Chapter Text
Deep breaths. In… and out… in… and out…
I willed myself to calm down. They always said to breathe slow, even breaths. This could only be a nightmare and I would wake up in a minute. Things like this… they only ever happened in movies, not in real life! That was the only explanation!
It was impossible!
For the third time I checked the lock on my stupid storage room door, unwilling to believe it really was broken, and cursed myself for only now realizing it on the worst possible day.
The noises outside were disheartening to say the least. Glass kept on shattering, slow footsteps and things toppling over… and the worst sound by far: the moaning… That sound they seemed to continually emit, as if they were mourning what they had become.
I had no idea how long I’d have to hide or what I’d do afterwards, but hide I would. I’d rather starve to death than become one of them.
+++
Today had started like every other day, with my regulars coming in and getting their coffee, until Ms. Superbusy who was always bitching about my being too slow and making her late, yet always came back the next day, had just… lost it and bitten the guy before her in the neck. Literally bitten a piece out of his flesh.
I hadn’t even been aware such a thing was possible with human teeth, but it obviously was. From that bite on, everything had turned to shit.
The bitten guy, a bike courier who came in a couple times a day or not at all had seemed in pain for only a few seconds, then dazed, then angry, and not a minute after having been bitten, he had started acting just as crazy as Ms. Superbusy.
The other customers had stepped away in panic or moved closer to help, while I had just been staring at them all. Not my proudest moment, I had to admit, but when Bike Courier Guy had turned towards the lady closest to him, Yogamum, while Ms. Superbusy attacked the one behind her, Yogamum’s nicer friend, I had been glad to have the counter between them and myself.
Two had soon turned to four and four to eight. They had seemed to multiply like rats and less than fifteen minutes later, the whole café was nothing but, for lack of a better word, zombies.
I had watched them, frozen, silent, unmoving, but once I had gathered my bearings, I had grabbed my bread knife, dropped down behind my counter and crawled into the farthest cabinet, pulling the door closed behind me. I had tried calling the police for a while, but the line had been continually busy. 911 busy… another thing I hadn’t thought possible until today.
The newly born zombies had seemed to have all but forgotten about me and had continued destroying my café while I had huddled in my hidey hole, fearing for my life.
Only when things had quieted down outside, had I dared to come out of my cabinet, legs numb from sitting huddled for what felt like hours. The café had been destroyed. Blood and gore was everywhere, all the chairs toppled over and many of them broken. Coffee beans from my decoration had been strewn all over the floor, mixed with flower petals in what a good author could probably make into a deep metaphor for life, and most of the windows on the front had been broken.
The zombies, except for one, had been gone, thankfully. A young girl who usually spent most of her mornings sitting in one of the window seats, studying, had gotten the strap of her laptop bag stuck on one of the broken glass panes. Groaning and moaning, she had kept on trying to pull it free, her arms stretched forward, towards the street, when all she’d have needed to do was let her arm sink down so the strap would have slid off.
I had moved slowly and carefully towards the storage room in the back, mindful not to make a sound that could have drawn attention and had hidden in there, sitting on the cot I had been sleeping on for the past two months.
+++
The doorknob turned. I had been half dozing, but the sound jerked me awake. I brandished my knife before me and got ready to strike.
My knees turned to rubber when the door opened. Good thing I was still sitting.
“Thank fucking heaven you’re here!” Negan, one of my regulars, exclaimed. He stepped into the small room and pulled the door closed behind him.
“Are you… are you normal? Like… not like one of those monsters?” I whimpered.
He nodded and crouched down to my level. “Are you alright?” he asked.
I nodded as well, working hard to stop myself from crying out with relief. I had been half sure everyone but me had turned into a zombie. “What’s happening?” I whispered.
“Hell if I know…” Negan answered, sitting down on my cot as well. He wasn’t wearing one of his usual suits and tie today. Shit must have started before he had gotten dressed this morning. He was in dark worn jeans and a leather jacket, encasing him almost like armor, a wooden baseball bat in his hand. “Everyone just turned raving fucking mad over-night.”
I nodded. “And still you came here… never missing a day…” I half laughed.
He smiled at me. “I had to make sure my favorite barista was safe.” He put a hand to my knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Over the years he had come to my place, we had become friends of a sort. He had taken me home that one time when I’d gotten sick at work and in return I had made sure I never ran out of his favorite brew and always had a cup ready when he came in in the mornings. I hadn’t expected him to show up today though.
Our friendship seemed to mean more to him than I had been aware of.
The realization hit me hard and, added to the other shit that had already gone down today, threatened to overwhelm me. Sniffling, I wiped away the single tear that was running down my cheek.
Negan put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “We gotta get out of the city,” he muttered.
“And then?”
“I don’t know… wait things out.”
“But won’t the government…”
He shook his head before I could finish my sentence. “These fuckers aren’t to be trusted…”
I swallowed. His idea was better than any I’d had so far, so I might as well… “We… We’ll need supplies…”
He nodded. “And weapons.”
I self-consciously showed him my breadknife.
“Better than nothing,” he muttered. “I got a cottage in the woods. We’ll go there for now.” He sounded like he was preparing for this to last quite some time.
I nodded.
“You got a backpack?”
“Yea, somewhere…” I freed myself from his arm. We had to go.
I took a breath.
We had to go.
Negan got to his feet and looked around the storage room. A frown appeared on his face when he noticed the stacks of my clothes on the shelves. “Have you been living in here?”
I swallowed and slowly nodded.
“Why the fuck?”
“Micah and I broke up and he… kinda kicked me out…”
“Fucking idiot…”
I nodded and started looking through my stuff, focusing on more important things than my fuckwad of an ex. We’d need clothes and water and food…
Negan pushed open the door and stepped outside while I packed.
He moved behind the counter and started taking the sandwiches and pies I had prepared to sell today out of the vitrine and into his backpack. Not the healthiest choice if we planned to live on it for a while, but surely the easiest for the moment.
I tossed enough clothes for a couple days into my pack, put on my jacket and poncho and stepped out of the storage room to join him. My working trainers were comfy and sturdy. My jeans fitted me well enough and I was confident I could wear them for a couple of days. The poncho was a bit awkward with the backpack, but it was versatile. I could use it as a blanket or a shawl as well, and if we were really going to the woods, I’d need it. It was late October. Winter was coming.
“You ready?” Negan asked, shouldering his backpack.
I nodded, looking over my once beautiful café again. I had put so much money and effort in it and it had all been destroyed in one single day.
It broke my heart to see all my hard work reduced to… a ruin.
The girl zombie from earlier was laying on the ground in a pool of her own blood. Had Negan dealt with her? Or had she killed herself? I decided it was probably best if I didn’t know.
Stepping out on the sidewalk was the first time I realized just how quickly and thoroughly the world had really gone to shit. Zombies were stumbling through the streets, alone or in small groups, seemingly aimless. Fires flared here and there stinking up the air with their smoke. Near and far, alarms sounded, broken by the sound of a lone police siren.
What the fuck was happening?
The day had started out foggy and sad. That, at least hadn’t changed. It was late afternoon now and it looked like rain. Probably not the best of times to start our trip, but what choice did we have?
I nodded at Negan and we started walking.
The streets were clogged with cars, most now deserted, with their doors open, some with their doors still closed and zombies inside, pounding on the windows as we passed.
Once or twice, a zombie took notice of us and started in our direction, but they were slow and we easily outwalked them. We stayed silent for most of the time since noise seemed to draw the undead.
That knowledge in the back of my head, I kept my teeth gritted and my fists squeezed hard so I wouldn’t cry out in fear with every new atrocity we passed. Negan’s hand was cramped around the hilt of his bat as well. He might be better at hiding it, but he was just as scared as I was.
When a zombie grabbed at me half hidden under a trash can, I only just stifled a scream.
Negan bent over it and bashed it over the head with his bat. It was a messy business, gore-y and bloody, but when he was done, the zombie was most definitely dead.
By the time the street lights turned on, we were coming towards the edge of the city, where buildings were getting fewer and had small yards around them. I had been watching out for zombies, but not paid attention to much else, so it was Negan who stopped me when we passed a gun store. Its door was open, but no sounds came from the inside.
We slowly moved up the few stairs that lead to the entrance and stepped inside. The store had clearly been raided by someone before us. Bullets were all over the floor and almost all of the bigger guns were gone, the vitrines pried open or the glass simply broken.
Negan looked around like he knew what he was about while I probably looked like a tourist. I had never been in a gun store before, nor had I ever as much as held a gun. Guns were scary.
Knives I liked though. They were good for cooking and crafting and probably stabbing and most of all, I was confident I knew how to use one without hurting myself.
A few of the hunting knives in a display in the corner were missing, but most were still there. I took one at random and looked it over. It was pretty, but much too big for my liking and it didn’t feel right in my hand; too heavy and awkward to handle.
Something out on the street clattered and I froze, slowly turning towards the noise.
Negan was at the door already, hiding in the shadows and looking outside.
“Hurry up,” he whispered. “There’s a bunch of them coming this way.”
I quickly scanned the knives again and took one of the smaller ones. The handle felt like it was the right size for my hand and the black, matte blade wouldn’t be as visible in the dark as a silver shiny one. Also: it came with a matching sheath! I took both and joined Negan at the door.
“Found anything you like?” he whispered.
I nodded.
He seemed satisfied as well. A revolver was sticking in his belt and his pockets looked heavy with bullets.
“C’mon then!” Negan said, moving out the door, away from the zombies and pulling me into the space between the ammo store and the next house.
Out of sight out of mind seemed to work pretty well with those things.
+++
“We should find somewhere to rest for the night,” I muttered.
Negan nodded into the dark, looking around. We had moved through a couple of yards, climbing over wooden fences as high as I was tall. Not something I’d ever have thought I would be capable of, but it seemed adrenaline made many things possible.
My new knife hung on my belt, within hopefully easy reach. I hadn’t yet had to use it… and I hoped it would be a while longer until it came to it. I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to kill…
We cleared the yards and came upon a street again. The neighborhood suddenly looked a lot nicer than when we had entered into the yards on the other side. Flowers and greenery grew in the yards, most houses had a small garage next to them and a few even had swing sets dangling from bigger trees.
A couple zombies moved at the other side of the street, eating… something I didn’t want to think too closely about. As long as they were occupied, they’d leave us alone… I hoped.
I was tired, not physically but emotionally and I wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep for a week, not worry about fucking zombies any longer. I’d already had enough of that today, but of course, each and every single house on our side of the street was locked. Great. Fucking great!
We could either go on searching in hope of a house on the next street being open or…
One of the zombies looked up at the noise of Negan smashing the window to the garage of the latest house we’d tried. It noticed us and started walking in our direction.
My heartbeat sped up.
I tapped Negan’s arm to let him know of the danger, but took a quick step towards the monster myself.
Well, maybe monster was the wrong word.
Except for the way it moved and the color of its skin and… well, yes, okay, it was a monster. The closer it came, the more obvious that was. It might have been human a few hours ago, but now?
No more.
That thought made what I intended to do a lot easier. I gripped the handle of my knife, willing my hand to be steady.
If I dropped my weapon I was dead. If I missed, I was dead. If I stumbled, I was dead. There was no room for error. None at all.
It would have to be the head. They always hit zombies in the head in the movies. A head was made of bone. It would be hard. But the temple was soft. Involuntarily I reached my free hand for my own temple, as if feeling the spot out and then I attacked, grip tight, knees weak…
… and couldn’t get my knife to penetrate.
Shit!
I took a step backwards to get out of reach of the zombie. Its disgusting, greyish hands reached for me, maw opened wide.
My whole body shook.
Shit.
“Come on, you can do this,” I whispered to myself, willing my arm to stop shaking.
Gritting my teeth, I tried again, coming diagonally from the side, aiming straight for where I hoped was the temple.
Everything besides the zombie and I vanished around me. Nothing else mattered. Just this… creature and I.
And this time my knife went in. It felt like chewing on sand, much too coarse and wrong in every way, but I pushed the knife in all the way to the hilt and saw the “life” go out in the zombies eyes. It dropped to the ground and almost pulled me with it before I could pull out the knife.
My fight had, of fucking course, alerted the others. A half-eaten carcass of something four-legged appeared under them as they all got to their feet.
“Negan?” I cried out, but he was already there, bat in hand and smashing the closest zombie over the head.
I gripped my knife and went for the second one. I would like to say it was easier the second time around, but… it wasn’t. It was just as hard and disgusting.
But it was either them or us. We had no choice.
Between the two of us, we managed to take the full group down.
The moment I pulled my knife out of the last head, my stomach heaved and I had just enough time to turn away from Negan before I puked. I hadn’t eaten much all day, so it was mostly just bile. That didn’t make it any less demeaning though.
“Come on, there’s more coming,” Negan muttered. He acted unbothered by my probably unconventional reaction to killing.
“What? Where?” I whimpered, wiping my mouth on my sleeve.
“Everywhere… come on.” He pulled me after him, towards the garage. It stood as a separate building from the main house and Negan had managed to unlock the door while I had been fighting.
Fighting… Me! That must be thing number 22 of things I’d never thought I’d ever do in my life and today I’d done them all.
Negan pushed me into the garage and closed the door behind us, shuffling a tool cabinet before the door to keep it from being pushed open.
“You alright?” he whispered, looking me up and down.
I weakly nodded. Hoping he didn’t notice how shaky I still was, I sank to the floor in the corner, hugging myself and doing my best not to hear what was going on outside.
Negan joined me on the floor and, for the second time that day, put his arm around me.
“Come here,” he whispered, pulling me against his chest.
I couldn’t put into words how glad I was for the comfort he offered. Being enclosed within his arms made it somewhat easier to block out the moans and knocking and bumping against the outer walls.
My heartbeat was so loud, I was sure the zombies outside must hear it. That must be what was drawing them towards us. It was my fault!
I could practically feel human teeth gnawing through my skin and tearing my flesh off my bones.
“Shhh,” Negan whispered, stroking my hair. “Shhh…”
I didn’t know how long we sat there, huddled against each other like scared kids, unmoving, but at one point, the noises let down. The zombies seemed to have lost interest and wandered off… or maybe they had simply forgotten about us.
Negan got to his feet and pushed the tool cabinet to the side just far enough so he could see outside.
“They’re gone,” he whispered, moving back to where I sat. For a man his size, he moved surprisingly agile. “Try to get some rest. I’ll take first watch.”
“You’re fun,” I whispered. “How am I supposed to sleep after this?”
“With the knowledge I’m here to protect you,” he answered.
I considered this for a moment. “Why did you come get me anyways?”
Negan took a deep inhale as he sat down with me once more. He had probably expected my question. “Long story…”
“You better start telling it then, we could die any moment!”
He snorted. “Did I ever tell you my wife died a few years ago?”
I nodded.
“I was in a real bad place… felt like life had lost all sense… I thought about ending it all every damn day…” He snorted a sad snort. “I was fucking done with life. With Lucille being gone… and the baby…” He paused and looked into the darkness for a moment, sighing. “And then you opened your café. I can’t even remember why I walked in in the first place… but I liked it. It felt… warm. You know what I mean?”
I nodded.
“And you were always just there and always laughing… you were kind, and you kept on asking me answers for your crossword… and I started telling myself you’d have no one to help you if I killed myself…”
I took his hand, giving it a squeeze. I had never been aware he had been so broken when we’d first met.
“And then you made me that soup after I told you I hadn’t eaten a home cooked meal in a while.”
“I remember,” I muttered. “I had never seen someone so happy over a bowl of soup.”
He nodded, half laughing. “It meant a fucking lot to me… made me realize even with Lucille gone, there was someone who cared... like I wasn’t all alone in the world.”
“I never realized,” I whispered, putting my arm around him and leaning my head on his shoulder.
“You saved my life, Alana! How could I NOT come for you on a day like today?”
“Well… we’re even now,” I muttered.
Negan snorted again. “So we can each go our own way if we feel like it.”
“Yea… but I… I‘d really appreciate it if we could stay together for the time being…”
“Me too. Sleep now. I’m serious. I’ll wake you in a couple hours and you can take over.”
I nodded and let go of him, trying instead to get comfortable on the concrete floor and making myself small against the cold.
Negan patted his leg where he sat and I put my head on his thigh.
He was there. He wouldn’t leave me alone. I was as safe as could be. Thinking nice thoughts, I closed my eyes.