(fic) Anything to Thin the Blood (in progress!)

[etherati]

A random prompt on Tumblr asked for Minutemen zombies; I wrote the promised vignette but there seems to have been interest for more? So I started writing more, and wow, I am having so much fun. But I'd like to keep this informal, so, see the comment section below for pieces of this as I finish them!

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part 1

[etherati]

*

"Aw, hell."

It'd been bad at first—bad like they'd all known it would be, the way they could all taste it in the backs of their throats in the moment before someone—Hollis doesn't remember who, later—threw the latch and shoved the double doors open and out. It'd taken shoving, too; the mass of clawing, murderous bodies piled against it had seen to that.

"Damn it—hold him, Bill!"

It'd needed to be done. They'd agreed to a man—and a woman too, the first thing Hollis thinks he's seen Sal and Ursula agree on in the last three years—that if they chose this moment to abandon the people they've spent years protecting, well, then they never deserved to wear the masks in the first place. People were dying; this hadn't been the time to quibble. Even Eddie had been on board, though by god the brat had taken some convincing, and if Hollis has to hear him complain one more ti—

"This is what you get," Eddie snarls from somewhere off to the left, and Hollis has both his hands in poor Byron's gut, up to his elbows in blood just trying to keep his insides inside where they belong, and well. Eddie should count himself lucky. "I told you idiots, this is where not lookin' out for yourself gets you."

"If you don't shut up—"

Bill looks goddamned furious under his mask, the kind of fury that doesn't really know itself, is too tangled up in grief and incomprehension. He doesn't say a word, even when Byron lurches up off of the table, thrashing against his hands and snarling. His mask is gone, his antennas sheared off and the stupid fabric wings hanging off by a thread. The veins at his temples stand out, blue and thick. He seems to want a piece of someone—anyone. "Hold him down, god damn it!"

"Doesn't matter," Bill mutters, and his mask is half gone, too. There's more red in his costume than there used to be.

"Yes it does."

"We were too late," he says, and the words have an edge of catatonic hysteria. "I was too late. We can't fix this."

Hollis eyes the way Bill's hands are loosening in their grip, casts a worried look to Sal, by the door. She's got a shotgun propped against one shoulder, liberated from some ransacked shop, and she nods to him, all frivolity of her showy public persona evaporated.

"Look at me," Hollis says, and Bill does. Under their hands, the body thrashes. "This isn't our fault, and it isn't your fault. I know where you are, and I've been there, but we need you here instead. Are you here?"

Bill's gaze drops to where his friend is frothing beneath them, is struggling like murder. He nods.

"We might not be able to fix this," Hollis says. "But by God we will try our best."

"Okay," Bill says, "Okay."

"Cap'n?" Hollis calls across the room.

Nelly straightens against the wall, posture all numb shock. "Yes?"

"We need rope. As much of it as you have. I know you've got plenty, so don't hold out on us now."

*