MAURICE
I hadn't taken a shower since before the chem bombs had been dropped almost two weeks ago, and I smelled like blood, sweat, tears, and funk. The guys on my high school team hadn't even smelt this bad before.
Princess had assigned the locker room showers at Specter U to men and women, however, and it was hard to get time to myself when half the survivors were men too.
I removed all my layers of football padding and threw them into a locker. All I had underneath was a long thick bandage to bind my chest, and a pair of hideous holiday themed boxers. I didn't have many pairs of shorts, as I'd only come out as trans at the beginning of the school year, but the candycanes did me good. Most gifts from my dad did.
I was about to jump into the shower when I heard a noise behind the row of lockers that was hiding me. I pulled on my boxers again and glanced around them. It was that stupid church kid that needed a punch in the mouth, Malcolm Kyrie. He had no weapons on him, thank -his- god, and he seemed to just be checking the place out.
I grabbed my towel from the bench beside me and walked over to the pouring water and cloud of steam. Malcolm looked up, which gave me the perfect chance to ask if he was gay. He muttered something under his breath, then immediately asked me a question in response. He asked me how I had been hurt; why I had my body bound in bandages, and if he could even trust that I wasn't a zombie. Then there was a pause.
"You're not a man at all, are you?"
ANGEL
Carla and I were sitting in our room, on the middle floor, painting each other's nails and discussing women's rights when that son of a hoe Malcolm comes running in, covered in blood.
Carla's like, you can't sacrifice lambs here bro, those are for food. But he yelled at us that it was no time to joke. That man Maurice had a dirty secret - he was a woman! Malcolm told us, in graphic detail about how he knew something was amiss, so he followed Maurice to the showers, and saw the truth with his own two eyes. He stole Maurice's crowbar and bashed him to death.
It was hard to believe the story because Malcolm told it so matter-of-factly. But there was blood dripping from his hands, and the crowbar was right there in the doorway, still fresh with that same blood.
I stood up with my hands out and stepped up to Malcolm. I told him that we had to tell Princess - she needed to know she had been fooled, after all. He nodded, still breathing heavy over the hate crime - the murder he had just committed, and we took the elevator up to the top floor. It took all my strength not to gut him with my pocket knife.
When we got to the lookout room, Princess welcomed me in, and I quietly relayed to her what had happened. She radioed a guard to check the locker room, and when she received a response about a body, she told me to go back to my room.
As I was leaving, I saw two large men carrying Malcolm away. He protested but could not break free. Before they could get to the staircase I heard one of their walkies go off. It said that the smell of blood would draw in more spore zombies, and that since they stripped Malcolm of all his weapons, his death would be quick.
LIMA
A lot of death had been occurring at the camp recently, so I figured I would tell somebody my tragic backstory in case I was next. I chose Chazz, since he'd probably be the most interested. While I was cooking the feast, I sent a guard to go fetch him.
When he arrived, I told him to take a seat at the island behind me. He asked me what was wrong and I told him that having no company sucked, that I needed a friend since I hadn't had one since I was little.
He asked me what made me have to stop making friends. I made sure the kitchen was clear and told him about my aunt's house. My parents were homeless when I was born, so my "rich" aunt adopted me. I didn't know why she was rich until I was about six. She was in the adult film industry. Around my first grade year in school, she started using her house to film her 'scenes'. And she filmed a -lot- of scenes. Her friends were also quite...handsy. I didn't like that kind of attention, so I tried to be as different from my aunt as possible. Her friends didn't like their girls to be fat, so I took my allowance and bought food instead of toys.
Of course, this was making Chazz freak out a little, and by that point in the story he was standing behind me asking if it was okay if he could hug me. I said that would be fine, as long as he was okay with me only having him around for one reason - that he couldn't do anything to physically hurt me without hurting himself. He said that was fine. That I deserved to be selfish.
CHAZZ
Lima's my favorite. She also cooks like a pro. I'm glad she can trust me.
After all of us refugees stuffed ourselves with her scrumptious feast of veggies, spam and seasoned fried rice and noodles, we all went to bed. My bedroom, the classroom two doors from the lookout, felt oddly lonely without Peachy, who had apparently taken her own life upon figuring out that Princess, who she was fiercely creepin' at, had a thing for our new nurse, who is eight times the stud Peachy was. Still though, I didn't think Princess had the capacity to have a thing for anybody. She's so stiff and militant.
I stared at the bleached marks on the carpet, where Peachy's blood had been removed. She never got the chance to get to know who she fell for. That sucks.
Before I was able to put my head to my pillow, I heard a clanking outside. I looked out there and saw a kid that couldn't have been much older than me, pacing back and forth down the hall. I went out there and asked him what's up. He recognized me as 'the other sick kid' and told me I was lucky to get to stay on campus while a select few were chosen to head up to North Dakota to assassinate President Picketfence. He told me he had AIDS and hadn't gotten treated for it in almost two weeks, but Princess deemed him worthy of fighting in her troop.
He pointed to the bulky bag on his back and told me it was filled with guns and ammunition that he didn't know how to use. He was freaking out pretty bad, so I decided to share my secret location of my plant out in the crop field. He dropped his bag and hugged me. The more hugs the better, I was thinking. I told him I was happy to help. Every man deserves one good smoke before he goes to get killed.
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