Tundra slowly crept into the street and, crouching low, ran in the direction of the yells, knife held tightly in his hand. The closer he got, the less certain he was of his choice. But he was outside now, so there was no turning back. There was sweat stinging his eyes, so he wiped it away. When he got closer to the yells and shrieks, he stood back up, pressed himself against the wall, and peered around the corner.

There was a dead infected on the ground. Another was pinning David against the wall, trying to get at him while he held it back with Tundra’s pipe. He was bleeding from his forehead. Tundra ran forwards to help, tripped, and fell on the ground. The thing’s head snapped in his direction and it shrieked and ran at him.

‘‘Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck !’’

He scrambled to his feet just to be immediately knocked back to the ground, his knife flying away from his hand. He kicked the thing off him and scrambled back. His boot smacked in its face when it grabbed at his ankle. He managed to grab his knife by the blade, get a better hold of it, and stab the thing in the shoulder.

It didn’t like that very much and yanked itself back, shrieking. The knife, its handle slippery from Tundra’s blood, stayed in it, leaving him weaponless. He crawled backwards and stood up, the thing following his every move. He noticed David standing back, still holding the metal pipe, motionless, as if paralysed by fear.

‘‘David, fucking do something !’’ he yelled.

Excited by his shouting, the thing leaped at him. He managed to dodge it and, since the weirdo still wasn’t moving, he grabbed his arm and started running, pulling him inside the nearest building. It reacted too fast and jumped at him, and all three of them went crashing to the ground. He accidentally punched the guy he was supposed to be saving in the nose instead of the monster trying to kill them both.

That actually seemed to be helpful, because David finally did something by swinging his weapon at its head. Tundra pulled his knife out of it, and stabbed it again, still not a killing blow. So he instead opted to pull his companion into the nearest building and slam the door shut.

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He lay back on the ground with a relieved sigh. After a moment, he looked up at his new friend, annoyed.

‘‘Why did you take so long to react ?’’

‘‘I- I’m sorry…’’

‘‘You were just standing there staring at us while it was trying to rip me to pieces ! Didn’t you say you wanted to stick around to help me ?! Ugh, I don’t even know why I came to your rescue…’’

‘‘Oh, th- that’s nice…’’

Tundra seemed to notice the shaken state David was in, and he sighed.

‘‘Are you okay ?’’

‘‘I’m fine.’’

He didn’t look fine. He was pale and shaky.

‘‘Are you sure ? Listen, I shouldn’t have yelled at you just now, it’s just that was really scary. B- but I know it wasn’t your fault, I’m sorry…’’

There was awkward silence. The infected outside was obsessively scratching and slashing at the door, trying to get to the prey that had just escaped. They both looked nervously at it, wondering if it could get through.

‘‘We, er, we should go…’’

They separated to look around the ground floor, but they didn’t find another way out or a sewer access. Instead they started going up. They got to the roof, but there was no way to get to the next building.

‘‘Well, I’m sure it won’t find us up here, even if it gets in. We can wait for it to turn back and leave then…’’

‘‘Yes, that’s probably best. It’ll take a while, se should go back inside and find somewhere to wait.’’

‘‘Yeah, maybe we can get some rest and go down in the morning. I hope that guy won’t be mad at me for stabbing him. Twice… I- I’m sure he’ll understand.’’

The pair headed down to the top floor and chose to crash in a room where they could watch the infected in the street through the window. David lay down on the couch. Tundra started looking through cupboards and drawers, looking for useful things. He found cotton balls and alcohol. There weren’t any bandages, so he gave his friend cotton for his nosebleed, then ripped a sheet to use as a bandage. He winced when he used the alcohol to disinfect the cut in his palm.

When he was done, he turned to hand the stuff over to David for his forehead but he seemed to have dozed off. But then he turned to Tundra.

‘‘Why did you come to save me ?’’ he asked.

‘‘Oh, um, honestly I’m not sure… I mean, I was trying really hard not to care about what happened to you, but for some reason I couldn’t. I guess I felt lonely or something.’’

‘‘Aw, I knew you liked me !’’

‘‘Fuck off…’’ he smiled.

‘‘I can hear you smiling when you say that !’’

‘‘You’re on thin ice, dude.’’

‘‘Okay, okay, fine.’’

He turned his back on Tundra, and for a moment there was silence.

‘‘So, uh, do you want this ? For your forehead ?’’

He pointed at his own forehead, then immediately felt stupid because David was turned the other way and obviously couldn’t see him. There was no answer for a few seconds, and then… a snore. He shook his head in disbelief.

‘‘I can’t believe your dumbass survived this long. Like, seriously… Pffff.’’