In the evening, they returned to the surface.
Ira yawned as they walked the streets under the starlit night sky, his hand held in Silas's and a series of pictures of his Host getting shunned in his mind. She was currently being kept at a distance by the other members of the group, all but a few of the women and children.
The women (exluding one of the mothers) seemed to think that his Host was being bullied because she was a girl and not because she was useless. They were making her into a symbol they could sympathize with.
It was going to lead to a bloodbath.
Silas squeezed his hand. "Where has your mind wandered?"
"Murder."
Silas's body shook and Ira looked over, worried that he might be having a stroke or something equally human. But no, Silas appeared perfectly healthy, a glow to his cheeks as he burst out laughing.
Ira frowned. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing." Silas waved his free hand around. "It's just a very typical answer for you. Really, I should have expected it."
The suspicious glance he gave the man didn't result in anything.
Ira rolled his eyes and decided to ignore Silas.
A week later, Ira was in a bad mood.
His Host, the complete imbecile, had convinced the women of her group (excluding one) that the previous base they were aiming for was no good and then they had convinced the men, their husbands or relatives or whatever, to head on to another one. A majority vote had destroyed the male protagonist's wish to keep going to the previous base. So now they were headed here.
To Ira's base.
Because Ira's life sucked.
He scowled. It was bad enough that his Host had met up with the protagonist's group earlier, but at least that was expected. He hadn't thought that she'd be able to convince the whole group to head to his base when he told her his location. But his duty meant that when she asked, he had to answer honestly why he wasn't by her side, or his pay would get cut.
Scowling harder, his mind was focused on watching them creep ever closer to his location. They were barely an hour's carride away now, but hopefully the zombies would delay them. Or eat them.
Either would work fine.
There was only one silver lining to this whole mess. Some days ago, they had met up with Amanda's squad (minus a captain) so now he got to see Amanda getting increasingly more furious at his Host, the stupider she acted.
He had high hopes that Amanda would murder her.
Or push her into a horde of zombies.
He smirked, and felt Silas's hand pass through his hair. He leaned into it, having grown fairly comfortable with Silas's touch.
"For gods sake, would you quit it?!" The same idiotic man as before screamed.
Another meeting, another argument. They wanted to have a solid timeline on the vaccine thing, and got more and more concerned with every meeting. Because Silas never gave them a stright answer, which was hilarious to watch.
Well, Ira had only been present for three meetings so far. But apparently that was enough to infuriate the leaders of the base.
"Quit what, exactly?" Silas's voice was cold as ice. When Ira looked over to his left, he could see that the man was gripping the table so hard that his hands were whitened and his jaw was clenched in... something, Ira couldn't really tell. Rage, probably.
The idiotic man exclaimed, "Being so disgustingly in love! It's the end of the world, damn it! Act like it!"
"Ah..." Silas said, smirking. "You're jealous."
"No, I have compassion." the man glared at them, deflated like a balloon and dropped back in his chair.
Silas didn't respond.
The woman in the group cleared her throat. "If that's all," here, she glared at everyone. "then this meeting is concluded. We'll see you in a week, doctor Cornelius. Thank you for your time. We are aware it's precious."
Another glare cowed everyone in the meeting.
The various people in charge of the base all let out breaths at the same time and rose from their seats. As they left, they all looked grim and broody, as if they were in a badly written young adult apocalypse novel and it all hinged on a teenager.
Silas rose first and offered his hand to Ira. Smiling at the man, Ira took it and stood up straight, picking up his bottle of coke as they left the room.
It was starting to get warm, so he had a minion bring it to a fridge.
Having a well-respected "husband" was surprisingly useful.
The dot signingfying his Host got closer to him again, and his good mood was abruptly ruined. Scowling, he felt the urge to go on a murder spree rise up within him. Come to think of it, why wouldn't he? This was a post-apocalyptic zombie world, he had more targets than he needed. There was no reason to hold back.
"Silas." he grinned when he turned to face Silas, who was walking beside him. "I want to kill things."
Silas smiled at him. "I'll get you a tank."
Ira's eyes widened and he whispered, "Awesome!"
He had already decided. He was going to drive it himself.
Grinning, he picked up his speed. Soon, he arrived outside and he hurried over to a tank, staring at it with sparkling eyes. Truly, it was magnificent. With it, he could drive right over zombies and crush them like ants.
It would be so cool.
Behind him, he vaguely heard Silas speaking with someone. He could hear their voices rising in volume and the furious whispering, but he paid it no mind. He was going to drive the tank and go kill zombies! He was already excited and the bad mood from his Host approaching him was forgotten.
A minion came over and gave him his bag. It was good foresight, he had to admit, becuase he had no idea how long he would be gone.
Silas climbed into the tank after. Ira furrowed his brow and asked, "What are you doing?"
"I'm coming with you."
"Why?" Ira furrowed his brows in confusion as he settled down in the driver's seat. Silas sat down next to him, while a minion dropped off another bag and closed the door behind them. Then it was just the two of them alone in the tank.
Silas gave him a soft look and reached over to grab his hand. "Because I love you."
Ira blinked and deadpanned, "You've known me for a week."
Well, he knew that that wasn't actually true. Technically, Silas's soul had known him for much longer, but he had yet to see evidence that the man could remember anything from his other lifetimes. He hummed a little in thought and turned to face the wheel, pulling his hand out of Silas's grip in the process.
Silas stated, "That doesn't change anything."
Ira didn't respond.
He turned the key and the engine roared to life. He glanced at the video-feeds of the area around the tank and then looked out the front window. Happy, he pressed down the pedal and the tank started rolling.
Getting out of the base didn't take long, they weren't far from the gates and it wasn't terribly big. They did have to go around a few places that they couldn't drive through because the roads weren't wide enough, but there were no major problems. At the very least, Ira didn't kill anyone.
Out of the gates, and into the wild.
Despite the fact that it had only been about two weeks since the zombies made their debut, the area around the base was completely wrecked.
Overturned cars, burned corpses littering the ground, the occasional still moving detached hand...
The neighorhood had really taken a downturn.
"What do you think?" Silas asked.
Ira smiled. "I love it."
For some reason, this made Silas drop a kiss at the top of his head. Ira gave him a confused look, but got no answer.
As they travelled farther, away in another direction from his still approaching Host and her group, Ira felt his stomach twist. For a second, he was worried that it was hunger again and that he had forgotten to eat once more, but a quick glance through his logs showed that he had eaten merely two hours ago. Not hunger then.
It was when he caught sight of the first zombie in over a week that he realized what the feeling was.
Excitement.
He promptly drove over it. Then he backed up and drove over it again. And again, because it was just that fun.
They kept going and as they got further from the base, more and more zombies started appearing out of the woodwork. Literally, they walked out of the woods and walked kind of twitchily over toward Ira and his tank. Ira then did his civic duty of running over them.
Eventually, they had been on the road for more than two hours and Ira had crushed over a dozen zombies.
He was feeling very pleased with himself.
"Here." Silas said and held out a bottle of water in front of Ira's face.
Ira scrunched up his eyebrows and asked, "What's that for?"
"So you don't get dehydrated. It's important to drink water, especially in weather like this." hearing Silas sounding so reasonable, Ira consented that he had a point and grabbed the water, guzzling it down like he was dying.
Technically, he was. Humans were dying as soon as they formed in their mother's womb, that pesky problem of their cells not doing their jobs properly.
He held out the bottle back to Silas and stated, "Thanks."
Silas took back the bottle and Ira got a kiss on his cheek for the trouble. Scrunching his nose, he evaded the man when he tried to get a hug out of him too and redirected his attention to his map, in hopes that there was a zombie around.
There was not.
Scowling, Ira looked further. The closest zombie was a whole kilometer away.
This was a freaking conspiracy.
He let got of the wheel, felt the tank stumble to a stop and leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed. Silas did something next to him, but Ira was stubbornly ignoring him.
"Here." Silas held out a bag in front of his face, and out of curiosity, Ira looked at it.
He frowned, "What?"
He felt Silas lean closer to him. "It's a chocolate cupcake."
Ira's head swiveled around so fast he almost worried it was going to topple off. He stared with wide eyes at Silas and then used his superior sense of smell to ensure that he was telling to truth. It smelled like chocolate.
"Where did you get it?"
Silas laughed and leaned over to hug him. This time, Ira let him. Then Silas whispered into his ear, "I baked it myself. I have more at home, when you're ready to go back."
That was just straight up blackmail.
Ira had absolutely no problems with that.
He opened the bag as soon as Silas let him go and was welcomed by the scent of chocolate. It looked perfect, and as soon as he bit into it, he could confirm it. Within minutes, he had eaten the entire thing, and was left licking his fingers for any trace of it.
Distracted, he asked, "You promise there are more at home?"
"Mhm."
Ira gripped the steering wheel, pressed down on the pedal and made a sharp U-turn.
The tank almost toppled over. Ira just laughed.
By now, his Host and the male protagonist, as well as Amanda, had all arrived at his base. Oddly, he was not nearly as upset about this as he had been when he set out in earlier morning.
He attributed this to the promise of more chocolate cupcakes.