Traffic [Valduggery, Skulduggery Pleasant Fanfiction]

Ice Cream

[ Hops on the bandwagon]

Zombies

Three weeks later, she breaks down, crying. She covers her mouth with her hand, because someone—something might hear them. Something. Some thing. She covers her mouth with her hand and leans against the wall, and they need to get to a defendable position, but she sinks down to the ground.

Skulduggery looks at her like she grew a third head. He cocks his head, crouches down to her level, reaches out a hesitant hand.

"I fucking dropped it."

The hand retracts. "Sorry?"

"The ice cream cone," Valkyrie whispers, wiping away tears with a hasty hand. "I fucking dropped the last ice cream cone ever! I dropped it!" She covers her mouth again for a second. "I dropped it."

"I'm sure the cone didn't mind."

"I minded!"

"Valkyrie..." He trails off, lost, and she knows he is looking at her, observing her, gears turning, trying to figure out what to say.

"I'm fine," she says instead, standing, still wiping her face still. "I'm fine, let's go. It's almost dark, and we still have to raid the grocery store." When he doesn't follow, "I'm fine, Skulduggery."

He nods, stands, follows.

...

Skulduggery stops, looks around the street. Valkyrie blinks, comes back to herself, tightens her grip on the stick. She relaxes when she sees Skulduggery's shoulders, the angle of his head, and she follows his gaze.

"Oh."

She looks at him, replaces the stick on her shoulder. "Oh? What does oh mean?"

"Oh means the Bentley is gone."

Valkyrie makes a face, begins to grin. "Gone?"

"I fear it might have been stolen."

Valkyrie waits for the punchline. Her eyebrows twitch downwards, and she begins to look around the street. She recognizes the hardware store, the pile of wood that was once a farm stand, the burnt-out car smashed into the streetlamp.

And a cold terror drips down her spine.

"They hotwired it?" Valkyrie looks around, suddenly feeling very exposed in the middle of the street. She feels like she's a thousand miles away from home, in the middle of a town she doesn't know the name of—doesn't want to.

"No. No, they didn't hotwire it."

Valkyrie turns to look at him, slowly, slowly. "Did you leave the keys inside?"

Skulduggery pushes his hat higher up his forehead, puts his hands on his hips. She sees his shoulders start to hunch, see his jaw clench, his gaze fall to the ground. "In my defense, I figured luxurious car would not be a priority in a zombie apocalypse."

...

They're everywhere. They clog the streets, an unmoving mass of rotting limbs, swaying in the breeze like some demented forest. The ships in the distance—the ones that didn't escape without someone infected—mark the shore of the beach.

Valkyrie stands with Skulduggery, on the edge of the city, and a part of her wants to curl up on the ground. Another, stronger part wants to attack them, slam into the crowd, rip them apart, and she flexes her fingers.