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"At least we know everything here that's dead is properly dead," said Jack as they finished dispatching the last zom they'd found lurking in the handful of rooms that made up the museum. Apart from the zoms, it seemed like it had been relatively untouched by the fall of civilisation, and you could almost pretend that you were just...on a jaunt to a taxidermy museum? Well, it takes all sorts.They passed a badger with its mouth open, looking more terrifying than a badger had any right to be -- Jack wondered idly if it had had TB before the outbreak. Maybe it'd been killed in one of those culls they did a few years back -- the one that hadn't actually dented the badger population at all. I am badger, and I will rise again!
"What was that, Jack?" Had he said that out loud? Um.
"Nothing. This is...this is really cool. I've never been to one of these. Look! Where on Earth did they get a koala?" he said, pointing at the marsupial across the room. "I don’t think it looks quite as cute as it's supposed to." He scrunched up his face and tilted his head, seeing if it looked better from that angle. It didn't.
Eugene snorted at the face he was making, but turned away. There was nowhere to look that didn't involve dead animals -- the place was, obviously, full of them. "I don't like it," Eugene said, leaning on the steel pipe that served him as a weapon. "Creeps me out. I mean, these things are dead. And they have these awful glass eyes and some of them look like they've been infected with the grey plague as well -- I mean, really, look at that fox" (Jack had to admit he had a point -- the fox was all teeth and an anatomically questionable snarl and the fur was worn down in places.) "I'm going to go look around a bit, yeah? Shout if you need me."
Eugene wandered off, and they'd already checked all the rooms they could find, so Jack let him. Even though Eugene clearly felt uncomfortable, Jack was loving it -- this had been his favourite part whenever they went to the Natural History Museum and finally there was an entire building full of them. Sure, it wasn't a good collection, but you couldn't be picky after civilisation had gone to hell.
It was only a few minutes after Eugene had gone that Jack found it. It was love at first sight. The beaver was marginally better-taxidermied than most of the other animals, thank goodness, and Jack didn't even have to break any glass to get to it. Eugene had said his birthday was some time in autumn, hadn't he? This would be a great present!
"Eugene!" he called, and even though his tone clearly said 'this is as exciting as early Christmas presents for a five-year-old', Eugene still came in with his weapon raised, eyes darting around the room. Jack rolled his eyes as his partner slowly lowered his weapon, and presented him with his find. "I call him Marvin," he said, deciding it on the spot. The beaver just looked like a Marvin, really.
"You what?"
"It's a beaver! And you know, you're Canadian, and beavers are a symbol of Canada...so consider this an early birthday present. Or a late one. I never quite worked out when your birthday was, to be honest. Or what the current date is."
Eugene shook his head, his dark curls bobbing as if they had a mind of their own, but Jack saw the grin he wasn't quite hiding. "Jack, what use could I have for a taxidermy beaver?"
"To remind you of home!" he said, breaking into a broad smile. "Making the best of being stuck over the pond, yeah?"
Eugene raised an eyebrow.
"To keep you company at night?"
"You planning on leaving?"
Jack stuck out his tongue, ever so mature. He didn't dignify the question with a response.
"Did you have a pet beaver when you lived in Canada?" Canadians kept beavers as pets, didn't they? Or was that something else?
"No," said Eugene with a completely straight face, "we were more of a moose family."
Before Jack could ask more about this moose (and he fully intended to), there was an ominous groan at the doors and a thud that meant bad news. The thud came again, before they could move, and there was a cracking sound as the zombies forced their way in ("I thought we'd secured the entrance?" Eugene asked, but Jack found he couldn't remember). Fuck.
"Um, shit," Jack said, as undead construction workers came shambling through the doorway (some of them still had their hard hats on, which was going to make it murder to get to their brains -- and was that a mug of tea one of them was carrying?). What sort of luck was that?
They both collected themselves and went in, pipe and cricket bat swinging. They'd managed to develop a bit of a rhythm by now, a method of working in tandem to dispatch zombies as efficiently as possible. "Gene! To your right!" Jack shouted as he noticed a zom in a suit (the overseer?) lunge towards him. Eugene swung around and got it in the gut, and then a smash on the skull. Brain splattered over his shirt, and he made a face. The second worst thing about zombies (after the whole killing you and your family bit) was definitely the spatter.
Jack turned back to his own zombies and kept swinging -- if he got the angle right, he could knock off the hard hat with a swing and then finish them off. It was during one of these finely tuned swings, however, that his grip on WG slipped and the bat went flying -- it took out a zom at the knees, but it was now too far away to be of any use. Jack was weaponless, and there were still at least six zoms for him to re-kill. He swore, looking around for something to use. Nothing jumped out at him, except... He lunged to his right and grabbed the taxidermy fox, satisfied as the solid clay mould collided with an undead tradie.
"What the hell are you doing?" Eugene yelled as he hit another zom, dodging a second one's swipe in his direction.
"Saving our lives!" Jack yelled back over the moans of the undead and the thump of their weapons colliding with skulls.
"With a dead fox?"
"Didn't know you were so damn picky!"
They inched towards the clear exit in mutual silent agreement that they had to move on. Who knew what else this village held -- probably a gaggle of school children, too, and no one wanted to encounter that. Jack managed to pick up WG, which had flown towards the exit, thank goodness. It was only once they were half a kilometre away, rain dripping from their hair, that Eugene noticed he'd also saved something else.
"You kept the beaver?"
"Marvin! Yes, I kept him. He's your birthday present," Jack said, handing the dead mammal to Eugene. "He, uh, seems to have come out a bit worse for wear, though -- no clue what happened to the other half of his tail. Must've snapped off in the escape or something." As well as the missing tail, there was a bit of blood matted in its fur and Eugene was fairly sure that splodge there was zombie brain. It wasn't the flashiest birthday present he had ever received, or the most punctual (his birthday had been a month ago), but he accepted the gift anyway, only scrunching up his nose a little bit. Besides, a taxidermy fox had saved his life, so perhaps he should ease up on the distaste of stuffed animals. They had their uses.
"Thanks," Eugene said, taking Marvin and flicking a bit of brain off him before putting him in his backpack. "It's the best present ever."
(Either Eugene wasn't very good at sounding sarcastic, or he meant it a bit more than he thought he did. Whatever the answer, Marvin was still there when they got to Abel.)