The Ruins Part 2 (Sequel to The Ruins)

Chapter 60

The found a road with a rusted sign that read "Wawona Hotel, six miles." The sign was pocked with old bullet holes and badly faded, but they could read it, and it filled them with new energy. A line of cumulus clouds swelled out of the west, their bottoms shaved flat by crosswinds and condensation, their tops reaching upward like puffy white mountains.

For a while they walked hand in hand. They topped a rise and paused, watching a spectacle. Over the rise, the road wound like a snake through farm fields that had long since grown wild. A telltale snarl bounced off the trees up above, and Mal had her machete raised instantly, relieved to see that that particular reflex had stuck. Negan hefted Ellie up, fingers tightening on her handle as they exchanged glances and gingerly stepped toward the sound.

A single Infected stumbled out from the brush, all rotting limbs and long, tangled hair full of twigs. Negan bounced on his heels beside Mal. "Dibs!"

Mal shot him a look that she completely missed for how quickly he darted forward, swinging Ellie in a wide arc that caught the Infected squarely in the side of the head. The force sent it straight into a nearby tree, its skull cracking like an egg between the bat and the bark. Negan wrenched Ellie back, slinging a bit of grayish brain matter and flesh, his face alight with glee as he turned to Mal. "Damn, that felt good!" He grinned, returning to his place beside Mal and walking in step with her again. "Even then, there's something more fucking satisfying about doing it up close like that, you know? Not quite with your bare fucking hands, but closer than you can get with a gun."

For all Negan had grown, there was still that destructive drive in him, something both childlike and decidedly not. Kindling embers of something molten and powerful.

Mal loved that about him, found herself drawn to his flame, loving how warm it kept her, how alive it made her feel.

"Yeah," she agreed, fingering over the barrel of her gun, "I know." The cracking of twigs and another snarl saw both of their head whipping to the side, and this time, Mal decided to play the game. "This one's mine," she said, and she felt herself returning Negan's wide grin. She wove in the road, coming up on the Infected from the side and striking it brutally right across the top of the head. She jerked the machete back out of the bone with both hands, kicking the thing full in the chest and watching it collapse to the ground.

Negan bounded up, whistling long and low. "Goddamn, Mal!" He nudged the crumpled body with a booted foot, sounding impressed. "You just about took that fucker's face clean off. You always do that cute-ass little kick when you pull the machete back out? Fuck, I'm not gonna lie, baby that's pretty hot."

Mal snorted and shoved his shoulder, trying to cover for the pleased flush of pink coloring her cheeks. "Shut up. Let's keep going."

Negan rocked back on his heels, eyes sweeping up and down Mal's body. "Sure thing, Mal. How about we start ourselves a little wager here, though? Some friendly fucking competition. Whoever takes out the most dead ones by the time we get back gets the last one of those cookies I'll be making."

It was impossible to say no to him when he was like this, wide-eyed and bouncing around like a rabbit. He was all toothy grins and mile-long legs, and he was looking at Mal like a kid who wanted nothing more than for their best friend to play along.

"Yeah, alright. I'm game."

And, of course, since Negan was never one to be outdone, the next hour was spent with them tracking down and killing walkers, competing for more creative kills each time. Negan managed to take out two at once with Ellie, and Mal responded by beheading one completely and cracking its skull beneath the heel of his boot while Negan looked on with fascinated glee. Negan turned one's head to a rotten mush in the dirt, and Mal had sliced clear through one's jaw and accidentally knocked out its teeth as it tried to bite down on the blunt end of her machete before ending it with a blow to the temple.

It was when the next few miles Negan suggested that he could climb into a tree and launch a sneak attack on an incoming Infected that Mal finally had to turn him down.

"Negan," she laughed, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. "No. If you do that, you're gonna break both your legs."

Negan attempted a truly laughable fake pout before slinging an arm over Mal's shoulders and kissing the side of her head. "Got no fuckin' faith in me, Mal. I'm fucking offended. You look me in the eyes with them sweet baby blues and tell me that shit wouldn't have been badass."

Mal craned her head to look up into Negan's glinting hazel eyes. "It would have been badass," she conceded, "'til you broke your fucking legs. Now come on." Suddenly one had ended up on top of her, snarling and snapping. Negan had been just about to take it out, but Mal gotten there first, sinking her bare hands into the thing's softened skull through its eyes sockets. The end result was effective, if impractical and messy, and she was now spattered with sticky blood.

She takes off her blood covered flannel shirt, leaving her in a tank top, and tied the flannel around her waist. "Great. Going to sink all the way through. Well, I rather go for this than the cadaverine. The cadaverine isn't that much stronger than the actual flesh. It's why you put a huge dose of it on yourself."

"Fuck, you little badass. I'm pretty sure hearing you talk about shit makes me love you even more. You don't fuck around, do you? Rippin' people's throats out with your teeth and covering yourself in guts pretendin' to be a Infected. Shit, my girl's so fucking smart-" Negan's praise was abruptly cut off by seeing something.

A black peaked roof of the Wawona Hotel rose above the endless trees