Municipal Wasteland 14

Zombie baby'll be around, soon. Going to be just a little bit of filler until that bit. Here we go!

000

Liam froze when he saw that the brick wall and the corpses resting near it were peppered with buckshot. He saw the glints of glass shards decorating the little grave and looked up to see the window to their apartment had been smashed.

Something instinctive kicked in and he sprang for the wall, scaling it to get to the open window. He clambered through the open frame, glass shards tearing into his gray skin, and landed heavily on the dirty carpet. He stood and shook off some of the glass, and then started inspecting his invaded home. There were multiple sets of dirty footprints – four that didn't belong to the two infected – leading to all the rooms before rounding back to the front door.

The only things seeming amiss were the footprints, raided kitchen and bathroom cabinets, and a single bullet hole in the middle of a painted landscape hanging crookedly on the wall. Okay. Okay, good. No blood and gore other than what was already there or had been dragged in by the new sets of footprints.

…But where was Taggart? The only body was the one in the kitchen… He sniffed the air and found it was still fairly fresh with the hunter's scent. He turned and the scent became stronger near the window. The smoker went to the square opening in the wall and leaned out, nostrils flaring.

The kid was nearby. Very, very near, but where?

A few stories above Liam, Taggart inhaled a breath and got a whiff of putrid smoke. He sniffed again and rolled onto his front as best he could and crept for the edge of the roof. He peered down and, sure enough, there was a frantic-looking Liam with his upper half hanging out of their window.

"Liam."

If the smoker hadn't caught himself he would've fallen out of the window from his jolt of surprise. He craned his neck as much as the smoke pockets would allow and saw a grinning Taggart looking down at him. The brunet latched onto the wall and eased himself all the way out before carefully ascending. Once he had a grasp on the side of the roof, Taggart helped pull him up over the lip of the edge.

Liam set his feet against the tar and cement and sat down, his frame sagging from relief. After a moment, he looked up at Taggart and asked, "What the hell happened?"

"Survivors broke into the apartment. I got up here before they really saw me, though, but it was really fucking close. …Hey, where'd you get that backpack?" The younger male jabbed at the shoulder straps on the elder's front, distracted.

Liam waved off the kid's prying hand, mildly annoyed. "Never mind that, stupid. Are you okay?"

Taggart shrugged, "Other than the kid trying punch his way out of my gut, yeh. A little riled, is all." Both of them sighed and went silent for a moment before Taggart broke it with, "Are we gonna have to move, again?"

Liam thought for a moment before nodding slowly. "Yeh, probably. Not all that safe here anymore. The city in general isn't even remotely safe, but, y'know. Whatever. So, why did they come into our apartment? They hear you creeping around or something?"

"Well, from what I could hear when I got up on the roof, they were breaking into every apartment that wasn't totally locked."

"Why didn't you lock ours?"

"I put the chain on!" The smoker rolled his eyes and palmed his forehead for a moment before standing up and going for the edge of their latest ex-home. Taggart followed behind him, asking, "We leaving now?"

"Unless there's something in the apartment you need to go and get, yes, we are."

"Oh. Okay," He looked around before "meeting" Liam's eyes. "Where to?"

"Dunno. Just follow me," the lanky figure lunged to the rooftop adjacent to theirs and began running, scaling gaps and obstructions along the way. In a second, the little hunter was bounding along right behind him, careful of his bloated belly. The two infected could hear gunshots and survivor voices resounding fairly close by and they made sure to avoid the direction those noises were coming from.

000

After a good ten minutes of running around the hunter slowed and eventually came to a stop, slumping a little and scowling. Christ, all this activity was really wearing him out… "Dude, gimme a minute, I need to rest real quick."

Liam also stopped some feet ahead before turning back to Taggart, seeing the boy seated and panting. Brows furrowed, he went over to the kid and crouched. He cupped the other's chin in a clawed hand and looked him over, brows knitting further. "You seriously tired?" He asked.

Taggart nodded, still panting like a dog. Sweat slid down the smooth gray skin of his face, mingling with the dried gore around the eye pits. His body shook with the sharp inhales and exhales of rancid breath. He gestured to his middle. "This kid, man, it's drainin' me. Don't have the energy I did a few days ago."

"Obviously," The smoker mumbled. He released his mate's face and sat back on his haunches, long arms draped over his knees. His bloodshot eyes stared off at something in the distance as he sat thinking.

"Hey," the hunter spoke up, "You didn't tell me why ya got a backpack." Liam's hazy eyes flickered in his direction at the comment.

"I took it from an office supply store. It's got medical junk in it, shit I stole from the hospital," He replied, removing the bag from his shoulders. He set it down in front of Taggart and the hunter unzipped it, beginning to sift through it contents. The boy blanched at something in there.

"That's, uh… that's a lot of stitches and painkillers…"

Liam sighed and scratched at a pustule on the left side of his face, careful not to pop it. "Well, unless you want that kid burrowing out your ass you're gonna have to get cut open," He stated, flatly.

"Oh. Oh, fuck. Like-like a C-section or some shit…?" His face read panic.

The smoker awkwardly patted the kid's head before looking off again, "Yeh, I guess. You'll be fine, though, I just… gotta figure out a way to keep you calm or something. Might have to knock you out, again…" his speech drifted off as he thought harder.

Taggart was still, his face pale and expression not at all thrilled. "Oh, man."

The two were quiet, city sounds filling in like always, as they gave some thought to things. Night would be on them pretty soon, and they both had the nagging feeling they wouldn't be getting any sleep.

000

"Mmf, fuck, fuck, FUCK!" Taggart thrashed against the uneven tar of the rooftop, body in absolute agony.

Liam was trying his hardest to quiet the hunter, but that was getting increasingly harder to do the more he trashed around and bit at him. He yanked his fingers back just in time as the kid's jaws snapped hard at them.

"Shut the fuck up, you're gonna bring all kinds o' shit here!" He hissed, wrenching a flailing arm away from his face.

"Fuck you, Liam; you ain't got a fuckin' kid trying to get out of y-AAAAGGGHHHH!" His jaws snapped open and a raw, inhuman shriek ripped from his throat, his back arching and body stiffening. He slumped back against the roof and looked up at Liam with wide eyes.

"Knock me out, man," He begged, his chest heaving with ragged, uneven breaths, "Knock me out!"

Frantic and un-thinking, Liam resorted to the same tactic he'd used when the kid's eyes decided to stroll out of his head; he punched him, hard and quick, to the temple. Taggart's writhing body went limp and his horrible screams halted. The smoker's whole body shook and he stared, arm still raised and ready to strike again. The suddenly-silent hunter unnerved him, but not nearly as much as the sight of the moving abdomen did. Little "paws" were all too clear as they pressed up against the tight skin.

The smoker shuddered and pulled Taggart's blue hoodie off, tossing the jacket to the side. He reached for some supplies that he'd dumped out of the bag, sifting through some things until he found what he needed at the moment and grabbed it before turning back to the problem at hand.

A shaky sigh broke the silence and Liam raised the scalpel, hovering it just above the taut gray skin.. He hesitated for a second, and then carefully pressed it to the side of the mound that was Taggart's stomach. Thick, dark blood began to ooze and dribble from the line he dragged around it. He guessed on what length of the cut was good enough, and when he was satisfied, he hooked a few claws under the newly-made skin flap. With careful movements, the infected gingerly lifted the skin and fat layers and gently pushed them aside, thanking whatever mercy there was that the improvised womb was the first thing he encountered.

He didn't want to sift through any more organs than was already necessary.

Thick blood poured from the opening, and the smoker scowled at the vein-y, pinkish sac that throbbed and shifted with the cub inside of it. Small tears had already been made in the tissue from tiny claws and teeth, and before the kid could do more dammage, Liam took the scalpel and made another careful incision. He did the same with this flap as he had with the others and pulled it back, more blood and amniotic fluid escaping, to reveal the wicked little beast that'd been causing Taggart so much pain.

The baby-infected, a boy, shrieked into the cold night and gulped in a lungful of diseased air. Its little arms and legs thrashed and flailed about, small body jerking. It wanted out. Liam released a breath he'd been holding and grabbed for the baby-thing, yanking it up and out of the 'womb' to set it down on the wrinkled hoodie. He severed the umbilical cord and slapped the womb shut.

A needle and thick suturing thread were already in hand when he set back to work. Liam had little to no idea if what he was doing was correct; he'd only ever sewn torn parts of clothing every now and again. He'd never done much beyond that, let alone close a body and its parts back up! He shook off some of the anxiety as best he could and continued making crude stitches along the incision, shushing at the whining baby infected every now and again.

After a few long moments, the womb was sewn back up, tight and unorganized. It was clumsy and looked horrible, fluids still dribbling from the tiny openings, but he figured it was nothing serious and that it was the best he was going to get.

He chanced a look at Taggart. By some great mercy, the kid was still unconscious. Liam bit his lip and furrowed his brow; the punch may have been harder than necessary, and he hoped he hadn't done any damage.

Shaking his head, he returned his stare to the remainder of his task. The smoker took another deep breath before nodding to himself. He pulled the muscle, fat, and skin layers back into their normal position and pierced the needle and new threading in.

A long and slow amount of time passed before he finished tying the multiple knots at the end of the thread, and he finalized everything by dumping some disinfectant – couldn't hurt, right? – on the messy stitching.

There. Good as… good as new. Yeh. Totally.

Shit.

He really, really hoped this whole thing wouldn't end up killing Taggart…

Liam pulled a small hospital blanket from the bottom of the backpack and settled it over the unconscious hunter. He looked to the fidgeting baby still nestled in Taggart's hoodie and re-wrapped him in it. The cub snapped and yelped at him, but clung like a parasite when he pulled the bundle close to his chest in a protective embrace.

The smoker eased himself onto his side and pressed his back against his hunter's side. The child wriggled in his arms for a short while, grunting and mewling some before it finally fell asleep. Liam wasn't too far behind him, his milky eyes fluttering shut and his breathing slowing even more. With any luck, Taggart and the cub would still be alive when he woke up. He had to smother the grating sense of doubt that was creeping up in the back of his mind.

…Christ, he needed a cigarette.

000

End of Chapter 14

Criminy, I am so sorry for the long wait, especially since this chapter isn't very long... I also apologize if things seem a bit rushed; I didn't want to go into a ridiculous amount of detail – though, I probably already did, ha – and I just wanted to get the "birthing" scene out of the way. A big, big thank-you to all of you who have been so patient!