Warm Bodies: The Answer

Not All There

Marcus was having a perfectly fine evening with a perfectly fine bottle of wine in his perfectly fine apartment when the knock sounded at his door.

"Mandy," he yelled across his one and only room, "for the last time, I don't want a cat!"

Damn woman couldn't seem to accept that he was perfectly fine by himself. That his breakup with Emily hadn't made him a reclusive, desperately lonely guy, mourning over a particularly dull red with distinctive notes of vinegar and dirt.

Because it hadn't. Everything was perfectly fucking fine.

The knock came again, and the insistence made him rise up out of his seat angrily, burp aggressively, and stride towards the door grumbling. With a dramatic swing of his arm, he wrenched it open, eyes focused on where he thought Mandy's face would be.

Instead he found himself staring at a black flak jacket, and glancing upwards, the carefully neutral expression of a man with dark hair cut messily short and the faint hint of a mustache.

"You're not Mandy," he said, keenly observing the man standing in his doorway.

"Correct," the man answered. "I'm here to take you to the airport."

Marcus pondered this.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"To the airport."

Marcus nodded for a while, then tilted his head. "Are we going on a trip?"

"Yes," the soldier said, nodding back slowly, then spoke even slower. "To. The. Airport."

Now feeling the circuitous nature of the conversation, Marcus shook his head. "Sorry, I've been drinking shitty wine, so perhaps I'm missing something, but people usually go to the airport to go somewhere else."

"The Colonel told me-"

"The Colonel?" Marcus snorted, interrupting him, "What the hell does he want?"

The soldier outside his door sighed. "He said to tell you that your friend needs your help."

Marcus frowned.

"My friend?" he asked. "You mean R?"

"I mean nothing sir, I'm merely-"

"That's not true," Marcus said quickly, emphatically, leaning out of his doorway, "Never let anyone tell you that man, you mean something to some-"

"Sir. Please remove your hand from my shoulder."

Marcus blinked, then shook his head again. "Sorry. Shitty wine. Shitty week." He leaned back into the apartment and grabbed his keys from the small table by the door, before exiting and locking the door behind him. "What's wrong with Rowan? Is he okay?"

"That I don't know sir. The Colonel just gave me that message. I'm to escort you to the airport." He paused and looked Marcus up and down. "Is that all you need?"

Marcus stared back, not understanding, then looked down.

He was in a pair of blue boxers and a plain white t-shirt.

"Ah." Looking back up, he held up a finger. "A minute."

After said minute, he was walking behind the soldier in jeans and a light jacket as they made their way down the stairs and out onto the street. A patrol car sat idling at the curb, and the man opened the door for him before walking around and climbing into the driver's seat.

Marcus leaned back as the car pulled away from the curb, then leaned forward again, pulling the radio handset out of its cradle and clicking the switch a couple of times.