Love Bites ~ Craig of the Dead au ~ Tricia x Karen fan fiction [COMPLETE]

27

Confused, the trio of messengers I spoke to earlier burst into the room. Expressions conflicted between being horrified or confused, they stare at the odd scene in front of them; Firkle pinning Phillip to the floor whilst I search my body for a weapon to kill him with.

"What's going on in here?" The creepy older guy demands, "We heard a horde call. Where's the zombie?"

"One question at a time please," I roll my eyes, "What's a horde call?"

He turns to me, unfortunately right at the point I shove my hand down my shirt to feel around my bra for a weapon, with a condescending look on his face.

"It's when a screamer calls for a horde to help them out," He explains, in a voice you'd use to speak to a four year old, "Which means we haven't got long before we've got a horde coming after us. We'll send the message around to security, you have to go and tell you brother."

Shit, I should be at the clock tower by now.

I finally find a small pocket knife tucked in my shoe and I pass it to Firkle so they can kill Phillip before he screams again.

"I'll go do that now. Make sure everyone is aware of what's going on."

"Will do, gorgeous." The guy gives me a creepy wink as I run past him.

Luckily, the clock tower isn't too far away from the messengers' building, so it only takes me a couple of minutes to get there.

Stood outside is Henrietta, gun in hand, listening to Butters talk about Kenny.

"Hey, Trish!" Butters waves, "Did you find the food?"

"No, but we've got a bigger problem. Phillip did a horde call. We haven't got long until we're under attack."

"I knew that blond asshole would get us killed," Henriette mutters to herself, "By the way, your brother is upstairs with the rest of the leaders. Butters was just waiting for you."

"Let's go." Butters beckons for me to follow him.

Henrietta steps away from the door and the two of us enter the tower. Inside is simply a large spiral staircase, leading all the way to the top of the tower where all of the clock mechanisms are, and where my brother is waiting for me.

Unfortunately, the staircase is a lot longer than I thought, and it takes a long time to even make it halfway up. It also doesn't help that I'm ridiculously short and have to take stairs slowly. 

Butters, with his dumb long legs, takes the steps two at a time, leaving me behind. Every now and then he pauses to let me catch up, but then he goes galloping up the stairs and once again I am left behind.

Eventually, we hear the quiet murmur of people talking above us, meaning we're almost there. With a tired arm, I wipe sweat from my sticky forehead and try to control my breathing before I pass out.

"You okay?" Butters asks, looking concerned.

"Yeah," I nod feebly, breaths coming out in short pants, "Keep going. We don't have time to stop."

Hesitantly, Butters turns away from me and continues climbing the spiral staircase. I take a second to breathe, leaning against the cold stone wall, listening to the clock's mechanisms grinding against each other rhythmically.

When I feel slightly better, I continue my ascension of the stairs. Luckily, I don't have long to go due to stopping when I was super close to the top, so I reach the top in a matter of minutes.

Alongside my brother, Butters and Kenny are six other people.

One of them is a tall blonde girl - Mercedes - and she doesn't look pleased to see me. A large gun is strapped to her back and a smaller one is tucked into her shorts' pocket. She must be wearing men's shorts.

There's another girl, except this one is short with curly brown hair and a holey red jumper. She's talking quietly with Mercedes, occasionally stealing a glance over in my direction with a look of disgust on her face to match the one Mercedes has had since we first encountered each other.

Annoyingly, the rest of the deputies are men.

One of the men is Latino and has straight black hair. He's wearing a baggy bloodstained white t-shirt and a pair of cropped jeans. Over his baggy shirt is a grubby apron, meaning he must be the deputy leader of the cooking field.

He's talking to another guy with straight black hair, who has a crazed look in his eyes and is, for some reason, handcuffed to my brother.  He's wearing what appears to be a blue prison jumpsuit with a white shirt underneath.

Speaking unnecessarily loudly to my brother whilst gesturing wildly with his tiny hands is a short, chubby boy who I would assume to be around my age. To my surprise, he appears to be smaller than me, which is pretty uncommon since I am the height of an eight year old.

His hair is also black and curly, cut close at the sides but large at the top. Judging by the vocabulary I am over hearing, he is quite mature for his age and he also has quite a high pitched voice.

The final person in the meeting is a chubby guy with a thick brown jewfro which has been parted through the middle, who is wearing thick round glasses that have definitely seen better says. He's muttering quietly to himself about how the dust up here will set off his asthma, but he isn't making any effort to leave.

"Sorry I'm late," I awkwardly try to squeeze myself between Craig and the latino guy, "Phillip is dead."

There's a few gasps, a sigh, and a muttered "good riddance" from Mercedes.

"There's also another thing... he did a horde call," I pause as everyone asks me if I'm being serious, "The messengers are doing their best to get the word around, but we don't have long until the horde comes. We need to be prepared."

"Shit..." the curly brunette curses quietly.

"Mercedes, call a code 237," Craig instructs, "Kenny, I need you to get your fastest messengers equipped and sent to the mole hill. Butters and Marcus, get as many people as you can in the safe spot. Isla, take Kyle to the gates, you need to secure it as quickly as possible. And David, get as much food as you can taken to the safe zone. We don't know how long we'll be down there."

"What about him?" Isla, the curly brunette, points at the guy handcuffed to my brother.

"Josh lived with a horde for two years straight. He knows how they think, how they act, how they plan. He's gonna give us the best strategy he can."

By now, Mercedes has reached a large megaphone which is sticking out of a hole in the tower.

"Attention everyone. This is a code 237. Get to your stations immediately. Abandon all possessions. Do not wait for your friends. This is not a drill, I repeat, this is a code 237-"

As she repeats her message a few more times, the rest of the group quickly leave, but they take the fastest exit - the zip line.

Running across the exterior walls of the church tower is a long zip line leading to the ground to save time. Within a minute or two, the group have slid down the tower and are off to complete Craig's requests.

"What do you want me to do, Craig?" I ask.

"I need you to get yourself to the safe zone. The safety officials can lead you there." He replies, heading towards the tower stairs.

"What?"

"You heard me. Get to the safe zone," He repeats, "I don't want to lose you for good this time. If you see Tweek, tell him I love him."

"Wait, where are you going?" I demand, "Don't you dare walk away from me, you asshat!"

Craig rubs his temples the same way dad did when we argued as kids, then turns back to me.

"Tricia, I am your older brother and the leader of this god damn group. If I tell you to get yourself into the safe zone, you fucking do it, you hear me?" He yells, "Get your ass in that fucking shelter."

And with that, he leaves.