Playlist for the Apocalypse

Chapter 7: Spirit in the Sky

Evelyn rolled her eyes in annoyance. She knew she shouldn't have tried to ask that when he was this drunk, she really could not have expected him to give her a serious answer.

"Honestly, you should have just left me to die," He drawled, "It's not too late. I'd be better off as one of them right now," He thrust his arm out gesturing towards the rest of the mall.

"Seriously, that would have been better than me saving your life?" Evelyn asked.

Jonathan looked at her. His expression wasn't much easier to read even when he was drunk and uninhibited, "Abso-freaking-lutely. Listen, you wouldn't have to be shackled to me right now if I was soulless. And another thing, do you think they care about anything at all? Do you think they feel pain? No! They don't have to, they're beyond that."

"You're starting to sound like those Serenity Society people," Evelyn warned. "I feel like someone like you would get bored wandering around like that."

"No way, because this is where I'm going to go when I die," Jonathan glanced around the room as if confirming his choice, "If I'm to spend the rest of eternity stuck in some same old routine, I want to be here, listening to music. Good music. Not like that overplayed disco—"

"Can you please just stop with the song thing?" She snapped, the harshness in her voice seemed to startle him, "I get it, you don't like Stayin' Alive!"

"Okay then, geez," he took another swig of whiskey.

That was it. He'd finally struck the nerve she'd been trying not to expose. She reached over and snatched the bottle from him. She hadn't planned on telling him, in fact, she'd made a point not to but somehow, she couldn't stop the words. Maybe it was because he was really getting on her nerves, or perhaps, it was, and maybe more likely, because even though she didn't want to tell him, she had to tell someone.

"You almost died okay? You almost— actually I'm pretty sure you did. You died. On that rooftop there was a minute where your heart stopped... you were dead. The only thing that saved your stupid miserable life that you keep trying to throw away for some reason, was that song, okay?"

Jonathan stared at her visibly confused, "what?"

Evelyn took a deep breath to compose herself, "100 to 120 compressions per minute. Stayin Alive" has a beat that's in sync with the recommended pace for chest compressions." Evelyn found her eyes drilling into the carpet, she couldn't look at him. "I didn't think to check— I wasn't thinking. It's really my fault. I should've thought ahead but all I wanted to do was get you out from under there." She stole a glance at him, but her eyes quickly began to fill with tears. She knew she would not be able to hold them much longer if she looked at him again, so she turned away. She was thankful for Jonathan's soulless proofed room because with the emotion she was displaying, they would have been overrun in minutes. She took another deep breath.

"You were under that big wooden beam and I lifted it off of you but I didn't know that you'd been impaled. And you were bleeding, bad, like really bad. I tried to stop it, but there was so much blood, and your pulse was already so weak and I—I froze. I..." She paused, chest heaving. "I might have a... freezing problem." The tears fell now; she couldn't keep them from falling any longer, "If that record hadn't been on the roof—If it wasn't just sitting there, I wouldn't have remembered to do CPR, I wouldn't have even thought to—" Her voice broke as she choked on the words. She was pre-med, she was supposed to be good in a crisis, great under pressure but in that moment, she'd frozen, just like the day of the Blackout... Just like when they'd encountered the soulless in the stairwell. Though she knew she would regret it, she looked up. Jonathan was staring at her. For some strange reason that Evelyn couldn't quite explain, the ignorant, dumbfounded expression on his face fueled the fire within her.