Chapter Text
Normally I’d start this off with some dramatic exposition or context or something, but I genuinely have nothing here. Like, seriously. I literally just woke up.
Well technically I woke up 20 minutes ago. More technically, something woke me up. As soon as I opened my eyes, I was being dragged around the apartment. Everything was a blur and I had no clue what was going on. Eventually, I kinda just fell back asleep.
But now it’s 20 minutes later, and I just woke back up. My arm is stinging like hell and I feel… soggy? Even more importantly though, I’m in the back of a van. A very crowded van.
“What the hell is going on…?” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes.
“Edd!!! Edd’s awake!” Matt, who was apparently here the whole time, got up from where he was sitting and scurried over. He sat down right next to me, leaning on a baseball bat covered in nails and barbed wire.
“Matt? … Did you kidnap me or something?”
“Noo don’t be silly,” Matt scoffed, waving his hand. “Eduardo did!”
“… Eduardo??”
“Well well well, look who’s FINALLY up,” Eduardo called out from behind us. I turned around to see him at the wheel of the van. “Did you have a nice nap?”
“Out of all people to be kidnapped by…”
“Eduardo didn’t kidnap us,” Tom emerged from a pile of boxes, holding two shotguns in his hand. “He’s helping us.”
“Same thing,” Matt shrugged.
How many goddamn people are in this van-?
“We thought you’d never come back.” Tom walked over and threw one of the shotguns at my feet, sitting next to me as well. “You got a pretty nasty wound there.”
“Is that why I feel soggy?”
“Don’t call your blood soggy Edd.”
Tom took hold of my arm and showed it to me. There was a huge gash running from my elbow to the back of my wrist. It was gross and red and dried, but it was still fresh.
Wow, yeah, it’s nasty.
Tom wrapped it up in what looked like a ripped blanket and kept it in place with some tape, then dropped it before taking out a flask and taking a sip of it.
“So, hold on a second,” I pinched the bridge of my nose, holding out my good arm. “What exactly happened here? Why are we in the back of a van with Eduardo, and why is my arm all… gross.”
“It’s actually kind of funny really, first off we-” Matt began before getting pushed aside by Tom.
“Zombies are back.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. It’s crazy out there.”
“… So what are we doing here?”
“We’re evacuating!” Matt piped up cheerfully. “Or at least that’s what Eduardo says we’re doing.”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.” Eduardo said. “I’m not sticking around waiting to be mauled by some brainless cannibals.”
“Evacuating… for zombies?” I asked. “Haven’t we dealt with them… numerous times?”
“We have,” Tom said, leaning against the side of the van as he stared out the window. “That was before though. This is now. And now those things are more than we can handle.”
“… Huh. I never thought I’d hear you say something like that. What makes you think that?”
“We already tried, idiot.” Eduardo grumbled. “How else do you think you got the gross scar?”
“We were fending them off decently at first but thennnn ehh…” Matt waved his hand around, making vague gestures that mean who knows what. “Eduardo tried to help.”
“I went over to your stupid apartment to go get you three once I found the vermin crawling all around the goddamn neighborhood,” Eduardo said. “Helped these two drag you and your cat out of bed and into this van.”
“I didn’t know you had a van?” I said.
“I don’t.”
“Either way,” Tom redirected. “There were too many of them, and we don’t have enough supplies OR people to fend them off, much less get rid of them.”
“So, are we just going to hide out in a van for the rest of our lives with no supplies like hippies?” I asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. “That doesn’t seem very sustainable.”
“No, smartass, we’re going to get supplies.”
“I thought we were evacuating.”
“We’re leaving until it chills out a little. We’ll probably find some shopping mall to squat in. The zombies are bound to calm down, and when they do we’ll go back and handle it with all our cool new trinkets. Does that sound sustainable?” Tom nudged my shoulder with the barrel of his shotgun. I looked down at my arm, which had already started bleeding through the fake bandage.
“What happened to Mark?” I asked, looking back up to Eduardo.
“Edd- Don’t ignore me-” Tom started. I covered his face with my hand.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean where is he? Is he also here or is he back at your place?”
Eduardo stayed silent for once, focusing intensely on the road.
“The uh… they got to him.” He finally spoke up, gripping the wheel tighter. “They got him before I even realized what was happening.”
“Is that why you came to get us?”
“You know I’m getting a really bad migraine from you three yapping, why don’t we not talk at all from here on out?” Eduardo kept his gaze fixed on the road, but his voice changed. He wasn’t opening up to me any time soon.
Tom pushed my hand off of him, crossing his arms as he stared out the window. Matt was fidgeting with his bat, occasionally pricking himself with the wire.
I heard a shuffling noise from inside one of the boxes that had been shoved inside the van. Neither Tom nor Matt seemed bothered by it, so I got up to investigate. I approached the box slowly, aiming my gun at it until a familiar face fell out.
“Ringo!” I cried happily, dropping the gun and immediately picking her up. She started purring as she buried her cute little furry face into me.
“Oh, yeah, we mentioned we brought her too. Matt wouldn’t let us leave without her.” Tom explained.
“Well I mean it wasn’t really my choice,” Matt said. “I just thought you wouldn’t want to leave without her, Edd.”
I looked down at Ringo, holding her closely as I sat back down.
“Yeah… I wouldn’t.”
So anyways, yeah. That’s where I am now. 20 minutes ago I was fast asleep with my cat, and 20 minutes later I’m in the back of a van running from a bunch of undead freaks.
Granted, I am still with my cat.