The Chain [4/7]
An hour after noon, Rachel drove down the street of a quiet suburban neighborhood, feeling like she was going around in circles. She looked up at the same sign she had already seen twice, cursed, and pulled over onto the side of the road.
She opened the glove compartment to look for the map, but as she rifled through the receipts and parking tickets to get to it, she noticed a package that had been stuffed at the bottom. Forgetting the map and yielding to her curiosity, Rachel pulled out the package and slid its contents out into her free hand, realizing that they were pictures.
They weren't pictures of her mother, though. As Rachel flipped through one photograph after another, she saw herself with Emma, stills of herself with Ross, and a couple images of the group. They weren’t only recent pictures either; as Rachel looked at each one, she watched, with a growing sense of awe, little physical changes within herself and the others. Only, instead of going forward in time, they all got younger.
Rachel exhaled sharply as her mouth twisted into a slight smirk. Now she knew where all the copies she’d been sending her mother all these years had gone. Not, as Sandra had told her, in a photo album back at the house, but in a flimsy paper bag that had been collecting dust at the bottom of a glove compartment.
She stopped at a glossy picture that had been taken a little more than a year ago. In it, she and Ross were standing together at one of his faculty parties.
He looked pleased, and Rachel looked bored.
July 2005
At the cocktail party that had been held for the science department, Ross was a god amongst men, which was a definite turn on for Rachel. She watched him as he moved through the crowd, admiring him for a while, then wondering when he’d come back and talk to her. She had planned on being a social butterfly herself, but as she tried listening in on conversations about fossils and eras, she lost all interest in Ross’s colleagues and parked herself at the bar. She stood there by herself, swaying to the music and downing drinks until Ross finally returned to her.
“Well, hey!” he said. “You seem to be enjoying this a lot more than I thought you would.”
“That’s probably because I. Am. Wasted,” Rachel said, giggling as she swayed a little too dangerously toward the bar, and Ross had to grab onto her to make sure her face didn’t connect with it. “Good thing I can cover it up, huh?”
As he held her upright, Ross said, “okay, look, I’m gonna get you out of here. Sorry you weren’t having a good time.”
“Not having a good time?” she drawled. “You know how many people congratulated me on our engagement, then asked me when we're finally going to set a date? And the people who went on and on about all this dinosaur crap I couldn’t even pretend to follow? I think I lost track after those stuffy triplets in the blue blazers left.”
Ross turned around to look at whom she was pointing. “Rach, that’s a waiter. Singular.”
“See? This is the best damn party I’ve ever been to!” She lifted her champagne glass up to her mouth, but Ross pulled it down.
“How much have you had to drink?”
“Well, let’s see: two, three, five…” Rachel paused, squinting as she made a big show of counting with her hands. “Six,” she said, proudly wiggling all ten of her fingers.
“Oh,” Ross said. “That’s not as bad as I -”
“- Teen.”
“We’re leaving.” He took her by the arm and started to lead the long way around the room, but she resisted him, pulling out his grip and standing her ground. “Rachel, please! We don’t need to make this any harder than it already is.”
“That’s what she said!” she blurted out, then started laughing like a loon.
“Rachel!”
“Oh, come on, you walked right into that one.”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay, so that’s one more show Emma won’t be watching until she’s eighteen.”
Rachel flicked through a couple more pictures of her and Ross, then paused when she landed on one that had been taken at one of Jack Sr.’s barbecues. In the photograph, she and Ross were both smiling, but their smiles looked stiff and forced.
We look like Mom and Dad used to look in their pictures, Rachel realized. Even way before the divorce.
Rachel worked her way through the rest of the photos, losing sight of her goal and surroundings. As she neared the end, she caught a couple of candids she knew Monica must have taken when she was on her brief photographer craze. Rachel smiled a little as she took in the images of simpler days gone by: Ben grinning at the kitchen table with his cute little bowl haircut, Phoebe and Joey holding up their hands together, making some odd gang sign, and Ross striking a pose in his leather pants.
She stopped at one of Joey sleeping on the Barcalounger in his apartment, his arm curled around Hugsy.
A shockwave rolled through Rachel as she remembered the last thing Joey had done just before he moved, and then some.
August 2004
When she and Emma walked into Joey's apartment after the movers left, the reality of the situation hit her when she saw how bare the whole place was. No entertainment system, no Stevie the TV, no Playboy magazines and cereal boxes anywhere. As far as Joey knew, no one would be moving into the place, and a part of Rachel secretly hoped it would remain that way. As thrilled and optimistic as she was for him taking the steps that would advance him in his career, she liked the idea of the place remaining vacant, in case he ever wanted to move back.
“Wow,” she said, stepping up to the counter and running her hand along it as she looked at the walls. “It’s not as bright as I remembered.”
He nodded, looking like he felt the same way. “Yeah. Look, Rach, the reason I asked you two to come over here was because... Well, I wanted to give Emma something.”
“But Joey, that’s not how it works. We were supposed to give you the going-away present.” It wasn’t until Rachel pointed that out that she felt a pang of regret at not having done so.
He waved off her protest. “Nah, dinner at Monica’s was enough. Anyway, I figured this would be a good a time as any to do this. Hang on a second.”
As Joey went into his bedroom, Rachel craned her neck as she leaned over the counter and listened to him rummage around. When he came back out with a poorly wrapped gift, Rachel's curiosity rose even more.
Emma buried her face in Rachel’s leg in a sudden fit of shyness when Joey drew close to her. He crouched down to her level and smiled widely.
“Emma,” he said, “this is for you.”
He held out the present, prompting her to take it.
“Go on, honey," Rachel said when Emma looked up at her. She pulled away from her mother, stepped forward a little, then, after hesitating for a second, snatched away the gift. In a flash, she was ripping off the wrapping paper, letting it fall to the floor in a heap.
When she uncovered a large stuffed penguin, Rachel gasped and said, “Oh my God.”
Emma looked at the toy in her hands, flitting her attention between it, Joey, and then up to her mother.
Rachel's voice shook as she spoke, her gaze leveled down to her friend's. “Joey...”
“Rach, it's okay,” he said, standing up again. “I want her to have him, honest.” He looked back at Emma. “You know, Emma, when you were a baby, you really loved that guy. Only problem was, I loved him too, and I didn’t want you to have him.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Well, your Uncle Joey was pretty selfish back then, but now I think it’d be better if you take him. His name’s Hugsy, in case you forgot.”
“Hugsy,” Emma echoed, peering down at the stuffed animal.
“Oh, Joey, honey, you… you don’t know how much this means to us,” Rachel said. “Emma never really grew attached to the new one.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Joey said. “She could probably tell he was nowhere near as great as the original.”
Turning his attention back to Emma, he said, “you’ll take good care of him, right? He needs a new home, a nice one, and I think you can give it to him. Don’t go leaving him out of your tea parties and making him feel all sad and lonely, okay?”
“Okay,” Emma said as she tightened her grip around Hugsy.
“What do you say?” Rachel prompted her.
“Thank you,” Emma said, her words muffled by the penguin’s large, soft head.
“Don’t mention it,” Joey said to her, still smiling. Then, looking back at Rachel, he added in a lowered voice, “You should probably get him outta here, before I end up taking him back again.”
“Yeah, okay,” Rachel agreed, and she led Emma away as she turned and wave goodbye to Joey, smiling gratefully at him as they left.
November 2004
“Oh my God!” Rachel squealed over the phone, her voice so high and loud that, as Chandler would say, only dogs could hear her. She could almost see Joey holding his phone away from his ear, waiting for her incomprehensible shrieks to die down. “This is the best thing ever! I - I can’t believe this. Marc Jacobs. It’s like… It’s like a dream come true!”
“You can pinch yourself after the interview,” he said, chuckling over the line.
“Aw, sweetie, thank you so, so much for this.”
“Hey, don’t thank me, thank Stacy. She’s the one who set the whole thing up.”
“Well, yeah, but you were the one who got her to do it," Rachel said, leaving out the fact that she had a pretty good idea just how Joey had gotten Stacy to help. "Is there - is there anything I can do for you? Y’know, to return the favor?”
“Tell you what: send some of that banana beef cake you made that one Thanksgiving, and we’ll call it even.”
“What?” Rachel asked as confusion momentarily overrode her excitement. “That’s really all you want?”
“Yep,” he said. “That’ll be it.”
She laughed, remembering how little it took to please Joey. It was one of the things she loved about him. “Okay, then you’ve got yourself a trifle.”
“Ooh, and could you put a couple extra layers of jam in it?” he added hopefully.
Still grinning, she said, “Sure thing, Joe. Anything for my hero.”
February 2006
Rachel called Joey to wish him a happy Valentine’s Day in the afternoon. He wished her the same, and asked how she was planning on spending hers. She told him about how she and Ross were going to Four Seasons, dinner, and the planetarium that night.
“Nice,” Joey said, sounding genuinely impressed. “Way to go, Geller!”
“What about you?” she asked. “Have you got a date lined up? Or several?”
He paused, then said, “I was planning to go out with this one girl tonight, but lately she’s been kind of… Intense. You know? I mean, she’s really hot, but half the time I’m with her, I’m wondering if she’s going to tie me to my bed and break my legs, only not in the good way.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s not good,” Rachel said. “But hey; remember that one girl who used to hit you all the time? I kicked her ass, didn’t I? I’ll come over there and give this one a good talking to, if she needs it. I’ll -”
“- She’s got a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu.”
“And that’s all you.”
After they hung up, Rachel couldn’t help but feel a little… something. She couldn’t even find the right word for it. It wasn’t disappointment, exactly. Nor was it jealousy, or regret. It wasn’t even the gut-wrenching, absolute despair she’d felt when she’d been confronted by situations like this in the past.
In the end, it was a little bit of all of the above.
July 2006
Rachel and Monica’s play date started out like it normally did. They drank coffee, watched their kids watch TV and talked about how fast they were growing up. Rachel wondered, like always, if she was being a bad mother because she was working so much, and Monica, like always, assured her she wasn’t.
“Oh, stop it, Ms. ‘I know exactly what I’m doing with my kids up until the day they move out,’” Rachel said.
“Okay, first of all, you’re right,” Monica conceded. “And second of all, do you think I could fit that on my driver’s license?”
They both grinned at each other, then were interrupted by Chandler coming down the stairs. Rachel asked him what he’d been up to, and he said, “Oh, just, uh… cleaning,” with an evasive look in his eye.
Rachel leaned in toward Monica. “Is that another way of saying, ‘shark hunting?'”
“You two promised never to bring that up again!” he said, jabbing his finger at them in accusation as they giggled. “And no, I wasn’t ‘shark hunting,’” he added, nasally mocking Rachel’s euphemism. “I was actually doing something a little more mature than that.”
“Oh, right,” Monica said with a knowing smirk. “You were singing in front of the bathroom mirror again, weren’t you?”
“No, I was playing with the Xbox Joey left from his last visit.”
“What?” Rachel asked, lowering her coffee cup. “What do you mean, Joey’s last visit? He hasn’t been here since he moved away.”
Chandler looked at Monica, then Rachel, then back at Monica.
“Do me a favor and put some masking tape over my mouth whenever Rachel’s around,” he said to his wife. “Better yet, maybe we should staple my lips shut.”
Monica leaned back in her chair. “I think I’ll let Joey do that when he finds out you told her.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes as she set her cup down on the table. “Um, guys?” she asked, her voice shaking a little. “What’s going on? Why didn’t Joey tell me he was here? Do the others know about this?”
“Nope. We’re the only ones,” Monica said.
“Yep, only us. And Phoebe. Also Judy, but only because she was here at the time,” Chandler blurted out. “But Ross still doesn’t know, so you weren’t completely alone. Yay!”
“Judy knew about this, and we didn’t?” Rachel asked.
Monica whirled around in her seat. “Chandler!”
He took a couple steps back, shrugged, then turned and bolted out of the kitchen through the back door, letting it slam shut behind him.
“It’s okay!” Monica called out when the kids turned, in unison, toward the kitchen. They looked at her with curious expressions for a few seconds, then looked back at the television.
Rachel was still confused. “I… I just don’t get it. Why wouldn’t he tell me he was coming to visit? Unless if…” She broke off when she came to the same conclusion she had more than ten years ago. Only this time, the revelation revolved around somebody else.
Monica was studying her face with an anxious expression. “Look, it’s not really such a big deal if you think about it. He’s only been here once,” she admitted. “Okay, two times.”
Rachel raised her eyebrows.
“Fine, four,” Monica said with a huff. “Man, I hate it when Phoebe’s right, but Chandler and I really would suck at being spies.”
“So,” Rachel said, trying - and failing - to appear as nonchalant as possible. “Four times, huh?”
A pained look stole over Monica’s face. “He really wanted to see you every time he came, but he figured it would be… better to just let you be happy.”
“I wish he knew that seeing him again would make me happy,” Rachel murmured. “God, you know, I just don’t get it.” She put her elbow on the table and began rubbing her forehead. “I thought he’s been over me for years.”
“Well,” Monica said, “you also used to think the same thing about Ross.” She paused, then after biting her lip a little, she asked, “so, are you going to talk to Joey about it?”
Rachel sighed. “No. I think it would just hurt him even more if he knew I knew. And I just, I couldn't do that to him again. Plus, you know, he’s doing so well over there; I’m... over here with Ross, and we are really trying to make things work. Really, really trying some days. But as tough as it's been, I can't just give up on us because, well, Emma needs a family, doesn't she?” After a moment, Rachel realized that she'd been rambling. “Why do all these guys keep falling in love with me, anyway?”
“Hell if I know,” Monica said with a shrug. “But, honey, be honest with me: do you want to talk to Joey about all this?”
Rachel looked up and met her best friend’s clear blue eyes, knowing what she meant, and she took in a deep breath.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes I do wonder what things would be like now if… Oh, you must hate me so much for even thinking this.”
Monica leaned over and patted Rachel on the back. “For what it’s worth, I don’t. And I do think you should tell him you know, especially if you want to see him again.”
“Oh, I would love that, but…” Rachel shook her head. “I love your brother, Mon, I really do. It’s just that… No, I can't. I don't want to hurt either of them, anymore.”
Monica pulled Rachel into a hug, letting her cry on her shoulder. Emma went over to her immediately, clinging to her mother’s leg, and Rachel laughed, picking her up and setting her down on her lap.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. Mommy’s not sad anymore,” Rachel said, drying her eyes with a tissue that Monica had handed her. “Thanks. It really isn’t that a big deal, you know. I mean, it’s not like I’m in love with Joey, or anything.” When she laughed, it came out sounding dry and forced. “I mean, that ship already sailed ages ago.”
September 30, 2006
Though she’d managed to hold herself together downstairs with her mother, Rachel couldn’t help but give into the tears after she entered the guest room, where Emma was sleeping. Rachel rummaged around in her purse, still sniffling, and went into the bathroom as she searched for a familiar number on her cell phone.
When the other line picked up on the third ring, she sighed in relief.
“Hi,” she said. “It’s me.”
Joey’s response was immediate, and full of concern. “What’s wrong?”
She heard a woman speaking in the background, telling him to hang up and come back to bed, and that recurring pang hit her: that mixture of jealousy and regret. In the end, Rachel pushed those petty, jealous feelings aside. Leaning against the sink, she let out her answer like a dam that had finally collapsed under the assault of what had been wearing it down.
“Everything.”
After a few seconds of shifting movement on Joey’s end, all Rachel heard was complete silence.
When she started to wonder if he was still there, he spoke up again. “I’m coming back.”
“Joey, you don’t have to -”
“- Yes,” he said, his voice a low, comforting tone. “Yes, I do. I’ll start driving over there first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Drive?” Rachel asked, puzzlement cutting through her tears. “You could fly first class.”
“Nah,” he said. “It’ll be fun to take another road trip, y'know. See if Martin’s still got that beard of bees. Don’t worry; I’ll be there before you know it.”
She closed her eyes, thankful that he’d insisted on returning. She missed him so much that it almost hurt to hear that promise, to know that he was finally on his way back home after two long years of being away - no, of being apart from her.
She whispered her farewell, telling him to call her when he arrived, and closed the cell phone.
It's just a friend asking a friend for support, she told herself. Nothing more than that.
“Oh,” Rachel said, sending the pictures scattering as she just started to realize the possibility what had once seemed so impossible. “Oh.”
“What?” Emma sleepily asked from the backseat.
Which was exactly when a bunch of zombies decided to ambush the car.
Phoebe and Ross peered out the window, cringing at the group of about twenty zombies that were milling around the streets like they were on their way to work.
“Have you noticed that they only go out during the day?” Phoebe asked. “And they’re not so hot with the going inside buildings?”
“Yeah,” Ross said, still leaning all of his weight on the foot that was not attached to his injured ankle. The very idea that they had limitations was odd, but helpful. Ross wondered, though, just how long the limitations would last.
Phoebe pointed to one of them: a woman in a power suit. “So, what do you think is her story?”
Ross stared at Phoebe with a look of disgust. “C’mon, Pheebs, I’m not gonna… zombie watch with you.”
“Okay, so you could spy on Ugly Naked Guy for years, but you can’t observe the undead.”
Ross sighed, looking down and pinpointing the wandering zombie Phoebe had been talking about.
“Well, she looks like she used to be a big CEO of a major company, until she went insane and…” Ross winced when the staggering woman turned around and exposed her backside to him. “Crapped herself. Now she spends her days lurching around and eating human flesh. The end.”
Phoebe shook her head in disappointment. “Oh, Ross. If this is the kind of story you told your daughter…”
He snorted. “I guess I left my storytelling skills back in the real world.”
“No, you’ve just, you have to loosen up and use your imagination. Okay, see, she probably was a head honcho in business, but what we don’t know is that she was carrying on a secret affair… With a professional bull wrangler.”
“What?”
“Yeah, but it didn’t work out because, see, the bull wrangler wanted to run away to Mexico, but… Regina couldn’t do it; she had too much to lose. Right before the cell phone thing happened, Regina changed her mind, and called her lover to get ready to head for the border, but by then it was too late, and now they’re both doomed to wandering around the city forever, unable to find each other and remember who they once were.”
Ross couldn’t help but feel a little saddened by that. “Oh my God. That’s… that’s beautiful, Phoebe. Tragic, but beautiful.”
“I know. Now it’s your turn. And this time, don’t be skimpy with the details.”
“Okay,” Ross said, pointing out an older man who was sitting on the ground and tearing apart what looked to be a box of cereal. “He used to be a hotshot monkey trainer…who was also a secret undercover agent for NASA…”
“Mailbox, Monica, mailbox!”
Monica fired off another shot into the crowd of zombies that was chasing the station wagon, then ducked back inside two seconds before the mailbox whizzed by the space her head had been.
“I’m starting to think that this was not such a good idea,” Chandler shouted as he continued roaring down the street. “Check on the kids, will you?”
Monica looked over at them.
“They’re fine,” she said, shifting back around to reload the rifle. “Actually, they seem to be enjoying this.”
Jack let out a gurgling laugh in confirmation. Erica shrieked happily and clapped her hands. “Yahoo!” she shouted.
“Well, at least they’re having fun,” Chandler said, managing to avoid a Big Wheel that had been abandoned on its side.
“To tell you the truth, I kinda am, too.” Monica snapped the chamber shut and, taking a deep breath, heaved herself up into a cramped kneeling position in the seat to take aim out the window again.
“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” Chandler said, with affection as he glanced over at her. Even with grime and sweat covering her face, she was still gorgeous. Killing these monsters seemed to have given her back her spark, which he’d thought she lost when they had to leave the Porsche behind.
She looks like an Amazon warrior, he thought. Or Xena. Mmmm, Xena…
“I’m telling you, this is my second calling!” Monica cried out as she took another shot at the crowd of chasing monsters behind them.
Rachel was squashed halfway in the back seat in her rush to get to Emma as the car was rocked back and forth. She was still struggling to find the pepper spray she’d dropped on the foot well in the back out of sheer panic. In the recess of her screaming mind, she knew the spray wouldn’t do anything against the hungry beasts around her, but the small device was the only defense she had.
Suddenly, she heard a series of sharp, short gunshots rattling through the air, and lunged forward, pressing herself over her daughter.
When the car stopped moving and the noises faded away, she dared to look up, and when she did, she saw only one, living person standing several yards away from the car, breathing heavily.
She gasped when she realized just who had saved the lives of her and her child.
“Charlie?”
The woman lowered her handgun, looking just as shaken and confused. “Rachel?”
After checking on Emma, Rachel clumsily threw open the door of the vehicle. She nearly toppled out of the backseat and onto a bloody corpse, but she twisted a little to the left at the last second and sprawled onto the pavement.
Should’ve gone for the body, she thought as she lay on the ground, dazed. Normally, she would’ve been flushed with embarrassment and frustration, but considering that she just had her ass saved, she was willing to toss her humiliation to the side.
“Here,” Charlie said, walking over to her and offering her hand. Rachel took it and stood, wiping the grit and sweat out of her palms on her jeans.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she said. It was strange. A few years ago, Rachel would’ve liked nothing more than getting to punch Charlie in the face repeatedly, but in the moment, she had the overwhelming urge to kiss the woman out of relief and gratitude.
“Yeah,” Charlie said a little shakily. “Me neither. Especially since I just used up my last round of bullets.”
“Oh.” Rachel said. “Crap.”
“Damnit!” Emma added helpfully from the backseat.
“Emma?” Charlie asked, the shocked expression still on her face.
Emma waved at her in greeting, as if a group of monsters hadn’t just been swarming the car two minutes ago.
“Oh, right. Sorry,” Rachel said. “Charlie, Emma. Emma, Charlie.”
“Nice to meet you,” Charlie said with a quick nod to Emma, then added, "Though this could've happened under better circumstances..." She jerked her head in the direction Rachel had come from. “Come on, let’s go. My place is just down the street.”
Rachel was about to ask her a dozen questions, but when she saw that the zombies on the ground were still moving a little, she reached forward to unbuckle Emma’s seatbelt.
As the sun began to set and the crowd of zombies downstairs began to dissipate, Phoebe and Ross slumped onto the couch together, both of them exhausted.
“I think we could write a novel with all the stuff we just came up with,” Ross said. “That was… that was actually fun, Phoebe.”
“Yeah, well, the fun never ends here in Zombie City,” Phoebe said, then got up again, heading toward the door.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Out.”
“What? Are you crazy?”
She paused, turning to look back at him.
“Okay; poor choice of words,” he said. “But seriously, Phoebe. After all that stuff you said before about it being safe in here, after getting confirmation just minutes ago that those things are still around, you’re going to risk going out there?”
“Yeah, I am,” Phoebe said. “What’s your point?”
He put his arms down on either side of him to lift himself up from the couch. “I’m going with you.”
“Ross, you need to stay here and rest,” she said, her voice calm and even. “Plus, you’d just slow me down. I’m going to go look around and see if I’m right about something.”
“Something?” Ross repeated. “Something like what?”
“That’s what I need to find out,” she said, leaving it at that. Then she went out the door, closing it behind her before Ross could yell at her to come back.
He leaned against the leather seat, looking up at the ceiling and hoping Phoebe, then Rachel and Emma, would come back to him safe and sound.
In the house, Rachel couldn’t stop her skin from crawling at the thought of the oncoming zombies. On their way to the house, Charlie assured her that they were safe because none of the zombies she’d seen had ever gone into a home, even if they knew it was occupied. Apparently they liked to wait outside, since they had more room to move around and could catch stragglers that way. To Rachel, it seemed ridiculous - and a little unnerving - that the monsters were aware enough to have a preference, but after considering the alternative, she was glad to know that she, Charlie, and Emma would be safe, as long as they were indoors.
She chose not to think too much about the flipside of that rule: that all the survivors of the human race were systematically being turned into prisoners inside their own homes.
After giving Emma a bottle of water and taking a breather in the kitchen, Rachel explained that she was on her way back to the West Village.
When she saw concern passing over Charlie’s face, she felt even more alarmed.
“What?” she asked, and Charlie got up from the table.
“I was wondering what you were doing way out here,” she said, leaving the kitchen. When she came back, Rachel saw that she was carrying a map of Long Island, and she spread it out on the table.
“See?” she said, pointing at the area of her residence. “We’re all the way at the end.”
Rachel could nothing but stare down at the map, inwardly wailing at her misplaced sense of direction.
While Charlie folded up the map, Rachel gave Emma a few of her books from the bag she had grabbed out of the car, then went back into the kitchen, where Charlie was sitting.
“You know,” Charlie said as she tipped her own water bottle toward her, looking down at it. “I never would have thought in a million years I’d ever see you again.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said as she sat down across from Charlie. “Me too. Did you transfer to another school?”
“I got a really good offer out here, so I decided, why not? Especially since it got kind of awkward being around Ross after Benji and I got back together.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Rachel said, remembering what Ross had told her and the others after announcing the break up. She noticed the ring on Charlie’s left hand, and added, “You two got married?”
Charlie smiled a little. “About a year ago, in September.”
“Congratulations,” Rachel said, and really meant it.
“Thanks," Charlie said. "You too. Is it Joey, or Ross?"
Rachel gave her a puzzled look, then followed Charlie's gaze, down to the ring on her own hand. “Oh, right. It's, um, Ross.”
Charlie didn’t look the least bit perturbed. “I always wondered if you two would get back together, eventually. I guess it was only a matter of time, right?
“Yeah,” Rachel said again, still staring at her hand and speaking as though she were far, far away. “I… I guess it was.”
Charlie tilted her head to the side, fixing Rachel with a concerned look. “Did something happen to him, Rachel?”
“What?” Rachel said, meeting Charlie’s eyes. “Oh, no. God, I hope not. I haven’t seen him since the night before…”
“The Pulse?”
She blinked. “The what?”
“That’s what I’ve been calling it,” Charlie said with a shrug. “It seemed fitting.”
“How come?”
“Well, there was the whole thing with the cell phones. I figured that maybe since -”
“- Wait,” Rachel said. “You’re saying the cell phones did all of this? How do you know?”
“I was running some errands when it happened, and saw about three teenagers, along with this other guy who wasn’t with them, all act sort of strange while they were talking on their phones. They looked annoyed at first, but then they just… lost it, and it was total chaos after that.”
Rachel thought back to the cell phone she’d seen lying forgotten on the floor, and how uneasy she’d felt while passing by the device. Turned out that Phoebe had been right all along.
“Benji went golfing that day,” Charlie continued, shaking Rachel out of her memory. “He left his cell phone at home, but I haven’t see him yet. I hope…” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, resting the heels of her palms on the edge of the table. “I hope nothing’s happened to him. Or Ross and Joey.”
Rachel put out her hand, and placed it on top of Charlie’s.
“They’ll be fine,” she said. “They are fine.” She exhaled, leaning back in her chair. “To tell you the truth, It’s me I’m more worried about. I have no idea how I’m going to make it home now.”
“You’ll manage,” Charlie assured her. “Whenever I hung out with you guys, at the back of my mind I always thought, ‘Man, that Rachel’s kind of a bitch, but she knows how to take care of herself.’”
“Thanks,” Rachel said, smiling at her. “I thought the same about you.”
“Really?” Charlie asked, looking pleasantly surprised. “That’s so nice!”
Around five A.M., when Ross was ready to try hobbling outside to track Phoebe down, she came in through the door. He was angry with her at first, demanding to know why she’d taken so long and scared him half to death, but when she said, “I missed you too,” he let his frustration with her subside. She put a bag on his table, saying she didn’t see any zombies - although she did run into a few people who were also scavenging - but she went to the pharmacy and brought some things to treat Ross’s injuries.
“I know this isn't going to make much sense, but they're playing music now,” she said as she watched him put a brace on his ankle. “It's coming from the stadium.”
“I knew I heard music," Ross said, relieved to get confirmation of that. "I thought I was losing it.”
“I think they’re losing it even more. I mean, Ricky Martin? Really?”
They agreed to go out the next night, after Ross had healed some more, and got ready for bed. After looking at the thin beam of sunlight streaming in through the barely parted curtain, Ross reflected on how strange it was to have to sleep during the day.
“I’m glad I was with you when everything went into the crapper,” Phoebe said to him, shaking him out of his thoughts.
Ross looked at her, a trace of a smile tugging at his lips. “Really?”
“Well, no,” she admitted after a moment. “I’d rather be with my husband. Or Joey. Or Rachel. But you’d have been my next choice after them. Ooh, no, definitely after Monica.”
Ross couldn't believe it - was he really laughing? Was this what going insane felt like? Was he actually finding humor out of this whole situation because of Phoebe?
“Thanks,” he said, in a dry tone that made him feel a little more like himself. “You’d have been my fifth choice too, Pheebs.”
She rolled her eyes. “As if. I lived on the street, remember? You know you wouldn’t have lasted five minutes without me; I’m totally your second choice.”
“Second?” He coughed. “Uh, what about Emma?”
“Well, since she came from Rachel, they both count as one.”
“Good night... uh, I mean, good day, Pheebs,” he said, lying back on the couch.
Rachel woke up on the couch, rubbing her eyes and looking over to Charlie and Emma, who were both still sleeping.
She got a bottle of water from Charlie's ample supply in the kitchen, playing around with her engagement ring. She'd ended up telling Charlie everything that had been happening between she and Ross, everything she'd been so eager to shove to the side with her mother. Instead of telling Rachel what to do or trying to convince her that she and Ross still belonged together, Charlie listened with much more patience than Rachel would have given her credit for, and when they both went to sleep, Rachel had felt like a heavy burden had been lifted off of her. She looked out at the road from the window, feeling much more confident in herself, that she could make it back home.
That she would make it back home.
She heard the sound of someone stirring in the living room. Soon, Charlie walked into the kitchen as she yawned, greeting Rachel while she got some water. They had the last of her bread and peanut butter for breakfast - what would have originally been an early dinner - and agreed that they had to get into town, so Charlie could search for Benji and bullets, and so Rachel could get started on her way back to Manhattan.
They went outside an hour later, moving as quickly as they could to Sandra's car. As they neared it, Rachel gripped onto Charlie's arm, making them stop in the middle of the street.
"They're gone," she whispered, looking at the area around the BMW in horror. Save for the bloodstains on the car and pavement, there was almost no sign that any zombies had been around.
"It's worse than that," Charlie said, her mouth set in a thin line as she knelt down and examined the crimson marks that were leading all the way up toward the main road. "I think they're evolving."
"What?"
Charlie looked up at her, then got back to her feet. "Not so they'll be completely human again. Actually, I think they're becoming more like -"
Before Rachel could comprehend what was happening, a big, bloated male zombie came flying out from the stand of trees next to the street, and latched his jaws onto Charlie's arm.
"Excuse me," Rachel snapped at him as Charlie tried to push him off of her with her free hand. "We are trying to have a conversation here!"
Then, in one swift movement, Rachel unlocked the car, wrenched the door open, felt around the foot well of the backseat, felt her hand close around the pepper spray, and swung it around, squirting it straight into the zombie’s eyes. He groaned in protest, ripping away several inches of skin from Charlie's arm as she crumpled to the pavement, but he got right back up again, and Rachel screamed, pushing Emma into the backseat right before kicking out at the zombie as he ran at her.
She got him between the legs, and he keeled over, looking like he wasn't going to get up anytime soon.
“Thank God that’s still effective,” Rachel said, but she wasn't about to celebrate with Charlie writhing on the ground next to her attacker, and with what she heard were more snarling, gibbering sounds of oncoming zombies approaching.
Less than a minute later, she was driving away from the street. Charlie was still wrapping the shawl from the backseat around her arm as she directed Rachel where to go.
“Are you going to be okay?” Rachel asked, trying not to glance too much at the stain that was spreading through the shawl's fabric.
Charlie took a deep, shuddering breath before answering. “Rachel, we’ve both seen zombie movies.”
“I haven’t! Whenever I tried to watch one, I wouldn’t last twenty minutes into it.”
“But you do know how this is going to go down, right?” Charlie asked, her voice sounding very thin and strained.
“Well, you… You never know!” Rachel said, although the panic was starting to rise in her again as she recalled the horrors of what she’d seen before making Joey stop the DVDs and put them in the freezer. “This could be different.”
As they headed downtown, Charlie said, “Hey, I’m young, black, and attractive. I’m surprised I lasted this long.”
“You’re not going to die,” Rachel said firmly. “I didn’t finally get to bond with a woman aside from Monica and Phoebe for nothing.”
“Now can we go?” Ross asked, trying to keep the whining undertone out of his voice, temporarily forgetting the chess game he and Phoebe had been playing.
“Ross, look outside. Does it look like nighttime to you yet?”
“No. But who knows if this theory of yours is even real, huh? What if they’re trying to lure us out, when we can’t see as well?”
“If you want to go out now and get ripped to shreds, be my guest,” Phoebe said, moving a chess piece at random on the board.
He frowned. “You don’t even know how to play, do you?”
“I thought you knew that.” Phoebe pushed back in her chair and rubbed her eyes.
“Don’t worry about Mike, okay?” Ross said, his expression softening. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
“If he is, he would’ve come here by now,” Phoebe said, exhaustion and irritation thick in her voice. “I looked for him everywhere last night. I stopped by the record store, the grocery store, our favorite sex shop…” She swallowed thickly. “I think he might be - “
“- He’s not,” Ross said, putting more confidence behind his words than he truly felt. “You’re going to find him, and when this is all over, you’ll get to live out your fairy tale dream with him. Right? Kids, a house near Monica and Chandler, and your Volvo.”
Phoebe lowered her hand. “That was the plan. It was a pretty good one, too.”
“Yeah, whatever happened with that?” Ross had never known because Phoebe never talked about it.
“I don’t know. I guess it was just… He was getting a lot of gigs, and I was doing pretty well at that soulsucking corporate massage place.”
“You were doing a lot better there than having random strangers come into your friends’ apartments,” Ross offered.
“Yeah, and it was, you know, comfortable. So comfortable that we just never decided to leave.”
“I, uh, know the feeling,” Ross said, leaving out the part about Rachel being the one who kept refusing to move to the suburbs. Phoebe had never known about that because Ross never talked about it with her.
“And we tried having kids," she said. "We really did, but... I don’t know, maybe I used up all my good karma with the triplets. Don’t get me wrong; I love them and am so, so glad I could have them for Frank and Alice.” Phoebe paused as she began to worry at her lower lip. “What if this is it, though? Even if I do find Mike, what if we were just never cut out to have kids of our own, like Monica and Chandler?”
“Hey. Look at me. He will come here, okay? Or, who knows, we’ll probably find him tonight.” Catching the beginnings of a hopeful smile on Phoebe’s face, Ross added, “And if he is dead, it’s all good, ‘cause I’m still your backup, right?”
“I thought we decided that Joey's my backup,” she said, still looking amused.
“Yeah, well, he’s not the one sitting here with you while the rest of the world is falling apart.”
Phoebe wasn't smiling anymore. “You really would repopulate the planet with me?”
“Hey, I don’t know what it is, but making babies seems to be one of my strong suits. I don’t know how, but one way or another, I can make it happen."
"So, why haven't you and Rachel had another kid yet?" Phoebe asked. "I mean, I thought by now you'd have at least another accident - I mean, a brother or sister for Emma by now."
Ross didn't know how to answer at first. The truth was, he did want to have another child with Rachel, but she was so busy all the time, and didn't seem very interested in going through another pregnancy. In fact, every time Ross had brought up the idea with her, she'd always raised her eyebrows with a look on her face that said, 'Are you kidding me?' It had gotten so that every time they had sex, she went out of her way to make sure they wouldn't have another unplanned child.
He drew in a long breath. "I guess a big family wasn't in the cards for us, either."
"Well, like you said, if worst comes to worst, we could try cutting out the middlemen and have a kid of our own."
Something weird happened, then. Phoebe just kept looking at Ross with a different sort of expression on her face, like she was actually considering his offer. Even if it was just a joke.
Totally a joke.
“Uh, Pheebs?” he asked.
“Your move, Geller,” she said. “Your move.”
All he could do was stare right back at her, wondering if this is the part where he was supposed to -
“Seriously, it’s your move,” Phoebe said, pointing down at the chess board.
He shook his head. “Oh, sorry, I thought we stopped playing.”
“If you can call that playing,” she said with a snort, eyeing his perfectly organized pieces.
As they sat in the parking lot in front of the hospital, Charlie tried to get out of the car herself, but Rachel held her back, telling her to save her energy. At first Rachel wondered whether she should leave Charlie and Emma so she could go inside the building, but she didn't have to, since the front door opened and three people from inside ran out to the car. One was a tall, hulking guy, another looked like a teenager, and the third was wearing a nurses's uniform, which sent a warm flood of relief through Rachel.
“You don’t think she’s gonna turn into one of... one of them, do you?” Rachel asked the nurse after she opened the door to look in on Charlie.
“I don’t think she will,” the teenager said gravely. “I know she will. So will you, and your little girl, too.”
Rachel turned to look at the girl in horror.
“No,” she whispered.
“Just kidding!” the kid said with a laugh. “I was bitten by one of them about four days ago. If this was contagious, it would have taken effect by now. Oh man, you should’ve seen the look on your face!”
Rachel stared at the girl. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, right,” the teenager scoffed as the burly man lifted Charlie out of the car and carried her up up the steps. “Bunch of freaking cannibals running around these days, and you’re acting like I’m the crazy one.”
Later, Rachel made sure that Charlie was all right when she was settled into one of the hospital beds. Without the machines working and only the emergency lights on, the nurse hadn't been able to do much, but she got the bleeding to stop, cleaned the wound, and set up an IV for her that was connected to a bag of blood. For a while, Rachel dozed with Emma sitting on her lap in the seat adjacent to the bed, until Charlie opened her eyes and made a few murmuring sounds. At her stirring, Rachel stood up and placed her daughter back in the chair, then stepped up to the bed.
Charlie peered at Rachel with unfocused eyes, and said, "Benji?"
“Nope,” Rachel said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Oh. I thought…” Charlie shook her head. “Where am I?”
Rachel explained where she'd been taken, then said, “I found out some other stuff about our new friends. You won't be turning into one of them, they don’t come out at night, and apparently, they like pop.”
“Soda?”
“Music.”
Charlie frowned, then shook her head in disbelief. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Yeah. Somebody said they camp out in huge, open areas like sports fields and blast pop music while they’re sleeping. If you can call it 'sleeping.'”
“So, they’re… groupies?”
“Actually, they’re more like cheerleaders,” Rachel said. “I should know, I was one of ‘em for four years. They’re probably going through the same things I did, except, you know, less pyramids and bad sex. Maybe if they all start hooking up with each other, we won’t have to worry about them anymore. Well," she added, "not until we have to start paying for college.”
Charlie laughed a little until she clutched onto her arm, wincing.
“Okay, that’s enough out of me." Rachel pulled the covers up further over Charlie, like she did for Emma when she tucked her into bed. "Get some rest.”
“Thanks," Charlie said, sounding like she was already drifting off. "You’re not staying, are you?”
“Sorry. I would, but I have to…” Rachel jerked her head in the direction of the door.
“Get back home. Yeah.”
Rachel touched Charlie's forehead, smoothing her hair back. "You know, I probably wouldn't be able to do this if it weren't for you. I'm going to make it back, and I'm going to fix things with Ross, for good." She hesitated, then said, "as friends."
“I was going to say you should do that last night," Charlie said. "I just didn't know if it was right for me to tell you what to do."
"It's okay," Rachel said. "I'm kinda glad you didn't. I think I had to work things out for myself." She stepped back from the bed, holding out her hand and feeling Emma's close around hers.
"Good luck with everything, Rachel. You too, Emma."
“Get well soon, Charlie," Rachel said. "I hope you find your husband.”
Putting on a brave face, Charlie said, “You know, that’s probably impossible. I mean, odds are that more than half of the world's population was using cell phones when The Pulse happened, and at least another twenty percent were probably killed in the past few days. But I guess if you and I can meet again and save each other, anything can happen, right?”
Rachel smiled. “Right.”
Before she went out the door, she turned around and looked at Charlie with a small smile.
“Call me?”
“Well," Charlie replied, looking completely serious, "as soon as civilization starts rebuilding itself and manages to recreate the phone networking system, which could take decades, for all we know…”
When Rachel raised her eyebrows a little, Charlie added, “…And I just got that you were being sarcastic.”
“Bye, Charlie," Rachel said.
"Be safe."
After Rachel thanked the nurse and walked outside into the night with Emma’s hand in hers, Rachel said, “Huh, I wonder if Julie’s around. Or Bonnie. Or Emily.”
She looked down at Emma, who, of course, had no idea whom she was referring.
Rachel shrugged. “Guess I’ll just have to live with one out of four.”
“Are we finally gonna find Daddy now?” Emma asked.
“Yeah. Him and the others, and someone else. You don't remember him, but he’s probably on his way to the city right now.”
“Who?”
Rachel smiled as they started walking down the steps, anticipation, hope, and desire making her heart beat a little faster.
“You’ll see.”
Another shot ripped through the sallow flesh of a zombie, and it smacked down onto the pavement. Joey had no time to celebrate, as four more zombies were still on their feet and moving toward him in the middle of the street, as the sun rose the east.
He fought the swarming monsters with all the strength he had, letting off shot after shot, but they kept coming at him. When he ran out of shells, he pulled out a tire iron he'd hid in his pants to beat one of the zombies back, but while he did, another rushed at him from behind, spitting blood while clawing at the skin of his neck, and as soon as he swerved around to get rid of that one, another one was in his face, and another.
He lowered his head and charged at the two in front, actually managing to knock them to the ground. He sprinted down the street, but, as he’d said himself once, Tribbianis weren’t known for being fast runners.
In retrospect, Joey’s idea to try traveling during the day didn’t seem so great anymore. Actually, it seemed pretty fucking stupid.
Which, of course, didn’t come as much of a surprise to him.
His thoughts were jumbled up, flipping between memories of better days with his friends, snippets of what happened to him since the highway, and his current situation. Up to this point, he’d thought himself to be such a badass, so much more awesome at surviving than he’d given himself credit for. In the moment, though, as his lungs burned for air, he knew where he’d rather be.
When he tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground, gasping and letting Bethany slip out of his left hand, he remembered something he’d said to Rachel several years ago:
I’m a Tribbiani; Tribbianis quit.
Yeah. This wasn’t so bad.
Actually, it was a lot easier than he thought it would be.
A part of him was yelling at himself to get back up, telling him that the others were all waiting for him to get back home and to stop being so damn lazy.
Despite that, he'd already begun to accept what was happening. What was about to happen. He thought he would make it to New York by now, but in the end, he should have known things would have turned out like this for him.
He had finally run out of luck.
Joey shut his eyes, waiting for the end, and he prepared himself for it, sifting through what he knew would be his very last thoughts.
Time almost grinded down to a crawl then, so much so that the next few seconds magically - mercifully - dragged out into hours.
Within those seconds, Joey recounted all of the best moments in his life. All of them reminded him of how incredibly lucky he was.
He thought of his parents, grandparents, and all seven of his beautiful, loud, loving, vivacious sisters. He thought about Hugsy - Original, not Crappy, of course - and his friends’ kids, whom he hoped would all survive to grow up in a future without pain or suffering. Or, at the very least, in a world in which all the zombies were finally wiped out.
Joey let his thoughts linger on his friends.
He remembered all the times he helped Monica cook - well, taste-testing her food as she cooked was more like it. How she spoon-fed him sometimes as she held his chin still. How he’d hugged her with one arm after she decided not to go through with the whole sperm donor thing, and how he'd known that someday, she would be one of the greatest moms in the world.
He remembered going to Knicks games with Ross, the times they hung out in Central Perk just talking about random things, the awesome naps they had together, and how they managed to be best friends despite their vast amount of differences, and the fact that they loved the same woman.
Then, there came the memories of Phoebe: how she just got Joey all the time, and how she always tried to teach him new things, like playing the guitar, speaking French, and lying. He’d always been such a terrible student. Nevertheless, Pheebs went right on loving him and always being there for him, regardless of Joey’s inability to grasp even the simplest concepts.
He remembered the good times he shared with Chandler, whom had been his lifeline for more than a decade. Joey recalled their countless foosball games, the times they just hung out in their matching Barcaloungers and watched TV with matching slack-jawed expressions, how they both took care of the chick and the duck, and how supportive Chandler was of Joey’s career, never failing to lend him money that they both knew Chandler wouldn’t ever see again. Joey remembered, with a smile, how they pushed past all the misunderstandings and fights they had, and remained best friends for years.
Lastly, Joey thought about Rachel.
Rachel…
The cloudless sky, as blue and perfect as her eyes, became fractured and obscured by darkness as the swarming flock of zombies finally caught up to him.
Part Five