It wasn't as if Sam Evans didn't have a zombie plan. Of course he had a plan, for Christ's sake. What kind of teenage boy with an obsession with Left4Dead didn't have one? Board up all windows. Loot the closest stores for canned goods. Fill the bathtub with hot water. Batteries. Candles. Matches. He'd gone through the list thousands of times, zoning out in the middle of Spanish class, thinking of where he'd be able to steal a sword. (Obviously the weapon of choice. No noise, single swift slice straight to the brain).
But what Sam didn't take into account was the panic. The people. That elusive human aspect. That didn't exist in his video games. It was a small group of survivors battling the onslaught, the swarm of the undead. They didn't have to worry about the other humans. The other looters, the ones panicking, the desperate ones. The fires, the screaming, the road full of cars.
He had been at college. Emerson, for film. He bitterly looks back on that now. He'd been writing a script at the time. A zombie movie. Hilarious. So fucking hilarious.
He had been on the phone with his mother. He had found the phone while looting another dorm room. There had been bloody fingerprints clinging to the case, he'd noticed, as he slipped the phone out from the tight grip of a dead girl on the floor below him. There was no shame to be had any longer, he had done what he needed to do. He needed to find safety. He needed to find his family.
Sam was outside of his dorm, sitting on a curb, watching the building down the road engulfed in flames. There was a harsh scream sounding through the telephone. The thick black smoke billowing out from the building was beautiful, in a tragic sort of way. If he had his camera, he would have filmed it. He could have sworn he saw faces in the flames.
"Mom, everyone's going crazy here. I...I saw my professor attack someone, Mom. Is everything okay in Nashville? Are you guys okay?"
Sam stared up at the fire, wondering if it would die out soon. Or get worse. The deserted road was so different. So scary. He'd never seen a street this empty in Boston. Never.
"It'll be okay, Sam, it'll be okay. We're going to your grandmother's in Washington. It's safe there. The CDC made-"
There was a scream in the background again, and his phone died. The blonde stared at it bitterly before chucking it angrily in the direction of the flaming building. Sam looked up at his dorm. He had almost run out of food, holed up in there with his roommate for a week. A week of whispering and listening to the slow shuffling of the infected. A week of attacking the ones that got too close. A week of pretending these things had never been human. A week of spooning canned peaches into their dry mouths. Just a week ago, his roommate was alive.
Neither of them had been sure what was happening at first. News of an infection had spread throughout the campus in hushed whispers. As if it was something people were trying to hide. It should have been the first sign really, that it was zombies. Its classic zombie apocalypse, and he kicked himself for not noticing. For not noticing until the Screenwriting professor had torn a chunk out from a classmate.
He raised his eyes toward the flames. He needed to leave this city and head for Washington, he guessed. That's…what… he thought for a moment, a few days drive? But if he was walking…
The scream from the phone called replayed in his head. That was his brother's scream in the background. He knew that voice. He recognized it from spending hours torturing his younger brother. Torturing Stevie. He felt the bile rise in his throat. Was he okay? Was Stevie okay? Buckling over, Sam emptied his stomach. And then he heard it. The slow thumping of an infected heading this way. The methodic thump, the shuffle of feet. The blonde's heart pounded in his head.
"Fuck."
His dorm room was …quite a scene, to be honest. Sam stared around his room, aghast. Someone had been in here. Someone had been in here, bleeding, and quite possibly dying. Bloody handprints covered his bed sheets; a giant splatter of...of what…what even is that on the wall? Are those...brains? The smell of burning flesh hung in the air, causing Sam to dry heave. This was not good. He rubbed at his temples, quickly packing a backpack of clothes and food.
They'd had plenty of food. Sam had made sure of that. Once he saw the proof, the unstoppable walking dead, the way they lumbered after their prey until they finally got it, he knew his zombie plan was going to be needed. They'd stocked up as much as they could find, but it didn't last long enough. They'd begun running out. His roommate had offered to lead the trip to the closest convenience store, and Sam was lucky enough to be able to watch his friend get attacked. To have front row seats to the slaughter of his closest friend.
The way the zombie had looked up at Sam, from his decimated roommate's body will forever haunt the blonde man. The blood, skin and guts between his teeth, dripping and oozing out as it looked up. The hunger apparent on its face and in the way his outstretched arms beckoned for Sam to get closer, to be his next meal. He had cried as he took the bat to the infected's head. He had cried when he smashed the bat against his roommate's head, splattering his brains against the asphalt.
Sam eyed his roommate's baseball bat in the corner of his room. It was stained with blood and chunks. His roommate's blood. His roommate's brain. Sam swallowed hard before grabbing the bat, images of smashing his roommate's skull flashed through his head. He wiped the dirty bat against his sheets. Not like he was ever going to use those again.
He slung the backpack over one shoulder, leaning against the baseball bat and looking around the room. The room that had been his home. Messy, stained with blood, shit and vomit, it looked nothing like how it used to. But it was still his room, his home, despite the smell and the stains. He knew that once he turned and left, there'd be no coming back.
The two desks in the corner were covered in papers and empty cans of food. A busted laptop lay across one. The rugs were dirty and stained; a dried pool of blood had formed outside the closet door. On his roommate's bed lay a mess of wrappers. Sam swallowed and turned to the door, slinging the bat over his shoulder.
He could do this.
He didn't expect to turn around and find a zombie, frankly. With its hands extended, mere inches from Sam's head. The blonde let out a slight bleat of fear, before swinging the bat against the zombie's skull. There was a loud crack and the body slumped to the floor, a dent visible on its head.
Sam eyed it for a moment. Eyed her for a moment. Her skin was grey and her once long blonde hair was tangled and stained with blood and some sort of...black liquid. He knew this girl. He dated this girl. Sam's head reeled and he leaned against the wall, trying to stay standing. Sam heaved, his arm clutching his stomach, nothing left inside of it to expel. His throat burned.
Fuck.
Maybe he couldn't do this.
A moan sounded from farther down the hall, and Sam knew that he had to leave, regardless if he could do this or not. Run and fight, or hide and die. His father had told him to never run from a fight, to never hide and give up. He wanted to make his dad proud. He wanted to survive long enough to be able to tell him all that he'd done. All that he would be doing to live. As the moaning grew louder, Sam shook himself back to reality before turning tail and running the fuck out of that dorm.
"Need a new plan, Evans," he whispered to himself, moving briskly through the street. The fire had spread, another building consumed with its wrath, and certainly did not look like it was going to die down soon. Sam hid his face in his jacket, trying to protect his lungs from the smoke, and continued muttering to himself.
"Your first zombie plan bought you a week, what can you do now?" He moved quickly, ducking behind the trashcans and totaled cars, keeping a lookout for any infected. For any zombies inching towards him.
"Get out of Boston, find a car, find a gun. Get out of Boston, find a car, find a gun." He repeated it over and over in his head, a mantra to keep him motivated.
His sneakers squeaked against the blood-stained cement. As he turned on to a main road, and looked ahead of him, Sam realized that he might have overestimated this whole zombie thing. It wasn't as if there were thousands of zombies on the road ahead of him, all shuffling along and moaning at each other, with outstretched arms ready to pull the closest meatbag into their mouths.
Oh. Wait. Yes it was. Make that underestimated. Yes. Underestimated.
"Maybe I need to change that order…"
He stepped backwards quietly, trying to take light steps, trying not to alert the zombies ahead of him to his presence. Sam's head darted back and forth, eyeing every car in his vision, looking for one that was unlocked. He held the bat tightly, his palms were sweating, and a part of him thought he was going to drop the bat. He could hear the loud clatter in his mind's ear, and could see the zombies turn and lunge at him. He needed to be careful…
There. A bright yellow taxi was parked haphazardly several feet in front of him; he could see a passenger door was swung open. If he ran, he could get in, he could use that car. He could get out of here.
A loud moan pierced through his brain. Spinning his head around, he saw an infected shuffling towards him. Arm outstretched, its eyes piercing Sam's own. The moan had alerted the rest of them. The rest of the thousand. It's alerted the horde! And soon, all of them were lumbering toward the shaking blonde boy. Headed for their next meal.
Clinging tightly to the baseball bat, Sam booked it, swerving through the grabbing, grasping hands. They were like claws, reaching for him. He swung the bat around, catching one infected after another in the face, knocking them back and away from him.
A hand grabbed at Sam. The rotten flesh of its fingers brushed roughly against the soft pale skin of the blonde's neck. The dead, yellowing fingernails grazed him ever so slightly. He jumped away with a yelp, right into the line of another infected. Its arms grabbed at Sam's shirt, tearing at the fabric. The blonde began swinging the bat haphazardly; a sickening smack resonated as it hit the zombie in the head.
Running faster now, he reached the taxi and jumped inside, slamming the door shut. His pants were wet, his face red with fear and embarrassment. Sam's breathing was heavy as he climbed to the front of the cab.
He'd made it.
A/N: Hey! Link here, nice to meet you guys and thanks for reading. This is my first attempt at a multi-chapter fic, so let's see how it goes, shall we? Beta'd by the fabulous CatCompanion09. Thank you!