Voices of Hope
A "Zombies, Run!" fanfiction
A/N:
I am so into this running app. The story is genius, the characters are wonderful, and the plot just continues being great (I am currently running season five). I am in awe. Thank you, Six to Start and Naomi Alderman, for writing such a great adventure, and thanks to all the wonderful voice actors who make the characters come alive!
The below story originated from the thought of what might happen if people outside of Abel Township heard Jack and Eugene on Radio Abel. ZR Radio Mode does touch upon this in later seasons, which kept my inspiration going, but my story takes place during season one, back when Radio Abel was still a fairly new thing (it should be spoiler-free, however, unless I've missed something in my own writing).
Because what if suddenly, one day, two siblings who thought they were all alone heard music and conversation coming out of a radio that hadn't had anything but white noise in a long time otherwise? Then those well-known voices of Jack and Eugene would suddenly become something more, something so very vital for survival: They would become voices of hope.
This is a story about just that. Enjoy.
(P.S. To my regular followers: I'm sorry about the long wait for next chapter of Sinister Sundown! I swear, I am working on it as we speak and will hopefully be able to upload it soon!)
DISCLAIMER: ALL LYRICS QUOTED BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS!
[A/N over.]
All Hell had broken loose.
Or maybe Hell had descended on Earth. Vivian wasn't quite sure, because could something that was supposed to be below ground descend? But whatever the correct phrase to use, the dead was walking, and Vivian was cold and hungry and not sure why she was thinking of idioms. Maybe, she decided, it was to keep her mind occupied until Henry returned. Or maybe it was simply that she was slowly going insane and this was the first sign of it: idiom-obsession when she'd never go to school again anyway. For which she supposed she ought to be delighted, but she could not find it in herself to be so.
Viv pulled the blanket around her tighter and tried to edge herself just the slightest bit closer to the candle, but stopped for fear of setting the blanket on fire. That would not do. If she burned it, she would be even colder and also waste water on putting out the flames. Although, she thought with a wry smile, then at least she would be warm again for a little while. It seemed like forever since she had last felt truly comfortable, although she knew she was overestimating the time that had passed since the cold set in.
Or was she? They had forgotten to keep a calendar in the early days since the outbreak, and when they had finally realized such a thing might have been nice to have, it had already been impossible to find out exactly how many days had passed, and their attempt had only left them both frustrated, though Henry the most.
The sound of the cupboard outside the door being moved made Viv's heart skip a beat and she sat completely still while she listened. It could not be the zombies, could it? They did not have enough of a mind left to actually push it away. So it must be Henry, right?
Right?
Holding her breath, she kept listening intently as the someone downstairs (she really, really did hope it was Henry!) opened the door, then, by the sound of it, crossed the living room before he (or she, but it must be a he, since it had to be Henry, right?) climbed the stairs, step by step, calmly (which meant it was Henry, because wouldn't anyone else have been stepping much more carefully?). Then the someone reached the bedroom she was sitting in and the door was opened …
Viv finally let out her breath. The sight of the dark brown, curly hair and bespectacled brown eyes made relief surge through her entire body. It really was Henry.
The mouth with a tiny scar at the left side smiled in a thin face as he saw her there all tugged away in the blanket, and he stepped in further, closing the door behind him before he laid down the baseball bat he had carried with him out there, on the hell grounds (her mind went, for a moment, back to the idiom problem), and his rucksack. She got up and, carefully stepping round the candle, went to him.
"Did you find anything?" she asked, glancing at the bag. It seemed full, but it could be her hunger imagining things.
"I did," he assured her, opened the zipper, and pulled out a few items while naming them. "Some fresh water … Fruit bars … Oh, and here's the best part." He showed her a small package which she recognized immediately.
"Cup noodles!" she exclaimed happily.
Henry watched his little sister's delighted face as she grasped the pack of uncooked pasta, and a small smile spread on his lips. It was a rare sight these days, that unconcealed joy, but small things like this sometimes brought it up in her and it always made him feel accomplished, because the fact that she could still smile meant that he had managed to at least somewhat properly take care of her.
"Yeah," he replied. "I'm glad we had enough sense left to bring along dad's cooking gear. It's the thing we've had the most use of, definitely, even counting my bat. Thank god for camping enthusiasts!"
Viv nodded. She was already busy finding said gear, barely even noticing the mention of their dad who had died early on, before anyone had really realized what the outbreak entailed, and even longer before anyone had understood that it meant the end of the world as they knew it. It wasn't that she did not still grieve for their father, only that she had seen so many horrible things since then that it seemed almost a lifetime ago that they had lost him. He had been the first of their family to go.
She unpacked the set of pots and put one of them on the small gas ring. Then she lighted a match and put it to the ring; it caught on immediately. Henry had collected one of their water bottles and poured it into the pot, then watched as Viv opened the two cup noodles before seating herself right in front of the cooking gear with eyes that seemed to command the water to start boiling, sooner rather than later.
As she sat there, Henry walked past her and picked something up from the chest of drawers they had made their own in the time they had stayed here. Viv turned her head a little to see what it could be, but his back was to her, and she did not get her answer until he settled down across from her. In his hand, he held a small radio, and she was not sure what to think of it. Her mouth tightened just slightly.
"Are you going to try that again?" she asked.
He nodded.
"I think it's important. I know the sound annoys you, and I'm sorry, but I'm not giving up. There could be people out there, Viv, and some of them might find a way to send messages. I'll keep listening."
She nodded and watched as he turned on the thing and started fumbling with its buttons. It wasn't that she did not understand why, she did, but the radio had been something they had come across already a week after they had been on the road and so far, they'd had no luck insofar contact of any kind was regarded. The only thing coming out of the worn speakers was noise, white noise, and after a while, the sound had started to bother Viv. She found it both harsh and depressing. Yet Henry insisted. But, Viv had thought to herself on more than one occasion, if they did not know how to broadcast, nor had the means for it, how should anyone else be able to?
The water finally boiled. Viv turned off the gas and removed the pot. She poured it carefully into each cup noodle, stirred the content, then put the thin paper lids on again and sighed. More waiting. The instructions always said to leave the noodles to soak in the warmth for three minutes, but her experience told her it often took longer and so, she settled back on the floor, resigned. Her stomach loudly exclaimed its need for food. Henry was still busy with the white noise, going from channel to channel, without finding any voices or any music or anything that could even remotely indicate whatsoever that someone was alive out there and reaching out. Viv had long since given up hope. It was just her and Henry and somehow, they had to make that enough.
She sometimes feared that Henry's obsession with other people was because he had grown tired of her company and wished for people of his own age and intellect to share conversation with. Her brother was so very smart and had a whole nineteen years behind him to boot. She could imagine that her opinions and childish views could only be dull compared to that.
Viv checked the cup noodles. They were not quite there yet.
The white noise persisted. Viv grimaced and wanted most of all to clasp her hands to her ears in an attempt to drown out the annoying waves and beeps, but she did not dare from fear of angering or, even worse, hurting Henry. She did not mean to be difficult; it was just that she could not stand the emptiness of it.
She checked the noodles again.
"Dinner is ready," she announced. Henry finally turned off the radio.
"That sounds wonderful, kitten."
He called her that, sometimes, and it used to bother her because she did not see herself as a baby cat. She was too old to be a baby cat. But after the dead had started walking, she had found that there was some comfort in being called by her old nickname, which he had given to her sometime before her first memories. In her mind, he had always called her "kitten" without further ado. She had asked him about it once, when the first strands of annoyance had begun to haunt her mind every time that word came up, if he must always call her that? He had replied that of course he must, as she reminded him so of just such an animal: small and stubborn and clumsy, but with a fighting spirit and a bit of a temper to help her along.
She supposed now that it wasn't so bad to be compared to a cat, even if only a baby one. After all, cats were slick and fast, highly self-sufficient and, most importantly, were said to always land on their feet, no matter how long the fall. She would like to be that way. She would like to be a survivor, in spirit as well as in company. She wanted to, eventually, be able to support Henry the way he now supported her. They would be a team, not just a brother and his helpless little sister. Although she had always liked being the little one while their parents had been alive, now she yearned to be his equal in all things instead.
He was so strong. She too wanted to be as strong.
They ate in silence, but it was of the comfortable kind. Before the outbreak, dinner time had been when their family had all gathered and talked about the happenings of the day, about school, work, people they knew. They scarcely had any of that to discuss now, but sitting there quietly, just the two of them, still together, still able to actually have dinner, was somehow reassuring, and they did not have to speak to make it so. Viv glanced at her brother and her eyes searched whatever parts of his body was left bare for wounds and, finding none, let out an inward sigh of relief.
When they had finished their cup noodles, Henry leaned back against the wall, his eyes focused on something in the invisible distance and his brows furrowed just the slightest. Viv knew that look; she understood what it meant, and when he spoke, she was confirmed in her suspicions.
"We have to move soon."
She looked down and nodded. She hated leaving, hated the danger of being out there, with no safe place to return to. But they had stayed here for so long now, it seemed, that there were no more supplies to be found in the surrounding areas, and so they had to go if they wanted to keep eating. She knew that, and yet the very thought of it made a sudden sadness well up in her chest.
"I'm sorry, Viv." Henry seemed to be able to sense her mood. "But the place is empty."
"I know," she replied, and that was the end of it, no more to discuss. Moving was a harsh fact which she would have to face.
He looked at her for a while, then sighed and switched his attention to the radio again. She could not interpret that sigh. Did it mean that he expected more of her? What else was she supposed to say? Or maybe it was that he was disappointed in her, because she was not brave the way he was? The tightening in her chest increased till she could barely breathe, but still she did not speak for fear of getting her thoughts confirmed.
The white noise was there again, a constant flutter in the background.
Viv put the noodle boxes away and packed the cooking gear again so that it would be easy to grab would they have to leave in a hurry. Then she decided to try and block out the noise by focusing on the book which someone had left behind in this house. It was old and worn, like something that had been read many times. Whoever the previous owner, he or she must have loved the story of Oliver Twist. Viv found the language somewhat difficult, there were so many strange words she did not know, but it was still better than staring out into the nothingness of outside, and besides, Henry did not like her to look out the windows, afraid something (or someone; she still did not know for certain how to address the undead) might notice them and start pounding on the door.
Then, so suddenly it made Viv jump, music sounded.
She stared at Henry who stared at the radio. The white noise was gone. It had been washed out, by actual music. The lyrics to some song she vaguely recognized flooded into the room and seemed to bring a new light to the things around her, and the sound, though strong, seemed at the same time so fragile that Viv caught herself holding her breath for fear of breaking the illusion that the moment might be.
"Hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more …"
Could she be imagining it?
"Hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back no more …"
Henry let out his breath, and it was not until that moment that Viv realized he had been holding his too. Then he sighed.
"It's probably just an old recording on rewind," he mumbled, and she was unsure whether it was to himself or to her that he spoke. "But let's let it run and see what happens. I need to pop out for a bit. Be right back," he told her.
It was a code, had always been. He was not actually going out; it was just that even with everything that had happened he was still somehow too shy to actually speak out the word "toilet" or even "bathroom" in front of his little sister, and she could not help but find this weird quirk of his slightly funny. For the moment, however, even that seemed unimportant. She was still staring at the radio.
"Oh baby, listen baby, don't you treat me this a'way. Cos I'll be back on my feet someday."
Actual music.
"Don't care if you do, call this understood: You ain't got no money, you just ain't no good …"
She thought of the mp3 player she still carried around in her backpack, for some reason unbeknownst to her, for it had long since run out of battery and there were no longer any places left to charge it. But the idea that all her songs may be lost forever had saddened her so, and therefore she simply could not find it in her to leave it behind. Music had been her savior so many times, both in the early days and before that. It had been the way she could close herself off from the world when things around her became too much, too unbearable, too incomprehensible.
She had not known exactly how much she had missed it until that one song on the radio. Even if it really was only an old recording, she did not mind.
Viv leaned back, closed her eyes, and enjoyed the last bit of the song.
"Don't you come back no more …
Oh, now, baby, please.
Don't you come back no more …
Whatcha trying to do to me?
Don't you come back no more …"
The song faded into silence for a moment and that feeling of sadness returned to her chest.
But then suddenly, the silence was broken by the voice of a man.
"Haha, very funny, Eugene. If you'd wanted me to leave, you could have just said so."
Another man's voice, this one American (he could be from anywhere over there; she had not learned to distinguish their accents, they all just sounded somehow weird to her), and he seemed amused at the first man's comment.
"What? It's a classic; I just thought our listeners deserved to hear a classic."
"Yeah, and that's the one you choose? What a coincidence."
The American laughed.
"Well, you know," he remarked after a moment, "if you did hit the road again one day, I'd be there with you. I wouldn't kick you out, and definitely not because of lack of money."
"You're just saying that because money's pretty useless these days anyway." The British man sounded less offended now.
"Possibly," the American half-agreed, "but it's still a fact."
They both laughed. Again, Viv was holding her breath while her mind was working overtime. Was this, too, a recording, a rewind? Could they have taped this long ago as well? Because no one had the resources, not to mention electronics, to host a radio station now, right?
Right?
"I remember my old nan," the British man was now saying. "She was one of those old people who don't trust the banks because she thought if she put all her money in there, the government was going to take it away. So she stuffed her mattress full instead and whenever she was going to buy something, she would zip it open and take whatever she needed."
"Seriously? I thought that kind of people were only an urban legend!"
"I know, right? It was completely insane! And it gets better."
"How so?"
Viv was listening with a smile that was slowly growing. Even if these guys were only a recording, she liked them. She hoped they had not died, though she knew that was a highly unlikely thing. So far, Henry and she had seen nothing but corpses walking around.
"Well, one day, old nan decides to get a cat. Which in itself isn't a bad thing, of course."
"Of course."
"Only at some point, this cat goes into a frenzy right on top of nan's bed, with claws and all, and rips it open! So the money just flies out, right, all over the room, because it had been stuffed so tightly in there! And old nan just stands there, covered in notes, while the cat starts chasing the money!"
"You're kidding me!"
"I'm not! It really happened!"
"So I suppose she then realized that maybe putting her money in the bank was a good idea after all?"
"Oh no. No such thing."
"What, really?"
"Yeah. She returned the cat instead!"
The two men laughed, and Viv laughed with them. After a moment, the laughter subsided and the British man became thoughtful.
"You know, I suppose she's probably a zombie now, old nan."
Viv stiffened and listened, her heart suddenly beating hard in her chest. A zombie … They'd said zombie! Did this mean …
"I can just imagine her walking around out there in her horrible purple night dress, biting people," he continued. "Well, at least then she'll get all of those repressed aggressions out."
The other man replied something, but Viv did not hear it. She had jumped up and was running out of the room, toward the bathroom, yelling her brother's name, too excited to keep it in. The door slammed open and Henry, hurriedly trying to zip up his pants, caught her shoulder.
"Vivian, what the hell are you doing?" he hissed. "Stop screaming like that; the zombies are going to hear us!"
She clasped her hands over her mouth as she realized how much of a reckless fool she had just been and felt horrible … For a moment. Then the excitement of her discovery got the best of her again and she whispered,
"But there are people on the radio! Actual people!"
His eyes widened.
"What do you mean, actual people?"
"People!" she continued, almost breathless. "It's two men, one of them is British and one is American, and they are talking to each other! They were saying something about the song, and then about some old lady with a cat and money in her mattress, and …"
"Hold it right there, Viv. Are you sure they're not just an old recording too? The radio does that sometimes, you know …"
"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Because then they were talking about zombies!"
Henry stared at her for a long moment, uncomprehending at first. Then he moved past her and raced back to the bedroom and the radio, Viv right behind him and glowing. By now, however, the voices had faded into another song, one Viv did not know, and so they sat down on the floor, eagerly awaiting the last tone to see if the two men would return.
They did.
"Okay, listeners," it was the American guy again, "now we've got a few announcements for you …"
As the men named places Viv and Henry did not know, people they had never met, the two siblings listened with an intensity as if this information was worth their lives. When the next song started playing, Henry sucked in a breath and looked at his sister and his eyes were glowing with a light that she had not seen there in a very long time, a light of hope, as he grasped her hands.
"Do you know what this means, Viv?" he asked her. "It means there are others out there, still alive. It means we're not alone!"
She laughed with him as he got up and next thing she knew, they were hugging and singing and dancing around the room, both caught up in the exaltationof this new and unexpected discovery. They only stopped when Henry sobered up enough to realize that it would soon be getting dark outside and that they needed to be quiet now or the place would not be safe for much longer.
But even hours later, after they had blocked the door securely and gone to bed, the happy feeling did not leave Viv, and she lay awake, wondering about the men on the radio. Who were they? Where did they live? What did they look like? Who were those other people they had mentioned? For hours, she imagined the answers to her questions, only to find that this resulted in new questions and new answers, until, finally, exhausted, sleep overtook her and her thoughts stilled.
