Let's kill tonight.

[Zephyr]

The end of the world isn’t something that Silas has thought much about. It isn’t that he didn’t think it would ever happen. Humans are pathetically stupid creatures. He knows it’s bound to happen sometime, but he didn’t think it would be like this. Too many people dead, too many people he can’t save. Children, women, babies he’s had to held in his arms while they died. He’s a doctor, he’s used to saving people, needs to have some wins. But when he has to decapitate the dead before he’s even had a chance to mourn them, it doesn’t seem like there are any wins anymore.

At least he has Nate still, and alcohol.

Alcohol is the one constant that Silas would have been lost without. In the early days, when people were dropping dead left and right, he wouldn’t have made it through without the alcohol. It took Nathan to pull him out of the alcoholic stupor he’d found him in so many times. He’s better at it, the drinking. He doesn’t seem to need it as much as he did before. Nathan and the fighting is a good enough distraction.

Still, they all like alcohol, so some extent, and the shit is getting harder and harder to find. The liquor stores had all been ransacked early on, and they’ve been through most of the closest grocery stores. So now they’ve decided to look for alcohol in some of the closer bars. They’ve been avoiding it, just because all of the walkers seem to congregate near the bars. Silas has made jokes about the monsters knowing where the good stuff is, but his brand of humor is rarely appreciated.

The outing to the bar is also a good chance to look for supplies in a place they haven’t really been. Alcohol run is as good enough a reason for Silas to go out. They’ve been out for a while. The goddamn Scotsman drinks a lot of his fucking alcohol. It’s harder than he thought it would be to get in. In the aftermath of humans, zombies have taken over. Boston has been overtaken. The men have managed to carve out their niche though, in Silas’ hospital. It hadn’t been easy to barricade the hospital up to keep the zombies out, but they’d managed. Keeping someone on watch at all times makes it easy to shoot any of the fuckers that wander too close…or warn the rest of the group in case it’s more than they can handle.

Luckily, they haven’t been bothered by and herds yet, and it’s relatively peaceful in the hospital. Not outside though. Despite Silas’ musings that they’ll be fine barreling down the fuckers with his machete and Cesan’s bow, Matthias is quick to tell them that four men can’t take on an entire city of zombies and that it’s best if they sneak in. Silas has never been one to sneak anywhere though, so he joins Nate as a wolf to make sure that they can get in relatively unseen. Once in, it’s an easy matter to take out the zombies that are still in there, Silas doesn’t even have to shift back.

The wolf has to attack from behind, well away from reaching hands and snapping jaws. It’s an easy matter to shove massive paws into frail backs and slam the creatures to the ground, wrapping strong jaws around the napes of their necks and just ripping, or digging fangs into the back of the head to crunch through skull and brains as easily as breathing.

It is pulling its head out of the skull cavity of a zombie, face fur and the fur on its chest dripping in blood when the fighting ends. It shakes out it’s pelt, splattering anyone who is standing to close with blood. It isn’t sorry that Matthias gets zombie blood to the face. Whining, the wolf pads over to lick absently at Nate’s neck, pressing up against the other wolf before it breaks away to pad over to snuffle at some boxes behind the counter, beginning the process of shifting back away from prying eyes.

Booze is as good a reason as any to change back.

[Matthias Walker]

So the entire world falls apart.

Matthias is accustomed to surviving, to fighting with every breath to stay alive at the end of the day, but the end of the world with its pervasive stench of rotting flesh and its masses of once-people with dead eyes and gaping-open mouths brings a new steady weariness. Even in the hospital (no longer pristine even if it’s as good as the only safe place left in Boston) going through the motions of waking up, reloading the gun, shaving—they drag into timeless repetition and there is nothing in the hospital to distract him from thoughts of family, of Jeremy and his wife and his children, their mother, of Natalie in the heart of New York City.

Leaving is relief of the most morbid kind. Even if the zombies want to rip him to pieces and eat him, well, they’re a distraction from the constant nagging helplessness that pools into restlessness and shredded self-preservation when he’s got a moment alone to think, and the cool weight of the gun in his hand is a welcome familiarity in a world turned upside-down. The daylight is new, but picking his way, keeping light and quick on his feet and following in the wake of the wolves, through the alleys and streets of Boston turned silent, is regular enough of an occurrence after a decade of hunting that it falls more to instinct than to thought.

It’s safer to let the wolves take out the few scattered zombies, the gun merely a backup, and by the time they make it to the bar—risking their lives for alcohol, Jesus; if Mattie weren’t so painfully restless he’d have argued the necessity of leaving, but as it is, well, anything to get out—he hasn’t had to fire a single shot. The gun is slipped back into his jeans as soon as he slides the door shut behind them, backpack pulled sideways so he can pull out Silas and Nate’s clothing; there’s neither modesty nor the old tease of a flirtatious grin as he steps around after Silas’s wolf to hand him his clothing and tosses Nate’s at him.

Then, absently thoughtful as he turns in a slow circle to take in the forgotten bar, the reek of death and the soft layers of dust on the counters and tabletops, searching for anything remotely salvageable, “Think fire could kill ’em? Like, seeing as you guys are picky as hell, I’m talking about you, Silas, we could get some of the cheaper shit, drench the place and lure some in here and light it up when we’re leaving.” He slants a lopsided grin at Cesan, arches an eyebrow in humor that has very little place in the wide empty city, “Like a science experiment or something, except a lot less fun. Besides, it’d be all poetic—from what I’ve tasted of desire, and shit.”

The poetry is a familiar fallback, too, the quote coming with the ease of memorization, but Mattie’s attention is a fickle thing with the omnipresent threat of the attention of zombies, and he slips behind the bar properly in the next moment, kneels to pull open cabinets and peer inside. “Is anyone just dying to have, uh, fancy wineglasses?”

[Cesan]

Cesan had never been afraid of the dark.

It used to be his friend—soft and soothing, the shadows would wrap around him at night, and he would feel safer. He has never been so vulnerable before. He had always been the Hunter, not the hunted. The switch of roles had been something that Cesan had not prepared for. Never before has the Scotsman looked over his shoulder at the softest sound, never before has he felt such heavy anxiety and cold fear wrap around his chest like this. The darkness is no longer his friend, and it will be a long, long time before the man is able to truly sleep at night. Dead people aren’t supposed to walk—Zombies have always been a thing to scare little kids and entertain adults in gory movies and violent video games. People had joked that they were preparing for the “zombie apocalypse,” that they would survive, that this would come sooner than later, and the very thought of something so absurd was laughable. Those so-called “survivors” walk with hanging jaws and rotting flesh now, dragging themselves along and even running at times.

This was not how things were supposed to end.

He finds solace in small things—like the warm feeling of scotch burning his throat, and the short reunions with a long, lost friend that he had managed to steal from the pharmacy in the rare moments that the damn doctor wasn’t paying attention to everyone’s whereabouts in the hospital. These things so far had been the only things that had allowed him to find a few moments of peace in this new hell, and the few days without his whiskey had started to show through withdrawal-and-insomnia induced aggravation.

The liquor run is the only thing to lift his spirit in days.

When they arrive, the Scotsman is tense in the presence of the werewolves, and the knowledge that the dead are lurking somewhere close. He had refused to leave the hospital unless he had his bow and quiver slung over his shoulder, five full clips stuffed in his pockets and his assault rifle in his hands, and he’s tried his best to not acknowledge how morbid the wolves’ actions come across to him. If you can get past the stench of rotting flesh and corpses, the ability to step out of their box is almost a breath of fresh air. Mattie’s humor, however misplaced it may be in this particular level of hell, has the profound ability to force the occasional smile or chuckle out of the Scotsman. Cesan follows in closely behind Matthias, actively ignoring the wolves who would soon return to their regular forms. “Aye, it might,” he muses, “Only worth the time if we can make it out alive, lad.” As much as he’d love to see the fuckers burn, he would rather not burn with them. He follows Mattie behind the bar, but walks past him too, heading straight for the shelves. “The only thing am’ dyin’ for is m’whiskey.”

The place has been mostly torn apart by some poor souls that are probably dead by now, but he figures that most people wouldn’t have stopped to truly inspect the place. Bottles of liquor are haphazardly shoved around in people’s frantic grab-pack-and-go sprees, and there is dried alcohol stains accompanied by shards of glass on the floor that Cesan carefully avoids stepping on. Among the wreckage and the carelessly handled material, the Scotsman is able to find two bottles of blended scotch.

Why no one had taken these, he doesn’t know. Cesan carefully removes his bow and quiver from his back to gain access to his backpack under them, to carefully slide the bottles in his bag. Scotch first, everything else later. Cloudy eyes scan the area for anything else that he can grab, before he tugs his belongings back over his shoulders.

”Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire.”

[♥ Nathan ♥]

On the whimper-to-bang rating scale of end of the world scenarios, Nate judges zombie apocalypse to be somewhere between mindless groaning and that sound your face makes when you have no jaw and your throat just, you know, gurgles. He’s wondered, on more lonely nights when holding a watch alone – or simply when Silas had fallen asleep beside him and left him to the silence of a city gone dead – how long the undead can live with half a face. Without a mouth. Without a food source. How long the shambling walkers of the city will continue to stumble about with their singular goal of consume, how long until they are skeletal husks still vainly clawing for purchase along the unforgiving concrete, how long it takes them to die a second death without a bullet or an axe to help them along, or if they would linger on in a pathetic eternity with that one mindless craving—

They are twisted thoughts, but there’s little room left for cheerful daydreams in what remains of Boston. It is easier to simply not think; there is a satisfying oblivion Nate chases down through the wolf, through liquor, keeping away tedium and dark reality with the endless methods he has found to keep busy. There is always something in need of mending. Boards need shoring, guns need cleaning, traps need checking and setting and checking again; supplies run out, and are replenished when able. Safe (though Nate is ever hesitant to use the word) as they are in the hovel they have crafted within the hospital, opportunities to escape are few and far between – and relished.

Nathan takes to the streets as an animal at Silas’ insistence, but even the wolf needs a chance to stretch its legs. He does not mind needing to explore and scout in this form – it is more reliable in both speed and strength and silent lethality – but the creature is always on edge with the hunters tagging along, one ear quirked towards oncoming noise and one always pinned on Matthias and Cesan. It does not lose track of any member of their little band as they scramble inside the liquor store, dispatching those inside with quick and practiced motions – but it is thrumming with violent energy, wound taut on a hair trigger and unable to relax. It is for everyone’s benefit that the werewolf simply nudges his companion amiably with his nose before succumbing to his return shift, the press of human emotion and need too strong to fight.

Nudity has never bothered him, and he shrugs himself into the clothes Mattie throws him without a second thought, long since adjusted to how practical this has all become. An assessing eye double-checks Silas as the other man dresses, as though he may have somehow missed any nick or scratch, and only then does Nate step out from by the bar to crunch broken glass and worse beneath his heel and take in their miserable surroundings. That the dismal scene of shattered bottles and the absolutelack of anything useful – liquor included – should be accented by Mattie’s god-forsaken poetry only makes it worse; Nate presses his fingers to his temple as the last aches of the change slip from him, huffing sullenly.

”I’ll take bullets, thanks,” he spits, grimacing at the leftover taste of rotten flesh at the back of his throat. ”Don’t wanna be anywhere near here if you light this place up. Bring everything left in the city down on our heads.” Joke or not, Nate responds only with an obnoxious level of realism, though the gaze he casts over the expanse of empty shelving is wistful. A stiff drink would go a long way to restoring all of their spirits – and a piece of him recognizes that this whole trip had been a lark to begin with, a way to distract themselves with an empty and unnecessary prize. Risks like these have become more palatable as their resources run low.

They are bright sides and vain hopes, little things to keep them going.

Leaving the others to sift through what remains of the bar, Nate takes to cautiously exploring the nearby area, stumbling first upon the kitchen before being attracted to a heavy door in the opposite corner. A crowbar runs through the handle, keeping it wedged tightly shut, but even after its removal the door proves tightly locked.

”Hey.” Nate gestures at the others with a flick of his fingers, inviting them close. ”You think this is a – a storage room, or something?” Stairs to a basement, maybe – or just a closet stocked to the brim with alcohol. Either way, Nate’s curiosity is too great to let it be. ”Bet no one’s gotten in here yet.” He runs his palm down the front of the door slowly, contemplatively, before pressing his ear to the wood and breathing in deep. No strange scent or sound greets him, and though that does not strictly imply safety, the werewolf allows himself some measure of optimism. He turns his head to glance at the other men with a cheeky and mischievous grin, eyebrows raised with the unspoken dare.

Throwing his weight forward, Nate’s shoulder collides with the door with a surprising amount of strength; the wood around the lock splinters, and after a second attempt to barrel it down by force, he settles for prying it open with the crowbar.

Locked doors are like Christmas, and they could all use a little cheer.