Happy Halloween!
Title: Crawl (Carry Me Through)
Author: carolion
Pairing: None.
Rating: R for gore
Summary: LA was immediately quarantined.
Disclaimer: This is only for fun. Nothing is true, and it is all made up.
Author's Notes: Happy Halloween you guys! I wrote Zombie fic! Um, this is... kind of dark and angsty actually, so. There IS character death (it's ZOMBIE FIC), but it gets slightly cracky towards the end. *sigh* So I'm not sure it totally works, but I tried. And the idea wouldn't let go of me. Hope you guys had a great holiday!
Warnings: Gore, zombies, character death.
Word Count: ~3600
LA was quarantined immediately after the first reported case.
After the Argentine Incident, the UN wasn't going to take any chances with the virus spreading across America, the way it had taken out several cities in Argentina, and killed two-thirds of the population of Buenos Aires. It had been a huge international issue, and they'd barely avoided mass panic from the public with the outbreak of the so called 'zombie flu.'
In truth, it appeared to be a hyper-rare but hyper-contagious strain of HIV that targeted organ and brain function, and after living in the human system for a week or so, began to display similar symptoms as necrotizing fasciitis - the flesh eating disease. The disease could live harmlessly in a person for almost three weeks before brain function begins to deteriorate, organs begin shutting down, and flesh begins to rot. As gruesome as it sounds, the afflicted really do become nothing more than animated corpses - zombies, as the public is so eager to call them. Barely any brain function, near complete organ failure, and fueled by a single goal - to pass the disease on to other people.
Perhaps the only saving grace about 'zombie flu' was that it could only be spread by the transfer of bodily fluids, and it wasn't airborne or spread by touch. However, the disease did seem to turn the afflicted into cannibalistic creatures, continuously trying to bite and devour the unaffected. Their saliva getting into the bloodstream was often the most common cause of disease transference, though the pus and blood that smeared across their skin and lesions was also an effective way to spread the disease.
So when a young woman ran into Los Angeles County Medical Center, screaming that her sister had bitten her, and the wound already looked deep and purple with infection, the entire city had been put on lock down pretty quickly.
That didn't stop the disease from spreading throughout LA though.
--
"This is not a film. This is real. God is taking his revenge on sinners, and there will be no mercy. You cannot run from God's wrath, you can only pray and seek forgiveness. Do not fear Death, fear God. Repent. Repent. Repent."
- Written hastily in Spanish on a sign propped outside of a Catholic church in Buenos Aires during the Argentine Incident. The church was on fire.
--
The news channels and radio stations kept repeating for the Greater Los Angeles area to stay calm and not panic - that yes, the rumors of a few confirmed cases of zombie flu were true, but that if people were cautious and aware, that the disease could not spread. The only problem with that was that the disease could be dormant in a person for almost three weeks before they started to manifest symptoms, and someone could spread the disease without even knowing it.
People were beginning to panic by the second month, when the amount of reported cases climbed dramatically, and it escalated into full blown hysteria when the news reports began to broadcast a pre-recorded loop of the "stay calm, don't panic, the police and medical personnel are handling the out break" message. To the citizens of Los Angeles, this meant the end was probably nigh.
--
"They're fucking leaving us here," David said, running his hands through his hair for the umpteenth time, pacing back and forth in the front room of his house, glancing at his barricaded door nervously. Andy and Neal were slumped on the stairs, watching him warily, but not disagreeing.
"They're leaving us here to die, those fucking bastards, to just let the flu knock itself out within the city, fuck, millions of people are going to die, shit shit shit, we're going to fucking die." He could hear the hysteria rising in his voice, but he couldn't manage to contain it. As soon as the number of confirmed cases had begun to rise and the amount of dead began to rack up, David had called his band mates in a flurry of panic and begged them to all stay in the house with him and Andrew, determined to keep tabs on all of the people he loved. (He couldn't get a hold of Archie, which threw him into a panic for a full three hours, and it was only when Andy grabbed him and told him to chill the fuck out did he manage to calm down. It was still a lingering worry in the back of his mind, but the overriding terror of their current situation outweighed the fact that he didn't know where Archie was, and couldn't help him.)
"Dave," Neal started, his brow furrowed. "Man, you need to calm down. We're fine. We've still got fresh water and food. We're all okay. Stop freakin' out, you're going to blow a gasket."
"Aren't you angry? That they don't care - that no one is fucking doing anything?" David whirled on his friends, hands clenched into tight fists. He was shaking a little.
Andy looked at him, pity in his eyes.
"David," he said, "they don't know what to do. It's not that they don't want to help us - I just don't think they can."
--
Washington D.C., Channel 7 News Station
"We have Dr. Lars Peterson here to tell us all about the so-called 'zombie flu' that has become an epidemic in Los Angeles. Doctor, what can you tell us about the disease? What can America do to protect itself?"
The doctor, a sandy-haired man with round glasses, fidgeted in his seat and avoided looking at the aggressively blonde, aggressively curvy anchorwoman seated opposite from him.
"Well," he said hesitantly, "it's not really an epidemic you see - an epidemic is--"
"Do you know how long Los Angeles will be quarantined? What about all of the people who are trapped there, are they condemned to death now?" she interrupted.
He frowned. "We don't know how long it will take to isolate the carriers of the disease from the people who don't have it, but we have some of the best police men and medical personnel in the area working on it. And as for the people who are quarantined - if they take the necessary precautions to keep themselves safe, they should be fine."
The reporter leaned closer, lowering her voice in a way that projected faux intimacy. "There are rumors that Los Angeles has been abandoned to keep the rest of the country safe. Is this true?"
Dr. Lars Peterson flinched away from her, furrowing his brow. "No, no not at all. We're maintaining communication with a few - ah - isolated areas and we're receiving transmissions and trying to help as much as we can," he said, a little desperately.
"Have scientists found a cure yet?" she asked, the question of the night.
Lars stared down at the table between, and at the woman's finely manicured nails splayed against the grain of the wood. They were painted a very, very bright red.
"No," he answered softly, "no, we have not."
--
By the fifth month, David had insisted on blacking out the windows because he couldn't stand the sight of zombies limping outside of his house, dragging mutilated limbs and groaning in their soft, desperate voices. He was also terrified that they'd see the living people inside the house, and try to get in. He felt like he was losing his mind, and he'd already had more panic attacks in the past three months than he'd ever had in his entire life before. He was on the verge of a full fledged mental breakdown, and the only thing keeping him together was the knowledge that his closest friends were safe, and that his family was far, far away.
When LA had first been quarantined, Kyle had called to tell them that he and his family were safe, just outside of the quarantine zone. Monty had been visiting family elsewhere, and the only family Dave had in LA was Andrew, and they lived together. He didn't think about Archie. He couldn't.
But at least he had Andrew, Neal, and Andy with him, and the three of them were substantially calmer about the situation than he was being. Who knew he was claustrophobic? Who knew that feeling trapped in a circle of the undead would drive him to the fucking edge of sanity?
And now they were almost out of food. They'd have to make a grocery run soon, and there were fucking zombies everywhere. At least Neal was prepared for this sort of shit, and had brought an obscene amount of guns and ammo, long knives and dangerously looking swords with him when David had called him, panicking, to come to the house. So at least they could protect themselves.
It wasn't going to be easy though.
--
"There have still been no reports to the public from Los Angeles since the complete quarantine enacted six months ago. The President assures us that the situation is under control, but that the city must remained locked down for safety measures. We may not learn the fate of Los Angeles or how many people are alive or dead until the situation is resolved and the quarantined lifted."
- an excerpt from an article in the New York Times
--
"Andrew! Fuck!" David screamed, swinging his shotgun in a circle and smashing the jaw of some half-dead socialite who was trying to claw at him. Her chest was completely caved, nothing but an empty hole where no doubt plastic breasts had once been but had since rotted off.
It had been okay at first. The zombies were slow, and they'd taken David's car to the closest SuperMart he could think of. But as soon as they'd gotten into the store, all hell had broken lose. More zombies than any of them had ever imagined started to close in around them, and as David scrambled to find food that wasn't spoiled to stuff into their bag, Andy and Neal and Andrew were having to kill more and more zombies. They were holding their own, but David could feel sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he hurried, well aware that while his friends were doing their best, they couldn't hold them back forever.
And they didn't.
Andrew's terrified screams were what made David whirl around, and even though Neal was taking a fucking knife and hacking away at the zombies clustered around Andrew, they'd apparently latched on and were feeding voraciously.
"Andrew!" He screamed, flinging the bag of food away from him as he fumbled with his gun, too slow to shoot but figuring a blunt blow to the back of the head would be enough to at least slow a zombie down. Blood splattered every where as he fought, guts and brain matter sluicing down the bodies of felled zombies as he and Andy and Neal all tried to reach for Andy and drag him back without falling victim themselves.
David didn't stop trying until he saw one vicious looking man rip Andrew's throat out with his teeth, effectively silencing Andrew's pained sobbing. Only then did he let Neal and Andy drag him away.
--
He was numb. A part of him couldn't believe Andrew was really gone, and the other part of him was nearly hysterical with grief. He shivered, even though the house wasn't cold, not really.
"Oh fuck, Neal, I think he's going into shock," he heard Andy say. He sounded so far away. Neal and Andy... they'd tried, they'd tried so hard, he knew, and wanted to cling to them and tell them thank you but he was still spinning, spinning, spinning, remembering the last echoes of Andrew's desperate, horrified howls.
"Shit," David heard Neal grunt.
There was a long pause, and David lifted his head, wondering where Neal and Andy were, if they'd left him alone, if they were going to try and get Andrew back. (For some reason he could only think that they would, that they were going to save him and he'd be okay, and for a moment he let himself feel hopeful, but then he remembered the spray of blood as Andrew's carotid artery was torn apart.)
What he saw was Andy and Neal frozen in place, staring at each other with nearly identical expressions, their mouths tight with panic. David blinked, and then realized Neal was holding his wrist oddly, and that there was - there was a viscous red liquid seeping from between his fingers.
"No," he mumbled, his eyes going wide.
Neal slowly peeled his fingers away from his wrist, showing off the messy, brutal bite mark that one of the zombies had left on his skin. He looked sick.
"I - I didn't realize --" he stuttered out, seemingly unable to look away from his own wound. "I was trying to get Andrew -" David flinched at the sound of his name "- and one must have..." Neal trailed off.
Andy sat down shakily and put his head between his knees, taking deep, trembling breaths.
"What... I - you got bitten?" David asked, feeling dizzy. It was a stupid question, he realized that distantly, but he still had to ask, still had to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
Neal nodded slowly. Meanwhile, Andy shook his head back and forth violently in denial.
"Andy..." Neal started, but Andy cut him off.
"No, don't." His voice was steely, but so, so sad.
"What are we going to do?" David asked, feeling a rising panic that he couldn't pretend didn't exist. It was sinking in. Andrew was dead. Neal was bitten. Neal was going to become a zombie, and then they were all going to die in this god forsaken town in a house that would become their grave. He felt tears slip down his cheeks.
"You know what you have to do," Neal answered gruffly, shoving one of his guns at David. David's eyes widened.
--
IF YOU SEE A ZOMBIE, KILL ON SIGHT.
DO NOT HESITATE.
DO NOT SHOW MERCY.
IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE ZOMBIE USED TO BE YOUR NEIGHBOR, YOUR MOTHER, YOUR BEST FRIEND
THEY WILL KILL YOU! THEY ARE NOT WHO THEY USED TO BE
THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO SURVIVE
GOOD LUCK.
- as seen on a bunch of flyers posted all over LA two months into the quarantine
--
Andy screamed at them. Andy never screamed, but he shouted and yelled and raged at the both of them, refusing to let this happen, pleading with the both of them. David knew it wouldn't do any good to try and defend himself, but he wanted to say "I know! I love him too! He's my best friend, do you think I want to kill him?"
"Please, please, we have at least three weeks, maybe, if we're lucky," Andy begged. "Maybe they'll have found a cure by then, and we can get you help, please Neal, don't do this."
"Andy," Neal said, grabbing his hands gently, cautious to keep his wound angled away from Andy's skin. "I could turn faster than that. Sometimes it takes three weeks to show symptoms. But I could still infect you guys, and I won't do that." His voice was terribly gentle, and Dave had never seen his face so sad or soft. "You have to do this."
Andy shook his head stubbornly, refusing to meet Neal's eyes. "I won't. I won't," he protested.
Neal turned to David, his gaze calm.
David took a breath and picked up the gun with trembling hands.
--
Chicago, HARPO Studios
Oprah folded her hands over her lap and stared gravely at her guest in the chair next to her.
"What kind of psychological effect to you think being trapped in Los Angeles will have on the millions of people still there? And dealing with such a serious epidemic... Will anyone be the same after this disaster?" she asked.
Dr. Tiffany Gris adjusted her skirt minutely as she shifted in her chair. "I think there will be major psychological effects on everyone who has had to live through this tragedy for the past half of a year. Los Angeles is an enormous city and millions of people live there. All of them will be effected in some way. And not only the people in quarantine, but their families scattered throughout the country too. There is no way of telling who is alive or dead at this point, since there have been no public details. I believe this could be one of the great tragedies of the 21st century, yes. No one will be the same."
--
Andy insisted on being in the room, even though both he and Neal thought it was a bad idea. They were in Neal's old room, at Neal's request.
"I want to go out somewhere familiar," he joked, but no one thought it was funny, Andy least of all.
"We don't have to do this," David tried one last time. "You're not displaying symptoms, we can at least wait until you - you know..."
Neal shook his head vehemently, grabbing the muzzle of the shot gun and leveling it at his forehead, ignoring the sharp little sound of pain from Andy.
"I could lose it in the middle of the night and munch on you guys as you slept. I'm not going to do that, okay. Give me at least this last request Dave, please."
David nodded shortly. He understood. His hands stopped shaking, and he hefted the gun into a better position, aiming directly in the center of Neal's forehead. In one split second, he could see all of the memories he had of Neal and Andrew at once, and his chest throbbed with pain, bile beginning to rise in his throat and threatening to make him vomit. He squeezed his eyes closed so he wouldn't have to see Neal's face as he pulled the trigger.
--
David pulled back and let the gun swing by his side. His eyes were filled with tears.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he said, starting to cry. "I can't."
Neal reached forward and pulled him into a tight hug, and David cried into his shoulder, shaking and blowing snot all over Neal's worn shirt. He just couldn't, not after losing Andrew, not after six months of this bull shit, not after fighting zombies, fighting for their lives. He couldn't kill Neal, no matter the consequences. He felt Andy join them, his arms wrapping tight around the both of them. David thought he was crying too, and the three of them just stood there and mourned.
If they had to die, they'd die together.
--
It took a week and a half for Neal to 'ghoul-out' as he put it. Not enough time for any of them, but it's the brain function that started to go first, and soon Neal was non-verbal and getting more aggressive with them.
"I still can't kill him Dave," Andy said, shaking his head. He was pale and thin, and his hair was limp. He looked almost as dead as the zombies that still prowled the residential streets outside of David's house. "I can't do it. I don't care, he's still Neal. Look, he still recognizes us, I think he's still in there."
So they didn't kill him, even though David felt as though it was probably going against Neal's wishes, and did feel guilty about that. But Neal still responded when they shuffled him from room to room, and let them clean his pus-filled wounds and ate the raw meat that they managed to salvage from local grocery stores.
But what finally convinced Dave that Neal was still him, still their friend, even after his flesh started to rot and he started to gnashed his teeth at their hands, was when they led him into the studio. There was still a few spare guitars inside, and Neal's face - for lack of a better word - lit up at the sight of them. When Andy tentatively handed him the instrument, Neal clumsily pawed at the strings, his attention focused on the guitar beneath his hands.
Andy had tears in his eyes again, and David knew, knew, that even if Neal came at them to kill them, they'd let him. He was still Neal, after all this time.
--
The quarantine was lifted two months later. There were over two million people dead, but considering the size of the population of LA, it was almost an insignificant number. Almost. It was still two million people dead, littered corpses on the ground.
Dave and Andy kept Neal. It was stupid and dangerous, but they couldn't bare to kill him, and they refused to hand him over to the doctors who wanted to study any remaining 'zombies' in order to find a cure for the disease. Neal was different. Neal was theirs.
He mostly lived in the studio, prowling in the dark, windowless room. They had to chain him, sometimes, especially when they tried to feed him or clean his rotting wounds, but as long as he had a guitar in his hands, he seemed content. He was non-verbal and smelled like death, but Dave joked that he wasn't all that different from the Neal of before.
He was a comfort, at times. Like when David couldn't sleep because of his nightmares, hearing Andrew's last moments in his head over and over again, sometimes he would walk around the house aimlessly and hear music from the studio below, and he'd smile. It wasn't like he could really have a conversation with Neal any more, but at least he still understood music.
Nothing was okay, not really. But it could have been worse.
Author: carolion
Pairing: None.
Rating: R for gore
Summary: LA was immediately quarantined.
Disclaimer: This is only for fun. Nothing is true, and it is all made up.
Author's Notes: Happy Halloween you guys! I wrote Zombie fic! Um, this is... kind of dark and angsty actually, so. There IS character death (it's ZOMBIE FIC), but it gets slightly cracky towards the end. *sigh* So I'm not sure it totally works, but I tried. And the idea wouldn't let go of me. Hope you guys had a great holiday!
Warnings: Gore, zombies, character death.
Word Count: ~3600
LA was quarantined immediately after the first reported case.
After the Argentine Incident, the UN wasn't going to take any chances with the virus spreading across America, the way it had taken out several cities in Argentina, and killed two-thirds of the population of Buenos Aires. It had been a huge international issue, and they'd barely avoided mass panic from the public with the outbreak of the so called 'zombie flu.'
In truth, it appeared to be a hyper-rare but hyper-contagious strain of HIV that targeted organ and brain function, and after living in the human system for a week or so, began to display similar symptoms as necrotizing fasciitis - the flesh eating disease. The disease could live harmlessly in a person for almost three weeks before brain function begins to deteriorate, organs begin shutting down, and flesh begins to rot. As gruesome as it sounds, the afflicted really do become nothing more than animated corpses - zombies, as the public is so eager to call them. Barely any brain function, near complete organ failure, and fueled by a single goal - to pass the disease on to other people.
Perhaps the only saving grace about 'zombie flu' was that it could only be spread by the transfer of bodily fluids, and it wasn't airborne or spread by touch. However, the disease did seem to turn the afflicted into cannibalistic creatures, continuously trying to bite and devour the unaffected. Their saliva getting into the bloodstream was often the most common cause of disease transference, though the pus and blood that smeared across their skin and lesions was also an effective way to spread the disease.
So when a young woman ran into Los Angeles County Medical Center, screaming that her sister had bitten her, and the wound already looked deep and purple with infection, the entire city had been put on lock down pretty quickly.
That didn't stop the disease from spreading throughout LA though.
--
"This is not a film. This is real. God is taking his revenge on sinners, and there will be no mercy. You cannot run from God's wrath, you can only pray and seek forgiveness. Do not fear Death, fear God. Repent. Repent. Repent."
- Written hastily in Spanish on a sign propped outside of a Catholic church in Buenos Aires during the Argentine Incident. The church was on fire.
--
The news channels and radio stations kept repeating for the Greater Los Angeles area to stay calm and not panic - that yes, the rumors of a few confirmed cases of zombie flu were true, but that if people were cautious and aware, that the disease could not spread. The only problem with that was that the disease could be dormant in a person for almost three weeks before they started to manifest symptoms, and someone could spread the disease without even knowing it.
People were beginning to panic by the second month, when the amount of reported cases climbed dramatically, and it escalated into full blown hysteria when the news reports began to broadcast a pre-recorded loop of the "stay calm, don't panic, the police and medical personnel are handling the out break" message. To the citizens of Los Angeles, this meant the end was probably nigh.
--
"They're fucking leaving us here," David said, running his hands through his hair for the umpteenth time, pacing back and forth in the front room of his house, glancing at his barricaded door nervously. Andy and Neal were slumped on the stairs, watching him warily, but not disagreeing.
"They're leaving us here to die, those fucking bastards, to just let the flu knock itself out within the city, fuck, millions of people are going to die, shit shit shit, we're going to fucking die." He could hear the hysteria rising in his voice, but he couldn't manage to contain it. As soon as the number of confirmed cases had begun to rise and the amount of dead began to rack up, David had called his band mates in a flurry of panic and begged them to all stay in the house with him and Andrew, determined to keep tabs on all of the people he loved. (He couldn't get a hold of Archie, which threw him into a panic for a full three hours, and it was only when Andy grabbed him and told him to chill the fuck out did he manage to calm down. It was still a lingering worry in the back of his mind, but the overriding terror of their current situation outweighed the fact that he didn't know where Archie was, and couldn't help him.)
"Dave," Neal started, his brow furrowed. "Man, you need to calm down. We're fine. We've still got fresh water and food. We're all okay. Stop freakin' out, you're going to blow a gasket."
"Aren't you angry? That they don't care - that no one is fucking doing anything?" David whirled on his friends, hands clenched into tight fists. He was shaking a little.
Andy looked at him, pity in his eyes.
"David," he said, "they don't know what to do. It's not that they don't want to help us - I just don't think they can."
--
Washington D.C., Channel 7 News Station
"We have Dr. Lars Peterson here to tell us all about the so-called 'zombie flu' that has become an epidemic in Los Angeles. Doctor, what can you tell us about the disease? What can America do to protect itself?"
The doctor, a sandy-haired man with round glasses, fidgeted in his seat and avoided looking at the aggressively blonde, aggressively curvy anchorwoman seated opposite from him.
"Well," he said hesitantly, "it's not really an epidemic you see - an epidemic is--"
"Do you know how long Los Angeles will be quarantined? What about all of the people who are trapped there, are they condemned to death now?" she interrupted.
He frowned. "We don't know how long it will take to isolate the carriers of the disease from the people who don't have it, but we have some of the best police men and medical personnel in the area working on it. And as for the people who are quarantined - if they take the necessary precautions to keep themselves safe, they should be fine."
The reporter leaned closer, lowering her voice in a way that projected faux intimacy. "There are rumors that Los Angeles has been abandoned to keep the rest of the country safe. Is this true?"
Dr. Lars Peterson flinched away from her, furrowing his brow. "No, no not at all. We're maintaining communication with a few - ah - isolated areas and we're receiving transmissions and trying to help as much as we can," he said, a little desperately.
"Have scientists found a cure yet?" she asked, the question of the night.
Lars stared down at the table between, and at the woman's finely manicured nails splayed against the grain of the wood. They were painted a very, very bright red.
"No," he answered softly, "no, we have not."
--
By the fifth month, David had insisted on blacking out the windows because he couldn't stand the sight of zombies limping outside of his house, dragging mutilated limbs and groaning in their soft, desperate voices. He was also terrified that they'd see the living people inside the house, and try to get in. He felt like he was losing his mind, and he'd already had more panic attacks in the past three months than he'd ever had in his entire life before. He was on the verge of a full fledged mental breakdown, and the only thing keeping him together was the knowledge that his closest friends were safe, and that his family was far, far away.
When LA had first been quarantined, Kyle had called to tell them that he and his family were safe, just outside of the quarantine zone. Monty had been visiting family elsewhere, and the only family Dave had in LA was Andrew, and they lived together. He didn't think about Archie. He couldn't.
But at least he had Andrew, Neal, and Andy with him, and the three of them were substantially calmer about the situation than he was being. Who knew he was claustrophobic? Who knew that feeling trapped in a circle of the undead would drive him to the fucking edge of sanity?
And now they were almost out of food. They'd have to make a grocery run soon, and there were fucking zombies everywhere. At least Neal was prepared for this sort of shit, and had brought an obscene amount of guns and ammo, long knives and dangerously looking swords with him when David had called him, panicking, to come to the house. So at least they could protect themselves.
It wasn't going to be easy though.
--
"There have still been no reports to the public from Los Angeles since the complete quarantine enacted six months ago. The President assures us that the situation is under control, but that the city must remained locked down for safety measures. We may not learn the fate of Los Angeles or how many people are alive or dead until the situation is resolved and the quarantined lifted."
- an excerpt from an article in the New York Times
--
"Andrew! Fuck!" David screamed, swinging his shotgun in a circle and smashing the jaw of some half-dead socialite who was trying to claw at him. Her chest was completely caved, nothing but an empty hole where no doubt plastic breasts had once been but had since rotted off.
It had been okay at first. The zombies were slow, and they'd taken David's car to the closest SuperMart he could think of. But as soon as they'd gotten into the store, all hell had broken lose. More zombies than any of them had ever imagined started to close in around them, and as David scrambled to find food that wasn't spoiled to stuff into their bag, Andy and Neal and Andrew were having to kill more and more zombies. They were holding their own, but David could feel sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he hurried, well aware that while his friends were doing their best, they couldn't hold them back forever.
And they didn't.
Andrew's terrified screams were what made David whirl around, and even though Neal was taking a fucking knife and hacking away at the zombies clustered around Andrew, they'd apparently latched on and were feeding voraciously.
"Andrew!" He screamed, flinging the bag of food away from him as he fumbled with his gun, too slow to shoot but figuring a blunt blow to the back of the head would be enough to at least slow a zombie down. Blood splattered every where as he fought, guts and brain matter sluicing down the bodies of felled zombies as he and Andy and Neal all tried to reach for Andy and drag him back without falling victim themselves.
David didn't stop trying until he saw one vicious looking man rip Andrew's throat out with his teeth, effectively silencing Andrew's pained sobbing. Only then did he let Neal and Andy drag him away.
--
He was numb. A part of him couldn't believe Andrew was really gone, and the other part of him was nearly hysterical with grief. He shivered, even though the house wasn't cold, not really.
"Oh fuck, Neal, I think he's going into shock," he heard Andy say. He sounded so far away. Neal and Andy... they'd tried, they'd tried so hard, he knew, and wanted to cling to them and tell them thank you but he was still spinning, spinning, spinning, remembering the last echoes of Andrew's desperate, horrified howls.
"Shit," David heard Neal grunt.
There was a long pause, and David lifted his head, wondering where Neal and Andy were, if they'd left him alone, if they were going to try and get Andrew back. (For some reason he could only think that they would, that they were going to save him and he'd be okay, and for a moment he let himself feel hopeful, but then he remembered the spray of blood as Andrew's carotid artery was torn apart.)
What he saw was Andy and Neal frozen in place, staring at each other with nearly identical expressions, their mouths tight with panic. David blinked, and then realized Neal was holding his wrist oddly, and that there was - there was a viscous red liquid seeping from between his fingers.
"No," he mumbled, his eyes going wide.
Neal slowly peeled his fingers away from his wrist, showing off the messy, brutal bite mark that one of the zombies had left on his skin. He looked sick.
"I - I didn't realize --" he stuttered out, seemingly unable to look away from his own wound. "I was trying to get Andrew -" David flinched at the sound of his name "- and one must have..." Neal trailed off.
Andy sat down shakily and put his head between his knees, taking deep, trembling breaths.
"What... I - you got bitten?" David asked, feeling dizzy. It was a stupid question, he realized that distantly, but he still had to ask, still had to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
Neal nodded slowly. Meanwhile, Andy shook his head back and forth violently in denial.
"Andy..." Neal started, but Andy cut him off.
"No, don't." His voice was steely, but so, so sad.
"What are we going to do?" David asked, feeling a rising panic that he couldn't pretend didn't exist. It was sinking in. Andrew was dead. Neal was bitten. Neal was going to become a zombie, and then they were all going to die in this god forsaken town in a house that would become their grave. He felt tears slip down his cheeks.
"You know what you have to do," Neal answered gruffly, shoving one of his guns at David. David's eyes widened.
--
IF YOU SEE A ZOMBIE, KILL ON SIGHT.
DO NOT HESITATE.
DO NOT SHOW MERCY.
IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE ZOMBIE USED TO BE YOUR NEIGHBOR, YOUR MOTHER, YOUR BEST FRIEND
THEY WILL KILL YOU! THEY ARE NOT WHO THEY USED TO BE
THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO SURVIVE
GOOD LUCK.
- as seen on a bunch of flyers posted all over LA two months into the quarantine
--
Andy screamed at them. Andy never screamed, but he shouted and yelled and raged at the both of them, refusing to let this happen, pleading with the both of them. David knew it wouldn't do any good to try and defend himself, but he wanted to say "I know! I love him too! He's my best friend, do you think I want to kill him?"
"Please, please, we have at least three weeks, maybe, if we're lucky," Andy begged. "Maybe they'll have found a cure by then, and we can get you help, please Neal, don't do this."
"Andy," Neal said, grabbing his hands gently, cautious to keep his wound angled away from Andy's skin. "I could turn faster than that. Sometimes it takes three weeks to show symptoms. But I could still infect you guys, and I won't do that." His voice was terribly gentle, and Dave had never seen his face so sad or soft. "You have to do this."
Andy shook his head stubbornly, refusing to meet Neal's eyes. "I won't. I won't," he protested.
Neal turned to David, his gaze calm.
David took a breath and picked up the gun with trembling hands.
--
Chicago, HARPO Studios
Oprah folded her hands over her lap and stared gravely at her guest in the chair next to her.
"What kind of psychological effect to you think being trapped in Los Angeles will have on the millions of people still there? And dealing with such a serious epidemic... Will anyone be the same after this disaster?" she asked.
Dr. Tiffany Gris adjusted her skirt minutely as she shifted in her chair. "I think there will be major psychological effects on everyone who has had to live through this tragedy for the past half of a year. Los Angeles is an enormous city and millions of people live there. All of them will be effected in some way. And not only the people in quarantine, but their families scattered throughout the country too. There is no way of telling who is alive or dead at this point, since there have been no public details. I believe this could be one of the great tragedies of the 21st century, yes. No one will be the same."
--
Andy insisted on being in the room, even though both he and Neal thought it was a bad idea. They were in Neal's old room, at Neal's request.
"I want to go out somewhere familiar," he joked, but no one thought it was funny, Andy least of all.
"We don't have to do this," David tried one last time. "You're not displaying symptoms, we can at least wait until you - you know..."
Neal shook his head vehemently, grabbing the muzzle of the shot gun and leveling it at his forehead, ignoring the sharp little sound of pain from Andy.
"I could lose it in the middle of the night and munch on you guys as you slept. I'm not going to do that, okay. Give me at least this last request Dave, please."
David nodded shortly. He understood. His hands stopped shaking, and he hefted the gun into a better position, aiming directly in the center of Neal's forehead. In one split second, he could see all of the memories he had of Neal and Andrew at once, and his chest throbbed with pain, bile beginning to rise in his throat and threatening to make him vomit. He squeezed his eyes closed so he wouldn't have to see Neal's face as he pulled the trigger.
--
David pulled back and let the gun swing by his side. His eyes were filled with tears.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he said, starting to cry. "I can't."
Neal reached forward and pulled him into a tight hug, and David cried into his shoulder, shaking and blowing snot all over Neal's worn shirt. He just couldn't, not after losing Andrew, not after six months of this bull shit, not after fighting zombies, fighting for their lives. He couldn't kill Neal, no matter the consequences. He felt Andy join them, his arms wrapping tight around the both of them. David thought he was crying too, and the three of them just stood there and mourned.
If they had to die, they'd die together.
--
It took a week and a half for Neal to 'ghoul-out' as he put it. Not enough time for any of them, but it's the brain function that started to go first, and soon Neal was non-verbal and getting more aggressive with them.
"I still can't kill him Dave," Andy said, shaking his head. He was pale and thin, and his hair was limp. He looked almost as dead as the zombies that still prowled the residential streets outside of David's house. "I can't do it. I don't care, he's still Neal. Look, he still recognizes us, I think he's still in there."
So they didn't kill him, even though David felt as though it was probably going against Neal's wishes, and did feel guilty about that. But Neal still responded when they shuffled him from room to room, and let them clean his pus-filled wounds and ate the raw meat that they managed to salvage from local grocery stores.
But what finally convinced Dave that Neal was still him, still their friend, even after his flesh started to rot and he started to gnashed his teeth at their hands, was when they led him into the studio. There was still a few spare guitars inside, and Neal's face - for lack of a better word - lit up at the sight of them. When Andy tentatively handed him the instrument, Neal clumsily pawed at the strings, his attention focused on the guitar beneath his hands.
Andy had tears in his eyes again, and David knew, knew, that even if Neal came at them to kill them, they'd let him. He was still Neal, after all this time.
--
The quarantine was lifted two months later. There were over two million people dead, but considering the size of the population of LA, it was almost an insignificant number. Almost. It was still two million people dead, littered corpses on the ground.
Dave and Andy kept Neal. It was stupid and dangerous, but they couldn't bare to kill him, and they refused to hand him over to the doctors who wanted to study any remaining 'zombies' in order to find a cure for the disease. Neal was different. Neal was theirs.
He mostly lived in the studio, prowling in the dark, windowless room. They had to chain him, sometimes, especially when they tried to feed him or clean his rotting wounds, but as long as he had a guitar in his hands, he seemed content. He was non-verbal and smelled like death, but Dave joked that he wasn't all that different from the Neal of before.
He was a comfort, at times. Like when David couldn't sleep because of his nightmares, hearing Andrew's last moments in his head over and over again, sometimes he would walk around the house aimlessly and hear music from the studio below, and he'd smile. It wasn't like he could really have a conversation with Neal any more, but at least he still understood music.
Nothing was okay, not really. But it could have been worse.