Actions

Work Header

Hello, Nowhere

Summary:

A procession of tired feet marched on through the water and through the gore. All that remained of that wretched, blood-soaked night were the fallen bodies left to fester in the coming storm.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: For The Night

Chapter Text

Night fell upon them in a hail of fire. The gurgling cries of the undead were snuffed out by the remorseless underside of a baseball bat. The sickening shuck of bone and innards slid off the bat's length and soured the air. Death's stench was everywhere. Coach wrested the wooden club from the pulpy mess smeared across the floor and perched it upon his shoulder. He ventured further into the motel room. His footsteps were soundless.

A procession of narrow spotlights followed the hefty man, poring over the room with cursory strokes. One light centered on the chasm in the wall between rooms. Cautious sounds of scavenging heralded the disappearance of another light as its wielder ducked into the bathroom. Coach's flashlight maintained a steady pool of clarity a yard or two ahead of him until he chortled lowly and ignited the light fixtures on the nearest wall. A zombie, agitated by the sudden luminescence, scrambled toward him with a shriek.

A spotlight whizzed wildly along the opposite wall. Flecks of blood spattered the surface as the hook of a crowbar cracked the creature's skull with a dull thud. Its body collapsed into a shallow scarlet pool and Ellis met the elder man's gaze spryly.

"I think we dun heard enough noise for one night," the boy mused. His eyes reflected the soft glow of the lamplight with youthful excitement, but his face was weighted by fatigue.

Coach nodded and flexed his fingertips against the bat's neck. "We still got miles a' highway 'tween us and N'awlins, and runnin' on fear can only take us so far. Way I see it, we best rest up here. What do y'all think?"

"Sounds like a bad call, chief."

Both Coach and the young man at his side turned about to face the speaker. Nick knelt before the wreckage of a decimated wall, focusing his flashlight upon the frayed wooden planks stabbing through the molding and littering the floor. He ran his fingertips briefly over the rubble gathered at the wall's base and stole a fistful of chalky residue from the pile.

He stood, suddenly, and kneaded the grit between his fingers. His frown perched on a cradle of facial creases left by his own indignation. His brows knotted skeptically and coaxed the fair wrinkles out from the flesh of his forehead. Rarely since they'd escaped the scorched remains of the Vannah had Nick been anything but angry. Nothing had changed.

Coach cocked a brow. "I'll assume you got a good reason for that."

"We haven't even cleared this place out yet. We – we could be sitting on a goddamn infestation, for all we know, and your plan is to go to sleep? Man, we've got to get outta here." the gambler seethed quietly. Absentmindedly, he adjusted the bloodstained cuff of his suit jacket.

"Look, I know we're all beat to shit," Nick relented, "Coach, your leg's been giving you hell for the past half-mile, Ro hasn't slept since that first night in Rayford, I'm nursing the world's longest goddamn hangover, and Ellis here hasn't shut the fuck up about that piece of shit stock car since we left it behind. Nobody knows tired like we know tired, I know."

He paused, affording both the man and the mechanic with an inquisitive glance.

"But would you look at the size of that hole in the wall?" Nick swept an arm back across the plane behind him, "I don't know what the hell made that thing, and I don't know about you guys, but it isn't in my itinerary to find out."

The elder man shifted on his feet and thickened his stance. He glowered stringently down at the con-man. His lips peeled back sharply, brows furrowed, and fissured the air with an extended forefinger. He allowed the hand still wound about the hilt of the baseball bat to fall to his side. He felt the nauseating warmth of fresh blood smearing across the canvas of his trousers, but pointedly ignored it.

"Well it ain't in my itinerary to watch one a' y'all get tore to shit 'cause we were too damn tired to keep an eye out."

Nick stole a step forward. "Listen, old man. You asked my opinion, and I gave it."

Coach stood on the monumental foundation of his feet. The small movement of his knuckles tightening attracted Ellis's attention. Coach's nostrils flared. Nick's skin pulled against the purse of his eyebrows and an irate vein surfaced at his temple. The boy drew his tongue across his lower lip, glancing thoughtfully between either of his fellow survivors, and retreated from the escalating scene.

"When I ask what y'all think, I expect you'll leave the dumbass ideas out," the large man replied.

"What part of that was a dumbass idea?" the northerner's voice verged on a holler. He forked the space between him and Coach with a flattened palm. "Just because I don't wanna get gnawed on in my goddamn sleep –"

The man matched his companion's volume. "Pressin' on without sleep ain't a dumbass idea, Nicolas? You wanna keep hoofin' it for another twenty-four hours? You be my guest. I ain't about to make these kids hike ten more miles when they already runnin' on empty. We hurt, we tired, and I'm just about up to here with yo' difficult ass. I let you pull that shit back in Rayford, but no more, a'right?"

"Oh, you think you were the one holding me back, there? Is that it?"

"Boy, I suggest you sit yo' ass down before I make you."

"I'd like to see you fucking try."

Nick approached him, a wiry leer tugging at his lips. He cocked his head askingly to the side with his dense brows pinched and a cheek turned to Coach. In one hand lay a vacantly gazing flashlight, the other wadded into an enraged fist at his hip. Ellis caught the glint of weary lamplight against the handle of the handgun poised in the holster tethered to the gambler's thigh. The boy grated his teeth and watched as Nick's palm grazed the weapon's corrugated surface. His own fingers curled fecklessly at his sides. The mechanic skirted Coach's frame and planted a hand on the aggressive man's shoulder.

"Hey now," the boy began. "It ain't helpin' nobody to –"

Sounds of struggle drowned the mechanic's words. The clamor of items clattering to a tile floor predicated an unearthly snarl. A distinctly feminine yelp resounded, followed by the impact of flesh against flesh. There was a brief gap in activity, and the three men dispersed from one another. Coach prodded toward the bathroom, his expression contorted by grief. Nick jerked his shoulder out from under Ellis's hand and slid the magnum from its holster and into his work-worn palms.

He paced shortly after the group's leader, shadowed by the boy. Another bout of preternatural growls resounded. A screech was extinguished with the merciless slice of a heavy blade. And a second. The chaos grew silent with a final, chilling crunch. The residual gurgle of displaced guts made the air unbreathable.

Moments later, Rochelle emerged from the bathroom with a decrepit ankle wedged between her hands and a body towing along after it. Sweat and blood trickled along the curvature of her face. The fabric of her shirt was saturated in red. Her hair had since fallen free of the bun tied tentatively at the base of her skull and swathed across her shoulders and back. She hauled the corpse over the threshold with a grunt and released it from her grasp. The woman turned, eyes alight and breath tending to the ache of her lungs.

"You guys wanna try to keep your voices down?" she posed to the room. She nudged a coarse lock of hair aside with the back of her hand.

The men relaxed their weapons and stood aside as Rochelle moved into the fray.

She gestured to the lamps mounted on the wall. "Oh, the lights work? Great, so we've got power and running water. Now, it doesn't look like we got much in the bathroom, but there's toilet paper and some ibuprofen – always a plus. Anyone wanna tell me what was so important that you guys started screaming and woke up that stiff I had to deal with in there?"

Coach's shoulders collapsed with a heavy sigh. His eyes fell to his feet and he acknowledged the gambler with a flick of and outstretched palm. "Nick an' I was just talkin' on the issue of us puttin' up here for the night."

The woman exchanged a wary glance between them both. "Well, what about it? Is there a problem?"

Coach turned toward the hole affixed between rooms and shared a contentious scowl with the man at his flank. Nick watched through narrowed eyes as the large man disappeared into the inscrutable shadows beyond the gap. He shook his head. Ellis motioned him nearer as he lobbed a lifeless leg over his shoulder, intent on removing the bodies from the motel floor. Nick complied with a snarl.

"Not no more, there ain't," Coach replied. He watched as the man fell in at the mechanic's side.


"Hey, look here!" Ellis exclaimed as he spilled from the open bathroom door. "Y'know that big ass hole we got 'tween this room an' the other? Well, we got the same damn thing in the bathroom over here. We got ourselves some adjoining rooms an' shit! Damn, if that ain't cool."

Rochelle and Coach glanced up at the boy from their places around the room. The eldest had reclined stiffly across the mattress and dressed his bum knee with a sheaf of gauze. His fingertips were coated with blood dried by the attentive, sweltering Georgia sun. He clapped his hands to either side of his leg and looked to Ellis. He seemed to attempt a smile, but the ache of his bones only made the age and the sleep on his face more apparent. Rochelle rested an AK-47 in her lap, running a wad of cloth along the barrel. Her small fist sat idly on the weapon's stock as she met Ellis's eyes from the floor.

"Is it clear?" she asked. Her voice was a labored imitation of itself.

Nick tiptoed through the hole in the wall to join the others. He propped a shoulder against the nearest wall.

Ellis chuckled. "Wha – a' course it's clear! Ain't no zombies gonna snack on me. Ro, you oughta come see. There's a whole 'nother bed in there an' everything. I checked."

The woman sighed, smiling. "Good work, sweetie."

"Yeah. Great job, Spit-shine," Nick remarked tersely and folded his arms, "We got three beds and four people."

Coach hefted his shoulders with a great deal of effort. "Then I reckon y'all gon' have to share."

"Excuse me. 'Share'?" The glimmer of amusement that reamed across Coach's eyes was not lost on the gambler. Nick propelled himself off the wall. "There is not a snowball's chance in hell I'm sharing a bed with Billy-Bob Fuckwit over here. I'm a grown-ass man, Coach. No deal."

Coach shrugged. "Well you sure as hell ain't bunking with me."

"Yeah, no shit."

A smile unfurled unto Ellis's lips as he adjusted his cap. "I don't mind sharin' a bed with nobody. Hell, it'll be just like summer camp. Man, fifth grade was the shit."

Nick threw a vitriolic glance at the eldest of the group.

"For the love of Lusitania, guys, can we go one night without this infighting bullshit?" The room was replete with the sound of Rochelle's voice. "I'll share with Ellis. It doesn't have to be a big deal."

"What?" Nick bit back.

"You and Coach are the only two that won't budge about the sleeping situation, so Ellis and I will just room together. Three beds and you two can each have your own. Everyone's happy." The woman explained.

The strain of sleeplessness made her features seem sad. But even in the weakness of the lamplight, Rochelle's caramel colored eyes smoldered. Warmth absolutely drenched everything about her. Though she did not smile, her mouth was inviting. She stood from the ground and held herself on bowed feet, her gun held carefully between hands clasped before her.

Ellis stepped hesitantly nearer to her.

Nick tightened his brow at him. "Ro, c'mon. You're not gonna share a bed with him."

"Well it's you or me, Nick, and I wanna sleep more than I want to fight."

The gambler erupted into protest. After a full minute with nothing but Nick's baritone to color the air, with the obligatory few interjections by either Ellis or Rochelle, Coach rose from the mattress and contested him. Their words grappled and their voices collided. The air was rife with the sounds of a verbal war. Rochelle and Ellis eventually retreated to the furthest room with their weapons tethered to their backs.

Rochelle rejoiced in the sensation of a bed beneath her back. Ellis dropped the mess of guns onto the bureau and propped Rochelle's ax against it. He turned to her and attempted a consoling word.

"Gosh, Ro, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to start nothin'."

She silenced him with a humorless laugh and sat forwards. The mattress wheezed under the woman's weight as it disseminated across its plush surface. With a small and kindly movement of her hand, she patted the space beside her. Ellis took a seat on the bed and tossed his cap onto the nightstand.

"Don't be sorry, sweetheart. If not the rooms, it'd be the next damn thing. Nick just wants to fight, is all."

"And Coach?"

Rochelle's brow tensed. She offered the mechanic a hollow grin. "Coach is…he's a big man. He's the kind of guy people listen to when he's got something to say, which is great in our situation. But the trouble with that is: Nick's a big man too."

The callous thud of heavy feet against the floorboards resounded from two rooms away. Coach shouted. Ellis envisioned the tired wrinkles that bunched up on the man's forehead when he knotted his eyebrows together. His voice would tear through a room like thunder. For a moment or two after Coach let loose, everything would be still. He'd holler to hell and back, but the compassionate gleam of his old brown eyes remained. An instant later, Nick responded. His volume built off of Coach's.

Ellis watched quietly as the gentle creature beside him took a brief pause to wait for the havoc to die down. "And the thing about big men is that they're used to being heard. So when two guys who expect to be heard suddenly have to talk over one another, they feel like they've gotta start shouting."

The mechanic quirked a brow. He pressed the undersides of his hands into the mattress and fell back unto them, head tilted and pale eyes looking incisively into hers. "And it don't ever stop?"

"Oh no," Rochelle rescinded.

Her gaze tilted down as she shook her head dismissively. A gentle, joyless giggle lilted from somewhere under her thick brown locks. Though he had no reason to, Ellis was faithful in the thought that she was smiling. Genuinely. And he smiled back, although she could not see him.

"It will. It definitely will." She said.

A subdued pop engulfed the string of hotel rooms as Nick threw open the front door and its handle collided with the asbestos coated outer wall. The unearthly shriek of the wayward undead pealed into the night.

"Hey, we ain't done here Nicolas!" Coach shouted after him, "Where the hell you think you goin'?"

"First watch," Nick snarled. He squeezed off a shot and a subhuman squeal fissured the air.

The zombie fell from the balcony with a sickening crunch. The tempest of bitter sound and ill will was sealed with a monumental slam of the door. Coach's labored steps heralded the end of the discussion. He sighed in his grand voice and the bedsprings squeaked beneath him as he took a seat upon the mattress he'd claimed as his own. They'd pick up again sometime later, all four of them knew.

Ellis and Rochelle watched each other in the thickness of silence. Unease was etched into her expression. The smile and the tired laughter had all but gone.

"Somehow," she added.