our new wilderness

PART IV: BRINK

There were strange howls in the night. It echoed through the empty streets, through the carrions of metal littering the cityscape.

"Let's take another route," Brett suggested, his face queasy as he stared out the mist-hazy car window, the faded roadmap shaking in his hands. Eddy wordlessly steered their vehicle in the direction the omega pointed him toward, his lips drawn in a thin line.

God, they were so close to their destination, and yet the danger—invisible as it was, for now—seemed to be mounting.

*

It wasn't until they found a deserted spot on the banks of a river to do their laundry that Eddy realized something: he didn't smell the same anymore.

His own scent, as described by friends back then when asked by a curious, younger him, was something like apricots, coffee, a cold autumn day. It was certainly distinct, growing up in a neighborhood where people really only smelled like flowers, body oils, or dumplings. He would know if anything changed out of the blue.

When he thought more about the subject, he realized their scents were mingled. That meant one thing: Brett had been scenting him, somehow.

Maybe he was doing it while Eddy slept, unaware of everything and anything around him; maybe he was nudging Eddy moreso than usual as their clothes rubbed together. It had a valid reason: omicrons tended to shy away from alphas with an omega's scent on them. Either way, if this was the way Brett could protect him, if this was the way he wanted to go about it, then Eddy didn't mind a single bit at all.

(And if he ducked his head every now and then to press his cheek up against the juncture of his collarbone and his arm, it didn't really mean anything strange. He was just resting his head there, so.)

*

"What if we just—never show up at your family's place?"

Brett glanced up at him from where he was seated taking stock of their canned beans. "You're kidding me," he replied after a while, his face aghast. "You'd give everything up—the entire reason for this trip, that idea of some sacred mission you've been hanging over my head this whole time to keep me going—just like that?"

Eddy shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking out to the shattered concrete skyline high above them. He didn't have it in him to look his friend in the eye when he continued. "If it meant you were happy."

Brett continued to stare at him wordlessly, his mouth hanging open like a flag in the wind. Eddy continued to stare elsewhere, lest the heart in his eyes decided to jump out from his throat.

A soft touch to his hand, and he struggled not to show that the tiny gesture broke something inside of him as Brett entwined their fingers together, warmth cradled in warmth. "I am happy."

Really? Are you?

Those words never made it out of his mouth, stayed by fright and anxiety.

Brett didn't give him much of a chance to respond anyway, tugging him down to crouch over the stack of cans near them. "C'mon, help me pack these all up. You don't want to keep my brother waiting. He always gets a giant stick up his ass when he gets impatient."

*

They shouldn't be making any more mistakes, not after everything they had lived through. A single error could cost them everything; they already learned that the hard way back when they were travelling with the Lings.

To start with, he hadn't brought his gun. Bullets were too scarce to come by, and he would've been too tempted to employ them on the omicrons if he did bring his gun along, and so he only ever saved them for use in formerly crowded places, like shopping malls and academic institutions. A small grocery store wasn't the kind of place he thought needed such firepower, so he'd brought along a metal pipe to match Brett's baseball bat.

He didn't notice the shadows lingering in the darkness surrounding them, so immersed in his task of checking cupboards for supplies was Eddy. The only hint that something was wrong came about when his nose picked up the stench of decaying flesh. But then it was too late—all too soon, the omicrons were upon them.

Eddy had never run so fast to get to his friend in his entire life. The spark of going feral was there flickering in the adrenaline rush coursing through his limbs, trying to catch fire. The undead were fast, but he was faster, grabbing ahold of Brett and dragging him out into the open, trying to get them both towards the car.

The parking lot was deserted, save for the sparse minefield of shopping carts and crashed vehicles and trash. Eddy's focus had narrowed down into tunnel vision, and so: oh fuck, you clumsy fuck, and his foot got caught on a stray wheel sticking out from under a metal cart, and down he went.

Bloody hands raked themselves down his clothes as he stumbled to the ground, but he only had concern for his companion.

"Brett! Run!"

And here he was: forfeiting his life without a second thought, and he would've been content with that if Brett lived on even without him, but then—

"I'm not leaving you, you fucker," came the enraged scream, and before Eddy could even so much as take a breath, Brett whacked the omicron off of him with the baseball bat, a wild look in his eyes.

He could taste the feral madness on his tongue, renewed strength. With a sudden burst of speed, Eddy disentangled himself from the fray and threw himself forward. If he could just get to his gun in the car, he could free himself and Brett from these monsters.

"Come on, Brett!"

Brett kicked his heels against the pavement, scrambling away from the horde as Eddy turned his back on him for a few seconds, fingers wrenching the car door open and blindly groping around across the front seat to get ahold of his weapon. Oh god, he just had to get to his gun, he just had to get to his gun—

"Eddy!"

The bloodcurdling scream echoed throughout the parking lot.

Brett fell to the ground with the omicron's teeth clamped to his neck, and Eddy thought to himself: oh god, I'll die with him, I will.