Fic: If the World is Ending
Uh, hi!
So I got back from Birmingham yesterday and I checked pieces of my flist and I saw that Merlin fandom is having asinine wank and something happened in bandom too? And Livejournal might be imploding again and while I have opinions on all of that, I found it all too disheartening so I did this instead.
This is the fifth time I've started this fic. This version contains exactly zero (0) pieces of any previous drafts. I'm sick AGAIN and I wrote the whole thing last night hopped up on cold meds after doing a mind-numbing eight hour drive on three hours of sleep. I take very little responsibility for this. Some conversations were lifted almost directly from conversations I have had with adronai or executorvs. songgirl12 is to blame for the whole Greta-and-the-spoon thing. Gerard Way is to blame for saying he wouldn't survive the zombie apocalypse and thus making me rethink all of my elaborate personal canon regarding bandom bands and the zombie apocalypse. Gabe Saporta is to blame for being himself and for the whole Patrick subplot.
Actually, you probably should read Cobra's new about section before you read this. It might help it make more sense.
My New Year's resolution was to be more active in fandom and write more fic. This . . . isn't what I meant.
Anyway, have some silliness. I hope you all are well despite the wank and the potential fandom upheaval.
Title: If the World is Ending
Fandom: Bandom (Cobra Starship gen with guest appearances by Fall Out Boy, Ashlee Simpson, Bronx Mowgli Wentz and The Cobra)
Word count: 3,501
Unbeta'd because it just didn't need to be taken that seriously
This is fiction! In case a disclaimer is necessary. If you recognize your name or the name of someone you know . . . enjoy! I don't actually care.
Cobra Starship is touring with Fall Out Boy when the zombie apocalypse begins. This ends up being fortuitous mostly because of the zombie survival shelter Pete set up in the basement under the New York Angels and Kings.
"Why do you have a bomb shelter?" Victoria asks.
"It's a panic room, I think." Alex says.
"It's a zombie survival shelter," Patrick says, looking at both of them like they're crazy, "why would we need a bomb shelter?"
"I don't know, it never would have occurred to me that I might need a zombie shelter," Victoria says. Her voice is weak and Gabe reaches out to take her arm; the last thing they need is anyone going into shock.
Ryland nudges Gabe in the ribs, "is this like your alien invasion shelter thing in New Jersey? Because to be honest we always thought you were just crazy because of the drugs."
Gabe sighs. Whatever, it had been a logical guess. The Cobra had told him quite a bit about the world's final days and yeah, he might have been fucking high at the time but he's pretty sure he'd have remembered zombies. The Cobra was from space. How was Gabe supposed to predict zombies?
Ashlee turns around in front of them and sighs, shifting Bronx onto her other hip. "Victoria," she says, weary but no-nonsense, "you have to be prepared. It's difficult to predict when the dead will rise up to feast upon the flesh of the living." She looks at Gabe and says with a note of disbelief in her voice, "aliens? Seriously?"
Ashlee and Bronx have been with them for the entire tour. The more time he spends with Ashlee, the more Gabe comes to understand how she ended up married to Pete Wentz.
****
Cobra Starship did not have a zombie survival plan. Unlike apparently every other band on the Decaydance label.
William calls Gabe from the Chicago shelter before the phones go out, mostly to talk about how cool it was when Greta Salpeter killed a zombie with a spoon but also: "I was worried. We just wanted to make sure you were okay. I knew that whole alien thing was going to bite you in the ass. It's a good thing you guys were with Pete."
"Good thing," Gabe echoes faintly before he hangs up.
"It is a good thing you were with us," Joe says patronizingly with one raised eyebrow. "Honestly, Saporta, I would not have expected such a major oversight from you."
"It is not my destiny to persevere in the face of the apocalypse," Gabe says. Which is true. But he's sort of wishing the Cobra had specified zombies. The alien invasion panic room is mostly configured to protect against mind rays, not the living dead.
It wouldn't have mattered because Pete seems to have the zombie thing covered. It's just that all of the party supplies were there.
It's a good thing Pete had the foresight to locate the zombie apocalypse shelter under a bar.
Joe sighs, "that's right. I forgot. So does that mean you aren't gonna help? Because the rest of your band is already more useful than you. Andy taught Nate how to kill zombies with a drum stick."
Gabe wrinkles his brow, briefly distracted, "you can kill zombies with a drum stick? Cause I didn't really believe Bill about Greta and the spoon."
Joe shrugs, "sure. They're dead. They're decomposing so the bones are more fragile; it's all in the wrist," he makes a flicking motion with his right hand, "the trick is getting that close without getting bitten . . ." he trails off. "Have you never prepared for this at all?"
"I keep a tin foil hat in my suitcase?"
"You do know that the likelihood of any life that is out there developing the necessary intelligence and technology to be able to travel to us is infinitesimal don't you?"
Gabe huffs, "You haven't seen the things I've seen."
"This one time I did peyote and Hemingway told me the meaning of life."
"Are you seriously comparing Pete's dog to The Cobra?" Gabe asks, appalled.
"Yeah, well did you seriously not prepare for the zombie apocalypse? Aliens, Gabe?"
"Joe. Zombies."
Joe nods, like Gabe is completely missing the point, and says, very slowly, "yes. I know."
***
Gabe sneaks upstairs to check the bar for supplies. They've got the windows and door boarded up as much as possible, but he stays as far away from them as he can anyway. Zombies are kind of cool in theory but life as a zombie would probably be less cool and really, the scraping and moaning coming from outside just doesn't get any less unsettling.
He finds Pete in the back office, blogging for posterity. He's got Bronx in his lap and Ashlee's standing behind him playing with his hair and reading over his shoulder. Gabe comes in just in time to hear Pete say, "hey, listen to this! Panic is leading an anti-zombie revolt at the Bellagio!"
Ashlee says, "seriously? I wouldn't have thought they had it in them." She pauses and tugs lightly on the hair above Pete's right ear, "you probably shouldn't tell them I said that."
Pete shrugs. "Ryan told me once that he and Spencer have been preparing for this since they were five. Andy taught Spencer the drum stick thing the first time we toured with them." He turns toward her excitedly, "Did you hear about Greta and the spoon?"
"Is everybody prepared but us?" Gabe asks and then, as an afterthought, "does the internet seriously still work?"
"For now," Pete says. "I'm offering a voice of encouragement and hope to give our fans strength to stand against the bleak and overwhelming darkness."
Ashlee leans further over Pete shoulder and reads, "in the darkness only locking yourself in a prison cells is safe, but I'm lucky to be with those I've given my soul to if this is a last stand. It's been a privilege to be even part of your light . . ." she trails off and pats Pete on the shoulder. "Yes. You're very encouraging and hopeful, babe."
Pete turns around to look at Gabe, "Everybody I know is prepared but you and the Way brothers, but luckily they at least have Lyn-Z and Alicia. The two people I know who I would most expect to be prepared for this are you and Gerard Way, but no, Mikey's here on IM ranting about extraterrestrial mind rays. Aliens? Nothing is right with the world."
"That's true," says Ashlee, "because there are fucking zombies outside."
"What are you doing up here if you're not looking for the internet?" Pete asks. There's a sudden banging and moaning at the back window the wood against it rattles. The window is too small for zombies to get through. Probably. But all three of them flinch back a little anyway.
Gabe holds up a bottle of tequila he stole from the bar and says, "preparing."
"With tequila?" Pete asks.
"Is the world ending or is not the world ending?"
Pete nods, "Fair enough."
***
Everybody keeps giving Pete the credit for the initial zombie apocalypse survival organization, but it really seems to be Patrick who is mostly running the show. Pete spends a lot of time blogging for posterity.
Patrick hands out a handbook, but it's mostly a guide for how to sever the brainstem with any number of ad hoc weapons, provided you can get close enough to the zombie to do that without getting bitten. Someone drew a picture of Greta using a spoon.
The handbook isn't really all that effective because no one wants to get that close to the zombies. They prefer weapons with a long reach. Weapons they don't have. Like lances maybe. Or spears. Nate keeps advocating for setting the damn things on fire, but Patrick warns against that.
"Honestly, Nate, you get flaming zombies and this whole place is gonna go up! Is that what you want?"
Nate pauses, seemingly to think about it, "do you think death by burning is better or worse than death by zombie?"
Victoria kicks him in the shin and tells him to stop being morbid.
Gabe keeps asking what kind of zombie survival shelter only has two chainsaws, but nobody really listens to him. He doesn't have much clout, what with not having a zombie survival plan at all.
***
Joe and Gabe smoke the last of Joe's pot sitting on the floor of the storage room playing with Penny, Hemingway, Rigby and Gizmo.
Joe's pot is excellent. Maybe too excellent, Gabe decides, when Gizmo looks at him sadly and says, "the Cobra really should have been more specific."
"Whatever," Gabe says and gets up to shuffle out of the room.
"Where are you going?" Joe calls after him.
"Style, Joe. We're going out in style."
***
"I believe you about the aliens," Patrick says.
"What?" Gabe asks. He's staring up at the metallic streamers. His head kind of hurts and the streamers seemed a lot more stylish when he was stoned out of his mind. They were more . . . shimmery then.
"The aliens. I believe you."
"Well, given zombies, I hope I'm wrong about the aliens. And I didn't say there were aliens; I just said it doesn't hurt to be prepared."
"Doesn't hurt to be prepared for zombies either, does it?"
"Touche."
"Also, you're not wrong."
"Don't say that."
Patrick looks around hesitantly, peering into the hallway to make sure they're alone and then shuts the door behind him, edging closer to Gabe and tugging at his hat brim nervously.
"But seriously, it doesn't happen like this."
"Define 'it'?"
"Ummmm, the Apocalypse?"
Gabe blinks, "and you know that how?"
Patrick looks even more uncomfortable, "there's a, I . . . uh, with the . . . I can't tell you that."
"What can you tell me?"
"You should probably listen when important sna . . . people . . . try to communicate with you. Even if they communicate with you in unlikely ways."
"What?"
"Like . . . through tiny dogs."
"What?"
"Marijuana is not as strong a drug as peyote."
There's a long silence as Gabe processes that. "What do you know about the Cobra?"
Patrick deflates and rubs one hand over his face, "don't tell Pete, okay?"
Patrick, as it turns out, has only known that he is truly LORD GROOVIUS, the minion of The Cobra since they arrived at Angels and Kings. His knowledge of his true nature only takes effect in states of dire emergency. Such as the current rift in the space time continuum.
"There's a rift in the space time continuum?" Gabe asks skeptically.
Patrick sighs, once again looking at Gabe like he's crazy and says, "Gabe. Zombies."
That was really Gabe's point from the beginning. "Does this mean I can take the zombies seriously?" he asks.
"Yes. You should probably take the zombies seriously."
"Oh, good."
***
If pressed, Gabe would say that he really does believe the world is ending. If pressed further, however, he would qualify that by saying that he believes that the human race is innately self-destructive, hostile to each other and the world, too wrapped up in violence and pettiness to see, as a whole, the damage being done. He would say that he found a certain liberation in embracing his cynicism because there is freedom in preparing for the worst. It's easier to stop it all from hurting you if you have a harder shell and the moments of grace and brightness are all the more poignant for being fleeting. There is beauty and love in the world, but you have to live authentically in the moment or you'll miss its depth.
Okay, haha, whatever, no. He wouldn't actually ever say any of that out loud and he hasn't really tried to articulate any of that shit since Midtown anyway. Now he pretty much says, "we're all fucked in the end" and leaves it. He figures that the people who are paying attention will know what he means. The point, though, is that Gabe might have had a rather vivid conception of the end of the world, but it had always been pretty abstract; even the whole Cobra thing . . . if pressed, he'd say that he just sort of thought he'd done too much peyote.
At no point did his conception of the end of the world include zombies.
But "rift in the space time continuum" isn't actually a whole lot better.
"When I said 'there has to be a more logical explanation' that's not really what I meant," Victoria says. The rest of Cobra Starship is staring at Gabe equally skeptically.
"It makes as much sense as zombies?" Gabe says.
Ryland shakes his head, "it really doesn't though."
Gabe looks at Patrick who is looking pointedly at the sparkly streamers still hanging from the ceiling. No help from LORD GROOVIUS then. Right.
"I . . . uh . . . had a vision," Gabe says.
"Again?" asks Victoria.
"Is Joe's weed that good?" asks Alex.
"Is there more?" asks Nate.
"Are you being serious here?" asks Ryland, "because we always just kind of thought you did too much peyote."
"Would I joke about zombies?" Gabe asks.
His band exchanges a look. "Probably," Victoria says.
"About alternate universe zombies?"
"Until ten minutes ago, I didn't know you could be serious about alternate universe zombies," says Alex.
Victoria says, "until a week ago, I didn't know you could be serious about any zombies."
Gabe rolls his eyes. "Can we focus here?"
Ryland shrugs. "I, for one, feel very focused on your time space continuum vision from The Cobra."
Alex waits a beat and then says, "yeah, okay."
Gabe looks at Nate and Victoria. Nate nods, "you know I'm in."
Victoria's tapping her fingers on her arm agitatedly, but finally she sighs and says, "my entire livelihood is thanks to a vision you had of The Cobra. I guess I shouldn't start doubting it now."
"So how do we unrift space-time?" Nate asks. Gabe shoots Patrick a look out of the corner of his eye and Patrick shifts uncomfortably.
"Hey! I'm gonna go get the others," he says, and ducks out of the room.
***
"So how do we unrift spacetime?" Joe asks.
"Are you sure we're supposed to unrift space-time?" Andy asks, "maybe this is the destined downfall of modern civilization."
"I'm sure," says Gabe. "The . . . uh . . . Cobra says so." He looks at Patrick who shrugs as if to say sure, I guess, maybe. Why not?
"We're sure The Cobra can be trusted?" asks Andy.
"Yeah," says Joe, "I thought it wasn't your destiny to persever in the face of the apocalypse."
"Change of plans. And trusting the Cobra has worked so far. I have a band, I didn't kill myself in the desert and also, I support the no more zombies goal."
"That's a good point," says Joe.
Pete doesn't say anything because he's bouncing Bronx on his knee and making undignified cooing sounds. Ashlee shakes her head at them, affectionately bemused, and runs her fingers through her hair. She looks harried. "Our current plan is to take advice from Gabe's imaginary friend?"
"The previous plan involved killing zombies with musical instruments and cutlery," Gabe points out. That's not totally fair because, okay, the zombie apocalypse shelter is pretty secure and kind of kickass, but all the same, people who've been planning for years should have maybe planned a little further ahead.
Not that Gabe has much of a plan. Patrick aka LORD GROOVIUS couldn't tell him much beyond the plan is not complete, the time is not right, also what the fuck zombies.
***
Gabe dreams that night of The Cobra.
"At least I can still reach you this way," The Cobra hisses. It sounds annoyed.
"Sorry," Gabe says.
"You will never succeed if you don't lissssten."
"I was a little distracted."
The Cobra says, "That was unforeseen. You never know when the dead are going to rise up to feast upon the flesh of the living." The Cobra pauses, and then says, still annoyed, "However, you owe me everything and I demand allegiance. I'm going to bite you right in the fucking neck."
Gabe instinctively covers his neck with his hand, "could we maybe not go through all that again this time?"
"It really is the only way to get you to pay attention."
Gabe blinks. He doesn't usually remember his dreams, but sometimes he wakes up with truly inspired ideas and his neck aching. Which. Huh.
He says, "I've been trying to listen to Patrick, but he hasn't been much help."
The Cobra nods its head sadly, "LORD GROOVIUSSSS' real talents lie in beats. He's not so good in emergencies. He was supposed to tell you not to worry, but interdimensional memories aren't always reliable. And then you went and got everybody all stirred up, as if humans can heal a rift in spacetime."
"Um, what?" Gabe says.
The Cobra cocks its head like it's considering him. "Have I taught you nothing?"
"I'm not supposed to worry about zombies?" Gabe asks.
"No."
"Am I supposed to save the world?" Gabe is doubtful.
"What? No. We've been through this. I thought I told you there is no salvation." The Cobra doesn't roll its eyes, but that's mostly because it's a giant fucking snake. Gabe hears the eyeroll in its voice.
"Yeah, but you also told me there aren't any zombies," he points out.
"Would you relax, kid? I got this."
"Can you do that?"
"I'm from the future. Do you really think space time is that much of a problem for me?"
"I was just checking."
The Cobra slithers up close to him until Gabe can't see anything but its eyes and can feel the flicker of its tongue on his throat. He freezes. He really, really doesn't want to go through all that again. He still has faint scars - which, in hindsight, probably should have clued him in that he didn't just do too much peyote.
The Cobra hisses, "mostly I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell you not to worry about aliens either."
"I wasn't that worried."
"You have a survival shelter."
"It's mostly storage."
"Just don't take it so seriously. Keep your eye on the goal. Style, kid. Fucking style."
The Cobra bites him in the fucking neck.
***
Gabe wakes up disoriented. Mostly he can just hear Alex, Ryland and Patrick messing around on garage band on the back of the bus, except he shouldn't be on the bus, except when he opens his eyes, he is. Fuck his head hurts. And his neck hurts, but when he reaches up to touch it, at least he doesn't feel marks this time.
Whatever, he's on the bus like nothing happened, and there's definitely no moaning or scraping coming from outside. He didn't know it would work like that, but okay. What does he know about rifts in spacetime, anyway? He groans and Alex pokes his head through the door, "you feeling any better?"
"My head . . ."
"Yeah, I'm not surprised," Ryland says.
When Patrick walks out, Gabe waves his hand at him helplessly and says, "hey, are you still LORD GROOVIUS?"
Something flickers in Patrick's face, but it quickly gives way to confusion. He kicks the couch lightly, but is still jars Gabe's whole body and make his head throb (GOD, he is too tall for the couch, how the fuck did he even get here?). Patrick says, "I don't know, are you still high? Because last night you were babbling about The Cobra."
"Also zombies," says Ryland helpfully.
"Did you know Fall Out Boy has a zombie survival shelter?" Victoria asks from the doorway.
"Andy says he could kill one with his drum stick," Nate says, coming up behind her.
"Help me up." Gabe says and he sticks out his hand and waves it around until Ryland grabs him by the elbow and pulls him up.
His head spins with vertigo once he's upright and Gabe stands there for a moment, processing the relief, and the fact that they don't remember it, and the rather unnerving fact that it might have been a dream anyway, even though his muscles still ache from practicing zombie decapitation with a butcher knife and his neck fucking hurts. "Come on, guys," Gabe says.
"What?" asks Alex.
"We have to get ready for tonight."
"What's tonight?" asks Ryland warily, because he's been in a band with Gabe for a long time.
Gabe shrugs. The world's ending his way again, slowly and maybe painfully, but with all the little moments that make it worth it. "We're throwing the party."
So I got back from Birmingham yesterday and I checked pieces of my flist and I saw that Merlin fandom is having asinine wank and something happened in bandom too? And Livejournal might be imploding again and while I have opinions on all of that, I found it all too disheartening so I did this instead.
This is the fifth time I've started this fic. This version contains exactly zero (0) pieces of any previous drafts. I'm sick AGAIN and I wrote the whole thing last night hopped up on cold meds after doing a mind-numbing eight hour drive on three hours of sleep. I take very little responsibility for this. Some conversations were lifted almost directly from conversations I have had with adronai or executorvs. songgirl12 is to blame for the whole Greta-and-the-spoon thing. Gerard Way is to blame for saying he wouldn't survive the zombie apocalypse and thus making me rethink all of my elaborate personal canon regarding bandom bands and the zombie apocalypse. Gabe Saporta is to blame for being himself and for the whole Patrick subplot.
Actually, you probably should read Cobra's new about section before you read this. It might help it make more sense.
My New Year's resolution was to be more active in fandom and write more fic. This . . . isn't what I meant.
Anyway, have some silliness. I hope you all are well despite the wank and the potential fandom upheaval.
Title: If the World is Ending
Fandom: Bandom (Cobra Starship gen with guest appearances by Fall Out Boy, Ashlee Simpson, Bronx Mowgli Wentz and The Cobra)
Word count: 3,501
Unbeta'd because it just didn't need to be taken that seriously
This is fiction! In case a disclaimer is necessary. If you recognize your name or the name of someone you know . . . enjoy! I don't actually care.
Cobra Starship is touring with Fall Out Boy when the zombie apocalypse begins. This ends up being fortuitous mostly because of the zombie survival shelter Pete set up in the basement under the New York Angels and Kings.
"Why do you have a bomb shelter?" Victoria asks.
"It's a panic room, I think." Alex says.
"It's a zombie survival shelter," Patrick says, looking at both of them like they're crazy, "why would we need a bomb shelter?"
"I don't know, it never would have occurred to me that I might need a zombie shelter," Victoria says. Her voice is weak and Gabe reaches out to take her arm; the last thing they need is anyone going into shock.
Ryland nudges Gabe in the ribs, "is this like your alien invasion shelter thing in New Jersey? Because to be honest we always thought you were just crazy because of the drugs."
Gabe sighs. Whatever, it had been a logical guess. The Cobra had told him quite a bit about the world's final days and yeah, he might have been fucking high at the time but he's pretty sure he'd have remembered zombies. The Cobra was from space. How was Gabe supposed to predict zombies?
Ashlee turns around in front of them and sighs, shifting Bronx onto her other hip. "Victoria," she says, weary but no-nonsense, "you have to be prepared. It's difficult to predict when the dead will rise up to feast upon the flesh of the living." She looks at Gabe and says with a note of disbelief in her voice, "aliens? Seriously?"
Ashlee and Bronx have been with them for the entire tour. The more time he spends with Ashlee, the more Gabe comes to understand how she ended up married to Pete Wentz.
****
Cobra Starship did not have a zombie survival plan. Unlike apparently every other band on the Decaydance label.
William calls Gabe from the Chicago shelter before the phones go out, mostly to talk about how cool it was when Greta Salpeter killed a zombie with a spoon but also: "I was worried. We just wanted to make sure you were okay. I knew that whole alien thing was going to bite you in the ass. It's a good thing you guys were with Pete."
"Good thing," Gabe echoes faintly before he hangs up.
"It is a good thing you were with us," Joe says patronizingly with one raised eyebrow. "Honestly, Saporta, I would not have expected such a major oversight from you."
"It is not my destiny to persevere in the face of the apocalypse," Gabe says. Which is true. But he's sort of wishing the Cobra had specified zombies. The alien invasion panic room is mostly configured to protect against mind rays, not the living dead.
It wouldn't have mattered because Pete seems to have the zombie thing covered. It's just that all of the party supplies were there.
It's a good thing Pete had the foresight to locate the zombie apocalypse shelter under a bar.
Joe sighs, "that's right. I forgot. So does that mean you aren't gonna help? Because the rest of your band is already more useful than you. Andy taught Nate how to kill zombies with a drum stick."
Gabe wrinkles his brow, briefly distracted, "you can kill zombies with a drum stick? Cause I didn't really believe Bill about Greta and the spoon."
Joe shrugs, "sure. They're dead. They're decomposing so the bones are more fragile; it's all in the wrist," he makes a flicking motion with his right hand, "the trick is getting that close without getting bitten . . ." he trails off. "Have you never prepared for this at all?"
"I keep a tin foil hat in my suitcase?"
"You do know that the likelihood of any life that is out there developing the necessary intelligence and technology to be able to travel to us is infinitesimal don't you?"
Gabe huffs, "You haven't seen the things I've seen."
"This one time I did peyote and Hemingway told me the meaning of life."
"Are you seriously comparing Pete's dog to The Cobra?" Gabe asks, appalled.
"Yeah, well did you seriously not prepare for the zombie apocalypse? Aliens, Gabe?"
"Joe. Zombies."
Joe nods, like Gabe is completely missing the point, and says, very slowly, "yes. I know."
***
Gabe sneaks upstairs to check the bar for supplies. They've got the windows and door boarded up as much as possible, but he stays as far away from them as he can anyway. Zombies are kind of cool in theory but life as a zombie would probably be less cool and really, the scraping and moaning coming from outside just doesn't get any less unsettling.
He finds Pete in the back office, blogging for posterity. He's got Bronx in his lap and Ashlee's standing behind him playing with his hair and reading over his shoulder. Gabe comes in just in time to hear Pete say, "hey, listen to this! Panic is leading an anti-zombie revolt at the Bellagio!"
Ashlee says, "seriously? I wouldn't have thought they had it in them." She pauses and tugs lightly on the hair above Pete's right ear, "you probably shouldn't tell them I said that."
Pete shrugs. "Ryan told me once that he and Spencer have been preparing for this since they were five. Andy taught Spencer the drum stick thing the first time we toured with them." He turns toward her excitedly, "Did you hear about Greta and the spoon?"
"Is everybody prepared but us?" Gabe asks and then, as an afterthought, "does the internet seriously still work?"
"For now," Pete says. "I'm offering a voice of encouragement and hope to give our fans strength to stand against the bleak and overwhelming darkness."
Ashlee leans further over Pete shoulder and reads, "in the darkness only locking yourself in a prison cells is safe, but I'm lucky to be with those I've given my soul to if this is a last stand. It's been a privilege to be even part of your light . . ." she trails off and pats Pete on the shoulder. "Yes. You're very encouraging and hopeful, babe."
Pete turns around to look at Gabe, "Everybody I know is prepared but you and the Way brothers, but luckily they at least have Lyn-Z and Alicia. The two people I know who I would most expect to be prepared for this are you and Gerard Way, but no, Mikey's here on IM ranting about extraterrestrial mind rays. Aliens? Nothing is right with the world."
"That's true," says Ashlee, "because there are fucking zombies outside."
"What are you doing up here if you're not looking for the internet?" Pete asks. There's a sudden banging and moaning at the back window the wood against it rattles. The window is too small for zombies to get through. Probably. But all three of them flinch back a little anyway.
Gabe holds up a bottle of tequila he stole from the bar and says, "preparing."
"With tequila?" Pete asks.
"Is the world ending or is not the world ending?"
Pete nods, "Fair enough."
***
Everybody keeps giving Pete the credit for the initial zombie apocalypse survival organization, but it really seems to be Patrick who is mostly running the show. Pete spends a lot of time blogging for posterity.
Patrick hands out a handbook, but it's mostly a guide for how to sever the brainstem with any number of ad hoc weapons, provided you can get close enough to the zombie to do that without getting bitten. Someone drew a picture of Greta using a spoon.
The handbook isn't really all that effective because no one wants to get that close to the zombies. They prefer weapons with a long reach. Weapons they don't have. Like lances maybe. Or spears. Nate keeps advocating for setting the damn things on fire, but Patrick warns against that.
"Honestly, Nate, you get flaming zombies and this whole place is gonna go up! Is that what you want?"
Nate pauses, seemingly to think about it, "do you think death by burning is better or worse than death by zombie?"
Victoria kicks him in the shin and tells him to stop being morbid.
Gabe keeps asking what kind of zombie survival shelter only has two chainsaws, but nobody really listens to him. He doesn't have much clout, what with not having a zombie survival plan at all.
***
Joe and Gabe smoke the last of Joe's pot sitting on the floor of the storage room playing with Penny, Hemingway, Rigby and Gizmo.
Joe's pot is excellent. Maybe too excellent, Gabe decides, when Gizmo looks at him sadly and says, "the Cobra really should have been more specific."
"Whatever," Gabe says and gets up to shuffle out of the room.
"Where are you going?" Joe calls after him.
"Style, Joe. We're going out in style."
***
"I believe you about the aliens," Patrick says.
"What?" Gabe asks. He's staring up at the metallic streamers. His head kind of hurts and the streamers seemed a lot more stylish when he was stoned out of his mind. They were more . . . shimmery then.
"The aliens. I believe you."
"Well, given zombies, I hope I'm wrong about the aliens. And I didn't say there were aliens; I just said it doesn't hurt to be prepared."
"Doesn't hurt to be prepared for zombies either, does it?"
"Touche."
"Also, you're not wrong."
"Don't say that."
Patrick looks around hesitantly, peering into the hallway to make sure they're alone and then shuts the door behind him, edging closer to Gabe and tugging at his hat brim nervously.
"But seriously, it doesn't happen like this."
"Define 'it'?"
"Ummmm, the Apocalypse?"
Gabe blinks, "and you know that how?"
Patrick looks even more uncomfortable, "there's a, I . . . uh, with the . . . I can't tell you that."
"What can you tell me?"
"You should probably listen when important sna . . . people . . . try to communicate with you. Even if they communicate with you in unlikely ways."
"What?"
"Like . . . through tiny dogs."
"What?"
"Marijuana is not as strong a drug as peyote."
There's a long silence as Gabe processes that. "What do you know about the Cobra?"
Patrick deflates and rubs one hand over his face, "don't tell Pete, okay?"
Patrick, as it turns out, has only known that he is truly LORD GROOVIUS, the minion of The Cobra since they arrived at Angels and Kings. His knowledge of his true nature only takes effect in states of dire emergency. Such as the current rift in the space time continuum.
"There's a rift in the space time continuum?" Gabe asks skeptically.
Patrick sighs, once again looking at Gabe like he's crazy and says, "Gabe. Zombies."
That was really Gabe's point from the beginning. "Does this mean I can take the zombies seriously?" he asks.
"Yes. You should probably take the zombies seriously."
"Oh, good."
***
If pressed, Gabe would say that he really does believe the world is ending. If pressed further, however, he would qualify that by saying that he believes that the human race is innately self-destructive, hostile to each other and the world, too wrapped up in violence and pettiness to see, as a whole, the damage being done. He would say that he found a certain liberation in embracing his cynicism because there is freedom in preparing for the worst. It's easier to stop it all from hurting you if you have a harder shell and the moments of grace and brightness are all the more poignant for being fleeting. There is beauty and love in the world, but you have to live authentically in the moment or you'll miss its depth.
Okay, haha, whatever, no. He wouldn't actually ever say any of that out loud and he hasn't really tried to articulate any of that shit since Midtown anyway. Now he pretty much says, "we're all fucked in the end" and leaves it. He figures that the people who are paying attention will know what he means. The point, though, is that Gabe might have had a rather vivid conception of the end of the world, but it had always been pretty abstract; even the whole Cobra thing . . . if pressed, he'd say that he just sort of thought he'd done too much peyote.
At no point did his conception of the end of the world include zombies.
But "rift in the space time continuum" isn't actually a whole lot better.
"When I said 'there has to be a more logical explanation' that's not really what I meant," Victoria says. The rest of Cobra Starship is staring at Gabe equally skeptically.
"It makes as much sense as zombies?" Gabe says.
Ryland shakes his head, "it really doesn't though."
Gabe looks at Patrick who is looking pointedly at the sparkly streamers still hanging from the ceiling. No help from LORD GROOVIUS then. Right.
"I . . . uh . . . had a vision," Gabe says.
"Again?" asks Victoria.
"Is Joe's weed that good?" asks Alex.
"Is there more?" asks Nate.
"Are you being serious here?" asks Ryland, "because we always just kind of thought you did too much peyote."
"Would I joke about zombies?" Gabe asks.
His band exchanges a look. "Probably," Victoria says.
"About alternate universe zombies?"
"Until ten minutes ago, I didn't know you could be serious about alternate universe zombies," says Alex.
Victoria says, "until a week ago, I didn't know you could be serious about any zombies."
Gabe rolls his eyes. "Can we focus here?"
Ryland shrugs. "I, for one, feel very focused on your time space continuum vision from The Cobra."
Alex waits a beat and then says, "yeah, okay."
Gabe looks at Nate and Victoria. Nate nods, "you know I'm in."
Victoria's tapping her fingers on her arm agitatedly, but finally she sighs and says, "my entire livelihood is thanks to a vision you had of The Cobra. I guess I shouldn't start doubting it now."
"So how do we unrift space-time?" Nate asks. Gabe shoots Patrick a look out of the corner of his eye and Patrick shifts uncomfortably.
"Hey! I'm gonna go get the others," he says, and ducks out of the room.
***
"So how do we unrift spacetime?" Joe asks.
"Are you sure we're supposed to unrift space-time?" Andy asks, "maybe this is the destined downfall of modern civilization."
"I'm sure," says Gabe. "The . . . uh . . . Cobra says so." He looks at Patrick who shrugs as if to say sure, I guess, maybe. Why not?
"We're sure The Cobra can be trusted?" asks Andy.
"Yeah," says Joe, "I thought it wasn't your destiny to persever in the face of the apocalypse."
"Change of plans. And trusting the Cobra has worked so far. I have a band, I didn't kill myself in the desert and also, I support the no more zombies goal."
"That's a good point," says Joe.
Pete doesn't say anything because he's bouncing Bronx on his knee and making undignified cooing sounds. Ashlee shakes her head at them, affectionately bemused, and runs her fingers through her hair. She looks harried. "Our current plan is to take advice from Gabe's imaginary friend?"
"The previous plan involved killing zombies with musical instruments and cutlery," Gabe points out. That's not totally fair because, okay, the zombie apocalypse shelter is pretty secure and kind of kickass, but all the same, people who've been planning for years should have maybe planned a little further ahead.
Not that Gabe has much of a plan. Patrick aka LORD GROOVIUS couldn't tell him much beyond the plan is not complete, the time is not right, also what the fuck zombies.
***
Gabe dreams that night of The Cobra.
"At least I can still reach you this way," The Cobra hisses. It sounds annoyed.
"Sorry," Gabe says.
"You will never succeed if you don't lissssten."
"I was a little distracted."
The Cobra says, "That was unforeseen. You never know when the dead are going to rise up to feast upon the flesh of the living." The Cobra pauses, and then says, still annoyed, "However, you owe me everything and I demand allegiance. I'm going to bite you right in the fucking neck."
Gabe instinctively covers his neck with his hand, "could we maybe not go through all that again this time?"
"It really is the only way to get you to pay attention."
Gabe blinks. He doesn't usually remember his dreams, but sometimes he wakes up with truly inspired ideas and his neck aching. Which. Huh.
He says, "I've been trying to listen to Patrick, but he hasn't been much help."
The Cobra nods its head sadly, "LORD GROOVIUSSSS' real talents lie in beats. He's not so good in emergencies. He was supposed to tell you not to worry, but interdimensional memories aren't always reliable. And then you went and got everybody all stirred up, as if humans can heal a rift in spacetime."
"Um, what?" Gabe says.
The Cobra cocks its head like it's considering him. "Have I taught you nothing?"
"I'm not supposed to worry about zombies?" Gabe asks.
"No."
"Am I supposed to save the world?" Gabe is doubtful.
"What? No. We've been through this. I thought I told you there is no salvation." The Cobra doesn't roll its eyes, but that's mostly because it's a giant fucking snake. Gabe hears the eyeroll in its voice.
"Yeah, but you also told me there aren't any zombies," he points out.
"Would you relax, kid? I got this."
"Can you do that?"
"I'm from the future. Do you really think space time is that much of a problem for me?"
"I was just checking."
The Cobra slithers up close to him until Gabe can't see anything but its eyes and can feel the flicker of its tongue on his throat. He freezes. He really, really doesn't want to go through all that again. He still has faint scars - which, in hindsight, probably should have clued him in that he didn't just do too much peyote.
The Cobra hisses, "mostly I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell you not to worry about aliens either."
"I wasn't that worried."
"You have a survival shelter."
"It's mostly storage."
"Just don't take it so seriously. Keep your eye on the goal. Style, kid. Fucking style."
The Cobra bites him in the fucking neck.
***
Gabe wakes up disoriented. Mostly he can just hear Alex, Ryland and Patrick messing around on garage band on the back of the bus, except he shouldn't be on the bus, except when he opens his eyes, he is. Fuck his head hurts. And his neck hurts, but when he reaches up to touch it, at least he doesn't feel marks this time.
Whatever, he's on the bus like nothing happened, and there's definitely no moaning or scraping coming from outside. He didn't know it would work like that, but okay. What does he know about rifts in spacetime, anyway? He groans and Alex pokes his head through the door, "you feeling any better?"
"My head . . ."
"Yeah, I'm not surprised," Ryland says.
When Patrick walks out, Gabe waves his hand at him helplessly and says, "hey, are you still LORD GROOVIUS?"
Something flickers in Patrick's face, but it quickly gives way to confusion. He kicks the couch lightly, but is still jars Gabe's whole body and make his head throb (GOD, he is too tall for the couch, how the fuck did he even get here?). Patrick says, "I don't know, are you still high? Because last night you were babbling about The Cobra."
"Also zombies," says Ryland helpfully.
"Did you know Fall Out Boy has a zombie survival shelter?" Victoria asks from the doorway.
"Andy says he could kill one with his drum stick," Nate says, coming up behind her.
"Help me up." Gabe says and he sticks out his hand and waves it around until Ryland grabs him by the elbow and pulls him up.
His head spins with vertigo once he's upright and Gabe stands there for a moment, processing the relief, and the fact that they don't remember it, and the rather unnerving fact that it might have been a dream anyway, even though his muscles still ache from practicing zombie decapitation with a butcher knife and his neck fucking hurts. "Come on, guys," Gabe says.
"What?" asks Alex.
"We have to get ready for tonight."
"What's tonight?" asks Ryland warily, because he's been in a band with Gabe for a long time.
Gabe shrugs. The world's ending his way again, slowly and maybe painfully, but with all the little moments that make it worth it. "We're throwing the party."