Loveb Irds

Mikey IV

tw reference to past injury

...

"Door's open!" Jeremy yelled from the other side.

I opened the white door and entered the threshold. Pictures of Mr. Heere's college days and Jeremy as a baby greeted me.

"Hey, Jer. Where are you?" I spun on my heel as I took in the house.

God, it had been so long. Too long. I needed to try sneaking out again, especially if Nadia was actually going to take the she-demon to the steakhouse.

I hated steak houses. Everything was too formal and too overpriced. It was a piece of meat that was probably abused before it died, not a cut sent from whatever heavenly power those guys believed in and sprinkled in gold.

"Just grabbing some blankets if we get cold. The AC has been kinda weird lately." Jeremy popped his head out from the living room to my left. "Well, hello there."

I laughed. "Hello there."

"Wanna head upstairs?" He threw a plaid blanket at my face.

I could hear the smirk he gave me.

"Yeah, let's go. I'm ready to go all Walking Dead on these creatures." I pulled the blanket off of my head and followed Jeremy up the stairs into his room.

Just as I remembered it.

Scratchy carpeted floors, closet with wooden shutters, two brown bean bag chairs at the foot of the bed, flannel sheets falling off of the bed, a TV with a shelf full of video games, and pictures all around his window.

Jeremy even had the ticket stubs from freshman homecoming up on the grey wall.

"Apocalypse of the Damned!" Jeremy interrupted my walk down memory lane as he shoved the game in my face.

"Level Nine?"

"The Cafetorium!" He nodded.

I grabbed the controller from him and got everything set up. All we had to do was try to not die this time.

"Ok, Jer, what's our main adjective for today?" I turned to him.

Jeremy pushed back some of his wavy hair and plopped down in his chair. "Find the bad guy, push them aside. Move on forward, with your best friend at your side, of course."

I shook my head at him. "It's a two-player game, duh."

"So, when the zombies make an attack, you know you got a guy who's gonna have your back. Then, we stay on track, use our force, but you better not speed ahead this time."

I patted him gently on the knee. "It would be totally lame if I left you behind. AoTD is way too fucked."

"At least it's two player!" Jeremy hit the start button and the theme for the game started playing from the tiny speakers he had on either side of the flat screen.

I cracked my knuckles and went to town on some undead ass.

We continued playing for a while, but Jeremy started talking about non game related stuff.

"Hey, Mikey, you know Rich Goranski, right?"

"No, Jeremy. I totally don't know the guy that bullied you for all of sophomore year, tried to lock us both in the janitor's closet, and scribbled all over our backpacks. Never heard of him before." I glanced over at him before blowing some hair out of my face.

Was he ok?

"Oh, yeah. Well, he kinda cornered me in the bathroom and started telling me about this thing he got."