That Was Longer Than a Heartbeat: Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Consciously Endure
When they get to the apartment building Alexis is losing her breath. She's been running high on adrenaline for seemingly hours, but it's beginning to fade, along with the endorphins that have been masking the pain in her fingers. She hadn't noticed them the entire time they'd been running, not even when she'd first got them dowsed in the Rid-X. Looking down now she can see that the two she hit, the pointer and the middle fingers on her right hand, have fused together, as well as to the trigger of her shotgun.
The pain comes quick, as they're scaling the stairs, and it is like nothing she's ever felt. In fact, she almost can't feel it at all, like a hurt so bad that she needs a separate brain to fully process it. It's like knives in her mind instead of in her hand, and she gives a close-mouthed scream, staring at the burned flesh.
The wet tearing sound that echoes in her ears as she pulls the fingers away from the trigger break something in her, and everything goes black for a second.
When she comes to she's on her couch in her apartment with her legs propped up on the arm. For a long second it's easy to pretend that nothing is different.
“Lexy!” Emily's snapping fingers bring her back to reality.
Alexis blinks, and the pain in her fingers is back. She has to squeeze her eyes tight and press the nails of her other hand hard into her thigh to keep from screaming, and it's impossible to stop the tears from spilling over.
“Hurts,” she murmurs through clenched teeth, and she opens her eyes to see Emily sitting over her with a worried frown on her face.
Alexis has never been so glad to see her friend, and she starts to talk despite how hard she's finding it to breathe. “You're ali-”
Emily shakes her head to shush her. “Yeah, yeah. Sammy boy saved me from certain death. You need to be saved now, though. We think you're going into shock.”
Alexis takes stock of her surroundings through rapid blinks. She can see that a struggle went on in the apartment, as the coffeee table, both chairs, and the TV have been smashed and dumped all over the room. The bathroom door is completely destroyed, huge gouges running through it, and a split making it hang awkwardly off its hinges. She can see Sam inside doing something with their towels in the sink. A near-headless zombie is crumpled in the corner by the window. Its purple and gray hemp sweatshirt make Alexis think that he was probably one of the guys from the apartment down the hallway.
“You were...?” Alexis can't get her mouth to spit out the full question, but she tries to sit up. She finds Emily's hands strong on her shoulders, easily keeping her lying down.
“I had to lock myself in the bathroom. I would've dealt with it, but then your friend, sasquatch showed up and shot Gary in the head.”
The zombie was definitely from the apartment down the hall then.
“He made good Mimosas.” It's an odd thing for Alexis to say when she's having trouble breathing, but it's the truth.
“He did,” Emily confirms, before pulling the fleece blanket they keep draped on the couch over Alexis.
Sam comes out of the bathroom then, with a bunch of wet towels, a pot full of water, the Neosporin and their ACE bandage, which Emily had used for her knee after she'd sprained it playing soccer in first year.
He says nothing, just plops down beside the couch and starts to soak Alexis' hand in the water.
“I don't think we're going to be able to separate them,” he says, and Alexis looks away before the sight of her mangled fingers forces her to throw up.
Emily lifts Alexis' legs and sits on the couch before replacing her feet on the arm of the sofa, elevated. The two girls stare at each other for a long while as Sam works.
“Zombies,” Alexis whispers. There is nothing else to say.
“Zombies,” Emily murmurs back, and then she looks far, far away.
They leave the apartment better prepared than when they left. The survival gear that Alexis’ dad had bought her (“You never know Alexis, earthquakes happen in California all the time. I want you to be prepared. Plus, zombies. You never know!”) when she’d left New York turns out to be a godsend. The backpack is waterproof and filled with two large canteens, a well-stocked first-aid kit, two durable rain jackets, flint for starting fires, four cans of tuna and some Spam, all with room to spare. Of course, neither Alexis or Emily could carry it for long, so it’s a really good thing they have Sam. He hefts the sack up onto his back like it’s nothing, wincing only slightly as the back pack digs into his lacerations.
Alexis considers making him remove it so they can re-tend them, but they’ve already spent twenty minutes bandaging the skin up as best as they can. Sam is getting anxious about finding Jess and he's already almost halfway out the door.
Alexis moves to follow him, her new clothes bunching oddly as she goes. She’s now wearing jeggings, hiking boots, two tanktops, and a Kevlar motorcycle suit. Sam had found the suit while going through her closet, looking for the survival kit while she recovered from shock. It had been a gift for her ex-boyfriend, Ash. Sometime after the motorcycle and before the other girls (Emily still calls it his ‘mid-life, mid-life crisis’), Alexis had seen the suit modelled in a shop window and bought it as his early birthday present. By the time his birthday actually rolled around though, they were long broken-up and it was too late to return it. But it would come in handy now, especially since it mostly fit her, bagging only in the shoulders and the waist. Her extras - gloves, a sweatshirt, toque, two pairs of socks, two pairs of underwear and a spare sports bra - also sat safely in her backpack, buried under more canned food and two empty water bottles.
Despite searching, Alexis had decided that the crowbar she’d picked up in the janitor’s closet was her best bet for a weapon. She’d made a DIY leg-holster for it out of duct tape and a ziplock bag, then done the same for a steak knife on the other leg. Emily was similarly decked out, though all she'd been able to find for protection were some old football pads in their neighbours front hallway.
As they got to the apartment's stairwell, Emily suddenly ran back, grabbing a frying pan (the nice one that she'd forced Ash to buy after he’d accidentally scraped the Teflon off their old one) before returning.
“Head smusher on one side, deliciousness maker on the other,” Emily laughed, and Alexis followed suit. It felt good, despite the hollow feeling curling in Alexis' torso.
It takes them a long time to get to Sam and Jess's apartment. They'd spent most of it dodging mini-hordes of the undead, and more of it hiding from other survivors. It was already clear that Sam felt they were slowing him down. Alexis and Emily were well aware that their best chance of survival was with Sam, and they weren't going to give him an excuse to ditch them by insisting they pick up anyone else.
It was strange how quickly friendships became categorized and prioritized in a life-or-death situation. They'd already noticed it in one of the groups they'd passed, who were struggling under the weight of belongings and weaponry: a huge discussion on who they needed to find for love (that would be Emily for Alexis), and who they needed to find for survival (Sam in spades).
They hadn't run into anymore of the weird zombies, thank god, but they'd watched a number of people meet their ends at the hands of regular undead.
All of that, however, seems distant and unimportant in comparison to the state in which they find the lobby of Sam and Jess's building. Blood is smeared along the walls in both hand print and body shapes. Zombies lie everywhere, their carcasses tattered and headless in a way that suggests brute force did the job rather than a sharp blade. Most of the blood is easily traceable to each body, but one large puddle, right in the centre of the room, has drag marks delineated by a trail of blood leading into the closed elevator. Someone has been taken from here, and they were not well when it happened. Alexis has a sinking feeling that she knows exactly who the blood belongs to.
The elevator doesn't work, so they end up on the fire escape stairs. They're so pristine and void of human remains, that it's easy to love them. Alexis almost has a panic attack when they reach the third floor and Sam goes to turn the knob. She can see him steeling himself for what's to come, and she finds herself clutching her crowbar like a teddy bear. There's only time for a quick, reassuring smile with Emily before the fire escape door is opened.
It's shockingly quiet in the hallway, and there is no blood. Alexis almost asks if they're on the right floor. Even the noise from outside, the screaming and the chaos, is blocked out. In here, it's like nothing is wrong, and it's surprisingly unnerving.
Sam motions with a hand for them to follow, glock held up with the other. Then he walks forward and kicks his door in like it's cardboard.
What they find inside is once again, far from what Alexis expected. Brady - Brady who Emily had never liked, and who Jess had tried to like, because he'd been Sam's friend before the drugs and the gambling, Brady who Alexis had tried so very hard to stay away from, because he made her uncomfortable in a way that she could never really explain or justify - had Jess unconscious, and cradled in his arms where he sat cross-legged on the floor. The blood was everywhere in here, but mostly in a large puddle pooling below them. It didn't look like any of it belonged to Jess, as Brady was the one with intestines and guts spilling onto Jess's yellow sundress. It was the one she'd picked out with Alexis two days ago, when Sam still hadn't shown up after his two-week absence.
“The colour will cheer me up if nothing else,” she'd said.
Brady is rocking her body, and it makes the scene look like some morbid form of child's play, just a kid rocking their doll to sleep.
Brady looks up when they walk in without pausing the movement of his body, and he looks confused and lost in that way he always did when he was trying to get Sam to agree to help him out of one jam or another. This is the first time Alexis has ever thought he looked sincere.
“Brady. Brady, what are you doing?” Sam's voice is calm and slow. It reminds Alexis of Bruce Willis in a movie she once saw about hostage negotiation.
Brady blinks slow and unevenly, like he's dazed. “I can't get out,” he murmurs. It's hard to know if he's whispering, or if his voice is just that cracked.
“Can't get out of what?” Sam asks, still slow, still calm.
Brady shakes his head. “This body. I can't get out of this body. One of those things bit me, and so I tried to get out, but I can't.”
Sam doesn't look calm anymore. The stillness of his body is now a tense rigid line. “You're not Brady.” He says it like he's working his mind around it, letting it sink in.
Brady suddenly sneers at them, and Alexis can't help but take a step back when she sees his eyes flash pitch black. “Of course I'm not Brady! I've never been Brady. You were just so blinded in your desire to be normal Sammy... It was so easy to pull the wool over your eyes.”
Sam is shaking his head. “I don't believe you.”
Brady laughs, and it is so very callous. Alexis notices Emily shiver. “It doesn't matter what you believe, all that matters is the truth. My truth. The one where your precious little girlfriend here dies, and you go back to your real life. The one where you fall so easily into every single one of Azazel's traps.”
Alexis has no idea what's going on, what Brady is saying or what it means. All she knows is that everything is wrong here.
Sam murmurs something under his breath, something that sounds like Crisco, but it makes Brady hiss and flinch backwards.
A brittle laugh escapes the dying boy on the floor. “It doesn't matter anymore though. Everything is wrong. I didn't believe the rumours: angels falling from the sky, the apocalypse coming without any grand plans or schemes, demons trapped in human bodies, becoming something even more dangerous, I mean it's crazy!” Brady's smile is manic. “But now I'm stuck in this fucking meatsuit, and I know it must be true Sammy. Everything is going to shit, but not on our schedule, or on our terms. Something is very, terribly wrong.”
Sam is shaking like a leaf, but somehow his gun is still steady in its aim towards Brady.
“And if everything's so wrong, I'm going to have some fun with you. Get some payback for all the patronizing bullshit you fed me while I was under orders to keep you al-”
He doesn't get any farther than that, because Sam pulls the trigger, landing a shot squarely between Brady's eyes, then he reloads so fast it's almost a blur, and gets Brady in the head again.
He topples back, taking Jess with him only because his arms don't have time to slacken. Sam rushes over, pulls Jess up and off of his dead friend, and carries her over to the couch. His hands are frantic, smoothing over every inch of her in search of injuries.
And that's when Brady starts to whimper.
They all turn back around instantly. Brady isn't splayed out on the floor anymore, he's not even in the same spot. He's crouched down in the far corner, hunched over himself and rocking again with his back to them.
The moans sound like weeping, like he is bawling his eyes out.
Sam's gun is already up, and this time he doesn't hesitate. He pulls the trigger, again and again until he is firing empty into the back of Brady's neck, and the whimpering stops.
For a second they all relax, but it's in that moment that Brady turns.
He is nothing like he was minutes ago. His mouth is the first thing Alexis notices, black and rotten, like whatever evil was inside sped up Brady's decomp until all that was left was a gaping hole of fetid flesh. His eyes are much the same, but an ethereal glow springs from them, terrifying for no other reason than the higher power it hints at. And his hands are warped, with elongated fingers ending in wicked points. They would have no problem slicing a person in two in one blow.
There are only seconds in which they can take that in, because Brady is up and charging, heading straight for Sam. Emily crouches low behind him, and Alexis isn't sure if she's hiding or protecting Jess.
It seems like nothing before Brady is on Sam, screaming a low, gut-wrenching scream and attempting to stab Sam with his fingers. It's only luck that lets Sam grab both hands before they tear into him. And a bite would be inevitable if not for Brady's slobbering screams taking precedence over attacking.
It's horrific, and Alexis is frozen. She doesn't know what to do, where to turn. She's afraid that hitting Brady will dislodge Sam's hands, and as of now his grip is the only thing keeping him alive. She feels helpless and very far away.
A loud clang shakes her out of her stupor, and she checks back into her body to find Emily has whacked Brady in the face with the frying pan. It hadn't knocked Sam's hands away, or if it had he'd gotten them back in place quickly. But it had provided the momentum needed to get Brady on his back, with Sam on top of him and pinning him down. This doesn't look easy. Sam is being bucked every which way, like Brady is some weird imitation of the mechanical bull in the country themed night club just off campus.
“His head,” Emily yells at her, and then she's running out the door.
Alexis doesn't even have time to be angry that her friend just ran away from this. She's already grabbing her crowbar and smashing the end repeatedly into Brady's windpipe from where she can get around Sam. Brady's still screaming though, through the gurgles of blood and pulverized flesh, and Sam is yelling too. She thinks her own voice might be adding to the mix, but it's so loud and chaotic and adrenaline packed that it's easy to stop thinking and let her body take over. Down, down, down, hit, hit, hit.
Kill, kill, kill.
A body slams into hers, pushes her away from Brady and takes her place above him. From the floor, where her lungs are empty and gasping, Alexis can see Emily, a fire-axe in the hallway poised above her head.
In one quick swoop, the axe is embedded in the floor and Brady's head, finally silent, is rolling away.
Emily heaves in air like she's dying, but she doesn't let go of the axe. Sam looks at her in shock for barely a second before rushing back over to Jess.
“Don't,” Emily says as she finally lets go of the axe and moves to the unconscious girl's prone form. She pulls the sleeve of the Jess's dress off her shoulder, revealing a set of perfect teeth marks. They are purple and infected looking, her veins turning black under her skin. “I noticed it before Brady...”
Sam stares, and Emily moves back as Sam places one of his huge hands over the mark, like covering it will make it disappear.
Jess is starting to wake up, her head rolling to the side as she quietly hums, but it's too late. The bite is there. It will never not be there, despite Sam's hand. Her skin has started to turn an ashy shade of green, and it's already obvious how this thing spreads. They've all seen enough movies that they could guess even if they didn't know.
Her eyes flutter, and she smiles when she sees them all hovering above her. But her eyes move to Sam. “You came back,” she murmurs, and her eyes close again, like waking up is something she's having trouble with.
Alexis pretends that she doesn't hear the hitch in Sam's voice, or see the wet tears drop onto Jess's face, as he says, “I love you.”
Jess's eyes roll open again, and her smile widens. “Love you too baby.”
He sniffles, and then two quick bangs sound. Alexis hadn't even realized that Sam had reloaded his gun, let alone put it up to his girlfriend's head.
She has never been so horrified as at that moment, when she saw Jess with no face left to speak of, crumpled on the couch with her yellow sun dress drenched in blood. And it wasn't so much a fear of Sam, as it was the knowledge that she might have to do something similar to someone she loved some day.
Sam's face is covered in Jess's blood, and Emily and Alexis try to follow his lead, pretending there are no tears mixed in with what he cleans off his face.
As they leave later, Alexis frowns. “I'm sorry we didn't go to your place first. Maybe this wouldn't have happened if-”
Sam shakes his head roughly as they descend the stairs, and Emily says nothing as she follows.
“It would have happened either way. I shouldn't have left her. Brady, or the thing inside of Brady... It had been planning this for a long time. Jess would be dead either way.” Sam says it with such finality that Alexis isn't sure what to make of it.
“What was Brady anyways. You said that first thing was a shapeshifter, and the one by the car was a werewolf? What was-”
“Demon.” Sam says it quickly and matter-of-factly, like he can still claim deniability if it comes out of his mouth fast enough.
But it's too late. With that one word, Alexis can feel the last of her ties to the reality of before this whole mess, shatter.
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A/N: Chapter title comes from Sore by Wintersleep
Masterpost | C ha pter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3