It's the end of the world.
Emily Prentiss has had that thought millions, if not billions, of times in her life, except all of those occasions seem childishly, laughably silly in comparison to this end of the world. The actual end of the world.
The end of the world starts somewhere in New York, or so the government says since they claim they can't exactly find Patient Zero, but if there's one thing Emily's learned in her entire life, it's that government politicians lie. Not that it really matters, because it spreads faster than anything any government could have been prepared for.
The United States is hit before most people realize what is happening, which is probably for the best, now that Emily thinks about it; the loss of life is no joke, but there's no pain in death. Or at least there wasn't, she isn't sure anymore. It happens in the middle of the night when people supposed to be safely tucked into their beds. Amazingly, the cell towers are still working, and that's how Emily finds out just how bad it is.
The team is on a case in rural Virginia. She gets a call from her mother from a government landline number, which is her first clue that something is wrong before she even says a word. There's screaming in the background and this strange rhythmic thumping against wood that makes Emily's heart beat faster. That's a cause for concern too.
"Mother?" Emily breathes into the phone and she immediately knows something is deathly wrong.
"Emily? I know you're on a case and it's somewhere isolated, right? Right? That's what the database said before it all went dark. Right?"
Emily has never heard her mother sound anything less than pristine, even in the worst of times, and she doesn't quite know what to make of Ambassador Elizabeth Prentiss practically shrieking into the phone.
"Yes, yeah, Mom, I'm in a town in rural Virginia on a case, close to North Carolina. What's going on?"
More screaming. More banging on wood. Her mother is crying now. Emily Prentiss is a grown woman and she's never been close to her mother, but it scares her in the most primal center of her mind.
"Emily, sweetheart, stay out of the cities. Get food and water right now while you can. Go somewhere away from people, away from everything. Get ammo and guns while you can. You still remember archery, right, dear? Get a bow and a lot of arrows, any long-range weapon," her mother rushes out and her sleep-addled brain is struggling to keep up.
JJ is awake and staring concerned as Emily hops around, putting on clothes and stuffing everything into her ready bag. She starts packing JJ's stuff too, leaving out jeans and a plain t-shirt for JJ, when her mother continues.
"Emily, you are so strong and so brave. I love you so much." Ambassador Prentiss sounds more calm, but Emily later realizes that it's acceptance of her fate.
"Mom, I love you too, but what's happening?"
"It's the end of the world," she whispers and the screams are so loud that the source of them must be in the room with her. "The dead are coming back to life and they're out for human flesh. God, I sound fucking crazy. Shoot them through the head."
Emily has never heard her mother curse before. It's as if she doesn't want that to be the last thing she says to her daughter when she quickly adds, "I love you. I love you more than anything else in the world. You've never needed me, and you need to not need me now. I need you to keep being so strong."
"I love you too," Emily murmurs, dazed, stricken, because this isn't some prank call. Her mother wouldn't fuck around like that, and everything on the other line sounds so real. JJ is out of the room, pounding on the doors of the rest of the team, but the only thing that Emily hears is the splintering of wood and unearthly groans and the quick succession of unmistakable gunshots.
The line goes dead.
The team is dressed and is out the hotel door in a matter of minutes, their ready bags in hand, and it's a testament to how much trust is between the team when they don't question Emily's gasped out and slightly hysterical rendition of her last phone call with her mother. Either trust or terror.
It's only after they all walk out of the hotel doors that Hotch confesses he received the same call from a much higher ranked government official and old friend, and that's when they know this is a real situation. Any further attempts at cell phone communication have been met with nothing. It doesn't seem to matter if the calls go to D.C. or any random series of numbers desperately typed in to the phone. Not to Section Chief Strauss and not to Jack Hotchner.
It doesn't take a profiler to figure out how distressed he is that he can't reach his son.
They decide quickly that they need to go to a store before anything else. After all, they're all survivors first and foremost, after all the collective and individual pain that they have suffered on this job. They know that their best chance at continued existence is to take care of themselves first. It's selfish, but if this is what the world is turning in to, then their selfishness is justified. Later, much later, they will all think about this split-second decision and feel a semblance of remorse, but right now, their own lives are what matter the most. It's not like they can try to warn anyone else anyway.
Hotch drives one FBI SUV, Rossi takes the other, and Morgan drives the third, the team splitting between them. Emily is in the front seat of Hotch's and she desperately tries again to call Jessica Brooks in D.C., to find out where Jack is. He's supposed to be sleeping over with Henry LaMontagne, but Jessica told Hotch it might not happen because Jack has a bit of a fever. He feels like a complete failure as a father for not knowing where his son is when the world falls apart.
None of her calls go through, and JJ is in Rossi's car with Reid, and Garcia is in Morgan's, so she can't even ask if they can get through. Cell towers are fully destroyed soon enough, though, too soon for any them to find out the status of their loved ones. At least Emily got her goodbye.
With no one definitively left alive that she loves, her number one priority is protecting her team, her family, with her.
They reach the nearest grocery store, completely in the middle of nowhere, at least 20 minutes from town and any residents. They've never been so happy that their hotel was out of the way. The three vehicles are lined up with the trunks open and facing the front of the store.
Emily practically falls out of the SUV in her haste to get inside. She pulls her sidearm and pumps two bullets into the widest front glass, not bothering to waste time with picking locks or using doors, and the glass shattering breaks the eerie silence of the night. She will have to face her emotions eventually, but now is not that time.
Everyone readily ignores JJ's red-rimmed eyes and Garcia's outright tears. When Hotch and JJ meet eyes, no words need to be spoken. Neither of the parents are able to contact their children.
"Morgan and Rossi: cases of water. As many as you can carry and as quickly as you can carry them. We just need to get them and ration them with the townspeople when we have open lines of communication. JJ and Garcia: food with the largest nutritional content. Nuts, power bars, canned food, non-perishables. Reid: anything else we need."
The team falls into order quickly at Hotch's instructions and they all use this as a distraction to keep their real thoughts at bay. It's a small town, so the two grocery stores in town blessedly carry guns and ammo.
Hotch and Emily fall into step like they always do and words aren't needed when Emily grabs a bag and empties the shelves of various ammunition into it. Hotch has seven rifles slung over his shoulder and another bag of handguns and sheathed hunting knives on the first trip to the Chevy Suburban.
Reid already set a tank of propane, charcoal, matches, ropes, and basic tools into the trunk of each of their vehicles. They see him rifling around behind the pharmacy counter next to a shopping cart with a clinic's worth of medicines. The moonlight reflects off the sweat on Morgan's forehead as he loads three more cases of bottled water from the fourth shopping cart Rossi steers over recklessly. JJ and Garcia throw in their next haul of canned foods to the back of their SUV.
Their next stop is the police station, or at least it would have been, except the police come to them. For once, the small town police force were ecstatic for their help with the case of bodies popping up on the outskirts of town with bullet holes through their skulls.
The sheriff steps out, a former DOD employee and Marine. He addresses Hotch and Emily, who have cleared out the weaponry corner of the store and are about to go in for another round of supplies. "We got word that something's going down in the cities. A fucking apocalypse or somethin'. I'm guessing you heard similar. Take what you can and meet us at the station. It's a safe house for now. We're rounding up who we can, but the west part of town has already been hit."
His calm tone belies the terror in his eyes and no one comments on the blood splatter on his uniform. No one asks what the west side has been hit with, because no one fucking knows. They're at the store furthest east, though, and it's apparent that the news hasn't spread because if it had, there would be endless pandemonium to get supplies even from this far out of town.
"Sheriff Donnell," it's Rossi's voice behind them that breaks the stunned silence, "what are we up against?"
"It ain't anything I've ever seen before. They're attacking each other, vicious as a pack of rabid dogs. Had to gun down friends I've known for 40 years."
Everyone on the team has had to shoot down a suspect or unsub before, and every single time devastates them to the core. It's not an easy thing, taking a human life. There's no guideline for processing it, but it seems like they'll all have to dredge up every ounce of courage to do it again.
Emily nearly throws up when she remembers her mother's voice. "Shoot them between the eyes."
Hotch and Rossi look at her with confusion and something akin to disgust until she clarifies, "My mother was in the Pentagon, or some government building, in D.C. when it was hit. She said to aim for the heads."
The sheriff nods shortly then gets back in his car. He looks out the window and barks, "Shoot straight. Stay alive."
They have no idea what is happening, but they know one thing.
It's the end of the world. But if it ends, at least they're all together.