Love Bites ~ Craig of the Dead au ~ Tricia x Karen fan fiction [COMPLETE]

44

It's been hours now and nobody has come to find me. Gregory and I are stuck in this shitty building that's still crumbling and getting worse every minute. The occasional handful of dust floats from the ceiling and lands on my head, making it look like I've got a bad case of dandruff.

"Tricia, you still there?" Gregory calls out.

"Yeah."

"Do you think we're getting out of here alive?"

"I don't know," I admit, "There's no way out of here and I doubt anyone outside will be able to hear us if we yell. We're in the middle of the building."

Gregory makes a small humming noise in agreement.

The silence is awkward and uncomfortable, the worst kind of silence you can have. Even worse than the silence of when you're hiding behind a wall from a Cartman that wants to tear you limb from limb. Gregory occasionally groans in pain since he can't sit up yet, but at least he can't feel his legs. That would hurt a whole lot worse.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, we hear static.

"Was that just me or did you hear that too?" I ask, scrambling to my feet.

"That sounds like one of the walkie talkies we use. You've got to find it, someone might be trying to contact us!"

Hearing the static again, I hurriedly crawl around the room, lifting up rubble, checking behind damaged furniture, shifting chunks of ceiling out of the way. My hands are covered in dust and dried blood from my self healing wounds, fingernails black from dirt. Dog eared books that are black falling apart are thrown over my shoulder so I can push the bookshelf out of my way, allowing me to access a small corner in the room.

Heart pounding in my chest, I grab onto one of the splintering wooden shelves and pull. The bookshelf wobbles. I give another pull, this time using enough force to make the entire thing slide a few feet towards me. It's not much, but it's enough to let me squeeze into the small gap behind it. I lean against the bookshelf and put one of my feet against the wall, then give another push so the entire thing crashes to the ground. The wood must be quite damaged since the back panel collapses under my weight and I end up on the floor with my ass sandwiched between two shelves.

After pulling myself out of the bookshelf, I scan the ground for the source of the static noise. Hidden under a broken floorboard is, as Gregory predicted, a walkie talkie. It looks quite basic, just a black rectangle with a limited amount of buttons, but it's enough that it could get us out of here. I grab it and run back to Gregory so we can try it out.

Pressing down the button on the side, I raise it to my mouth.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" I ask.

Gregory rolls his eyes at me, "You aren't doing it right. We don't have time to get personal, just give our names and our location and keep repeating it until someone replies."

"Jeez okay." I hold my hands up defensively, "Who died and made you king of walkie talkies?"

Another eye roll.

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes back at him, I press the button and try again.

"Our names are Gregory and Tricia. We are trapped inside the lab, roughly in the middle, and we are in desperate need of help. I repeat, our names are Gregory and Tricia..."

I repeat myself sixty, maybe seventy times over until I finally give up, throat dry, voice hoarse. Repeating nothing but that phrase over and over again has made the words feel like mush in my mouth, soft, wrong and meaningless. We spent so long sending out the message that the room is pitch black, no moonlight streaming through any of the gaps in the walls or the heavily damaged ceiling.

A look of hopelessness washes over Gregory when I let the walkie talkie fall from my fingers onto my knees. I'm guessing the same look is plastered on my face, maybe mixed with regret, anger, loneliness. After all, I got everyone into this mess. I let Karen play with the lighter. I didn't put out the fire she started in our old base. I didn't wait for the others, I took Karen and we left. This entire thing is my fault.

Fat tears roll down my cheeks, mingling with dirt, dust, dried blood, gathering at my chin and dripping onto Gregory's shoulder. My bottom lip quivers, my breaths become shallower and quicker. Fuck, I hate crying.
Judging by the expression on Gregory's face, I'm ugly crying too, fun.

I grab onto my shorts and dig my nails into my thighs, not even wincing at the pinch as they break into my skin. Not that it even fucking matters.

Gregory twists his head every few seconds, avoiding my tears. All of a sudden, he tries to sit up, gasping in pain from the quick movement.

"Tricia!" He slaps my leg repeatedly, trying to get my attention. When I ignore him, he pinches my calf until I squeal like a pig. "Did you hear that?"

"No?"

"Then shut the fuck up with your crying." He tries to hit me but I dodge. "I heard a voice."

"You must be hearing things."

He holds a hand up, shushing me. Annoyed but curious, I slap it away and then listen closer.

At first there's nothing, just the creaking of a crumbling building and the distant sounds of debris falling to the ground, Gregory's breathing and the ringing in my ears are quiet but clear.

"Baby?"