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This was it. Race is dead.
He struggled, but the zombie had too good of a grip on him, one of its arms pinning his, the other one wrapped around his neck, tight enough to make breathing an immediate concern. He managed to twist one hand free and clawed at the arm around his neck, which didn’t do much good.
His gun was on the ground a couple of feet away, but it was useless to try to get it. He had tossed it to the side when he ran out of bullets a few minutes ago. He had thought he’d killed all the zombies near him, and had been searching for a weapon to go help Spot, but this motherfucker appeared from nowhere. And damn, this zombie was strong. Even as he struggled, his stomach sank as he realized this time he might not survive.
Spot was his backup, (and some damn good backup, too) but he was…somewhere, probably still fighting his own horde of zombies. They had been exploring a warehouse, hoping to find supplies, when they opened a door that, as it turned out, had been holding back a whole swarm of zombies. Spot and Race had quickly been separated in the maze-like warehouse. Hopefully Spot was still alive.
The zombie released his neck, and Race sucked in a gasp of air, but the creature’s grip shifted to the side of his hair, yanking his head to the side and exposing his neck. A lance of pain shot up his vertebrae as he fought against the awkward angle, struggling to keep the zombie’s gnashing teeth away from his neck. Its putrid arm was inches away from his face, and the smell made him gag. He struggled harder, but he was at an awkward angle and the zombie had too good of a grip on him. He wasn’t going to live through this.
He prayed it wouldn’t be Spot who had to look him in the eyes and dismember his corpse. He closed his eyes and prepared for the pain of a bite.
He heard a yell behind him, and his eyes shot open. That was definitely Spot, but there was no way he could reach him in time.
Spot’s cry sparked something in him. He didn’t want Spot to have to deal with seeing Race killed in front of him, and he would be damned if he was going to die without inflicting as much pain on this zombie as he could. His arms were trapped, so he took the only option available to him.
He bit the zombie.
... Not his brightest idea. But the zombie froze, probably surprised by the admittedly bizarre turn of events.
Before Race could even process the change in behavior, he was on the ground. Spot must’ve gotten to him in time, he dimly thought, but when he glanced up, Spot was still yards away.
He twisted around, attempting to spot the zombie, but he finally registered the putrid, rancid taste in his mouth, the taste of death and rot and decay, and he threw up. Extensively. He struggled to get to his feet, he had to get up before the zombie attacked again, but he barely got to his knees before retching again.
Oh god. He’d almost died. He should be dead. He’d bit a zombie. What the hell.
His vision was blurry, even after he finally stopped retching. His heart was pounding so loudly that he couldn’t hear anything else. An overwhelming numbness covered him, enveloping every sensation.
Suddenly, Spot was there, skidding to his knees in front of him, pulling him up onto his knees. Everything seemed sluggish, like it was in slow motion, or maybe underwater. Spot’s mouth was moving, but Race couldn’t hear anything over the rushing in his ears. His gaze drifted over Spot’s shoulder and saw the zombie writhing on the ground a couple of yards away. Spot hadn’t killed it yet.
It occurred to him that he might be in shock.
Spot grabbed his face with both hands, forcing Race to look at him. He was saying something. Race didn’t know what. His eyes slid away from Spot’s face, back towards the zombie.
Pain exploded across the side of Race’s face, and the world suddenly snapped back into focus.
“-swear to god, Race, you fucker, start answering or I swear I’ll hit you again,” Spot was saying, frantic. One of his hands was half-raised in a fist; the other was holding Race up by the collar of his shirt. His machete was on the ground in easy reaching distance.
Race shook his head to clear it, and shifted his weight so Spot wasn’t holding him up anymore.
“I’m okay,” He forced himself to say. He was breathing hard. He tried to make himself get it under control. He failed.
Spot exhaled in relief at his response, but his face was still full of tension, his eyes hard. He threw a glance over his shoulder at the zombie, which hadn’t moved, and let go of Race’s shirt to grab his shoulders instead.
“Racer, did it bite you?” He asked urgently, his eyes scanning over Race.
Race honestly didn’t know. He tried to focus, mentally cataloguing himself, trying to locate any pain.
Spot shook him hard, making Race’s teeth rattle.
“Talk to me, Race! Did you get bit?!” He yelled.
“No, no, ‘m okay” Race choked out, then leaned to the side to throw up again. Spot nodded, grabbed his machete, then shifted his grip under Race’s arms , heaving him to his feet. Race’s knees buckled almost instantly, and Spot dragged his arm over his shoulders.
“Get a hold of yourself, Race, we gotta go!” He growled, and Race forced himself to take some of his own weight and walk.
After a couple of steps, his head cleared enough to actually process what was going on. He glanced back at the zombie, making sure it was still on the ground, then stopped dead.
“Motherfucker! Race, I told you to keep moving! ” Spot tried to drag him forward again, but Race dug his feet into the ground.
“Spot, look,” He said faintly. Spot turned around.
Behind them, the zombie was still writhing, but it wasn’t just twisting. Skin, new skin, was spreading across the zombie’s body, the diseased flesh sloughing off onto the ground.
“What. The fuck.” Spot stated. In the years since the outbreak began, they had never heard of seen anything like this.
“Holy hell,” Race breathed as the zombie, which now looked distinctly un-zombie-like with freckled skin and red hair, stopped writhing and lay prone on the ground. He shook off Spot and started moving forward.
Spot grabbed him by the shirt collar and yanked him back.
“No, not after what you just pulled. Let me go first,” he hissed. Race opened his mouth to protest, but Spot cut him off.
“You’re probably still in shock. It’s not your fault, but I don’t want you to get hurt ‘cause your reflexes are slowed. Anyways, you don’t have your gun.” He gestured with his machete to show Race’s comparative lack of weapons. Race gave a short nod and backtracked to pick up his gun. It was still empty, but the solid weight in his hand grounded him.
Spot stalked forward, Race following behind him, until they were a few feet away from the prone figure.
Race held his breath as Spot nudged it with the machete, and they both jumped back as the thing moaned and slowly sat up.
The thing that a few minutes ago had been a raging zombie blinked at them. He looked fully human, with clear brown eyes, fluid movements, and a distinct lack of rotting flesh.
“What’s going on?” The kid asked hoarsely. Race was floored. Zombies couldn’t speak because of the virus’ effect on vocal chords. He had never heard zombies make anything louder or clearer than a wheezing moan. Was this guy cured? Every survivor had been searching for this for years, and it had happened right in front of them.
Spot hadn’t relaxed. He kept his machete pointed at the teen.
“What’s your name?” He growled, “What happened to you?”
The teen looked alarmed. “Woah, dude, why don’t you point that somewhere else?”
Spot made a menacing movement forward. “Answer the question.”
The kid quickly held his hands up in surrender. “Geez! Okay! My name’s Albert, alright? And I’m… I was…”
His brow furrowed, and he looked around, which only seemed to disorient him further.
“What happened to you?” Spot repeated, although he had lowered the machete. Race moved to stand beside him, rubbing his aching jaw. Spot packed one hell of a punch.
Albert was looking steadily more confused. “I was… I was restocking my supplies in town and…I heard a noise behind me and-I don’t remember. Where am I? What happened? Who are you guys?” He was sounding steadily more panicked.
“I’m Race, this is Spot, and three minutes ago, you were a zombie.” Race piped up, sitting down in front of Albert, although making sure to stay well out of reach. You couldn’t be too careful.
Unsurprisingly, that didn’t help Albert’s panic or confusion at all.
“What?! ” He cried, “How-what?”
Spot shrugged and squatted next to Race.
“Hell if I know. You were about to snack on Race over here one minute, then the next you were de-zombifying on the ground,” He said.
They both looked at Race.
“Did you do something?” Spot asked him. “Anything unusual, anything you haven’t done before?”
Race blinked. “Uh… I mean, it was all super fast, but I-“ He broke off, wincing. Spot was going to kill him.
“What did you do?” Spot asked, his eyes narrowing. He definitely knew something was up.
“…I bit it” Race mumbled quickly, not looking at Spot. Albert made a stunned sort of coughing noise.
“What.” Spot’s voice was dangerously low.
“I…bit it?” Race braced himself for Spot’s reaction.
“What the fuck? ” Spot burst out, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “What-why the hell would you bite a motherfucking zombie?!”
Race winced. “I don’t know, I panicked! I knew I didn’t have a lot of options, so I just,” he gestured vaguely.
“You bit a zombie, oh my god,” Spot pinched the bridge of his nose as he muttered, sounding almost hysterical.
Albert raised his hand. “Hey, yeah, this is really fucking weird, and I’m really confused, but is this the best place for this?”
Spot stood up, dusting his hands on his pants. “No, but Race and I got a safe place about a mile away. Let’s go.”
Race scrambled up, and Spot tossed him a knife from his seemingly endless arsenal. Race knew it was a one of Spot’s subtle tests to check on how he was doing. He caught the knife effortlessly even though his hands were still shaking slightly, and Spot gave him a solid nod.
Spot helped a shaky Albert to his feet and kept hand on his arm, supporting him. He glanced back at Race and narrowed his eyes, mouthing we’ll talk later. Race winced and kept walking. The three teens slowly made their way out of the warehouse.
-------O-------
“I still can’t believe you fucking bit a zombie,” Spot hissed, glancing back at the house where Albert was currently sleeping. They had agreed to take shifts watching him overnight in case he re-zombified or something, but Spot insisted that they talked outside.
“I told you, I panicked!” Race exclaimed, “My gun was empty and I was, like, a second away from being bit, so figured I might as well give it a taste of its own medicine!”
“Zombies can’t feel pain, you idiot! Biting it did nothing but put you at risk for being infected! ” Spot’s voice was steadily rising.
“I know! I didn’t have any other options! And it turned out okay- no, it turned out better than okay! We might have a cure!” Race defended himself.
“That doesn’t fucking matter!” Spot yelled, “You were reckless and moronic and-“
“How can you say it doesn’t fucking matter?!” Race snapped, “We found a cure, we can save everyone! That’s worth every single risk-“
“You could have died!” Spot’s voice cracked.
Race turned at look at Spot, really looked at him. His fists were balled up at his sides, shaking minutely, his jaw was tight, and his eyes were glassy with unshed tears.
Race felt himself soften as he put the pieces together. This sort of thing had happened before. Spot was great at compartmentalizing; he was calm and in control when everything went to shit, and it was only after the danger had passed that he actually let himself feel. Race had already had his moment to freak out, Spot was having his.
“Yeah,” He said, “I almost died. But I’m okay, Spot, we made it out.” He grabbed one of Spot’s hands, and pinned it flat on his chest, over his heart.
“You feel that? My heart’s still beating. I’m alive, I’m okay, I’m still here. I wasn’t bit, I’m not infected. That’s what matters, not the could-haves or the might-haves. I’m still here, with you.”
He pulled Spot forward into a hug.
He didn’t know how long they stood like that; it could’ve been five minutes or hours. Once Spot stop shaking, he pulled back.
“Do we have any toothbrushes?” He asked, grinning lopsidedly. “My mouth tastes like shit.”
Spot snorted and turned away. “Yeah, I think I can find one, dipshit.”
Race grabbed his hand and they walked back into the house, together.