Look What Happened (1/?)
Title: Look What Happened
Author: iamsamflynn
Rating: R? NC-17? I don't know?
Length: 2000+
Spoilers: A Very Glee Christmas.
Summary: The end of the world is a funny thing. Zombie!fic
Warning: There will be blood and guts. And gore. And probably a lot of swearing. Also, violence, guns, and gross zombie creatures. Cool. Story. Bro.
A/N: I don't even know. Someone should put a stop to this.
Look What Happened
Closer Than We Think
--
The end of the world is a funny thing.
It began with a single man escaping from a previously inescapable facility just outside of Columbus, Ohio (truth be told, it began nineteen years prior to this event, but for the sake of this telling, we'll just say it began with John West and fill in the blanks later). He made his break for the hills in combat boots, shaggy-haired and bearded, and otherwise stark-naked, at 2:13 in the morning on the 15th of January. Anyone with any idea of his real identity and a view of his mad dash would be amazed that he ran so fast for a forty-two year old - or, assumedly, going for the capture or kill.
Any other person would try to find him pants.
This rather natural reaction to the appearance of a naked man was what sealed the unhappy fate of one Leanne McCoy - and the immediate family residing in her house on the outskirts of Columbus. When John West turned up on her front porch in all his naked glory, sweating and sick-looking (at an estimated 2:58 A.M), Mrs McCoy found herself unable to turn him away - rather, she offered him a set of her husband's clothes and a spot on her couch until the morning. Had she given him the clothes and turned him back to the road - perhaps even just slammed the door in his face as soon as she'd answered it - Mrs McCoy may have saved herself, her husband, and her two children from a terrible, somewhat disgusting fate.
As it was, Leanne McCoy was a rather decent human being, and instead offered him the couch for the night. This would, ultimately prove to be her downfall, as John West, unknown to the other occupants of the house, fell into a rather violent seizure at an approximate 4:07 in the morning, of which he emerged dull-eyed, dead, and unspeakably hungry.
Leanne McCoy was bitten in her sleep at 4:13 A.M, losing a chunk from her shoulder in the process.
Her husband, in his haste to defend her, suffered a bite to the leg at 4:14.
Their three children, hearing the ruckus, came to investigate, and were bitten consecutively between 4:15 and 4:17.
The undead John West feasted until 4:42.
The five McCoys reanimated at 4:48.
This was the beginning of the apocalypse.
This may seem harsh, of course, but really, with six infected on the loose in Columbus, surrounded by sleeping families - and, the next day, moving crowds in the city - it's easy to believe that infection would spread. And spread it did - quickly, and painfully. You see, you don't have to die to pick up the infection - rather the opposite, because if the death hits in before the virus does, then that's it, you're dead - just switch fluids.
So when the - for lack of a more common scientific term - zombies came to the point of biting people in large crowds, they were often batted away before their victims could be properly devoured. Said fatalities would wander on with their day, applauding themselves for surviving the attack by that one absurdly sick-looking homeless man downtown, and possibly consider rabies shots.
Moronic behaviour, really - they didn't get away scot-free, they got away with the saliva seeping into their open wounds, attacking their blood stream and integrating within their systems. Anywhere between ten minutes and eight hours later, they were dead. And, evidently, reborn again, willing to naw on their office-mates and their angry, bitchy bosses until the end of time - anything to fill that grumbly stomach.
Government response began at 6:47 P.M. on the 15th with an aim of containment and neutralisation. It took two days for the outbreak to take the majority of the city of Columbus. Containment failed. The first nationwide news broadcasts warning citizens of a virus outbreak originating in a laboratory in Columbus, Ohio, aired on the 18th at 5:00 PM. By January 19th, infection had spread out of the city, and, marginally, out of the state. It continued to spread with astounding speed. This was, essentially, the end of the world - and it all began with Leanne McCoy allowing a naked, sick-looking man into her home at an absurd hour of the morning, purely out of the kindness of her heart.
Let this be a lesson - human kindness is overstated. Paranoia is the key to survival.
/-\
Puck sits with Rachel on the 18th of February in a diner downtown.
He doesn't know why he's there, because there's supposed to be a party at Finn's later, and Rachel's totally not invited - or maybe that's why he's there, because he might not admit it, but she's kind of cool, and he wants to be a good friend to her. This place is totally vintage though - total sixties vibe and only a couple of patrons in the booths by the windows - and the food's good so he's sitting up at the counter with the short brunette next to him, and chomping into a burger. He's a little surprised she isn't talking - but he's learning that she doesn't talk so much, now that he's getting to know her, anyway. Instead, she's sitting there and picking at a salad with a thoughtful look on her face and a diet coke in her other hand.
"What's on your mind, Rach?" he hazards, and he cringes a little while he pushes it out, because she talks like a highly-intelligent chipmunk on speed most of the time and it kind of makes him want to stab himself in the face, sometimes. She glances at him and frowns a little - he probably wouldn't notice if he hadn't been hanging around her so much lately.
"Just thinking about my dads," is her short reply (he's surprised). "Said they had an emergency or something, dad had to go to Columbus quite suddenly yesterday. He took daddy with him, presumably for the company. It sounded ominous."
"Your dad's a doctor, right?" Puck asks, frowning a little as he tries to remember it, and she smiles at him for the effort.
"Something like that," she replies, and it sounds a little off how she says it, but he remembers her initial introduction of the man as a 'doctor' sounding a little vague, a little misplaced too.
He remembers when he met the small, spectacled man - guy creeped him out a little, seemed a bit clinical in everything, really. Leroy - the taller, darker guy and Rachel's proclaimed 'daddy' - he was obviously Rachel's favourite, and from their brief meeting, Puck could see why. The dude was all smiles and hugs and kindness, and not an ounce of creepiness to his visage.
"So, what, like a special doctor?"
He's a little curious, really. The Berry's have a pretty nice house, he knows - he's been there, it's really nice, if a little bland everywhere that isn't Rachel's bedroom. And Rachel's daddy is a lawyer, Puck knows, which, while high-paying, doesn't quite cover it. So he figures that Hiram, the short dude, must be some kind of super high-demand surgeon or something.
"Something like that," she tells him again, just as vague and just as slightly off-putting in his gut. But she smiles, even if it is a little bit weird around the edges, and he decides to dismiss it for now. "It's all just science to me. Still, I'm worried. They needed him for something. It didn't sound good."
She goes back to frowning at her salad, and Puck watches her curiously. If her dad's been called away for some emergency operation or something, she probably shouldn't be worried. It's not like he'll be hurt by it or anything.
His thoughts are interrupted when the waitress behind the counter turns up the volume on the small television hidden beside the register.
"...don't have footage, but sources say that people are running rampant on the streets of Columbus, with the range of infection spreading quickly through the rest of Ohio. Efforts to contain the outbreak are still in effect. The virus is reminiscent of - well - of almost any zombie film aired on national television..." Puck quirks an eyebrow at the small television. The waitress watches the screen with rapt fascination, and when he glances to Rachel beside him she's sporting a bored pout and dull eyes. "Nonetheless, this is far from a joke. Infection is spread via saliva or blood. If you find yourself bitten, please submit immediately to your nearest health center for quarantine. Treat all infected as hostile. I've been recommended to lead you all to believe that this situation is under control - however, my personal recommendation is to lock your doors, board your windows, and avoid contact with others-"
"Zombies," Puck says flatly, earning the stunned, slightly frightened gaze of the waitress. He, however has eyes only for the brunette beside him, wondering what she thinks of this. In all his years of films and video games, Puck has only ever considered the zombie-apocalypse as a joke. Like all gamers, though, he totally has a hypothetical Zombie Apocalypse Survival Plan manufactured to perfection. Still, he kind of thinks that this entire thing is totally bogus, and he's wondering why Rachel looks bored with it.
"Uh-huh," is her reply, and she goes back to her salad with a sigh.
"That's the Secretary of Defense," the waitress tells him, and he turns to look at her with an unimpressed quirk of his brow. "Doesn't that mean that's some real shit going down or something? Like, the secretary of defense wouldn't be able to do something like that on National television if it wasn't actually happening."
"Sure, whatever," Puck tells her dryly, watching the middle-aged woman flinch. Rachel just stabs at her salad beside him, unperturbed. He wants to know what she's thinking - this reaction is strange, not denial, not disbelief, not intrigue, just boredom. "Babe, I'll believe in zombies when I see one."
Which is, ultimately, the dumbest possible thing for him to say in any such situation.
There's a loud crash from the far end of the room - the loud shattering of glass, then the patter of it clunking to the ground - and a scream as the young woman sitting there with her boyfriend is crushed to the floor. Puck just stares, more than a little shocked by the sudden intrusion, and can only stare at the burly man - face cut up, presumably from crashing through the glass - jerks his head down to the screaming girl and bites her in the neck.
The next part is kind of disgusting, because no one seems capable of moving to save her and there's a lot of blood and a lack of screaming involved - easily put, the girl loses the ability to partake in any such activity. Puck kind of wants to vomit. He still can't make himself move when Rachel gets calmly up from her stool, picks it up as she goes, and strides towards the girl on the ground and the figure hulking over her. The boyfriend sits rigid in the remains of the booth.
There's a resounding crack when Rachel swings the chair down on the hulking, cut up, animal of a man's head, and it causes every other occupant of the diner to flinch and shudder back to life. Puck tries to get up - his legs feel like jelly, and he still kind of wants to upchuck - and join her, or stop her, or something, but she just brings the metal rungs of the stool back down on the guy's head until it caves in, bloody and gross, and he slumps to the floor beside the dead girl.
Rachel nudges both of the bodies with the stool before placing it stiffly back on the ground and turning around to look at him, flipping her hair over her shoulder and huffing a little, apparently unaffected. And yeah, maybe that's a little badass.
"Zombies," she tells him dryly, and his knees quake a little. Because, shit - this is the end of the world.
--
We will bathe in the sea of disbelief, but we will not go quickly.
No, we will not die so easily.
And I knew that this would happen, it always does
And I couldn't stop my reaction, so I let it come. I let it come.
I still hold the belief that we are free,
that we don't need the rules to see,
that despite what we've done, we're not alone
We're closer than we think to home
- Closer Than We Think, The Classic Crime.