Miranda at Bay

[duwinter]

Title: Miranda at Bay

Author: duwinter

Fandom: DWP

Pairing: Miranda/Andy (sort of).

Rating: PG-13

Dedication: In the spirit of Halloween, my all-time favorite holiday! And also as a tribute to every “B” rate horror movie I've ever loved, and, boy, are there a lot of them. I hope the members of our community enjoy this rather dark tale.

Setting: Slight AU, and set about eight months after the events in the movie.

Summery: Andy and Miranda journey together during the end of the world.

Disclaimer: The Devil Wears Prada and it's characters do not belong to me. No profit being made here. I'm just playing with them for a short while and I promise to put them away neatly when I'm through.

Comment: Comments feed the muse and the Muse is always hungry. Remember, a fat muse is a happy and productive muse. Comments and constructive criticism eagerly encouraged.

Very Special Thanks: to punky_96, who conversed with me on the idea of a Halloween challenge and then ran with the idea. You're quite simply the best of the best, kiddo!

Author's Note: I state going in, that I am aware that there is a fair amount of the DWP community that is not going to like this story. Please keep in mind that bizarre twisty-turny stories are sort of what I do. Give it a chance if you want, it might surprise you in the end. That being said, fair warning, Minor Character Death, Major Character Death, Oh hell, let's be real, EVERYBODY DIES!

Author's Note: Unbetaed, may The Powers that Be help you all. All mistakes mine and mine alone.

Miranda stood at bay.She considered, for a brief moment, the irony that she was quite likely to meet her end in an upscale boutique that sold cutting edge, high end couture. It was not where she would have chosen to meet her death, but after careful consideration of her very limited remaining options and her heart beyond broken, she knew that her time was close at hand. She looked down at the Remington pump action shotgun that Andrea had taught her how to use. She was not elegant with the brutal weapon, but as long as she had ammunition for it, it would continue to do the job of defending her life. Said ammunition was, however, down to a precious few shells.

She glanced up at the makeshift barricades she and Andrea had quickly erected across the door and front window of the shop. They would hold for a time, even if those outside made an assault on them. As long as she stayed quiet, she shouldn't draw any unwanted attention. That would keep her fairly safe until dark. There were no available materials or way to create screens across the glass door and window that would completely block any light source from inside, so when night came she would have to sit silently, alone in the darkness, if she wished to avoid attracting those...things...that were wandering around out there.

She glanced at the doorway behind the counter that lead to the adjacent small office/storeroom combination at the back of the store. On the rear wall of that dark little backroom was a heavy steel fire door that lead out to the ally that ran behind the store. That door had no handle or features on it's outer surface, so it could only be opened from inside. It was, however, no longer an option as far as possible escape was concerned. She had barricaded the door that lead from the storefront into the office. Andrea was in that depressingly industrial, nondescript, space. Alone, in that small dark room.

Miranda wept. For the first time in her memory she had had completely lost the hope she had lived on. With the sudden purge of long bottled emotion and suffering, combined with the weight of the sorrows she had had carried on her shoulders the last couple of weeks, something inside Miranda snapped. Her mind turned back in time and she briefly remembered how she'd come to this impasse.

Just over two weeks ago she had experienced a revelation both terrifying and extraordinary, the world had gone mad as a plague that brought the dead back from the grave struck. Manhattan would seem to be the last place one would believe that such a bizarre event would burst onto the world stage, but that was where it had happened.

Miranda, trapped at home, waited frantically for her daughters to be returned to her from their school, as the television reporting of what was happening on the streets of the urban metropolis became more and more surreal. The lunatics on television claimed that packs of zombies were rampaging through the streets, attacking and devouring people, as the police force and groups of volunteers where attempting to contain the situation. The on-air news casters in the studios became increasingly frantic as their on-the-scene reporters went dark one by one.

Miranda had called for her driver, Roy, intending to tell him to fetch her daughters from school and bring them to the safety of the townhouse. Roy had apologized, telling Miranda that he had to look out for his own family first and that he, his wife and children were already on their way out of Manhattan. Miranda was on her own.

Soon after, a call had come from Emily at Miranda's office at Runway. Her first assistant was scared, but she was at her desk, doing the job she was paid to do. Dalton had called and requested she inform Miranda that the school administration, using its' best judgment in regard to the safety of the students in its' care, were evacuating the student body across the river to a facility that the school owned in Brooklyn. Emily provided Miranda with the location's address on Water Street and the added instruction that the building was directly across the street from the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

For once uncertain of what the next step should be, Miranda decided to attempt to join her daughters, but that meant getting some kind of transportation and fleeing Manhattan. Taxi and car services were not answering their phones. Emily had informed her that she and the few employees still at Runway had barricaded themselves on two of the floors that Runway inhabited and that no one was answering in either the Elias-Clarke building's security office or garage.

Miranda went up to her bedroom and quickly packed a bag. Then she went into each of her daughters' room and packed some things for them. Heading downstairs with the luggage, she was surprised when the doorbell rang.

*****

Andrea Sachs had left Miranda's employ the year before, during Paris fashion week. The polite fiction that Miranda perpetrated on the employees of Runway was that Andrea couldn't handle the fact that Miranda had betrayed the dreams of her friend and Miranda's longtime confidant, associate and right-hand-man, Nigel Kipling, by giving a job he was counting on to Miranda's hated chief-rival. Miranda had taken this action as a way to derail an attempted coup that had been orchestrated against her by Irv Ravits, the CEO of Elias-Clarke Publishing. Her ruse had been successful and she had retained her position as Editor-in-Chief of Runway.

The truth about Andrea's termination from her employment at Runway, was, however, somewhat more complex. Miranda had actually fired Andrea two nights before the attempted coup, when the girl had had the temerity to confess to Miranda that she had fallen in love with her. Miranda had dealt with a dozen assistants who'd had crushes on her over her tenure as the editor of Runway. She was perfectly aware that she was attracted to her own sex and had been since her sexual awakening as a teenager. Her difficult climb to the top of her profession and then maintaining her position as the very publicly visible fashion icon had caused her to be reticent about scratching that particular itch. Being a product of her generation and having come into her authority at a time when homosexuality was considered aberrant by the majority of society, she feared the damage a same sex liaison might do her career should it become public knowledge. These circumstances had tempered her desires in that direction. Beside, before Andrea, truth be told, none of the women who had been enamored of Miranda had seemed worth the risk.

Andrea's ill timed confession and subsequent termination, had occurred, unfortunately, just hours before her idiot, soon to be ex-husband, had called to inform her that he had filed for divorce. If Miranda had waited another day, perhaps she would not have been so hasty to dismiss the beautiful brunette. Andrea had been, by far, the strongest of Miranda's attractions and when the girl had confessed her feelings, the potential for Miranda to fall into a disastrous affair that would destroy a marriage that was already in trouble, was just too great a temptation to the fashion icon. Desperate to protect herself, she had responded both immediately and ruthlessly by firing the girl on the spot.

Miranda had not, however, followed her normal inclinations upon her return to Manhattan. She did not reach out her hand and destroy the girl professionally. She had, in fact, done the opposite, and, with a positive reference, had insured the girl on the start of her chosen career path as a journalist. Miranda had allowed herself to follow the budding reporter's career from a distance and had even arranged to have tips delivered to the girl anonymously when circumstance provided Miranda with tidbits of information that she felt might be of interest to Andrea's newspaper. Andrea and her newspaper had gathered quite a bit of critical acclaim from articles stemming from tips provided by Andrea's anonymous source and such public recognition had helped bolster the young woman's fledgling career.

Now, during this ridiculous, unbelievable pulp horror scenario, the girl that she had not spoken to directly in eight months, stood on her doorstep looking like the heroine of some trashy action movie her daughters might watch. She was dressed in begrimed jeans, some kind of long sleeve tee shirt and a leather bomber jacket, all liberally sprinkled with gore. Over her shoulder she carried a sledge hammer. Andrea sighed softly and her body language communicated a huge amount of tension flowing out of her. “Thank God you're okay,” the brunette said in lieu of a proper greeting. She stepped inside the house without invitation and looking around, immediately spoke to Miranda's own thoughts. “Where are the twins?” she asked urgently.

“Dalton's staff decided that they couldn't safely get the children to their homes with the disturbances in the street,” Miranda informed the young woman. “They said that they were evacuating them across the river to Brooklyn. I was trying to find a way to go and join them.”

“Oh God, No!” Andrea exclaimed, frantically shaking her head. “Miranda!” She insisted, “Think! From Dalton, how would they go to Brooklyn?! What would the most direct route be?!”

Miranda stiffened, suddenly knowing that something beyond what was happening out in the streets of city, was terribly wrong. “What has happened, Andrea'?” She demanded.

“The bridges and tunnels are gone, Miranda! There's no way off Manhattan,” Andrea exclaimed. “There's a strict quarantine. The Army is spread along the waterfronts of the mainland, warning people that attempt to swim or boat across with loud speakers before they can get to shore. If they don't turn back, they're shooting them!”

“Shooting them!? Andrea, what are you talking about?!” Miranda pressed.

“Miranda, within hours of the first reports on the television news, the Army, under the orders of the President and with the cooperation of the Governor, the Mayor and local government officials, blew up all the bridges and the tunnels that connected Manhattan to the rest of the world. They were trying to quarantine the island and stop the spread of this nightmare that's occurring.”

Miranda looked at the woman in her foyer. “Well what do you suggest we do?!” She replied, now panicked.

“We get a car,” Andrea stated succinctly, “and we go find the twins.”

*****

Miranda could not, in her worse nightmare, have imagined the streets of New York City turned into the madhouse they had become. Partially devoured bodies lay in the streets and one couldn't be certain that said bodies would remain inanimate, if approached. Within moments of leaving the townhouse Miranda was accosted by a woman who had been her neighbor since Miranda had purchased the property. The clouded dead gray eyes and the snarling and snapping of teeth were Miranda's first experience of the walking dead that now stalked the streets. Her neighbor, now a thing, had her in a clutch, trying to bite her. Andrea came to her rescue. Without hesitation or pity, the young woman had smashed in the head of the creature. When it fell to the ground Andrea had smashed it again. 'You have to destroy the brain,” she had advised. “If you don't,” she offered to Miranda, “they'll just keep coming.”

That was only the beginning of her education. Andrea had moved them efficiently through the war zone that the streets around Miranda's townhouse had become. She was focused and to Miranda's practiced eye, seemingly unafraid. She kept them out of harms way by paying attention to details. She kept them quiet and avoid both the walking dead and other small groups of survivors. When Miranda questioned why avoid other survivors, Andrea had recounted that she had seen one group of survivors turn on another, while in route to Miranda's townhouse. A group of men had come across a couple trying to escape. The group of men had killed the man and taken the few things of worth that the couple had. Then they ripped the woman's clothes and had dragged her, screaming, into a subway entrance. Andrea had moved to stop what was happening, but she immediately learned her mistake when one of the men in that group fired a gun at her. He missed, but by the time that Andy could move to a position that she might be able to again attempt to intervene, she had learned that the subways were not to be tried. The group of men and that poor woman had been swarmed from below by Walkers, a word that Miranda learned was now being used for the shambling undead mockeries of once living humans.

Continuing their search for a vehicle, Andrea had proven herself deft in arenas that Miranda had never considered. The young woman moved from car to car on the street, breaking the driver side windows as she went. She made a few quick checks in each, under the driver's sun visor, in the cup holder, side pocket of the driver's door, ashtray and under the driver's seat. In the forth vehicle she came up with a set of keys. In moments they were on the road to Dalton in search of Miranda's missing daughters.

The search, becoming increasingly more frantic with each moment, had taken into the twilight of evening. Into that space between the light of day and the beginning of a dark and terrifying autumn night. Andrea had gotten them to the school by mid-afternoon, only to find the building abandoned. She had then directed a quick and nervous, yet, as far as Miranda could ascertain, extremely competent investigation of the school offices, finding copies of sets of directions on the tray of an office printer. Said maps clearly showed the route the caravan of buses containing the children were intending to follow to get to Brooklyn.

Back in the car, they followed the FDR, headed for the bridges at the Southern end of the island, the quickest route to Brooklyn, where the Dalton administrators seemed to believe that safety might be found. Failing to find any sign of the Dalton buses or the twins on the approaches to the ruins that had once been the Manhattan Bridge, Miranda felt a fear deeper than she had ever known.

Then on the approach to the famous Brooklyn Bridge, it became evident that they would have to leave the FDR. The hurried demolition of the old bridge had scattered huge chunks of concrete and stone debris all over the surface of the road. Andy swerved hard onto the Brooklyn Bridge exit and almost immediately had to swerve again as the ramp up to where the bridge had once been, was jammed with abandoned cars. Fortunately the exit down to Robert F Wagner Street, which lead to an intersection and a right hand turn onto Pearl Street, was still unblocked. Andy cursed as they again headed into the concrete canyons of New York's Financial District and possible ambush by roaming packs of Walkers. Andy made a quick left, remaining on Pearl when the the larger road changed it's name to Saint James Place. Passing James Madison Plaza and crossing Madison Street, Pearl narrowed and split into separate lanes in each direction, divided by a concrete island with trees planted in large cement containers every few feet.

As they drove up Pearl their forward progress was soon blocked by the back of of a yellow school bus. Andy quickly stopped the car and got out. Miranda was close behind. Half way up the bus, Miranda confirmed that it was one of Dalton's. In front of it was another and beyond it another and another. A whole caravan of Dalton buses. All empty. The street was silent. Miranda hurried along one side of the line of buses while Andy worked her way up the other.

Where Park Row crossed Pearl, the lead Dalton's bus had collided with another truck, blocking the roadway. There was clear evidence that the buses following the first had been trapped in the narrow street behind the accident. The scattered detritus of book bags, backpacks, school blazers and other items schoolchildren carried on a daily basis scattered haphazardly about the open emergency doors of the vehicles spoke clearly of a hurried and disorganized evacuation.

Andrea kept watch on the street as Miranda frantically searched each of the buses. In the third bus in line she found her daughter Cassidy's backpack. That was proof enough that her girls had made it at least this far.

“Miranda!” Andrea called out with urgency, breaking her usual rule of virtual silence. “Walkers! We need to go! Now!”

Miranda grasped the precious backpack to her chest as she quickly exited the bus by the open emergency door. Andrea grabbed her arm and hurried her around the front of the bus and toward where the first bus had collided with a large truck. Andrea tried to keep her moving forward, tired to hurry her along, but Miranda turned and looked back. Like Lot's daughters in the old testament of Bible, her heart froze and she felt as if she would transform into a pillar of salt. There, in the front of a pack of Walkers made up mostly of children dressed in Dalton's school uniforms, eyes cloudy gray and groaning as they shuffled forward, gnashing their teeth and reaching out towards Miranda and Andrea, were her two beautiful daughters. Andrea had a hold of her arm and did not let her pause. She pulled Miranda beyond the wrecked vehicles and down a side street away from the pack of Walkers. She virtually dragged a resisting Miranda through the bottom floor of several buildings. Frantic minutes later they had lost their pursuers and were once again alone on the street.

Miranda wrapped her arms around herself and collapsed to her knees. The sound she made was a wail of pure pain and undisguised anguish. Andrea was there. Holding her. Allowing her to breakdown. Not demanding that she be the strong one. Miranda allowed herself to go numb.

*****

When Miranda came back to herself she realized that somehow Andrea had gotten her to her feet and moved her to the inside of a building. Looking around she recognized her surroundings as a sporting goods store. She watched as Andrea struggled, using a folding camping shovel as a makeshift crowbar, to break shotguns out of the locked wooden rack where they were displayed. Miranda glanced down at herself and realized that Andrea had taken the time to take care of her. She was wrapped in a sleeping bag to keep her warm and when she lifted the cover that she was laying under she realized that the young women had redressed her. She now wore jeans, layered cotton and flannel shirts. A pair of heavy duty hiking boots on her feet with what felt like thick socks. Practical clothing for this insane world they now seemed condemned to inhabit. “Where are we?” Miranda asked indifferently, not really caring anymore.

“Franks Sporting Goods on Mott Street, just off of Canal, about six blocks from where we left the car,” Andy answered as she started searching behind the counter and coming up with boxes of shotgun shells. Emptying several of the boxes on the counter she started loading one of the guns.

“You should have left me there,” Miranda continued, her tone hollow and hopeless. “You should have left me with my girls.”

Suddenly Andrea was standing over her, shaking her by the shoulders. “Don't say that! Don't ever say that!” The young woman insisted stridently. “I came back for you! We're alive Miranda! And as long as there is breath in my body, you're going to stay that way!”

Miranda looked up at Andrea. “What do you mean you came back for me?”

“I was with the Army as an embedded reporter for my newspaper. They were bugging out. I was supposed to go with them,” the young brunette answered. “But I couldn't leave you. I jumped out of the back of a moving troop transport just before it went over a bridge they had just wired to blow up. I watched them destroy it from a couple of blocks this side of the river. Then I worked my way back to your place. I had to see you. I had to make sure that you were safe.”

“Why, Andrea?” Miranda asked, her countenance clearly showing that she didn't understand. “If you had a way out, why would you subject yourself to this hell?”

“Because I couldn’t leave you Miranda,” the brunette confessed, turning away from where the older woman sat on the floor. “ I told you how I feel when we were in Paris. I love you. That hasn't changed. Believe me, after that little scene in your hotel room, I tried to change it. I tried to forget you, tried to leave New York, tried to move on. I couldn't. When I wasn't working, I'd find myself sitting in the window of the Starbucks across the street from Elias-Clarke just hoping to catch a glimpse of you coming and going from work. I'd comb through the papers and page six looking for any mention of you and I'd hang on every word of your letter from the editor in each issue of Runway.”

Miranda looked down. “I'm not worth loving Andrea. Just ask my ex-husbands,” she almost whispered. “I couldn't even protect my daughters.”

Andrea turned angrily and shook Miranda by the shoulder again. “You weren't there when it happened!” she said fiercely. “I know you, Miranda Priestly! I know you would have willingly died for your girls. Someone at Dalton made a decision trying to protect the kids. They didn't understand what they were up against. How could they? Nothing like to this has ever happened before.”

Miranda shook her head. “You should have left me there, Andrea,” she said again. “You should have left me with my daughters.”

Andrea's hand fell limply from Miranda's shoulder. “They're gone, Miranda.” she whispered sadly. “You have to let them go if we're to have any chance at all. We have to keep moving. Gather supplies and then try to find someplace we can fortify and defend. We have to survive!”

“Why?” Miranda entreated, her tone continuing to be hopeless. “What's the point, Andrea? The world is coming to an end around us! I've never believed in hell before, but now I question those beliefs. The dead walk! It's as if the gates to the underworld have been flung opened and the damned have found their way back!”

“Someone will come, Miranda!” Andy insisted. “The Army was bugging out so they could regroup. They blew up the bridges to try and contain what ever this is! They'll get a big enough force together and then they'll come back with weapons that can kill these things! If we can just hold out for that long we'll be safe! You once told me you live on hope. I need you to do that now Miranda! ”

Miranda looked at the young woman and, her spirit broken and feeling completely defeated, nodded sadly.

*****

The days seemed to bleed into one another in Miranda's mind. When Andy didn't have them on the move, Miranda slept a great deal of the time. When she wasn't sleeping she was either near catatonic or close to hysteria. She was aware on some level that Andy saw to it she was fed and that the woman took care of virtually everything that needed to be done. When Miranda would awake briefly from sleep, she would find Andy standing watch and keeping them safe.

In the few moments of lucidity Miranda managed between the suicidal depression and crushing grief that verged on being Miranda's constant companions, she would watch Andrea. The young woman had taken to standing for hours with an eye glued to some hidden observation port in their hiding place of the moment. Miranda realized that Andy was spending considerable time watching the monstrous creatures that wandered, seemingly aimlessly, outside. At some point Miranda became aware that Andrea had begun to keep a journal. Her companion was studying the nightmares that hunted them and she had begun to record everything she learned about the city's new residents in the spiral bound notebook.

As each day passed Miranda became more herself. She found that with the passage of time her grief had dulled a little. She was beginning to accept that she had experienced that which no mother should have to bear. She had survived her two beautiful children. She had also begun to accept that the young brunette woman that had turned Miranda's world upside-down by confessing her love while in Paris, was likely telling the truth about loving her. Just as the young woman had when she worked for Miranda, Andrea proved herself at every turn.

As Miranda began to pull more of her weight as far as their joint survival. She focused her attention on her Andrea with the intention of learning all the woman had to teach her about surviving in this insane new world she found herself navigating. She now did things on a daily basis that she never before would have considered possible. She moved, thought and fought in a flowing tandem with her beautiful companion. It made Miranda wonder what life might have been like if she had only been more open to the idea of a romantic relationship and a life with her one-time second assistant.

They kept on the move when ever they could. Andrea kept them traveling Northward, toward the center of Manhattan. Their planned goal was the Elias-Clarke building. There, they would attempt to find other survivors from Runway. People they could trust. Progress was, however, seemingly by inches, one step forward, two steps back. They would start to move North, but there were Walkers everywhere. The majority of the two travelers' time was spent hiding quietly in one or another of what seemed to Miranda an endless progression of buildings.

*****

At one point In their travels, when they were in one of the scattered small convenience stores that Andrea favored for resupply of food and other needs, Andrea found a small emergency radio, still in its box. She found batteries behind the counter and with a little effort, managed to get the device working. Scanning up and down the dial, there was nothing but static. Then, at the low end of the dial, a monotone, hopeless voice, reporting the news.

In the five minutes that followed, the two companions learned the horrible truth of their situation. What ever it was that had brought this madness to Manhattan, had apparently escaped over the bridges with the rush hour traffic and had flown out of J.F.K. And Newark airports before the military made its obviously failed attempt to quarantine the island. Brooklyn and Queens were the first to fall after Manhattan. Then Newark. Later, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Word from other countries was sporadic now, but whatever this curse was, it had decimated London, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo. News out of Russia and China was hard to come by, but there were unconfirmed reports that both Moscow and Beijing had experienced the same fate as the rest of the world. Australia had closed its borders, but it had done no good as the plague ravaged both Sydney and Perth. Civil authority around the world had collapsed. National armies were no longer functional on any kind of scale over squad level. Governments were useless, unable to achieve anything amid the chaos. Civilization as the world had known it, no longer existed. The President and Vice President had both been moved to a bunker for their protection, but that bunker had later been overrun by a horde of Walkers. The last barricaded vestiges of what was left of the American government were struggling to survive in the ruins of the former national capital. No help was coming. Like every other survivor on this cursed earth, the two women were completely on their own.

*****

Toward the end of the first week of their journey Miranda was much more aware of her surrounding. At times she dearly wished she wasn't. Pack of Walkers were everywhere and with each day that passed, the walking dead were becoming better hunters. The things had begun to move in packs and Miranda saw evidence that they were beginning to work cooperatively.

Between the harrowing treks northward through the dangerous streets, Andy and Miranda found it necessary to spend long periods of time in hiding. This subjected them to a draining mix of enforced boredom and constant apprehension while waiting out another herd of Walkers milling about outside their refuge of the moment. In the long monotonous lulls between the terror filled journey through the city, she and Andrea had begun to talk.

It had begun when they were in the process of barricading a new hiding place and Andrea had found a roll of opaque construction plastic among the items they had available to build the barriers. She carefully cut a sheet of plastic large enough to cover the window, and using duct tape held it in place and sealed the edges. Turning, she smiled at Miranda. The first smile Miranda had seen since the nightmare had begun. “We can cover the windows,” the young journalist said. “The plastic is thick enough that it won't let any light though. We won't have to sit in the dark tonight.”

Miranda looked at her questioningly for a moment. “Is that the reason we've been siting in the dark? Because there weren't any curtains?” Miranda asked, sounding for the first time like her old self from the days Andrea had worked for her as second assistant.

Andy nodded her head. “They're attracted to the light. I learned that the hard way one of the first nights after we los..., after we started moving north,” she quickly corrected. “You were still pretty out of it then. I had to get you up on your feet and we had to run for it when they came though the barricades I'd put up. We were really lucky. I was still trying to get you out the backdoor and thinking we were done for, but they went right for the battery operated lantern I had on. It gave us the seconds we needed to get away.”

“That's why we don't have light at night?” Miranda voiced. “Because it will bring them?”

Andrea nodded. “Like a moth to a flame,” she replied.

Miranda nodded her understanding, internalizing the information. “Perhaps you should tell me what else you've learned,” she replied, going through the canned goods in one of their packs and selecting one to open, for them to share for dinner. She then went back into the pack looking for the can opener.

“They respond to sound, so being as quiet as possible is one of our best defenses. That's why I ruled out using a vehicle,” Andy explained. “They hear things and then they zero in and follow the sound.”

Finding the can opener, Miranda nodded, “at first I thought the precaution foolish, but later I was glad of your foresight when we came across more than one wrecked car that had been simply unable to plow through massed Walkers. It became evident from what we saw around the wreckage that those inside those vehicles hadn't died pleasantly.”

Andy nodded. “What's for dinner?” she asked, changing the subject.

*****

A day or so later, Miranda kept watch as Andrea sat in a hardware store building Miranda a weapon to use to defend herself. Late the day before a Walker had surprised them in their latest hiding place. Miranda had managed to get a hold of the sledgehammer that Andrea usually carried on a strap across her shoulder. Miranda had managed to fend the creature off, but Andrea had to step in and finish its' destruction. Miranda had to confess that the hammer that Andrea swung seemingly so easily was just too heavy for her to use effectively.

Now Andrea had found a smaller sledgehammer, but it was designed as a hand tool, the handle far too short to be an effective close-quarters weapon. Andrea had wandered the aisles of the store gathering items. She had quickly freed the steel head from the short handle and then fashioned the end of a much longer oak handle to accept the tool head. Andrea soaked the top of the handle in water and then affixed the hammer. A small metal wedge held the head in place and then a liberal application of Gorilla Glue fixed the head permanently to the handle. A strap was added and Miranda now had a melee weapon she could wield comfortably.

As Andrea worked, she continued the conversation she had started the day before. “Walkers also seem able to scent their prey,” she offered. “Things that smell like what they hunt for food. That's why I took the chance a few days ago and liberally doused both of us with that cheap, off the shelf, scent. Sweaty scared people don't smell like florals.”

“I must admit, I was furious with you when you did that. You, among everyone, know that I only wear my signature scent. I thought you'd done it because we hadn't hadn't been able to bathe for a week,” Miranda answered, a small grim smile on her face. “It never occurred to me that you'd done it in order to slip us past the Walkers, until we encountered that other group of survivors. When that pack of Walkers boiled up out of that underground garage and surprised all of us, they homed in on the other group and chased them instead of us even though we were actually closer to them when they first appeared. They paid no attention to us.”

Andy nodded. “That's also why I set off that fire alarm before we left the area. With any luck, the loud noise confused the Walkers and gave that other group of people a chance.” She looked down at the floor. “At least it would have a week ago.” She shook her head. “We have to be even more careful from here-on-out, Miranda.” She looked up at Miranda and Miranda could see the fear in the beautiful girl's eyes.

“I think they're remembering,” Andrea uttered quietly. “I think that some of them are remembering bits and pieces of their lives before.”

Miranda shook her head, trying to negate the dread and horror the idea caused to well deep within the darkest recesses of her soul. She shivered. Her mind snapped back to a Runway event where, shivering, Nigel laughingly used the idiom, “someone just walked on my grave,” after he had received an unpleasant surprise. Miranda knew the same feeling at that precise moment. “What have you seen that makes you believe something so horrible?” She asked, her voice trembling.

“I'm basing my conclusions on observed behavior and the fact that some of those things are engaging in actions that don't directly benefit their goal of hunting down another human for their next meal,” Andy asserted.

“Remember the two days we were trapped in that building that was across from a diner?” Andy asked. When Miranda nodded that she did in fact remember the place, Andy continued. “There was a Walker in a waitress uniform, that caught my attention. She didn't behave like most of the others. When anything agitated the pack that had taken up residence around where we were hiding, she would appear from inside diner and move and hunt with the pack. But when things calmed down and the others would begin to mill around aimlessly again, she would go back into the diner. She'd pick up a stainless steel coffee carafe from the pot warmer and then go and stand behind the counter. She'd stand there with that coffee pot in her hand, as if she was waiting for customers. Then when something else drew the pack's attention, she'd return the coffee carafe to the pot warmer an join the pack again. She repeated the same cycle over and over again, in the two days I watched her.”

“Then yesterday we saw that Walker with the food cart. He was pushing that hotdog cart along the street until something drew that pack of Walkers' attention. Then he abandoned the cart and went with the pack. And hour or so later he was back. He picked up the handles of the cart and off he went,” she continued.

“Such behavior doesn't make any kind of sense from either an evolutionary or a learned behavior standpoint. It doesn't benefit them any way as far as what they need in order to survive. We've also both recognized that the packs are becoming better organized and more efficient. If they're remembering, it's also possible that they're capable of learning. If that's the case, they're only going to become more and more dangerous. We have to be even more cautious that before...”

Miranda reached out and hugged the other woman firmly to her. “Shhhhhh,” she said softly. “We'll get through this together, Andrea. Somehow we'll get through this.” They held one another for a long time.

*****

It was approximately four miles from where she and Andrea had found the Dalton school buses to the Elias-Clarke building. The journey had taken just over two weeks. On the first day of the third week as traveling companions they were within a few blocks of their goal. Miranda and Andrea had been forced to detour from their planned route by a large pack of extremely agitated Walkers blocking their way. After being pursued for several blocks in the wrong direction, they stumbled into a likely hiding place within about a quarter of a mile of their goal. Working as the well oiled machine they were becoming, they started fortifying the doors and windows as they always did in a new hidey-hole. Before they could get any meaningful barriers in place, another group of survivors stumbled in.

The group of strangers was made up of a man and a woman in their late twenties and a young girl of ten or twelve. The man carried the bleeding, whimpering child in his arms. The two groups of survivors eyed each other suspiciously across the small space for a number of heartbeats and then the man laid the child down and without a word started to help with building the barricades.

The woman newcomer moved to the far side of the room and stared at where the young girl lay. “She's been bitten, Jack,” she said, her tone stridulous.

The man, Jack, turned from where he had just helped Andy move a heavy piece of furniture into place in front of the window and secure it to the other materials they were using to block access. “What did you want me to do, Sally, leave her out there?” He demanded.

“She's going to turn. She's going to die and then she'll come back and kill all of us!” Sally shrilled, gesturing wildly at the crying child, her volume rising. She moved suddenly, raising the baseball bat she carried and crossing to where the child cringed back against the wall, wailing in fear.

The sound of a shotgun shell being jacked into the chamber of the shotgun was very loud in the small space. Miranda's voice was deadly quiet and very precise when she spoke. “Get away from that child, or so help me God, I'll kill you where you stand!”

“You don't understand!” the woman all but shouted. “She's got it! She's been bitten! She's got the germ or virus or whatever it is! It's in her blood! She's going to die and then she'll rise up and be one of them!”

Andy and Jack turned from the barricade they were building and saw Miranda, standing firmly, legs spread and the shotgun braced on her hip, squarely leveled at the midsection of the woman with the bat in her hand.

“Be quiet,” Jack hissed at Sally “you'll bring that pack outside down on us!”

Andy stepped over to Miranda, and, reaching out, gently laid her hand across the top of the barrel of the shotgun. With gently applied pressure, she guided the barrel of the gun toward the floor. “Easy, Miranda,” she almost whispered, “easy now.”

Miranda didn't shift her stance, although she allowed Andrea to guide the shotgun away from its intended target. She spared a brief glance toward Andrea. “If she tries to hurt that child, I'll kill her,” she replied evenly in the unnervingly quiet voice she had used on her employees at Runway.

“It'll be okay, Miranda,” Andy soothed. “Just be calm and we'll deal with this.”

Jack moved to where Sally stood over the prone child and removed the bat from her hands. He looked down at the weeping, frightened little girl on the floor. “She's right,” he said softly, “Katie has been bit, but she's my sister and I couldn't leave her out there to die alone.”

Sally collapsed to the floor. “She'll come back, and she'll kill us all,” she sobbed hysterically, tears running in dirty rivulets down her cheeks. “She'll kill us all!”

Andy looked at Jack, her eyes worried. “What's she talking about?” she demanded.

Jack shook his head and knelt down beside his young sister. Reaching out he caressed her scared face. “A bite is a death sentence. The poison gets into the blood. It spreads so fast that even amputation of the infected area doesn't help.” he explained. “She's already getting sick. She'll develop a high fever and delirium. Then convulsions. In a day or so she'll die. Sometime in the twenty-four hours after that, she'll come back. She'll be one of them.” He looked up at Miranda with tortured eyes. “You've lost someone, I can see it in your eyes. You understand, don't you? I couldn't leave her there on the street to die alone.”

Miranda nodded. “I understand,” she answered. “And we'll stay with you until she gone. Then you can decide what the next step is.”

*****

It took eighteen grueling hours for the little girl to breath her last. Andrea recorded all of it in the notebook she carried. Fever, delirium, chills, trouble breathing, convulsions and finally, mercifully, she died. Miranda stayed by the little girl's side the entire time and did all she could to offer whatever comfort she could to both the child and her brother. By the time the girl, Katie by name, had expired, the pack of Walkers outside had moved on. Andrea was very surprised when Miranda offered to stay behind and take care of what needed to be done to stop the body from rising.

*****

In the early hours of the next day Andrea held open one of the glass doors of the Elias-Clarke building as Miranda swept into the lobby. The morning had been quiet and uneventful. The streets around Elias-Clarke strangely absent of Walkers. The two companions' progress had made good time. Now there was hope that they would find other survivors from among those that had barricaded themselves in the Runway offices.

Miranda and Andrea had gotten good at accessing situations, but having stayed to the ground floors of building since they had been traveling together, neither had experience negotiating eleven floors in a concrete stairwell. They had just passed the sixth floor landing and were on their way to the seventh when Walkers erupted from the sixth floor doorway.

Miranda was in the lead with Andrea just steps behind when the Walkers surged up the stairs after them. Miranda took position on the seventh floor landing as Andrea flattened herself against the wall. Miranda raised the shotgun, but the Walkers were too close. Miranda couldn't fire the gun without hitting Andrea. One of the dead grabbed Andrea and forced her down onto the stairs. Another had her by the waist and another by the leg.

Without conscious thought Miranda dropped the shotgun and was upon them, the hammer Andrea had made for her swinging in brutal arcs. Pieces of skull and brain flying as she fought like a lioness to save the woman she now realized she loved. In moments she had freed Andrea from those that held her and pushing the younger woman up the stairs, she continued to slay the walking dead that attempted to follow. Passing the seventh floor landing at a virtual run, she regained the shotgun, throwing its' carrying strap over her shoulder. She then helped her Andrea up the remaining floors as fast as she could pull the injured woman along.

Reaching the eleventh floor, where Miranda's office was located, Andrea fell to the concrete landing, nursing her savaged, bleeding ankle. Miranda stood between the prone woman and the remaining zombies. Dropping the hammer she raised the shotgun she carried and fired into the creatures as quickly as she could pump the ten shells from the gun's magazine into the firing chamber and pull the trigger. The ammunition, designed to bring down large game, tore through the massed walking dead and in moments, Miranda was the only one standing in the stairwell. She helped Andrea to her feet and banged on the locked door that lead to Runway's offices.

“Who's out there?” A familiar English accented voice called out from behind the locked door.

“Emily,” Miranda snapped, sounding as she might ordering her first assistant to do any number of tasks at the office before all the madness had occurred. “Open this door immediately! Andrea has been injured!”

The door cracked open a few inches and Miranda's first assistant's green eye peered at them from the narrow aperture. “What kind of injury?” The red-headed English woman demanded from inside the door, her tone suspicious and laden with fear.

Miranda met her eyes. “One of those things has damaged her leg,” she said, moving to help Andrea toward the door. We need to get her inside so we can clean out the wound!”

“She's been bitten!” Emily stated. “She can't come in here!” She continued, her voice firm. “If you haven't been bitten you can come inside. But she stays out there!”

Are you insane Emily?” Miranda demanded, staring at the woman, still mostly hidden behind the door. “This is Andrea! She's injured and she needs our help!”

Emily shook her head. “She's been bitten Miranda,” The Brit insisted. “She's already dead, she just doesn't know it yet. And once she's gone, she'll turn. We can't have her in here. There are twenty-five of us in here and we have supplies to last awhile. We can't afford to let one of them in here! No matter who it might be.”

Andrea looked up at Miranda with tears in her eyes. “She's right, Miranda,” she whispered through her pain. You should leave me here and go.”

Miranda turned from the partially concealed English woman and looked down at her companion. “Leave you?” She demanded. “Have you lost your mind? I'm not leaving you. Not now, not ever...”

*****

Emily and the other surviving clackers barricaded in Runway's offices remained resolute, refusing Andrea entrance even in the face of the most creative threats Miranda could come up with. Finally, Miranda helped Andrea in the long decent down the stairs and back onto the street outside Elias-Clarke.

They had taken refuge in the couture boutique across the street and a few doors down from the building that housed Runway and Miranda's perfidious former employees.

As Andrea became ill, she had begged Miranda to use one of the few precious shotgun shells that were left. She had grasped the end of the shotgun barrel to hold it steady against her forehead. Miranda had not been able to bring herself to pull the trigger. She could not shatter that beautiful head into a pulp of spattered brains and blood even though Andrea had pleaded with her to do so. She had, instead, held Andrea as the sickness had spread from where the young woman had been bitten into the rest of her body. Gently she kissed the young woman's forehead and lips, quietly declaring her love, comforting the young woman, as fever took hold and caused delirium. She had only retreated to the front of the store and barricaded the door after Andrea had stopped breathing. Soon now, Andrea would rise again. Soon she'd be like one of those things outside. Hungry for human flesh and without conscience or remorse.

Miranda lifted the notebook that Andrea had been keeping of her observations of the creatures that now freely roamed the city and began to read. As Andrea's words collided with the despair and hopelessness that overwhelmed Miranda, a madness set into the amazingly intelligent and organized mind that had made Miranda Priestly successful as the powerhouse of fashion publishing for more than two decades. With the flight of sanity, a preternatural calm gripped Miranda. She had always been blessed with the ability to rapidly perceive every detail necessary to carry off any plan that formed in her brain. Now she could see each of the steps necessary to insure the future she now desired, as clearly as if they were written down in a list on a piece of paper in front of her. It would be dangerous and dirty work and a number of things would have to be accomplished quickly. The chances of success were slim, but in her madness, Miranda's resolve was firm. She would carry out her insane scheme or die in the attempt.

She had some of what she needed in the backpacks that she and Andrea had carried. The other things she needed for what she had planned would have to be gathered. That was the first priority of business in order to accomplish her goal. She rose from where she had been reading and quickly started going through the racks of couture in the store. Once she had found items she deemed acceptable and finished the perpetration that needed doing here, finding a vehicle, preferably a van or, even better, a small box truck, would be the next step. Then she would go out into the city and enact the rest of her plan.

*****

It had taken Miranda the rest of the day and part of the night to gather the necessary things and complete her self-imposed mission. She reentered the boutique and moving quietly, she listened at the door to the back room. She could hear the moaning groan that was the vocalization the walking dead made. Andrea had risen while Miranda had been out in the city. The older woman moved the barricade aside and entered the small back room, knowing that her Andrea was securely bound hand and foot. The Walker she had become wasn't going anywhere without hours of laboring against her bonds or being untied.

Miranda looked at Andrea as what the young woman had become struggled against the bonds that held her. Miranda sighed softly, the pallor of Andrea's skin and her dead eyes didn't flatter the Dita Von Teese couture Miranda had selected for her and dressed her in, as much as Miranda had hoped. She considered using make-up for a few moments, and then rejected the idea. They would just have to make due. Miranda continued to watch the creature for several moments. Her Andrea was still beautiful even now she had risen. Now it was time for Miranda to enact the last scene before the intermission in this tragical farce she was trapped in. She moved back into the storefront and stripping off the practical clothing that Andrea had selected for her, dressed in the beautiful Vivian Westwood gown she had selected for herself.

When she was ready, she again entered the small backroom. She carefully drew the sleeve of her outfit up her arm, baring her forearm. “With this act, I thee wed,” she whispered softly, offering the bare flesh to the bound creature's mouth. Andrea raised her head and snapping her teeth, bit to the bone. The pain was immediate and Miranda pulled back, seeing her blood surrounding Andrea's mouth and staining the pale lips a beautiful crimson.

Miranda wrapped the wound in a silk scarf and sat down across the room from her beloved Andrea. Now she had to wait. Wait for the poison to circulate in her bloodstream. Wait for the fever and the convolutions and for death to come for her. She closed her eyes and focused her formidable mind, concentrating on the next steps of her plan. If Andrea was correct, if there was memory after the dead had risen again, she intended to take her plan into her coming incarnation.

She tried to keep the thoughts simple. She employed the same directed visualization techniques, that had brought her success in the corporate world, to try and imprint the necessary tasks ahead of her to the forefront of her memory. Over and over again, until the thoughts had almost become a mantra, Untie Andrea, escape from the boutique, unlock the back doors of the box truck that was parked outside, which would free her daughters from the confinement that Miranda had lured them into earlier that afternoon. Then she focused on the last memories. Images of the layout of her kingdom, and, most importantly, the almost forgotten and long unused fire-stairs that she knew climbed from basement of Elias-Clarke and had an eleventh floor access that had been hidden in the the back of a janitor's closet when the Runway offices had been redecorated just after Miranda had taken over as Editor-in-Chief. Before that stairwell had been hidden away, she and a number of other clackers had used it to sneak an occasional cigarette during the workday. Emily Charleton and the other Runway clackers had betrayed her in her time of ultimate need. She had been forced to face the death of her beloved Andrea alone. The pain it had caused Miranda was indescribable. They were going to find out La Priestly was a woman that paid her debts, even after the end of the world.

*****

Instinct tells her that she is with those she is supposed to be with, her mate and her offspring. She knows she is the alpha of this pack. That where she leads, the others will follow. There is only a dim wisp of something guiding her, but its pull is strong. It leads her to a tall building and she and her pack find their way inside. She is drawn upward. She knows that she belongs above. That there is safety in that place of open space, cream walls and glass. She knows that the gnawing hunger that drives her pack can be satisfied there. She guides them down underground and into the narrow iron staircase. She somehow knows that it leads to a hidden place above, and once they reach the other end of the long climb, they will be able to surprise the herd of prey. She knows that she is going home and that once there, she will rule over her pack and her territory. That all will be as it is meant to be. Suddenly, there is the clear image of an individual member of the prey herd. One marked by red hair and green eyes. A flash of anger fills her, for she knows that this prey has injured her in the past. She knows that she will single out that particular member of the herd. That she and her mate will feed. From that distant, foggy place that is inside her, but not of her instincts, comes thoughts she doesn't truly comprehend. What a fine wedding feast it will be, the dim thought resonates behind dead eyes.

*****fini