PROLOGUE
"Shit." The word puffed out almost silently against her ear, the arms that curled about her frame were strong and she had never felt so safe. That was actually a lie. A much needed lie. She needed to feel safe. If the horde of walkers had anything to do with it. They took their time, like always, walking through the cars in the midday's sun. The arms that gripped her slowly inched her backwards, how he was able to manipulate the both of them without causing them to stumble was something she would have to ask – if they survived this.
She watched as Doc and Glenn both scrambled into a minivan, slowly sliding the door until only a small gap was left. Lori and Carol disappeared behind the car they had just been looking through and she looked to see Carl and Sophia looking lost and unsure. Brave children they were, so quiet. She wondered for a moment how many other children hadn't been so brave. How many had started to cry when they should have held their breath?
It was a horrible thought and it caused her heart to ice over just as she felt herself being pulled down to the ground. She didn't take her eyes off the approaching horde, but she did sideways glance at the man that was currently falling into the empty space behind her, she watched as he instructed the kids to get down and under the car. The two of them shimmied their way under a truck; she looked to the opposite side and into the dead eyes of a human that had been dead for weeks if not longer. They were shriveled, the eyes, but she could still make out the pupils in them. Dilated and wrong. Death was not pretty.
Looking to Rick at her side she frowned deeply and mouthed, "Where is T-dawg?"
He shrugged, he wasn't their concern now. The man shouldn't have run off. He would have to hide from the horde on his own. She frowned, and scooted just another inch so he could manage to slide all the way under the small S-10. How did she fit under here? She blinked at the realization and then felt a wave of claustrophobia. Fuck. This was not the time nor the place. Her breathing escalated and she found herself digging her nails into the asphalt.
It was his hand that reached over and gripped her's that stopped her. He put his index finger over his mouth in a silent gesture and she knew right then that she had to pull herself together or else.
Following his gaze she saw Carl looking dead at them. Brave and bold that boy was. And then the shuffling of feet started to pass their vision – keep looking at us, keep looking at us, it's okay it's okay…was the mantra she was repeating in her head to the two children. Please…
CHAPTER ONE: Hollywood's Zombies Suck
The Doctor is In
It was bloody.
People never really understood just how bloody. They always assumed that it was a few splatters here, a pool of it there – but they would never fully grasp the reality of it unless they were hands deep like he was. Not that he wasn't aware of how bizarre his acts were to others. Truth is he knew there was something different about him. Always had been something off. A slight tick where there should not be. A lingering longing of the inappropriate mixed with an appreciation of gore deep seeded and set. People tended to shy away from things that were ugly, things that were messy, things too real. He had always flocked to them.
Curious and waiting and wanting.
It was how he had found himself in this line of work. His family had been against it. Not wanting him to fuel a fire that they did not approve of. For a while they tried desperately to convince him of other careers. Countless avenues of 'please-not-that-what-about-this' had crossed his path and each time he had to turn them down. He turned down every single one, because he knew what he wanted to do. He had known since he was a small child. From the very first moment he had discovered what lied beneath the skin.
He was perhaps four, it was summer, of that he remembered. Hot and sticky and filled with sprinklers and bike rides. It was the first time he had ridden his bike without the training wheels. Even back then he felt the overwhelming need for independence. He did not want to be helped. It was either he did it on his own or he did not do it at all. The training wheels needed to go. So they went. He wasn't bad. He had the balance and the strength and after a while of being watched, his mom decided he was safe enough to play alone. Around and around the cul-de-sac, he went. His imagination running wild with impossible adventures at the way the wind slapped his face and the trees blurred in a mix of green and brown in his vision.
Caught in his child imagination, he paid no attention to the way the end of the street sharply dipped. Up in the cul-de-sac it had been safe. But safety was boring and so he had peddled his way down the length of the road and with a rush of adrenaline he sped to the end of the next road. There is was. The smallest object that caught his tire in the perfect angle that had him wobble once, twice, and then topple over in an almost 'too dramatic for what it was' fall and a loud snap of pain just below the elbow.
It had been a beer can.
Crushed.
Still to this day he was unsure how such a thing would have caused him to fall and break his arm, but he found himself grateful for it. Without it, who knew what kind of passions he would have? One flattened beer can and there he was, sitting at the far end of the neighboring street with a snapped arm and a strange jagged white tinged with red stick poking out from what once had been smooth and unmarked skin. It hurt. A large part of him wanted to cry it hurt so bad. Looking around, he realized he had two choices: sit and cry or get up and go home. Home sounded like the better option, because home is where whatever this thing was could be fixed. Mom would make it better. She always did. Still, he remembered just how amazing it looked. A small, jagged, little white thing. Now he knew he was looking at a splintered bone with his muscle and blood dangling off it, but back then? The innocent curiosity was set aflame. He would never be the same.
And now here he was.
Nearing thirty years old staring down at the dead body of a forty-six year old Caucasian male. He had died in a car crash. The entirety of the left side of his face was gone. Most likely left back at the crash site on, what appeared to be due to the remnants of gravel upon his distorted features, the road. The cleaning crew would have a field day if the other two bodies looked anything like this man.
It was a messy one.
He briefly wondered if one of them had been drunk. Perhaps had fallen asleep at the wheel? It did not matter at the moment, but it would in his reports. Reports. The one part of his job he hated.
They were necessary though. People needed to know. Families depended on what he did in order to put their minds at rest. To start the grieving process.
He was a fucking hero, he knew.
Just unknown, unnamed and unwanted.
Still, a hero.
Even if it was just him and these dead folks knowing that.
The other two bodies were odd. Neither one appeared to have been in the same crash. They looked almost perfectly okay, save for having strange bite marks on both. One on the lower calves, the other on the arm.
The only evidence that they had even been in the car was the slight bruising along their bodies from the restraints. Yet, why did the man look so much worse? Perhaps he had been thrown from the car? Stepping around the bodies he went to the phone to call the Sheriff's department. He needed to know, because by the looks of it, he would never say they were in the same accident. It was suspicious and such things needed to be voiced to the proper authorities.
"Grimes," was the deep answer on the receiving end.
"Hey...," he greeted politely but paused as the doctor was unsure how to proceed, "Got a question for you Sheriff: are you sure these three were in the same crash?"
A small pause indicated that the man was probably either, one: recollecting the crash and what he had seen, or two: wondering why he would be asking such a strange question. Doc never double questioned.
"Pretty sure, Doc," was the answer. "I was there when they removed all three from that mangled up truck. Why do ya ask?"
He sighed and shook his head, then realizing that the Sheriff wouldn't be able to see him he replied, "The last two don't have any kind of crash wounds. Except for the restraint marks. The man, though? He looks as if he had been mauled by a starving lion."
"I know," Grimes answered grimly, "I had wondered the same thing, but I was there, all three were in the truck."
The doctor sighed, disappointed by the lack of clarification, "Alright, good to know."
"Need anything else, Doc?"
"No, thanks Rick. Have a good night," He dismissed.
"You too." Grimes responded before the swift dial tone flooded the receiver.
He hung the phone up and returned to the first man. Looking down at his body he frowned deeply when he noticed the fingers move. What the…he threw aside his clipboard and stepped to the man's upper half, reaching down he put his fingers to his pulse point and the rush of panic and, strangely, fear gripping him when he made note of a weak thrum.
"Fuck," he cursed gravely under his breath and turned to get back to the phone.
But he was immediately halted when the hand shot up and grabbed his arm. Looking from it towards the man lying on the table he knew instantly something was terribly off.
Either that or this man really did not like waking up in the morgue.
The man actually snarled at him. It was pulling him close to his open, mangled mouth and his first instinct was to shove the body off. Thankfully, he was not a weak man by any means. Years of being in the military had toned him in a way nothing else would.
Still, the man was crazed.
His eyes were both yellow and bloodshot and the irises seemed to bleed outward, his mouth was gaping as if he was trying to eat the air and the way his body moved – dear whatever the fuck, this thing is a zombie!
And though he knew the conclusion to be absurd, he could not shake the feeling of it, especially when it the man stood and started jerkily walking towards him; his mouth wide, groaning and hissing. Retreating across the room and into his small office, the freaked out doctor slammed door shut and picked up the phone once more.
Dialing the Sheriff and cursing as the phone rang.
"Shit fuck, fuck shit, please pick up!" He cursed into the phone; his right hand that clenched the phone trembled. The sound to fingers clawing the other side of the wood spurred the doctor to scoot and press his weight against the door.
"Grimes," came the automated response.
"RICK!" He damn near shouted into the speaker. "THE MAN IS ALIVE! AND…." He couldn't help but flinch away from the door when a loud bang sounded at the other end. Steeling his resolve, the doctor pressed himself harder against the wood hoping his weight could keep the undead at bay until someone came to help. "And I think he's trying to eat me!"
There was a pause on the other end of the line before a soft chuckle, "What?"
"DON'T FUCKING LAUGH!" He snarled into the phone as he looked through the windowed wall towards the operating room.
In horror he noted that the other two victims were up and moving their way to the closed door.
"All of them, Rick, all of them are up and …" Another loud crash and the distinct sound of medical equipment clanging on the tile floor. "They are trying to eat me…" The doctor was sweating in terror, his heart beating almost painfully under his chest plate. The only thing he could hear was the groans of the walking dead bodies and his own blood pumping in his ears as adrenaline hit.
Rick, however, heard the commotion on the other line and launched from his chair, startling his partner sitting across from him.
"Doc!" Rick hollered, alert and worried while grabbing his King County Sheriff's Department hat."I am on my way. Do you have anything to defend yourself?" He questioned hurriedly as he gestured toward his partner and best friend Shane Walsh.
Looking around his office he swore under his breath before he zeroed on the Tokyo Ghoul Ken Kaneki paperweight he used for his loose unfiled papers resting calmly on his perpetual messy desk.
The unblinking stare of Kaneki peered at him as the trapped doctor considered the heavy statue as a possible weapon.
He gulped loudly, wetting his dry lips, "Sorta."
"Good – if they get through, you use it. I am on the way!" Rick assured him.
However, once the line went dead, that assurance meant less and less as the scratches and hissing of the reanimated dead bodies continued.
Tossing the phone aside, the doctor steeled himself and leapt from the floor, nearly tripping on the ends of his long lab coat as he tried to get his large feet underneath him. Seizing the Kaneki statue from his desk, he quickly returned to his position in front of the door and leaned against it. He held the paperweight in his fist so unbearably tight his knuckles were turning white.
Fuck fuck fuck.
The door would soon give way and he was positive this was not going to end well. Most zombie films made it clear – don't get caught in a corner. And he had done that to himself. Shit. He looked around the room, nearly manic, and then smiled wide when he saw it.
Crossing three steps over to the large filing cabinet by the door, he heaved and guided it over to tip it diagonally across the entry way. The far corner rested against the nearby wall creating a barrier from the living and the undead.
This would have to do. With a great inhale of breath, he knelt and reached for the door handle. Twisting it and giving a shove so that the gap would be seen by the three things. Sure enough, they noticed. A great roar of excitement went through them as he straightened and watched bloody, mangled fingers tear the door open. And he did the only thing he knew he could do.
He bashed the fucker in the head with Ken Kaneki.
Again and again and again.
Blood and brains and scalp and skull.
He would have found it almost beautiful in the abstract sort of way it was flying about the room if the damned thing wasn't still trying to get through the barrier to rip into the warm, soft flesh. So he smashed it again.
And again.
One down, but the danger had not yet passed.
The other two dead bodies stumbled slowly to what could have been their next meal.
It was loud and smelly but in a strange and almost surreal type of way, rather freeing. Although that thought was fleeting as he jammed the statue one last time in the head of the third ravenous creature and watched whatever light of life in its greying eyes dim. With a padded thud it fell on top of the other two bodies.
Dead.
Given the circumstances dead did not mean dead, rather he concluded they were super dead.
For a good five minutes he just stood there. His hand still wrapped tightly around the paperweight, but now it was covered in blood and various grey matter. The entire of the front of his office looked like a massacre had happened. A near slaughter had almost occurred, and for once the human being was the animal to be slaughtered for consumption.
Splatters of crimson and bright reds marred the once pristine surfaces and he frowned at the fact that he truly had had no color in here before. He needed to fix that. The filing cabinet still sat wedged between the two walls.
Between him and the exit.
Between life and death. And super dead.
Perhaps he should change that. Stepping forward, he put his free hand on the under the cabinet and tried to lift it. It was heavy and he would need to hands, but he could not bring himself to free up his other hand. Instead he just shook his head and stepped back, it was not worth the risk should the super dead have nine lives. He would have to wait for Grimes.
Not that it took long. A few minutes later came the quick and sure steps of the Sheriff's Deputy and his partner. Rick Grimes stepped into the doorway, a .40 caliber Glock 22 at the ready and pointed just before his partner Shane arrived on his rear in the same armed fashion.
"What the hell happened in here?" Shane bellowed as the two policemen holstered their weapons surveying the damage and trying to make sense of all the carnage.
"Doc?" Rick asked quietly, stepping forward and somehow not on the bodies, lifted the filing cabinet up and over to rest it back in its rightful place against the wall.
The metal cabinet landed with a loud thud that echoed in the one quiet room. It was a dark contrast to the once noisy room that was filled with the groans, growls, and hisses of the assumed dead bodies that surprising came to life.
"Are you okay? Doc?" He questioned the stoic doctor softly, blue eyes narrowed on the blunt object gripped in his bloody right hand.
All the doctor could do was laugh at the question. Because really, what kind of answer were they expecting?
It happened faster than anyone expected...
The first few outbreaks had been small, localized and easily controlled. It was not until it reached the big cities where too many people were crammed in too little spaces that it became a problem. Believe it or not, New York had not been the first city overrun, San Francisco took that title. In fact, New York held out for a long while after the initial outbreak. Turns out people in the Big Apple had an uncanny ability to fight. All their hostility came in handy when it came to the super dead. In the end though, the city could only last as long as everyone knew what, where and who. It lasted six days longer than San Francisco. The north eastern coast and the west coast were goners within a fortnight.
He didn't know if it was a good thing or not that he lived in the South. The smaller towns made it easier for the infection to be detected and people tended to be spread out far more than in the larger cities, but it made the wait unbearable. It was only a matter of time before it got to them too. And it did. The way it came was ruthless and full of screams. They had all been expecting something, but nothing like what rolled into town. Or rather, what shuffled into town. Because that's what they did. They shuffled. Some shuffled faster than the others, some even seemed to do an awkward shuffle run type of thing, but regardless it was shuffling that they did.
It had been three months since that incident. His office had once again been painted pure white and there was nothing at all left to indicate that it had ever happened. Except for the door being replaced. He had not wanted it to be, the teeth and claw marks on the wood had made it real, but the company made it happen. That night had been busy with question after question after question and by the time he was done answering them, Rick had seemed to want to ask more. It had been Shane that got the two officers to leave, promising to check on how he was doing later.
It was nice having old school friends in the police department. However, neither one had even bothered to call him. He assumed it was because they were busy with being them. The two had always been a rather demanding duo and he didn't have two shits to give to the lack of correspondence. He was just disappointed that all the red was gone. After the incident, the company had taken care of the bodies. They had not given him word as to why they had reanimated or why they had tried to eat him. He suspected that it was a cover up but hey, that was just how life was now wasn't it? So to work he went. Day in and day out. Clocking in at seven in the morning and clocking out at seven at night. It was beginning to drive him insane.
Perhaps it was the lack of gnarling teeth and clawing hands.
Whatever it was – he knew that he needed to snap out of it. Things happened and that was it. Over and done and life settled back into the normal day to day and he would have to allow that to be his reality. But then again, he had always found that the universe had a way of proving him wrong. Because it was on this day, three months later, that he realized the everyday life he was trying to get an escape from, was about to change forever.
He was at work when it happened. He had watched from the windows of the hospital lobby as the military tried to ward them off. Shot after shot rang through the air, just like they were trained to do. Kill any and all things that could be a hazard. Women, children, the super dead, men, dogs, babies. Death was in the air now and there would never be a moment where he would not remember this. This was the clashing of the end of something and the beginning of hell. When the guns were turned onto the civilians in the hospital, that was when he knew he had to get out.
And that's when he saw him.
Shane.
He watched him disappear up the stairs, purposely avoiding the elevators and he raced after him. What the hell was he doing here? This was ground zero! He needed to be out there with Rick and their families, far away from this madness. He found him in the unit. The unit? Why would he…and as he watched in stunned silence, Shane hustling about one of the patients room, he felt the unease of dread begin to course through his body. There he was. Rick fucking Grimes. Strongest most stable headed man he knew, fucking laid up like a god damn corpse himself. Well fuck that. He turned and started making his way back when he saw the military shove some nurses and doctors against the wall – lining them up.
With wide eyes he turned and found Shane staring at him, most definitely witnessing the same thing.
"I can't leave him," he said, words thick with panic and turmoil. And just as he went to try and help him the sounds of gunfire made him look behind him and down the hall. They were coming. The military having shot the civilians only to be attacked from behind by them. Super Dead things.
Shane, in his panic, locked eyes with him and Doc could think of nothing to say. Instead, he pushed a gurney towards the door, slammed it shut and then blocked it with the large appliance. After locking the wheels he reached over and grabbed Shane's sleeve, "Come on, we gotta get outta here."
It was a struggle to get Shane out of the hospital, but once the two of them managed to sneak past the barrier, Shane seemed to snap out of whatever haze he was in. He had no idea where he was going, but if he were going to survive this: Shane was his best bet. The man was a fighter, always had been. Strong willed and determined.
"Lori and Carl," Shane muttered as they climbed into the old pick up that Doc knew was Rick's, "We gotta go get them. For him." Dark brown eyes turned and grabbed ahold of his, "Rick is dead."
And he knew without needed any further explanation. Rick was dead. No matter what, for the sake of his wife and son, Rick Grimes was a dead man. He nodded only once, and then Shane slammed the truck into drive and took off.
Hey ya'll! Just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Carol, I have been a fan of the Walking Dead since I came across the comics a few years ago and when the TV Show came out - well, naturally, I had to watch it! I am a huge fan and though it doesn't follow the comics to a T, I find that the changes/additions/manipulations are well worth it! Anyway - This story is dedicated to my dearest friends all of whom love TWD and I hope ya'll enjoy!
Don't worry - even though its OC there will be PLENTY of Canon for all ya'll who love you some TWD characters.
Have a wonderful day sweets!
-C