Notes: This was written for Faberry Week Day Two "Zombie Apocalypse". My own tumblr is a pretentious piece of non-fandom related twattery so I'm posting this here.
Will top out at four short chapters or so.
Character death, talk of suicide, and general unpleasantness abound.
Reviews are awesome; leave one if the spirit moves you.
Rachel Berry will die at sixteen - a tragic, Tony-less virgin who had the misfortune of seeing the world fall apart.
Yes, this fact spat in the face of the way she'd dreamt of shuffling off the mortal coil (first person to live to one-hundred-and-twelve, surrounded by fat great great grandchildren, and the warmth of knowing her life will be celebrated by an evening showcase on Turner Classic Movies), but at the very least she'll get to die by her own hand. For that, she was grateful.
The countdown to her demise was marked by x's on the kitchen calendar. The first tick had been particularly hard, coming mere hours after she'd lost her Daddy. She built the pyre in the backyard, and placed pennies over his eyes (though it was Dad who'd been the family mythology buff, she made sure both men could pay Charon's fare), and while watching Hiram Berry's body turn to ash on the remnants of the playhouse he'd built for her seventh birthday, Rachel came to the conclusion that there was no reason to continue on.
She gave herself a week. She weighed the pros and cons of the quick and the violent (end results of a gun in her mouth were too messy), and the slow yet symbolic (not enough force wouldn't snap her neck and she'd struggle too long against the rope; floating in a tub of pink like a Libson sister appealed to her dramatic spirit, but the idea of slicing her wrists set her teeth on edge.)
She decided to swallow a bottle of Advil on the 15th of September.
"No - no, no, no…"
She longed for the mystery surrounding death to return - to be stunned into silence again by a shooting on live TV, or to crinkle her nose up when the breeze caught the smell of decay and pushed it through a crack in the window. Death used to be abstract and foreign, and reminders of her own mortality came by way of the stiff, pancake makeuped faces of elderly relatives or the odd case of a car load of upperclassmen taking corners too fast and colliding with trees.
Once upon a time Rachel accused Tina Cohen-Chang of being needlessly morbid for turning down her offer of vocal lessons in favor of a Six Feet Under marathon, and now she was turning her home inside out for anything to make her own death painless.
The upstairs medicine cabinet was filled with bottles she'd emptied attempting to make her fathers' comfortable when the sickness worsened. The downstairs cabinet housed a tube of Crest toothpaste and an empty box of Tampax.
The covers on her bed were pulled back, her iPod lay on the nightstand queued to drain the last of its battery with "Don't Rain on My Parade" on loop. She'd had a plan, but it was rapidly falling apart and Rachel marched halfway towards the kitchen to stick her head in the oven before she remembered the generator had blown two days prior, so she burst into tears on the living room floor instead.
Today should've been Stir-Friday in the Berry home. The memory she should've had of Finn Hudson involved chicken-scratch love notes and clandestine make out sessions all over Lima, not the image of his ashen, once handsome face lumbering down the McKinely High halls clutching his own entrails that haunted her when she closed her eyes. She should've been able to die with dignity and on her own goddamn terms.
When she'd cried to the point of headache, Rachel picked herself up, grabbed the .45 on the coffee table, and walked out the front door.
There was a pleasant chill in the air, the sky virtually cloudless - Rachel pulled the hood of her jacket over her head to block the beaming sun. Gun cocked, she maneuvered carefully around the glut of abandoned cars in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and gave only a brief glance in the direction of the graffiti declaring "ABANDON ALL HOPE" just below the Grocery sign before tugging hard on the entrance doors.
Florescent lights buzzed and flickered, the scent of spoiled meat filled her nose as she passed the cooler section. Heart sinking at the sight of bare shelf after bare shelf, Rachel crossed her fingers as she reached the drug aisle and silently prayed there would be something, anything left.
She didn't hear it. So focused on shaking and tossing empty packages to the side, Rachel never noticed the low groans or the heavy shuffling of feet. She never looked up until a loud, sickening crack sounded to her right.
"Jesus fuck…!" Rachel swore. Startled her finger squeezed the gun's trigger sending a bullet straight into the tile and narrowly missing the feet of a bloodstained Quinn Fabray.
They stared at each other - Quinn's chest heaving, Rachel's mouth agape.
Rachel blinked while barrel of her gun smoked. "Q-Quinn?"
"What the hell, Rachel!" she snapped.
"I'm sorry, I…"
"I thought you said we weren't shooting! If you get to bust caps, blondie, so do I." Santana loudly complained as she rounded the corner, stopping short at the sight of Rachel and Quinn, and the infected body with the caved in skull that lay between them.
"I didn't shoot," Quinn said, glaring.
"Berry?" Santana chuckled in disbelief. "Well don't that beat all."
"Guys, I found some Bagel Bites. I think they're still good; they're already warm so we won't have to heat them up…Rachel!"
The world felt like it was moving in slow motion as Rachel watched Brittany Pierce leap over body and ooze in order to launch herself into Rachel's arms.
"I never liked you," Brittany said tightening her grip on the girl's middle, "but I'm glad you're not dead."
"Thanks," Rachel mumbled.
"You alone?"
Rachel let her gaze travel from Quinn innocuously wiping the bloodied end of the bat in her hand onto the bottom of her Cheerios pullover, to the body, to Brittany's smiling face, and back again. "I - that was Mrs. Wimple from the library."
Quinn frowned. "We'll be sure to cry later."
"Sorry, uh - yeah, yes I'm alone."
In two steps Quinn was in front of Rachel taking the gun out of her hand. "C'mon," she said.
"Excuse me, this is a three vagina operation. Nobody invited the Shire Queen."
"She's all alone, San." Brittany widened her eyes to puppy dog proportions. "We can't leave her here."
Looking very much like a child forced to do the right thing, Santana made a show of rolling her eyes. "Don't drag ass, Berry…"
Brittany slung an arm around Rachel's shoulders, leading her out of the aisle. "You can have my shovel," she said. "I like the axe better anyway."
"…Don't touch my guns, Berry…"
"Do you like Bagel Bites?" Brittany asked. "The pepperoni ones are my favorite, but I could only find supreme."
"…And don't use my razor to shave your chest hair. Follow these three simple rules, and Auntie Snix might not bash your head in."