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Dream couldn’t remember the day it all began. They had been at their house, only Sapnap being away in North Carolina. It was sudden. He was cleaning Patches food bowl while humming a song and George was finally cleaning the living room, putting all the pillows in the correct places and cleaning the sofa cushions. And then their phones blared an alarm noise.
‘EMERGENCY ALERT
A new deadly vírus is circulating in the country. Please refrain from leaving your homes and having contact with other people.’
“Well, at least I’m not across the world anymore.” George grumbled in the living room.
That same night, they ventured to a 24-hour store. They came home with the car full of groceries, toiletry, cat food and litter sand, and even some clothes. And then the quarantine period began. Not much information about “the virus” was shared on television, so they relied on Twitter for helpful information.
“It’s a zombie apocalypse.” Dream said while stirring the soup on the stove.
“A what now? Did I hear you right?”
“Yep. I think we should stock on gas. I think we’ll need to use my pickup truck also.” Dream could hear George sighing.
At the three-month mark since the alert, they lost contact with Sapnap. At the four-month mark, their food pantry started having more space than food. At the four-month and three-week mark, they spend the whole day crying after releasing Patches into the backyard for her to hunt her food, since the food they tried to stock up was almost at the end, leaving a small portion on a bowl out the door. At the five-month mark, Patches was nowhere to be seen and all the food they had was canned food and two packs of bottled water. That was when they decided to put fuel on the truck and try to drive to North Carolina to try to contact Sapnap again.
And then the B-Day, as Dream decided to call it, came. They were somewhere in the north of Florida, trying to raid a convenience store, when Dream heard the scariest scream he ever heard that made a chill travel through his spine. When he finally found George, there was a zombie head on the floor, separated from the body, and George sat on the floor, clutching his shoulder.
“You’re okay, George. You’ll be fine.” Dream assured him, kneeling quickly by his side, taking off his backpack and fishing his first aid kit out of it and a pair of scissors. “I’ll cut off your shirt, baby.”
“Okay,” George said between gasped breaths, trying to dry his tears. “I never wanna play Minecraft again. I hate zombies now.”
“That probably wasn’t very fun, I agree.” When the cut shirt finally peeled off George’s skin, the bite already had an angry red around it. Dream had to bite on his cheek to prevent any reaction of his to scare George.
“Is it deep? I can’t see.”
“I think it’ll be fine, Georgie.” Dream made quick work of cleaning the wound with rubbing alcohol, spreading some antiseptic cream covering it with some gauze and bandaging it. “Come on, I already grabbed what we needed and pumped some fuel into the truck. I think we’ll go further to sleep tonight.” He kissed George’s forehead, feeling already hot and sweating, common symptoms of the turning process. Dream could only hope that he would be able to wake up the next day.
Dream did wake up. Only to see George with sickly pale skin, shivering and twitching in his sleep. Grabbing a bottle of water from the back seats of the car and a packet of salt crackers, he shakes George slightly. The older man snaps his eyes open and Dream sees an aggressive fog over it for a moment.
“We’re crossing Georgia today, baby. Get your energy up.”
When the night came, they were already near the north border of Georgia, having passed through empty and abandoned cities on the way. George was getting worse by the minute, with his eyes unfocused, the trembling stopping, and with a clicking from the back of his throat. Dream could smell the decaying flesh already.
“Dr-m. Hungry.” Dream felt a small poking motion on his forearm.
“I think we can find an abandoned butcher shop for you.” Deviating from their path, he drove into one of the abandoned cities. By midnight, George was fed, having cleaned up all of the butcher shops that still had electricity and meat, that albeit old, wasn’t moldy or putrefying. “I need to sleep, George. I don’t know if you do too, but please don’t leave the car or kill me.” Dream said looking at George’s eyes, who stared at him with a slightly confused face.
Surprisingly, Dream woke up the next morning. George was still awake, fiddling with the strap of Dream’s backpack and clicking every so often with the back of his throat as if trying to soothe himself.
“Morning.” George’s head snapped towards him, growling. He almost immediately quieted down at seeing it was Dream. “Please don’t kill me.”
George settled down on his seat, jumping again when a clap of thunder sounded in the distance. Dream’s breakfast consisted of a small box of protein shakes, a wonderful find from the last store he raided, and a small slice of bread.
That was the first day that Dream got a considerable scar. One that extended from across his nose to under his earlobe. They were in a gas station and Dream tried to pump the last amount left onto the truck, only to last across South Carolina and an hour to get to Karl’s house. And then a zombie came from behind him with a knife in his hand, tripping over the pumping hose and slashing the knife across his face on the way down. Dream could only react by taking the pumping gun out of the car and impaling the zombie's head with it.
After the burst of adrenaline, the feeling of warm blood trickling down his face almost made him puke, but grabbing his backpack from the backseat of the truck, he used some antiseptic wipes to clean his face and bandage it up quickly. He could only hope that the knife wasn’t infected. With the time that Dream was taking, George was very impatient.
As soon as Dream entered the driver’s side of the truck, George’s head snapped in his direction. A distressed clicking sound and some mumbled gurgling made Dream almost sure he heard something similar to his name.
“George?” Dream looked at the boy by his side, trying to find some recognition in his eyes.
“Dr-m, h-rt. H-rt.” George’s eyes cleared for a second and he lifted his hand to touch the bandage, while Dream was left in shock. “S-rry.” Dream threw his arms around George’s shoulder, clinging to him for as long as he could.
“I promise we’ll get to Nick, okay? You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.” Dream muttered in George’s ear while tears dripped down his face.
“L-ve you.” George held Dream’s face, pushing it away slightly, and pressing their lips together for some seconds until George’s hands started trembling again and Dream sat properly on his seat again.
“Love you too, Georgie.” And after that the fog came over George’s eyes again and the clicking began again. On that day, Dream stopped by a Home Depot store in one of the bigger cities, leaving the store with a big iron crowbar and a rope. And then, fueled by some kind of anger with the whole situation, he forced himself to drive across all of South Carolina and to Karl’s house.
The city was considerably more preserved than all of the places they went through. After eating all the food from the butchers the day before, George was considerably more lethargic and quiet. Probably because of that he didn’t even try to protest the rope that Dream tied one end through the belt space on his jeans and the other end on the younger wrist. He also went willingly inside the wooden gate and to the door. He looked almost happy to be out of the car and Dream could see a faint trace of a smile on George’s face
All that Dream expected when arriving at Karl’s house was receiving a hug from Sapnap. What he didn’t expect was for them to be greeted by an estranged person.
Dream felt the rope tied to his wrist tugging as George tried to wander around the grass. The younger man just pulled at the rope to keep George at his side and knocked on the door.
A familiar head with a beanie covering a mop of black hair came into view. “What are you doing here, Dream?” His eyebrows were furrowed and his eyes held a slight hostile look.
“We’re here for Sap.” Dream gives a tight smile, holding George’s hand. As soon as George looked at the door, a light recognition went across his face and the clicking started, but he didn’t make a move to attack.
“Why is he a zombie? You brought a zombie to our doorstep, you crazy man.” Dream was definitely too tired to bother with arguing.
“Is Sapnap here? I just want to know if he’s okay. Then we can go.”
“Clay? Sapnap’s voice echoed from inside the house. “What’s this that I heard of zombie? Is George here too?” His head poked out the door. He seemed so much older and so safe that Dream’s knees buckled and he fell to the floor with tears. George clicked his throat in distress and leaned down, rubbing Dream’s face. The clicking continued in a rhythm that Dream recognised as the breathing technique for panic attacks.
“You should put them on the street, man.” The dark-haired man patted Sap’s shoulder and went back inside the house.
“Clay, are you hurt? Did George hurt you?” Sapnap kneels beside him, holding Dream’s face to see the bandage on his face.
“He doesn’t hurt anyone, he’s safe.” Dream says between hiccups. “I’m tired Nick.”
“Well, come inside. There’s food on the fridge and water for you guys to shower.”
“Can George come inside too? I don’t wanna upset anyone.”
“If someone is upset, they can shove that down their throat. Most of them will be happy to see you.” Sapnap hauled both of them up, jumping in surprise when he felt a cold breath on his neck. Looking over Sapnap’s head to see George’s eyes without the fog as it was in the morning.
“N-ck. It N-ck, Dr-m.” He mumbled hugging Sapnap from behind.
“Yeah, Georgie. It’s Nick. We found him.” Sapnap looked up at Dream with scared eyes.
“Clay, help. Clay, he’s gonna kill me.”
“N-t kill, N-ck. Miss N-ck.” George’s eyes started to fill with tears.
“We’re together now, George. You’re not gonna miss him anymore.” Dream tussled George’s slightly matted hair. “We’re staying together again. For better or for worse.”