Hungry (Zombie! Keith x Lance AU)

Chapter 5

"Can we stop over there?" Keith queried. They were put scavenging for food and resources when they had stopped by the house Lance had found the night before Keith's arrival. It hadn't changed- the shabby, cheap paint wasn't holding up well with the non-existent maintenance it was receiving, and as of that it looked worse than ever.

"I think someone lives in there. I head someone singing once. It was really nice, actually." Lance stated, checking how many bullets there were left in his handgun. Keith twirled his bat in his hands.

"Then let's go check it out. If they feel safe enough to be in three making noise, they won't be expecting an ambush." Keith gave Lance a plan to sneak up the stairs after or if he heard fighting and provide extra coverage.

Keith freaked the door open, and when it made no sound he maneuvered around the furniture as if it were his own, making his way towards the staircase in the center of the room. He creeped up the stairs, skipping the fourth step and motioning silently to Lance to do the same. He peeked his head into the bars of the banister and saw nothing. Keith stopped sneaking and walked up the rest of the stairs normally, and Lance followed suit.

Keith ran over to the guitar, placed neatly on the windowsill and stroked it sweetly, murmuring to himself. Lance was quite confused by this, as normally people don't get extremely attached to random objects at first sight, especially people-er, zombies like Keith, so Lance asked, "Are you guys brothers or something?" He then realized how absolutely stupid that must sound, so his brain did the only logical thing; make him stutter for a good 20 seconds.

Keith just laughed it off and said, "No, this isn't my brother, this is my guitar though. I used to live here before I, you know, died. It still sounds weird to say how you died, but literally this time, you know? Sorry, you wouldn't get it seeing as you're still healthy and young, wait how old are you?" Keith sidetracked, turning his attention away from his guitar.

"I'm seventeen. How about you?" Lance stated.

"Oh. Well I was seventeen when I died too, but I'm gonna be eighteen in about two months or so." Keith shrugged, picking up his guitar and strumming it.

"Wait- that's your guitar? You're the one who was singing?" Keith nodded in understanding. "You're AMAZING! I never knew you could sing so well! It was beautiful," Lance complemented, blushing slightly. Keith smiled in return.

"We should really be going. It's getting close to noon and we haven't found anything yet." Keith stated, and Lance hastily agreed. As they rushed down the stairs, a hard pounding noise was heard on the door. Thankfully, Lance had remembered to lock the door on his way in, but he could tell the lock wouldn't last long. There must have been around five zombies at the door alone, and as he looked around he counted more than fifty looking in through the windows. They were surrounded. Suddenly Leith dropped to the floor, his wooden bat clattering on the polished dark oak flooring.

"Keith!" Lance shouted, crouching next to the teen, who's hands were now pulling on his raven black hair, mouth slightly agape.

"Mnn... hgnn..." Keith mumbled through clenched teeth. His eyes jerked open and he painted heavily, rising to his feet, and Lance followed suit. Keith's eyes were more red than normal. He started taking slow, small steps towards Lance, breathing shallowly.

"Keith? You okay buddy? Pal?" Lance tried to get him to respond, but was only greeted with a low growl from the back of the shorter male's throat. Suddenly Lance was backed into a wall, pinned into place by the zombie's mysteriously strong arms. He tried to struggle, but to no avail. "This is kinda, early, I guess?" Lance said confused, still not quite grasping the situation.

Suddenly something in his mind must have clicked as Keith's mouth grew wider and wider, revealing small fangs growing from his canines. He could see drool forming in the corner of his lips as he leaned into Lance's shoulder. Lance kicked, thrashed, but nothing seemed to get Keith to move. Lance gave up, and for a couple seconds could only feel Keith's hot breathing on his neck that could either kill him or spare his life. Tears formed in the corners of Lance eyes and he sealed them shut, thinking possibly his last sane thoughts.

I trusted him. I told him things, I brought him to our home, and now it's all for waste. It's not like I was important anyways. I'm just the sixth wheel on the group. They'd be better off without another mouth to feed. Suddenly Lance didn't feel as bad about he whole ordeal. It's not like they would miss him. All he had done was take up space. Everything would be better without him.

Lance was so immersed in his own thoughts that he nearly had a heart attack when Keith punched the wall to the right of his with full force, and breaking off a large chunk of wood and shoving it into his mouth. Keith pushed off the wall, hard, and held the wood board in his mouth while sinking his teeth into it. After ten or so seconds his eyes went back to the normal dead purple Lance knew, and he let out a long sigh. Keith looked up after discarding the now poisoned piece of wood to see a shaking Lance, tears streaming down his face, looking scared and vulnerable.

"Oh, Lance I'm so sorry. You know I would never-"

"Get away from me!" Lance screamed, scrambling backwards and tripping on Keith's discarded bat on the floor. "I could've died! You could've killed me!" Lance screamed, drawing a silver weapon out from its leather holster, holding it up to aim at Keith's head with shaking hands and tears blurring his eyes. Keith shrank back in fear, defenseless.

"Lance, please. There were so many. It's really hard to even breathe with that amount. I'm sorry. I can't change that." Keith begged with eyes full of fear and apprehension. "If you're gonna shoot me, just do it. I'm tired of waiting." Keith said deadly, standing up. He looked more threatening than scared.

A gunshot went off, and hit right into a zombie's head, between the eyes. Said zombie dropped dead to the floor.

Keith nudged the dead intruder with his foot. "Thanks." He said simply before picking up his bat and heading out the front door, Lance in suit.