End of Death (manxman)

Survival: Part 4 - Friend or Foe

"Drop!" Rita shouted as she jumped from the top of the bridge landing on the hood of a car. Milo and Sebastian dropped too, their landings less graceful and forgiving. Milo scrambled to his feet and looked around. He didn't see Graham come across but it was too late – they were out of time. The might of the military was too strong.

"The flare guns!" Milo shouted pointing to a bag.

Rita ran to grab one and she turned as Milo and Sebastian continued to pour more gasoline on the cars.

"Boys we are out of time!" She shouted and the two youth started running across the bridge.

Milo looked over the edge at the far drop and river below. He made it across the bridge and turned. Rita was right behind him and the first of the military personal had stepped foot past the car barricade. Rita fired the flare and in a burst of flame and heat the bridge lit up. The wave of heat tossed Milo back. He fell looking at the flames catch the wooden bridge on fire and begin to melt the metal. Car alarms went off and military men were shouting on the other side.

Then there were moans. The military didn't have time to regroup and fire at the remaining survivors because the first of the horde appeared behind them and they had to change their plan.

Milo sat himself up on the hard pavement. He looked at the flames and coughed in the smoke of them. His plan worked but there wasn't any Graham. At that moment, Milo questioned his motives and frowned.

"Proud of you." A masculine voice said and helped lift Milo off the ground.

Milo turned around to see Graham, a few days beard but the handsome older man smiled at him. It had only been a little over a week but every day felt so much longer and Milo couldn't help but feel flooded with emotion looking at his partner in crime. The two looked at each other both feeling an immense set of emotion but feeling uncertain what to do with it. So they gripped each other tightly, for fear that letting go meant letting go of so much more. The smoke burned their eyes and they closed them embracing each other.

Milo took in the older man feeling the warm and firm embrace and returned it. He couldn't hold Graham tight enough in the moment.

A gunshot rang out and Milo turned to see a zombie drop at their feet. The horde, having finished off the military, was walkthrough through the fire across the still standing, but burning, bridge.

"Get back!" Rita shouted.

Graham grabbed Milo's hand. "I got you." Graham pulled the boy back away from the smoke and flames.

They joined the group of about 18 survivors, everyone looked around, to Milo and Sebastian who they all knew. What next?

"There is a ranger station up the road, it's the north entrance of the park. Let's go there and regroup!" The group walked and as they did some reunions happened.

Grace walked beside Milo and held his hand. Milo wanted to ask about his Aunt Sissy and cousin Kayla but the handhold communicated more than he needed to know. They were each other's last family and that was obvious.

A group of zombies probably made it through the flames but the bridge hopefully burned down by the time the group arrived at the ranger station. Breaking the lock of the backdoor the 18 survivors regrouped.

Alice, who was a trained surgeon, helped mend the wounded and tend to bruise with the first aid kits found in the station. Grace helped her where she could.

Rita and Sebastian built a perimeter with a few of the other able-bodied survivors.

Milo and Graham found each other in an office at the station. "What you did was...it was impressive Milo." Graham commented leaning against the door. "People are looking to you as a leader."

"I don't think I deserve that title." Milo replied looking through the file cabinets. "Now I feel all this pressure to have a plan and I don't know, I'm just a nervous little kid with anxiety."

"I don't think so." Graham replied. "You managed to do what we couldn't do individually."

"Ya know, when Dan was around." Milo noted that this was the first time he said his dead boyfriend's name and didn't feel sad, he missed him but didn't feel sad about it. "We would play all these strategy games together. You had to control armies, manage resources, and fight enemies. When I was up in that ranger watch tower that's what I was doing – I think that's what we need to do to survive." Dan felt too far away to miss now. His mission had changed and he wasn't quite sure what his mission was but it included Graham. It included keeping Graham safe and close.

Milo found a map and spread it across a table. "But I don't know if I have the skillset to keep it up. Like that bridge. It didn't burn down how I thought it would. We stopped the military but the zombie horde is still coming across."

"Hey kid." Graham walked over and gripped Milo's shaking hand. "You don't have to figure it out for everyone. You did a lot."

"But we can't just take a break!" Milo replied only realizing he was shaking when Graham held his hand. Milo stopped and looked up at the man gulping. Their eyes met in the dimly lit office and Milo smiled. "I guess my anxiety is being channeled in the right way finally."

Graham looked the boy in the eyes, Milo's sweet face covered in soot from the smoke earlier. In some ways this was the same Milo he got into fights with on the side of the road, the same features of a high school teen uncertain and insecure, but it other ways this was a boy who had seen this new world and understood it better than most. They had both lost a lot and in that loss found each other and kept finding each other. Graham's heart started to race, noticing himself, holding the boys hand like he would his wife and staring at him like he would his wife Camille. Graham had felt these feelings before, in bits and pieces of nightly embraces but he had never let himself feel them. His past with Camille and his daughter was not part of this new world. In some ways, Graham realized that everyone was starting at zero and some people were adapting faster than others.

The two were quiet both stunted with societal expectations that no longer existed and in the growth they had yet to endure. Their breath matched each other and the hand hold felt not just comforting but intimate and without saying anything they each knew that but also didn't know what to do with it.

Milo swallowed hard, "I think, I think I did all of this to get back to you." The boy said softly. "I don't want to be separated from you again. I thought you died. I don't know what to hold onto in this world and I...I like you around."

Graham smiled and still holding Milo's hand caressed his thumb against the boy's palm. The small notion of intimacy felt dangerous for so many reasons.

They both stood on a precipice of an unknown a dangerous emotional world that Graham saw but had never traversed in. He'd never felt this way toward someone like this or felt like this before. Each centimeter he dragged his thumb and moved his hand felt more intimate and wanting.

Milo was nervous too. The older man was a dominating figure, standing much taller than him with a body build of muscle over the years. His heart raced and he was frozen with Graham caressing his hand and Milo squeezed back a confirmation of affection without speaking a word. The two looked each other in their eyes seeing the intimacy in a way that only each of them could, each wanting but also fearful at how far they could or should take this.

Sebastian entered breaking the moment and the two quickly released each other's hands returning their focus to the map.

"The fire is out and the military is gone. The bridge won't fall and the horde is slowly crossing. It's almost sunset but we can't stay here. What do we do?" Sebastian said and Rita entered after him.

"I've been looking at this map. I think we continue up this highway, it will take us into Colorado and we can head into the mountains. The horde will be slowed walking up hill and they may actually continue the other direction. But I need help. We need a base. Is there anyone in the group that knows Colorado better that we can ask?"

"Let's check but we have about an hour before the horde is here." Rita noted and she and Sebastian left the room.

Graham and Milo looked at each other the intimacy they both acknowledged hidden and uncertain when it would be allowed out.