Kevin fell to the ground, curling up like a foetus in the womb as Max marched forward, firing unending bullets at the zombies that rushed at them through the hole in the wall.
As the last one fell, Kevin was aware that Max had not shot the gun at him, but past him. Grabbing the part of his body where his mind had deceived him into thinking he was shot and raising the hand he grabbed with to his eyes, he saw that there was no blood.
Turning around, he saw Max lower his gun, with his back to him.
"I saw you last night, Kevin. You made an empty beer can rise in the air like magic."
Kevin heaved a sigh as he rose up, regaining his composure well enough to stand behind Max and press the barrel of his gun into his back, even though he shook from the shock he had just been through. "And you said you were the Allfather, Sergeant Maxwell Johnson."
"There is a lot we have to tell each other, then." Max answered, turning around to look at Kevin while pushing the barrel of his gun down quite composedly. "Maybe you are something else, because I am tempted to think you are the Allfather."
Kevin looked the other man in the eyes once again. "You thought wrong, Max."
"Then we have a lot to talk about."
For some reason, and even without even being fully clear on what they had to say, they shook hands.
"I am sorry I shot past you and shocked you." Max apologised, pointing at the dead zombies with one finger. "But they would have gotten you if I did not shoot."
"I thought you wanted to kill me."
"You have had many chances to kill me between yesterday and today, but you even saved me when you had the chance to. Even if you were the Allfather, I should be tempted to treat you honourably."
"I am not the Allfather. Are you?" Kevin asked. "You said you were."
"I only said it because I thought you were."
"What makes you think I am the Allfather?"
"I only got to know about him because we were fed information concerning who he was when we launched our mission. You knowing about him when no other person in Middlestown does only means that you either know who he is in some other way different from mine, or that you are him. It also does not help that you look like a villain."
"I am not him, and I don't know him as well, but I think he knows me. And what's this you're saying about me looking like a villain?"
"There's a slash across your eye. It makes you look dangerous, like the God of War character."
"I have never had a cut across my eye—" Kevin argued, pulling a shaky hand away and subconsciously checking for the scar with his fingertips until he felt it and remembered the injury he sustained on the first day. "Oh. It was one of the zombies."
Max only looked at him without expression before continuing with his round of questions. "You said that the Allfather knows you?"
"I will tell you what I know only after I know what you know." Kevin said, returning to sit where he had woken up as Max followed behind. He sat and shut his eyes to steady himself from the shock he had just experienced, while Max edged closer with another beer can.
"Drink this." He assured him. "It should keep you calm."
Kevin opened it and took only two sips. Not being a fan of beers, he spurned their bitter taste in favour of cigarettes, which he had very recently put down because Gina did not like them. Without her around, the mere memory of her now painful to him, and with Max having more than enough of them, he asked for Max to toss them at him.
Max did as he asked and hung his mouth in surprise when Kevin activated the cubic metre space with his thoughts so that the box of cigarettes and the lighter hung in mid air as soon as they got within range. Slowly, he made them float towards him, with one of the cigarettes hovering towards his quivering lips and the lighter coming on to burn the butt of the cigarette, the both of them going to a final rest on the floor.
"You are kidding me." Max gasped.
"It felt surreal to me too. When I asked you about the glow, I was just as surprised, until I touched the surface—"
"What surface?" Max cut in.
Kevin took in a large draught of the smoke and exhaled before speaking.
"You cannot see it. But to me, it looks as though I am in a box with paper thin fluorescent surfaces glowing blue. It felt like water when I touched them with my fingers, and my hand can pass through them, but when I am under attack, a zombie cannot touch me when they are activated."
"You invented it?"
Kevin laughed at this last part, exhaling lots of smoke. "I am only an artist, Max. Not an engineer."
"So how did it come to you?"
Kevin fixed his eye on Max, wondering if it was worth telling him. In the end, he decided Max was closer to dying than him anyway, so he raised his trouser up, exposing the part of his leg where the zombie had bitten into him.
Max pulled closer, observing the grey teeth marks and where the canines had gone into the skin. "A zombie bit me after my friend and girlfriend pushed me towards them, although I managed to fight them off. The next time I got attacked again, they could not touch me."
"Is this your body reacting to the zombies or…" Max asked, trailing off.
"Of course. When I touched the surface of the glow, the Allfather's congratulations came in. It was to say it was a resistance mechanism and that I was among the chosen to survive the apocalypse."
"Oh God." Kevin's listener gasped. "Anything else?"
"The message told me I was enclosed by a three cubic metre space to protect me from the zombies, and which had storage capabilities. It also said I could control anything within this space with my mind."
Max made no response, and when Kevin looked at him, it was to see him pause in wonder.
"This means a lot that I cannot think about right now, but three things are sure at this point."
"That the Allfather has chosen me and a select few to survive his apocalypse?"
"That, and that he also has a reason for doing it."
"And what else?"
"We are not the only ones alive in this city. There must be a couple of others."