” 

Matt tried not to think of Seth, failed, looked away from the screen.

He looked up again when a few of the others gasped and Marissa exclaimed “what was that?”

Something was wrong with the picture now, even more so than before. There was a hole—a tunnel, really—cutting through the middle of it.

“He shot them.” Andrew said. He turned to look at the doctor. “You shot your patient.”

“Vi, power down the screen, computer, and workstations.”

Towns turned away, intending, Matt guessed, to lead them out of the room and back to the residences. Neil put a stop to that. 

“You have no idea what it is, do you?” 

Towns didn’t turn around. “It could be viral, microbial, parasitic, fungal…you don’t understand everything went down, everyone went dark, went quiet.”

“Someone somewhere has to know something,” Nicky offered, weakly, “right?”

“I haven’t heard from anyone in at least a month. I suppose, someone could still be doing something somewhere, yes. If they are, I know nothing of it. If you’ll excuse me.” 

With that, Towns wandered off, leaving them behind in the dark computer room, with too much to think about. 

They slowly reanimated and made their way to the doors, one by one. Neil caught up with Matt on the way out, holding the door for him and then stepping up beside him. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask…” 

Matt pushed his momentary shock away, Neil didn’t take it upon himself to ask for many things of him. “Yeah? What’s up?” 

“Why’d you help?” Realizing Matt was lost, Neil elaborated. “Back in Atlanta, when I was in that tank…why’d you help?” 

Matt thought about what they’d just seen. Life, invasion, death, and then even worse, a loss of self-determination. Matt thought about Seth. Matt thought about Dr. Towns shooting his patient in the head. 

“I guess…foolish naive hope that if I’m ever that far up shit creek someone would stick their neck out for me, too?”

Neil accepted that answer, and moved on.

_____________

Neil shut his door and then startled when he’d turned around to face the rest of the hallway. Andrew was standing there outside his own door, though he was facing Neil as if with intent. 

“Jesus,” Neil said. “How long have you been standing there?”

Andrew didn’t answer that, but he did step closer to Neil. 

Neil looked up and down the hall, they were the only two there. 

“Dr. Towns.” 

Neil’s brow furrowed, “what about him?”

“Do you trust him?”

Neil was surprised; first of all, that Andrew was asking him as if his opinion on the matter meant something. The group was plenty democratic, if Neil had something to say, it’d at least be listened to. This wasn’t that, because this was Andrew. This was Andrew seeking out Neil’s opinion. Neil didn’t think Andrew Minyard needed second opinions. 

Neil didn’t trust any man old enough to be his father as a general rule, but this went deeper than that. This had nothing to do with Towns" age or stature. 

Neil didn’t really have to think about it, if he cared at all to recognize it he’d have already known the answer was no, he didn’t trust him at all. This was all too good to be true. Doors that lock, food, wine (not that Neil drank it), hot showers and private bedrooms. It was…more than any of them had had in months—not that that was saying anything—and it was suffocating. It was suspicious. Andrew had clearly thought so as well. 

“Not particularly.” 

Andrew accepted that answer.

“You don’t either,” Neil said when Andrew didn’t offer up anything else. 

Andrew met his eyes and held them. No, Neil knew, he didn’t. 

Somehow, that made it all the more real—something wasn’t right. 

Before either of them could say anything else about it, Nicky came out of his room down the hall. “Hey,” he shut his door behind him and wandered over. “Either of you notice that the hot water stopped working?” 

Neil looked back at his own closed door. 

“What.” Andrew said, responding to his movement rather than Nicky’s question. 

“Nothing…” Neil hesitated. “It’s just…the air stopped working too, that’s why I came out here to begin with.” 

Neil saw the way Andrew grew tense, he knew it too—these things weren’t coincidence. 

They turned and disappeared down the hall together, back towards the computer room, and back towards Towns. 

“Guys?” Nicky called after them. “Guys, what’s going on?”

“Nicky get everyone together,” Neil said before he followed Andrew around the corner.

They ran into Towns in the hallway while they were making their way down towards the room they had their little exhibition in before. 

Andrew wrapped his hand around Towns" arm as he passed and tugged him along, despite the doctors protesting “ hey! ”

Even so, he came along with them, and by the time they’d managed to get him there, Nicky was leading everyone else into the room as well. 

No one spoke, Neil didn’t know if Nicky said something to them on the way there, or if they just knew better than to interrupt whatever Andrew had going on, but he was glad either way. 

Andrew brought Towns—who was protesting that he could walk on his own—down the center aisle, and pushed him backwards so he was in the unenviable position of having no clear path to an exit. 

“What’s that clock counting down to?” Andrew didn’t turn to look, but he pointed behind where everyone was standing—where Towns was facing—up on the wall above the doors they’d just come through. 

Neil turned along with everyone else. He hadn’t seen it earlier when they’d been in there, but Andrew obviously had. It was a large, digital clock timer mounted high above the doors. The numbers were colored in red. The timer read 47 minutes, and it was counting down. 

“I noticed it earlier today. Catch us up would you? What happens when it reaches zero?”

From Neil’s view a few feet behind Andrew, he could only see his back, but he knew Andrew had pulled out a knife; if not from the way Towns was looking at him, then from the way Andrew was standing. He was preparing for things to get bad, Neil cataloged that and prepared himself to. 

Towns slowly raised a hand between him and Andrew, as if that would ward him off. “The basement generators…they run out of fuel.”

“What happens when they run out of fuel?” Neil asked. 

Towns glanced over Andrew’s shoulder at him, he said nothing.

“Vi!” Neil shouted. He looked up, though there was nothing for him to look at. “What happens when the basement generators run out of fuel?”

“When the power runs out, facility wide decontamination will occur.”

“Decontamination?” Neil didn’t like the way Aaron said it. It proved he wasn’t the only one who was thinking it: decontamination, it sounded damning. 

“Renee, take Kevin and Matt and check the fuel levels in the basement.” Andrew said, not taking his eyes off Towns to see if they’d follow through. He must have trusted that Renee would get it done enough he didn’t need to. Neil watched the three of them head off anyway before turning back to face what was happening head on. 

By the time they returned, the clock was down to 31 minutes. 

“Renee?” Andrew prompted when the sound of the doors opening rang out. 

It was Kevin who answered though. “Empty,” he was out of breath—they must have run back. 

“Decontamination,” Andrew said, “what happens in decontamination?”

But before Towns could answer, the lights went out, briefly, and then dimmer emergency lighting flickered on, casting everything in a dramatic yellow hue. 

“What’s happening?” Nicky demanded. 

“We’ve reached the half an hour mark,” Towns explained, “the building’s shutting down anything non-essential. It’ll prioritize keeping the computers up and running and cut what else it can.”

Sure enough, Neil looked back over his shoulder to see the timer dip just under 30 minutes. His hair began to stand on end, even not knowing what precisely was being counted down to. 

Towns reached out a hand and pressed a command or two on the keyboard to his right, and shutters much like the ones outside came down over the doors into the control room.

“What the FUCK,” Aaron shouted, running up the aisle as the shutters were jolting into place against the ground. Kevin and Matt followed, and they banged and threw themselves into the doors; none of them budged. 

Andrew gave up the distance and took to threatening Towns for real. He grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and threw him back onto the computer desk, his knife at the doctor"s throat. Neil followed along closer in case he was needed.

“He just locked us in!” Kevin yelled from the back of the room, where metals clangs were still ringing out as the others tried to find a way to pry the shutters open.

“It was the French.” 

“What?” Andrew growled at Towns.

“The French, they’re the ones who held out longest as far as I know. Our people were killing themselves in the hallways and the French were still working on figuring out what this thing was. That’s the last I heard.”

“Yeah, what good does that do us now?” Neil shouted more than asked. 

“Open the fucking door,” Andrew demanded. 

Dr. Towns looked a lot less weary of the knife now than he had before; Neil took this as the worst possible sign. 

“That wouldn"t do you any good now either, everything up top is locked down. Even I can’t open those doors anymore.”

Aaron must have come back down to the center of the room, cause he let out a string of curses behind Neil. Neil didn’t turn to look. 

“It’s better this way don’t you think?”

Andrew, if possible, tensed more, “what is?” 

Neil knew what this added up to, and he knew Andrew knew it too. They weren’t leaving, but they weren’t remaining either. This was an end. 

“What happens in 27 minutes?” Neil asked. He didn’t think he wanted to know the answer. He already knew the answer.

“This is the Center for Disease Control!” Towns yelled back. “What do you think happens? Do you know the kind of stuff we have in here? The kinds of things we protected people like you from?” He laughed, sardonically. “Weaponized smallpox, Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country. Stuff you don’t want getting out, ever!” 

Everyone was silent. The timer made no noise, but Neil could feel it ticking regardless.

“In the event of disaster, H.I.Ts are employed to prevent things like an outbreak.”

“H.I.Ts?” Kevin questioned. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Vi, define H.I.Ts.”

“ H.I.Ts, high-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consists of a two stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5000 degrees and 6000 degrees, and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structure is desired.” 

Someone was crying behind Neil, and the noise Nicky let out was close to it too. 

Neil felt the muscle in his calf twitch with the desire to run. Subconsciously, he knew it was because he was unavoidably aware there was nowhere to run. They were locked in here, and in just around 26 minutes, this building was going to explode. 

“It’s better this way!” Towns insisted, again. “No pain, no sorrow or grief, a split second and it’s all over.” 

The crying got louder. Momentarily, Neil had the clarity to be grateful for Andrew’s solid control. If he ran Towns through now, that really would have been it. 

“You know I’m right. Out there, that’s not—that’s not living, that’s…surviving day to day. And for WHAT?” Towns laughed again, the freedom of someone with nothing to lose. “A brutal, agonizing death? That’s worth it to you? To all of you?” 

“This was our last chance,” sobbed Marissa, somewhere behind Neil. “This was all that was left.”

“Then I can’t imagine there’s anything else for you out there.” 

Andrew straightened up and let Towns go. For a horrifying second, Neil was scared he was going to agree. Neil was surprised to find this was something he thought Andrew could do. Instead, Andrew spoke again. “I’ll give you another chance—open the fucking door.” 

“You don’t think it’s better this way? To be with your friends—your brother—as it ends?”

Neil knew mentioning Aaron was a mistake before anything even happened in response. Andrew hit Towns once, hard, across the face. 

“Open the fucking door,” Andrew said again. 

Neil closed the last few feet between them and came up along the side of the desk Towns was sprawled on. He didn’t think Andrew’s method was going to work. Towns wouldn’t care about getting hurt, he wouldn’t be alive long enough to live with the consequences. 

“You’re lying,” Neil said, and both Towns and Andrew looked at him. “You’re lying, about nothing being left, not being worth it—or you would’ve opted out with all your colleagues.” 

Towns smiled, there was blood in his teeth from the hit Andrew landed. 

“You’re lying,” Neil said again. “You stayed, why’d you stay?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“It does.” Andrew said.

“I made a promise.” 

“A promise,” Andrew repeated. 

Towns closed his eyes, he whispered, “to her, I made a promise to her. To my wife.” 

Matt got it a second before they did. “Test subject 19 was your wife?”

“She begged me to keep going, she told me to stick it out as long as I could. I wouldn"t have otherwise I would be—” unbelievably, Neil thought Towns might cry. He wasn’t the one locked inside a building involuntarily that was literally counting down to destruction.

He glanced at the timer, they had just under 20 minutes. 

“It should have been me, It should have—It wouldn’t have mattered if it was me, if I was the one who’d gotten bit. She ran this place, I just worked here .” 

“You’re wife didn’t have a choice,” Andrew said. Neil looked at him instead of Towns. “Give us one.” He felt in that moment he understood something new about Andrew; hopefully he’d get the chance outside of mortal peril to think about it more. 

“I told you the topside is locked down, I don’t have control over those doors.”

Towns moved his hands, and in an instant one of Andrew’s knives was back out and raised, but the doctor only glanced at it a moment longer, before reaching a hand back and hitting a few controls on the panel again. 

The shutters creaked and groaned open, in time with Kevin’s shout of “come on!”

Andrew didn’t hesitate to round up his people and head to the door, stopping only to look back at Neil, but Neil was looking at Betsy and Renee who were talking to Marissa, and Matt who was standing staring at them in the aisle. 

Neil looked up at the timer, it read 16 minutes and 5 seconds. He called to Andrew from across the room. “Get the doors open upstairs, we’ll meet you there.” 

Andrew nodded and followed his brother, cousin, and Kevin down the hall. With a look at Neil, Matt turned to follow. Neil was glad, he’d probably be more helpful up there than down here, and they’d need all the help they could get getting those doors open. 

Before Neil could step any closer to the girls and figure out what was going on, something grabbed his arm. 

On instinct he tugged his arm away and turned prepared to strike back, but Towns only raised his hands in reply, and motioned Neil closer. 

When he was within reach again, the doctor leaned in. “You should know,” he whispered, “it’s different now. It’s…mutated. We’re all infected—bit or not. You die, and you change. Be careful.”

We’re all infected. You die, and you change. 

Neil didn’t think there was anything he could say to that so he nodded. That was something they would have to deal with later, but only if Andrew and them managed to get the upstairs doors open in the next 14 minutes and 34 seconds. 

Renee came up behind him, “she’s staying.” 

For a second he didn’t understand what she meant, and then he saw. Marissa had taken a seat at one of the desks and was staring ahead at the screen, blank though it was. She was staying, she was… opting out. 

“She’s sure?” Neil asked.

“She is.” Though it was Betsy who spoke that time.

Neil had spent so long trying to survive, that he couldn’t imagine actively trying to die. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, Renee and Betsy seemed sure, and they themselves only had so much time to get out of there. 

He looked back at Towns one more time. The doctor nodded at the timer, but Neil kept his eyes on him instead. “You should go. There’s your chance, take it while you can.”

Neil felt like there was something more, something he was supposed to say. Was this gratitude? The man had locked them in to begin with, and even with this door open there was no guarantee they’d make it out. But it was a chance—a choice, as Andrew had said—and that was more than Neil had been afforded in most other aspects of his life. 

“I’m grateful,” Neil decided on saying. 

Towns smiled, the blood in his teeth dried them a pinkish color, and Neil’s mind choked on the imagery of walkers biting, eating, chewing, consuming. He swallowed it down. 

“The day will come when you won’t be.”

Neil didn’t agree. As long as he had the ability to run, to move, to survive, he would make it, and he would keep going. In a way, he’d been prepared for this, for the world to come to an end. His mom had looked him in the eyes when she was bleeding out in the backseat of their car somewhere on a highway in Northern California, and she had said you’re gonna beat them, you are. She hadn’t known what was going to come, she wasn’t there when news of the outbreak broke, when the first of the dead rose anew. She’d been talking about a different threat, then, but it still applied; Neil wouldn’t make her a liar. 

He was going to beat them, he was going to beat this world—Or he was going to die trying. 

But he refused to give up, and he refused to think of this day, of this chance to opt out as a missed opportunity. 

Neil turned his back on the doctor and Marissa, he gestured to Renee and Betsy, and together they made it upstairs where with 7 minutes to spare, Andrew and Aaron managed to get the doors open, and it was from a safe distance away that the timer on the wall reached zero and the CDC collapsed, along with it, their belief that someone somewhere might still be standing, hoping, working, and winning.