I Will Live & Learn My Lesson

Bones

The duo turned around quickly only to come face-to-face with the zombie they had encountered earlier. It stunned them how it had managed to get over to them so quickly – but now they were in deep shit. Sean felt Josh’s hand slide into his own, gripping it tightly and cutting off all circulation. Sean saw no way out of this situation. The zombie just stood there and stared at the blonde, not making a move; just breathing heavily in his face, the stench of rotten corpse clogged up his throat and he had to fight the urge to gag on it – no sudden movements.

“Sorry, Josh,” Sean breathed quietly and tensed up, bracing himself for the attack which never came.

Bang

A yelp escaped the zombie’s mouth and it tumbled backwards, falling into a heap on the forest floor. Blood was pooling out of its lower abdomen, but this didn’t stop it much. It swiped at the air, trying to find something to help pull it back onto its feet.

“Oh no you don’t!” they heard someone yell. It was almost too fast for the two of them to register, but a tall black figure darted out from the tree cover and onto the corpse. Another gunshot echoed through the grim forest and all noises coming from the zombie stopped.

The figure climbed up from the ground and turned to the pair that were staring in awe at him. He was about the same height as Josh, but his thinness made him look taller; he had a black fringe which fell over the right side of his face, it almost touched his shoulder – he’d obviously been paying more attention to survival than looks. But that didn’t take away from his ‘beauty’, his eyes were a deep, brown colour and he had a permanent smirk plastered on his face. He wore almost complete black – black jeans, black converse, a black leather jacket; but a white shirt underneath, well it was probably white – now it was a grimy, dirty grey-green colour.

Sean couldn’t take his eyes off him, he could feel his eyes watering from the need to blink; but he just couldn’t. Whoever this stranger was, he was stunning and Sean made a mental note to stick by him, at least learn his name.

“You by yourselves?” the stranger asked, taking a step towards them. His accent was Welsh, like Sean’s, only it seemed thicker – you would not mistake this man for any other nationality.

“You’re Welsh!” a squeak erupted from Sean’s throat, eyes wide. The stranger chuckled slightly, causing a deep red blush to flood the blonde’s cheeks.

“I am!” he grinned, “and so are you!”

Sean nodded slowly, his blush darkening in colour as he realised that he was still gripping onto Josh’s hand very tightly.

“Don’t worry, I’m not one to judge,” he laughed again, pointing to their interlinked.

Sean quickly jumped to his defence, “Oh no, we’re not-“

“I’m Ian,” he quickly cut him off and offered his hand. Josh reached out and shook it before Sean got the chance, knowing that his friend would probably melt at the contact with this man. He couldn’t deny that he was definitely attractive – just not really Josh’s cup of tea. Sexy and Welsh, that was more Sean’s kind of guy. Before you ask, yes they were both gay. Well, Sean was full rainbows-and-stereotypes-gay; Josh was bisexual, he leant more towards females though – but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t drool over a guy, because he would, and it was Sean that would have to deal with it.

They got through introductions and Josh had begun to tell Ian why they were by themselves in the middle of a forest, away from all civilisation. Knowing that the story was going to be long, they all took a seat outside the house that they’d planned to get into. Ian thought it was a horrible plan they’d come up with and was very glad that he’d found them before something horrible had happened to them. Once Josh had finished his story though, Ian set into his own story.

Basically what had happened was, he’d gone on a trip to Scotland when the virus broke out and wiped out 80% of the UK population (no one was sure what was going on outside of Britain – there were no means of communication, not that anyone wanted to know anyway). He’d been walking a lot, occasionally stealing a car when he got too tired; after a month of aimlessly driving around the island, he heard about a refugee camp in his hometown of Pontypridd so that was where he was headed. He had stopped off in Birmingham to stock up on supplies, which was where he saw Sean and Josh heading up to the forest. Sean and Josh didn’t even know they were near Birmingham, they’d pretty much been walking around for months, scrounging off empty shops and abandoned houses; it was a wonder that they were still alive.

Ian knew they weren’t part of the undead by the way they walked, communicated and looked. Zombies were slow most of the time, half-rotten and only groaned by means of contacting one another (which was never really needed). He’d seen the zombie follow them up the hill and into the forest and decided that if he didn’t help them then A) he would be alone, they were the first survivors he’d come across in weeks; and B) he couldn’t bear to see any more humans suffer at the hands of these creatures.

“Plus you’re just so beautiful,” he winked, teasing Sean, knowing that it would only make him blush and grow nervous – which was absolutely hilarious, “it’d be a shame to see someone this sexy go to waste,”

Sean buried his face in his hands to hide the blush that had crept up into his cheeks, he was definitely not used to anyone hitting on him, believe it or not; and it was making him uncomfortable.

“It’s getting dark,” Josh noted, trying to draw Ian’s attention away from the embarrassed blonde that sat between them, “we should probably find somewhere to sleep,”

“I have a car!” Ian said proudly, Josh raised his eyebrow at him; there were three of them – they couldn’t all get to sleep comfortably in a car, “oh, it’s a biiiig car! Come on!”

Ian quickly jumped to his feet and immediately began making his way to the edge of the forest. Knowing that if they didn’t hurry up, they’d lose sight of the Welshman, Josh stood up too and offered Sean his hand. Sean took it and used it to pull himself to his feet before they took off after him. It wasn’t normal for someone to be so nice in times like this, but they really weren’t complaining – they were tired of sleeping on the hard ground, or in someone else’s house; it wasn’t a very pleasant experience. Plus Ian seemed kind enough, maybe his gesture of friendship was sincere and he didn’t have an ulterior motive.

Josh doubted this highly; and the more he thought about it, the wearier he grew of the black-haired, over-excited stranger.