Fic - Deadfield - A/U part 11/?
Title: Deadfield
Fandom: Guiding Light
Pairing: Olivia/Natalia
Rating: Overall R to NC-17
Notes: This is an A/U fic. It's set in "present" day Springfield. A/U assumptions: Olivia left Springfield shortly after her heart-condition diagnosis. Emma doesn't exist.
Parts: One 2-4 5-6 7-8 9 10
PART 11
And the caravan is on its way
I can hear the merry gypsies play
Mama mama look at Emma Rose
She’s a-playin with the radio
La, la, la, la...
- Van Morrison
I found myself patrolling with Josh for most of the morning. There were three times as many people out patrolling that day than there had been two days ago, and gunshots intermittently rang out in the air.
“It’s getting worse every day,” Josh said wearily. We’d only been out for an hour and had encountered six infected men and women.
“How long do you think we can keep it up?”
Josh sighed heavily. He was just about to speak when I saw him notice something behind my shoulder. He cocked his gun and said, “I got it” as he jogged past me. I walked after him and watched as he calmly shot a man who wore slippers and a robe over flannel pants and a t-shirt.
When I reached the body, I stared at it for a long moment. “I think he was in Dawn of the Dead,” I said.
Josh tilted his head and thoughtfully tugged at his beard. “I think you’re right.”
“The remake, of course.”
“Of course.”
“He’s starting to decay,” I said as I bent down to take a closer look at his skin.
“Yeah, I could tell by the way he was moving. It seems the more time they spend with the infection, the slower they move. I think this guy was far from dropping dead on his own though.”
I stood up again and scanned the area as Josh radioed in the location of the kill. Before he finished, I saw another infected from the corner of my eye. “Mine,” I said and took off toward her.
It was sickeningly easy to put a bullet through her head.
She was young and had a pair of dirty glasses sliding down her face. She could have been anyone or anything, but all I saw was monster whose last view of the world was me firing a shotgun bullet into her face. When she fell to her final death, I felt nothing but relief that she was gone. There was a part of me that felt guilty for that. This used to be a woman who loved and hoped and dreamed just like any other human on the planet. I suppose there actually was a part of me that felt sorry that she had to be dead, but the biggest part of me was just glad that there was one less threat out there.
“She was pretty,” Josh said quietly after he caught up to me.
“We’re getting numb to it all, aren’t we?”
Josh chuckled. “I’m staring calmly at a dead woman. The back half of her skull is blown out, and I can still make a comment about her attractiveness. Her brains are seeping into the grass and there’s a small stream of blood running beneath my left foot. Yeah, I think numb might be a good word for it.”
“I don’t want to be used to this, Josh. I don’t want this to be life.”
“No one does.” He began walking and I fell into step beside him. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think we’re going to be able to stay here much longer.”
“Excuse me? Where else would we go?”
“South?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that we don’t have an unlimited supply of bullets, we’ve been damn lucky to be able to keep power flowing to most of the town, and the infected are showing up more and more frequently. We have three times as many patrols out as we did just a few days ago, and we can barely keep up. I have to question what it’s going to be like in a few more days.”
“Where would we go? How would we travel?”
“Phillip and I have been discussing and planning that for awhile now. We’ve been overseeing the modification of vehicles - spiked grill guards, bars over the side windows, mounted weapons, that kind of thing. We have a few trucks, a Hummer, two vans, and a bus.”
I released a humorless laugh. “So… what? We load up the whole town in the bus and have a fun little road trip down to Mexico? Do you think maybe the undead are getting stopped at the border when they can’t produce a passport?”
“Well, we can’t stay here forever,” Josh said. “We have to do something.”
“I know,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit deflated. He was right. If nothing else, we would run out of ammunition at some point, and I refused to be left sitting on my ass when that day arrived. “Not everyone will want to go with you. You can’t make any guarantees or promises, and people won’t want to abandon the familiar for the unknown.”
Josh nodded and rubbed his eyes. “I know, but we have to make difficult decisions now. If people don’t want to come, then they don’t have to, but I can’t sit here and watch any more of my family get killed. I just can’t do it.”
I noticed him blinking his eyes rapidly, clearly trying to force back tears. I reached up and touched his cheek gently until he was looking at me. “Who did you lose, Josh?”
“Billy…” His voice cracked and tears spilled out of his eyes. “And Shayne yesterday.”
“Oh my god,” I said and pulled him into my arms.
“No one even knows what happened to Shayne. Reva just found him lying there… he had a bite… no one saw anything.” I held him and stroked the back of his head as the stilted words poured from his mouth. “Reva… she had to shoot him… when she found him he started to come back. She didn’t have a choice. I don’t know how… I should have been there. She shouldn’t have had to do that.”
“She’s a strong woman,” I said.
He nodded. “But a person can only be so strong. I’m so worried about her. First there was Jeffrey, then all of this started happening, now Shayne…” His voice cracked again as he spoke his son’s name. “Jonathan showed up a few weeks ago, thank god. I think he’s the only thing keeping her going.”
“She has you, Josh.”
He shook his head rapidly and pulled away from me. “What good am I? How can I protect her if I can’t even protect my own son?”
“Do you still love her?”
“I’ll always love her, Olivia, you know that.”
“Then just love her. Be there for her. Be her friend; be whatever she wants you to be. That’s all any of us can do right now.”
Josh nodded sadly. “I wish could save her. I wish I could save everyone.”
I noticed some movement to my left. “Fuck,” I said and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment in frustration before taking off toward the newest undead to cross our path.
“Got the one behind you!” I heard Josh shout just as I was shooting at the infected man before me. My hand shook, and I missed. I didn’t know there was one behind me. I wanted to look back and see, but I knew I had to take care of the swiftly approaching man. Fear felt like it was slicing a path through my chest and trailing down into my arms. My hands trembled. “Shoot him!” screamed Josh.
I braced myself and somehow managed to shoot the gun. The man fell backward, but I only hit him in the chest. I heard Josh shoot his gun behind me. I watched the man I shot slowly attempt to get to his feet again.
Josh appeared next to me. “Got the one in back,” he said and then noticed the man who was starting to stagger toward us again. “Shit!” He lifted his gun.
“No,” I put out my hand to lower his arm. I lifted my shotgun up and began to walk toward the man who was still moving slowly. A small, cool wind kicked up, and I felt my leather coat lift away from my legs. I heard trees rustle in the distance. A bird chirped somewhere.
It felt so normal.
I waited until the man was almost on top of me before pulling the trigger. When I was done - when he was done - he didn’t have a head anymore.
It felt so insane.
I flinched when Josh came to me and laid a hand on my shoulder. “We have to leave,” I said as I watched dark blood ooze from the dead man’s neck.
“A few of us are meeting tonight if you’d like to join us. We’ve already begun planning.”
“I’ll be there.”