suburbia paranoia

three

"Are we-"

"I swear Eddy if you ask me one more time about where we are yet, I'll stab you with your own knife and leave you here to die"

"Ah of course what a romantic way to die"

"Oh you want romantic death huh? Don't forget what I have here", Brett said patting the gun holster at his waist.

"I don't know, a dick?"

Brett punched Eddy at that. "That hurt you asshat!", Eddy exclaimed but both of them were laughing so it was all okay.

"How old are you Eddy, with such a sensible sense of humour?", Brett said between still laughing.

"I'm 19. How old are you?"

"I'm 21. You're basically still a teenager"

"Yeah", Eddy said, shrugging.

~

The walking was immensely tiring. The path that Brett had traced out with a pencil on the little hiking map that they had was a very complicated path in Eddy's opinion- swirling and twisting in weird shapes to avoid difficult terrain- but Brett had insisted that it was the best one so they kept on walking.

~

"Okay then, since we don't know each other that well, let's play twenty questions", Brett suggested.

"Okay, you go first"

" What's your favourite colour?"

"So what are we eight year olds?", Eddy scoffed.

"Shut up and just answer"

"Okay well, I think it's blue. Like either really dark blue or the oceanic shade of blue. What that called again? Yes turquoise, turquoise probably. What's yours?"

"Pale green. But not pale as in vomit pale, I mean the new leaf kind of pale green"

"New leaves aren't pale green! They are vibrant green! What kind of vomit leaves do you go around seeing hah?", Eddy said now looking at Brett weirdly.

"Umm, okay yes that makes sense, I mean light vibrant green. So your turn now: ask"

"Favourite movie?"

"The Fight Club. What's yours?"

"Ooh that's a nice one. Mine is probably The Dead Poets Society or something like John Wick or something. Ooh and I remember I used to absolutely love happy feet! You know the one with that penguin? ", Eddy smiled as he recalled them.

"Ah those were good. Okay, childhood dream?",Brett asked. There was a gentle - almost sad irony in the fact that those dreams were, in fact, only dreams at this point, and they both realised it, but didn't mention it.

"This might come across as almost funny but I wanted to be a lumberjack when I was younger. ", Eddy was smiling, looking into the distance, remembering that time in primary school when he had went up on stage and said he wanted to be a lumberjack. The other children didn't laugh - obviously, there were other far more unusual career choices among children- princesses, knights and even that one kid who wanted to be a mind reader at the ripe old age of 7; but the adults were confused at his choice.

"You know, now that I think about it, I don't even remember why I wanted to be a lumberjack", Eddy said.

"That's weird", Brett smiled. "I wanted to be a violinist when I was growing up. I would've been one, I think, if all of this wouldn't have happened."

"Oh. Wow, really artistic righ- did you hear that?", Eddy asked, stopping in his tracks.

"What?", Brett said, his eyes and ears sensitive with attention.

A low rustle sounded the bushes a few paces in front of them and along with a crisp cold breeze, the stench hit them- the stench of stale death.

From the bushes arose two zombies: decomposing, filthy and dangerous. Eddy had a knife out in a second. He saw that Brett was braced with his gun in hand but heck, guns don't do much to zombies, thus he handed one of his knives to Brett; just in case.

One of the zombies walked on forward, it's foul stench hitting Eddy like a pang in his stomach. He didn't have time to think though, in a moment he had stabbed the zombie on its arm to slow it down. He looked to his side and saw that Brett was trying to stab the other one, but he couldn't let himself get distracted from the one in front of him.

The zombie was now growling and moving closer to Eddy. Eddy stabbed it again, straight at its chest. There was that sensation in his mind, of flesh against cold metal, almost making him faint .It was all too fast, the zombie's rotting hands were trying to get a hold on him-

Remove the head Eddy remove the goddamn head

He managed to get the zombie in a death hold around its neck, it's rotten skin caving in beneath his fingers and in one quick movement, he managed to snap it. The zombie released a low guttural moan, finally dropping down.

There was Brett, a few feet near him, still struggling with the other zombie. Now that he saw, at face value, what fighting with a zombie at close quarters looked like, he felt bile and all that he had eaten rise up in his throat.

Brett finally managed to deliver a deep enough cut in the zombie's neck, killing (double killing?) it finally.

Brett and Eddy just stared at each other, panting, standing amid the disgusting mess of rotten bodies.

"Are you okay?", they said together, after what seemed like an eternity.