Chapter Text
It had somehow managed to get even darker in the safe room by the time Coach and Rochelle got back; the little bit of light that had been filtering in through the bars on the door had faded from white, to orange, to nothing. Nick had long since turned off his flashlight—better, he thought, to conserve the battery for when they really needed it—which meant that everything in the room was grey and indistinct. He could vaguely make out the balled-up figure of Ellis in the corner opposite him; the kid had, at some point, fallen asleep. Lucky bastard. The continuous throbbing of the new hole in his leg made it impossible to relax. Worse than that was the fact that he was alone with his thoughts.
Nick had spent a great deal of time, money, and effort to not end up alone with his thoughts. Whether it was a bottle of booze or a new squeeze distracting him was almost entirely irrelevant.
He lifted his head as the others walked in; Coach was carrying a few branded shopping bags, and Rochelle shut and latched the door behind them.
“You girls have fun shopping?”
“Ha,” said Coach. “Guess that means you’re feeling better.”
“Not in the slightest. You get anything useful?”
“Not really,” Coach dumped the [spoils of war] out on the lone table in the room. “This mall wasn’t meant to reopen for a few more weeks at least. Food court was a wasteland. We did manage to scrounge up a few more first aid kits.”
Rochelle shone the beam of her flashlight on Nick. He must have looked about as bad as he felt, because she sucked a breath in through her teeth.
“How are you holding up?” she ventured.
“I’m fine,” he lied. “You didn’t happen to find any cigarettes out there, did you?”
“Smoking’s bad for you, you know, Nick,” Coach grunted, still organizing what they’d found on the table.
“Yeah, yeah-” Nick began. He stopped mid-sentence as Coach tossed a half-empty pack of cigarettes over his shoulder. He caught them. Menthols. Well, it was better than nothing.
“Er, thanks, big guy.”
“Don’ mention it.”
Rochelle grabbed the med kits off the table and knelt beside him, gesturing for him to give her his leg. He shimmied his pants down—at least there was a familiar feeling. She went a bit green at the sight of the wound and made a visible effort to [fortify, buck up]. Her hands ghosted over the swollen, tender flesh and her brow knit tightly.
“How long has Ellis been out?” she asked.
Nick didn’t mind the change of subject. He glanced to where the kid lay, snoring softly. He was curled into a ball, knees to his chest, head resting on one of his arms.
“Few hours. I’ve been keeping watch.”
If that’s what you could call it. His head felt a bit clearer now that the immediate crisis of the situation was over, but there was no way he’d be of any use in a fight right now. Rochelle was digging through the first aid kits, sorting what she found. Bandages, antibiotic ointment, gauze, scissors, tape. Every pack was the same, CEDA must have shipped them out en masse.
“He was really worried about you, you know.”
Nick made a noise between a scoff and a grunt.
“He was,” she continued. “Wouldn’t leave your side in case you woke up while we were gone.”
Nick tried to convince himself that he’d have been fine if he woke up alone—tried to believe that his immediate assumption wouldn’t be that he’d been left for dead. It proved difficult to do.
“That’s nice of him.”
Rochelle watched his face for a moment, though he didn’t know what she was looking for. Was he meant to burst into grateful tears at the idea of the hick watching after him? After a moment she turned her gaze back to his leg.
“You really need a doctor,” she sighed. “And stitches.”
He grunted.
“Don’t think there are any of those left, sweetheart.”
Coach stepped over—the room was cramped enough that he could cover the length of it in a pace and a half—and peered down at them.
“Let me look at it.”
“You a nurse now, big guy?”
He snorted.
“Please, Nick. I’ve been a football coach for twelve years. I’ve seen my fair share of injuries.”
Rochelle shimmied back and let him take her place at Nick’s side, though she kept the flashlight trained on his leg. Coach was silent as he sized up the wound. It was still swollen, though the bleeding had stopped, leaving a perfect, clear view into Nick’s leg. It made his stomach churn to look at; he focused on the wall behind Coach.
“No way around it,” Coach said. “This is going to hurt. I’m gonna have to tape it shut.”
Nick’s stomach squeezed.
“Just get it over with.”
Once, when Nick was nine, he’d fallen off his bike. It was a nasty fall—in the process he bent the rim of his front tire so badly that it looked like a discarded bottle-cap. He went head-first over the handlebars, banged himself up pretty badly. The worst of it was the gash that ran the length of his forearm. It was at least a half-inch deep; the blood ran from it thick and hot. It had taken him all of his strength to limp home, dragging his bike along the way.
Later, he would wonder why he even bothered telling his old man. The bastard had spent the majority of Nick’s childhood either blacked out in his chair or terrorizing his mother. The other percentage, of course, was spent terrorizing him. Maybe it was instinct, maybe he’d hit his head harder in the fall than he thought. Either way, tell him he had.
He could picture even now the way the old man’s had lolled in his direction bonelessly. His eyes had been glazed over. Nick had held his arm out, trembling with the effort of standing. The initial adrenaline rush had left, leaving him weak and shaky.
“Quit crying.”
“I’m not,” he’d lied.
“Quit it,” his father had a great gift for losing his temper at the slightest provocation. “Or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
The old man had stood up from his chair, unsteady on his feet, and disappeared into the bathroom. He’d come back with a half-bottle of vodka and a tube of superglue.
“Be still, I’m almost done,” Coach said gently.
Nick realized he’d been grinding his teeth. His head was thrown back against the wall—mostly to keep himself from hurling. He spared a sideways glance at his leg. It was taped shut, now, and coach was wrapping a fresh roll of bandages over it. Nick didn’t know if his leg or his head was throbbing worse. He closed his eyes again and realized that he had his hands balled up in his blazer. He let a breath out through his nose and unclenched his fists. Coach taped off the bandages and sat back.
“How’s that?”
“Peachy,” Nick said through gritted teeth.
“Here,” Coach passed him a bottle of pain pills. “That should take the edge off, at least. Do you think you can walk?”
“Right now?” Nick swallowed a handful of them dry.
“Not right now,” he said. “But we’re going to have to get out of here at some point. Even aside from the walking dead, there’s no food here.”
Nick let his head fall forward and rested his forehead on his knee.
“What’s the plan if I can’t?”
Coach and Rochelle shared a glance. Nick closed his eyes. They all knew what the plan would be. If he wasn’t up and moving in a day or two, they’d have no choice but to leave him. They couldn’t afford to be carrying around dead weight, not when they had no idea how long New Orleans would be standing.
“We don’t have to worry about that,” Rochelle said. “You’ll be fine. Just try and get some sleep and we’ll see how you feel in the morning.”
Nick couldn’t imagine sleeping, not with his leg throbbing and his mouth dry and his stomach empty. He slipped a single cigarette from the pack Coach had tossed him and stuck in in his mouth while he fished around in his pockets for a lighter. He came up empty-handed. Just his luck. The pills were starting to kick in—they made him feel stupid and weighed down. It was better than the alternative. Barely.
He’d wrenched Nick’s arm around hard enough to make him see stars, poured the booze over it carelessly. The second it had touched the gash Nick had gone weak in the knees. Thick, hot tears rolled down his cheeks, but it wasn’t the wound he was worried about now. His father was glowering down at him over the length of his nose, his eyes narrowed to slits and his jaw clenched. Nick had made the unforgivable mistake of whimpering.
“What did I tell you?” the old man had snapped.
“I’m sorry! It hurts!”
“Are you a woman, Nick?”
“No.”
“Are you a fucking fag?”
“No!”
“Then shut your goddamn mouth and stop being a little bitch.”
He’d grabbed Nick’s arm with no effort to be gentle, drug the dirty tip of the superglue across the cut and pinched it shut.
Nick knocked his head against the wall, grimaced, squeezed his eyes shut until the thoughts of his father dissipated. He hadn’t thought of the lousy bastard in years. At least he could take some level of comfort in the fact that if the drugs hadn’t killed him yet, the infected certainly had. The idea of his old man being crushed by a Tank did wonders for his mood.
He rolled his head to the side. Coach and Rochelle were asleep along the opposite wall. How long had it been? The pills made the flow of time feel blurry and indistinct. Ellis was propped up against one leg of the table, staring out at the door with his gun laid over his lap. In the dim ambient light of the room, he looked younger, more frail. Distantly, Nick wondered how old the kid even was.
Ellis shifted in the dark and caught Nick’s gaze. His mouth formed into a silent little ‘o’ of surprise.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
“Have been,” Nick grunted.
“How’s the leg?”
Nick lifted one shoulder. The throbbing had faded somewhat, though that was probably more of a testament to the efficacy of the pain pills than it was to any kind of healing.
“I’ll live.”
Ellis nodded, relaxed his shoulders a bit. For once, Nick found that he didn’t want them to drift into silence.
“You got a light?” he asked, gesturing with the pack of cigarettes.
Ellis fished through his pockets and came up empty-handed.
“Nope, sorry. I don’t really smoke.”
“But you smell like tobacco,” Nick said before he could remember that it was weird to comment on the way another man smelled. “Smelled. When you were carrying me.”
He felt suddenly hot, and made a mental note to take less of the pills next time. It was a rookie mistake, getting too intoxicated to keep his wits about himself.
Ellis just laughed in his quiet, soft way, and pulled something out of his pocket. A little aluminum can. Chewing tobacco. Nick grimaced; it wasn’t his vice.
“You’ve got a good nose on you, suit. Want some?”
“I’ll pass, thanks,” he said.
“More for me,” Ellis said, and the little can disappeared back into his pocket.
The room was quiet, then, aside from Coach’s snoring and the distant sound of the air conditioning system. He wondered how much longer the power would last without anybody to keep the plants running. Nick picked at the skin around his fingernails. There was dried blood encrusted around his cuticles. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d washed his hands. Thinking about it too hard make his skin crawl.
“Hey Nick?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry.”
He glanced back over to the hick. He was resting with his elbows on his knees now, face cradled in one of his hands. The brim of his hat hid his eyes. Nick wondered if he ever took it off.
“What for?”
“I should've been payin’ more attention,” he said. “Shouldn’t’ve let that hunter get you.”
Nick shrugged.
“It’s no one’s fault, kid,” he said. “I should have seen it coming.”
Ellis accepted that—or at least he didn’t argue. Nick cleared his throat.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking,” he said.
Ellis tipped his head to one side.
“Uh. Thanks. For carrying me and all. Wouldn’t have made it out without you.”
“It was nothin’,” Ellis said, but the brim of his hat didn’t quite cover the blush that spread over his face.