#34664

９月１０日に だんみつ が分娩しました。

“This place... is crazy...”

Cody and Mark walked through the middle of the giant vehicle, taking in everything from the seats with multi-colored Sharpie names and miscellaneous writing, to the gun racks bolted to the ceiling with different caliber weapons locked into it, to the pile of supplies that was taller than both of them, to Mia's little blue tent.

“Um... thanks?” Mia stood behind the two, chuckling softly. “It's home.”

“Is that a Christmas tree?” Cody made his way over to the tree, tilting his head to the side to get a better look at some of the ornaments. “I haven't seen a Christmas tree since Dad died...”

“That's crazy...” Mark smiled and let out a breathy chuckle. “I miss Christmas.”

“I'm sorry you missed it with us, then.” Mia said, shrugging. “Maybe next time.”

“Hopefully.” The twins spoke in unison, and Mia began to wonder if they made a habit of doing that.

“So,” Savannah spoke up, lowering himself into his seat and leaning against the vinyl back. “Where have you guys been?”

“All over!” They spoke in unison again.

“We started out in Savannah, Georgia,” Cody spoke first. “And we just kind of went where we felt like after that.”

“We went to Atlanta first,” Mark jumped in at the very end of Cody's sentence, not missing a beat. “We wanted to see the Georgia dome and Turner field.”

“We ran the field in both.” Cody bounced and looked at his brother. “Some infected chased us from the fifty yard line, but we reached the end zone before they caught us.”

“It was a zombie touchdown!”

“They're not zombies.” Alphonse scowled, and both boys laughed.

“Whatever!” They said together, and Mia sighed. They definitely made it a habit to talk in unison.

“We shot them down after we did a victory dance, of course.” Mark said as though it was something that didn't need to be questioned. Cody nodded.

“It was pretty cool! I think some of them were players, though.”

“You can't really tell once the infection makes their face all.. gross.”

“Pussing in weird spots.”

“Pockets of puss, like water balloons shoved under their skin.”

“Totally gross.”

“But cool.”

“Oh, definitely.”

“And the colors!”

“Oh, dude, those colors were fucking epic.”

“If it wouldn't make me look like a zombie, I'd totally paint myself to look like that.” Cody laughed at his brother. The two addressed each other as though no one else was in the room with them.

“I'm sorry, Mark, but I'd stop loving you if you looked like that.”

“Oh, Cody!” The strawberry blond took his brother's hand and jut out his bottom lip in a childish pout. “You'd stop loving me if I was ugly?”

“Mark,” Cody took the other's hand between both of his. “Without a doubt.”

Dodger threw his head back and laughed at the two. They didn't seem to pay any mind to the Australian.

“Why do you hurt me so?!” Mark threw Cody's hands down and quivered his lip. Cody stood stoic, his brown gaze lingering on his brother's face.

“Because you're the ugly twin.”

“We're identical!”

“Only to you. I'm the handsome one.”

“You jerk!!”

“Anyway,” Cody turned and faced Mia, Dodger, Chris, Savannah and Alphonse. “After Atlanta, we wanted to go to Florida.”

“Orlando!” Mark chimed in, his mood clearly unhindered by the theatrical moment the two just shared. Savannah laughed and shook his head.

“But first, we stopped in Jacksonville.”

“EverBank Field!!” Mark laughed. “We totally stole some jerseys from the locker room.”

“We wanted to take the jaguar statue in front of the stadium, but it was bolted and too heavy.”

“Our truck wouldn't have been able to handle it.” The two sighed and shook their heads, then looked to the back door to see the top of their truck peeking up from the bottom of the door. They had hitched the truck to the back of the bus after Mia gave it a jump from a nearby car. The two had insisted that if the group found them to be unfit to travel with them then they were going to have their truck so they weren't stranded on foot. Mia had agreed and hooked the truck up herself.

“Poor Abby.”

“Yes, poor, poor Abby.”

“Anyway!” The twins bounced as they spoke again.

“After we camped out in EverBank for a while, we went to Orlando.” Cody said, nodding quickly.

“How long were you at the stadium?” Savannah asked, looking between the two.

“Two months.” They spoke together again, their eyes quickly jumping to Savannah at the same time. The California boy leaned back at the sudden focus on him.

“Besides the Disney stay, those were the best two months of outbreak.” Mark said, and Cody nodded in agreement.

“You guys went to Disney?” Mia giggled. The two focused their attention back on the girl with bright eyes.

“Hells yeah we did!” The spoke together again, but Mia just laughed this time.

“Space Mountain!” Mark chimed, looking to Cody.

“The Space Ranger Spin!”

“Astro Orbiter!”

“Pirates of the Caribbean!”

“Dumbo!”

“And, of course, the castle.”

“Can't forget the castle.”

“We owe Cinderella our lives.”

“In a very comfortable mattress.”

“You stayed in the Cinderella suite?” Mia's expression saddened as she watched the two.

“We did!” Mark spoke again. “It was really cool!”

“It was really small, though.” Cody shrugged. “But there was so much detail and stuff that it was totally worth the climb.”

“Climb?” Alphonse furrowed his brow, and the twins seemed to notice for the first time that he was actually paying attention to the conversation.

“Yep!” Cody chirped. “The only way to get there is through a hidden elevator.”

“It's on the fourth floor.”

“So we had to climb.” They nodded in unison.

“It was pretty intense.”

“It's a good thing we're sculpted like Gods.” The two flexed opposite biceps at Mia, causing a light shade of pink to flush across her pale cheeks. They laughed again, their voices chiming through the bus.

“A-anyway...” Mia mumbled. Savannah looked at her, biting his lip lightly. She looked down to her feet, avoiding seeing the twins' muscles.

“Right!” Cody stepped away from the tree and dropped into an unclaimed seat. “Can this seat be mine?”

“Sure...” Mia muttered, shrugging. “If there isn't a name on it, it's yours.”

“Here!” Chris reached under his seat and pulled out a small zip-lock bag full of Sharpies. “Make it yours.”

“I definitely will!” The boy took the bag from the man in the green bandana and opened it, pulling out an orange one first and uncapping it. Mark, however, turned his attention back to Mia.

“Besides the Cinderella suite, we stood in every suite we could. Like, we took the little boat from Downtown Disney to the French Riviera area and played in the kiddy water park thing there.”

“Disney still had power?”

“Of course!” Cody chimed in from his seat, still doodling on the vinyl. “Disney had back up generators for their back up generators for their regular generators.”

“Yo, dog, I heard you like generators.” Mark laughed, and Cody joined him.

“Oh, totally.”

“Anyway! When it came to the rides, one of us would operate the controls while the other actually rode the ride. Especially when it came to roller coasters. We did everything. It was cool as fuck.”

“Are either of you qualified to operate those things?” Mia furrowed her brow.

“Nope!” They both cheered, gaining a laugh from Savannah and Chris. Dodger rolled his eyes and Alphonse didn't react at all.

“We just winged it!” Cody said, leaning closer to the vinyl for a particular detail. “Turned out alright because neither of us are dead.”

“What about the infected?” Savannah asked. “I mean, Disney's not exactly the most abandoned place. It must have been swarmed with infected.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mark nodded. “It must have been a breading ground for Soloman. It was packed.”

“That was part of the fun!”

“Yeah! We got to clean house before we got on the rides and let our inner kids out.”

“Dude! Sometimes, there were still infected on the rides, so it added a little extra thrill to it. Like, is there someone who wants to eat me, or will I be able to scream like a banshee because the ride is epic and not because there's a puss-filled thing next to me?”

“Thing?” Chris scowled slightly. “They're not 'things', boys. They were people, just like us.”

“They're not anymore.” Cody looked over at Chris and stared at him with unwavering eyes. “And right now, it's survival. If we start to pity them and feel bad that they got infected, we'd be less inclined to put a bullet through their skull.”

“Hesitation would get us killed first.” Mark added, crossing his arms. Chris looked between the two, then slumped back against his seat. “We can't take that chance.”

“So dehumanizing them justifies this?” Chris grumbled.

“It doesn't justify anything.” Mark said.

“It puts us on their same level.” Cody shrugged. “Because that's where we're supposed to be. We're all just fighting for survival. We're the same. The difference is that we have the mental capability to be able to identify ourselves as human beings, and not as creatures of the virus.”

“I see...” Chris sighed slightly, looking down to his feet.

“Makes sense.” Alphonse said, looking directly at Mark. “It's a good way to think about it.”

“Thanks...?” Mark raised his eyebrows, unsure if he should be flattered by Alphonse's agreement, or thoroughly confused by it. Alphonse nodded and sat back in his seat.

“A-anyway...” Mia said, trying to break the tension. “D-Disney...?”

“Right.” Mark focused his attention back on the girl again. “Disney. We went on rides, we slept everywhere, and we played all of the little games that you would win those cute little stuffed animals from.”

“I won every time.” Cody smirked, and Mark rolled his eyes.

“Show off.”

“You're just jealous.”

“You wish.”

“Guys...” Mia called their attention back to her, and they turned. “Are you usually this ADD?”

“Yeah, yeah...” Mark laughed and nodded. “We're really bad sometimes.”

“Like, in school, we would go on rambles and the teacher would be too amused to scold us.”

“Dude, remember when we had Mrs. Matthews and we started reciting the Jabberwocky?”

“Of course! We hooked arms and spun around in the middle of the classroom like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum!”

“It was so epic!” The two sighed contently and nodded at each other. Mia and Savannah exchanged glanced, trying to hide their smiles.

“Life was good then.”

“Life just gets better every day.”

“You honestly think that?” Dodger said, quirking a thick, dark eyebrow.

“Yeah, why not?” Cody shrugged. “I mean, it's not the circumstances around your life that make it good or not. I think it's how you live that makes it fun or not.”

“Absolutely!” Mark nodded vigorously, his hair bouncing as he did.

–

Holy fucking hell, Max. These past two months have been absolutely wonderful.

It's February now. Valentine's day. I woke up to a dozen red roses next to my head on my pillow. They were fake, obviously, because real flowers are dead or out of their growing season. None of the boys are telling me which one left them there, except for Alphonse and Dodger saying that it wasn't them. That leaves Chris, Savannah, Cody and Mark.

Oh! We have twins now! I sound like a weird collector or something when I say it like that, but whatever. We stopped out in Wichita for some supplies and such, and we found these kids having issues with their truck. They introduced themselves as Cody and Mark Richardson. They drove around from Georgia, to Florida, to Alabama, to Tennessee, back down to Mississippi, then up to Missouri, down to Arkansas, through Oklahoma, then into Kansas where we met them. According to Cody, they just drove to where ever they felt like. “Anywhere we heard about or had ever imagined going at some point, we just went.”

I guess we can do that now. They stayed in Cinderella's castle suite because they didn't have to pay for it or win any sort of contests or anything. There are no rules. That's only hitting me now.

It's so weird. You go from a life with more rules than you know what to do with to a life with absolutely none. You would think that it would be every teenager's dream. It's just scary to me. I guess I'm weird since I like having guidelines.

Again, it doesn't really matter. It's all a matter of survival now. The only guidelines I need to follow involve life and death. That's what Cody and Mark told us the first day we met them.

“Dude, are you kidding me?” Savannah's voice broke Mia's train of thought, causing her to look up from her notebook. “This is unreal!”

“What's unreal?” The twins spoke in unison again from their spots on Cody's seat where they had been chattering quietly for the past hour or so.

“That's unreal!” Savannah pointed out the window to a little red Honda with light reflecting off of the windshield. Mia closed the little blue notebook and set it carefully on her cot. She crawled out of the tent and squinted at the sunlight gleaming in through the windows. She stood and made her way over to Savannah, yawning as she walked.

“What is that?” She leaned closer to the glass and peered out, tilting her head to the side.

“That's a Honda.” Savannah grinned as he looked over at her. “Princess, that's a Honda.”

“What's so special about a Honda?” Cody asked from behind the California boy, scratching his head. “There are dozens of them.”

“It's a Honda Accord.” Savannah looked back to the two with one of the biggest smiles they had ever seen on him.

“Dude, they're so common.” Mark furrowed his brow.

“Last I checked, they were the seventh most popular car in America.” Cody added, watching as Savannah's excitement grew the more they talked.

“Savannah, I don't understand.” Chris said from his seat, tying a blue bandana to his head.

“It's a red Honda Accord.” He looked to Mia, who smiled just as widely as him. He looked Dodger, and the Aussie smirked. “Tyler.”

“Tyler?” Cody, Mark and Chris spoke together, and Alphonse quirked an eyebrow.

“Tyler! And Kevin!” Mia jumped up and down, squealing softly. “It's a little red Honda!”

“Who?” The twins spoke together, but they felt themselves getting excited at the possibility of meeting new people.

“Are they cool?” Cody jumped up, and Mark followed suit.

“Of course!!” Savannah practically ran to the back of Momma Dukes and swung open the door. Mia was right on his tail, throwing the ladder down the instant the door was open. Savannah slid down first, then opened his arms for Mia to jump down into from halfway down the ladder. Dodger tucked two pistols into the back of his pants, grabbed his rifle, then joined the other two outside of the bus. The twins and Chris followed in confusion, and Alphonse followed in curiosity.

“I've never seen anyone so excited about a Honda.” Mark leaned close to Cody as he whispered, and his brother nodded.

Mia and Savannah ran to the front of Momma Dukes, watching as the doors of the Honda flew open suddenly. A tuft of brown hair emerged first from the driver's side, then black hair from the passenger's side. The back doors of the vehicle opened, too, and a mess of blond curls popped out from behind the driver while a dirty blond bob came from the other side. Four white paws followed the blond curls before all the doors closed. Savannah cupped his hands around his mouth and inhaled deeply before letting out a loud, “Tyler!”

“Residents of Momma Dukes, do not be alarmed!” The brunette answered just as loudly. “Tyler David Anderoth has arrived!!”

–

“I guess introductions are in order?” Mia stepped over the twins' legs as she made her way down the aisle Momma Dukes with water bottles for the group that had come from the Honda. “Since both parties have gained some members.”

“Hell yeah we have!” Tyler laughed and draped his arm around the girl with the blond curls. “We have Cici here,” The girl with the curls waved at Mia, but the raven-haired princess of Momma Dukes quirked a light brown eyebrow. “And down there, the ninja-looking one, that's Gail.”

“Hi!” Gail said, waving to Mia. Her bust, wrists, and calves were wrapped in off-white bandages, and a single bandage was wrapped around her forehead and tied in the back. “Nice to meet you!”

“And of course, this is Princess.” Tyler reached down and pet the black and white border collie laying her head in Cici's lap. Mia nodded, then looked over to Kevin. The Brazilian shrugged.

“I think you and I should catch up.” Her voice was short and curt, causing Tyler to raise his eyebrows. Kevin nodded and stood, following her to the back door, down the ladder and out of the bus.

“Who the fuck is that and why is she all over Tyler?” She snapped once they were out of earshot of the bus.

“That's Cici...” Kevin muttered, looking down at his feet.

“I heard her name. Why is she all over Tyler?”

“Because she's his girlfriend.”

“What?”

“They got together a few nights after we saved her.” Kevin's voice was soft and barely above a whisper. “She just attached herself to him.”

“How the fuck did you meet her?” Mia couldn't explain why she was so angry, but she let the anger bubble in her and explode through her words.

“She was getting married.” Kevin scoffed and rolled his eyes. “She was actually at the altar with her fiance when people started getting overtaken by the virus. Her fiance was infected, too. He attacked her, and I had to kill him. Tyler got the easiest job of comforting her, and she attached to him because he was her knight in shining armor or something.”

“And she just took him from you?”

“...K-kind of...” Kevin rubbed gingerly at the back of his neck. “She didn't know... I-I can't be mad at her... but... it's...”

“It's Tyler...”

“...yeah. It's Tyler.” Kevin closed his eyes to fight off whatever emotion surged over him at that moment.

“...Does he know how much he's hurting you?”

“What?” Kevin's brown eyes snapped open and met pleadingly with Mia's. “What do you mean?”

“He's hurting you by being with her. Does he know that? Or did he just not think that it would hurt you? Or did you guys break up beforehand? Is he being a douche? Do I have to hate him?”

“Mia...”

“It isn't fair to you, Kevin!”

“I know... And I don't think he realizes that it...” He inhaled deeply, then let it out slowly. “Sometimes, other peoples' feelings go right over Tyler's head. He doesn't know what people think or how they feel until they tell him. He's tactical and military trained. He doesn't understand people very well.”

As Mia listened, her expression softened. She sighed and looked to the side.

“So I can't hate him?”

“No, Mia,” Kevin chuckled. “You can't hate Tyler.”

“Can I kick him really hard in the shin?”

“If you make it look like an accident, I guess.”

“Good. Because he's getting the world's worst 'accidental' shin kicking because I'm mad at him right now.”

“Thanks, Mia.” The girl furrowed her brow and tilted her head to the side.

“For threatening to kick Tyler in the shin?” Kevin laughed and nodded.

“Yeah, for threatening to kick Tyler in the shin.”

“Anytime!” She laughed and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “And I mean that. Anytime. I enjoy giving a good shin-kicking.”