Easter : The Inevitable

Disclaimer: Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin are the intellectual property of whoever happens to hold their contract, or possibly of themselves, I'm really not sure. Either way, this is not intended to infringe upon any copyrights or trademarks, and is most definitely not written for profit of any kind. Oh, and Maybury State Park belongs (or however possession of parks works) to the state of Michigan.

Warnings: Swearing, some violence, concepts that may be offensive to some.

It happened on Easter. The irony of that fact wasn't lost on Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin. But this wasn't a time for irony; their whole world had shifted, and they just had to deal with the here and now.

They didn't even realise that it was starting. It was Good Friday, and they had a whole weekend stretched out before them, which they were going to fill with video games, beer, and Chatroulette. Shelley had journeyed to Sabin's home for the event, knowing that Sabin had most of the consoles and games already at his disposal, and, Shelley had joked, it was close to the hospital so that when Sabin drank himself into oblivion, he wouldn't need to be dragged that far for help.

That was the first mistake.

But Shelley had arrived without any trouble, burger bags in hand, and had happily accepted the beer offered to him. He sank into the couch, took a game controller from the floor, and went to his happy place – food, beer and games. It did require some focus to juggle the food and the controller, but Shelley quickly remembered the reason for loading screens (to take hasty bites out of your food, of course), and once his dinner was finished, he could relax into the game.

They stayed like that for several hours, playing games, joking, squabbling about who would get the next round of beers out of the fridge. Several hours in, they heard an ambulance go by. Sabin, being so used to it, tuned the sound out and fragged Shelley. Swearing, Shelley turned back to the TV, putting the sound out of his mind. As he was waiting to respawn, he turned the TV up so that he wouldn't be distracted again.

It was 2am when Sabin started yawning, so he paused the game and stumbled into the kitchen. While he got an energy drink out of the fridge, he tried to loosen the muscles in his legs so the trip back to the lounge wouldn't be as uncomfortable. Upon re-entering the room, though, he didn't find the sight he had expected. Sabin had walked in with an insult on the tip of his tongue, expecting to find Shelley in front of a muted TV, fragging him over and over. But all he saw was his tag team partner standing by the window with the curtain pulled aside, a quizzical look on his face as he stared along the road. Sabin opened his mouth to ask him what he was doing, but just at that moment another ambulance drove past, with flashing lights but no siren. This was not normal, and he knew it. No matter the hour, the ambulances (for this hospital, anyway, Sabin reasoned) would keep lights and sirens on, waking up whoever they happened to. This oddity aside, though, Sabin couldn't figure out what the problem was. He took a step closer to Shelley, but at that moment, the other man turned around.

"Hey man, what are you-" Sabin started, but was cut off by Shelley, still with that same confused look on his face.

"Let's go outside for a minute."

Shrugging, Sabin followed, grabbing his keys as he went, suspecting that Shelley was going to try to lock him outside. But Shelley simply walked up the driveway, turned, and stared down the road at the hospital.

"What are you..." Sabin tried to ask again, but this time his voice trailed off. Shelley had clearly already seen what was happening, but this was the first time Sabin had. In front of the hospital, not just the ER, but all available space on the road, and even in some of the parking lots, were ambulances. Most of them still had their lights on, but none with sirens. As they watched, an ambulance drove in from the other direction, and came to a stop in front of the hospital, taking the place of another that had just pulled out. A paramedic jumped out of the vehicle, running to the back and throwing the doors open, assisting the others within to remove a stretcher that contained, from what the two men could see, a thrashing body.

As one, the two men turned to head back into the house, knowing better than to go and take a closer look, but having seen all they could see from the driveway. Shelley picked up the remote and flipped through the channels, looking for something – some kind of accident or attack – that might account for so many ambulances at that time of night. But when he found nothing, Sabin grabbed his laptop, swore when he saw what was on the screen after having left the browser open at Chatroulette, and looked up his preferred news site. He quickly scrolled through, but couldn't find a single article that might shed some light on what was happening.

"Chris, I can't find anything. What the hell is happening?" Shelley asked, throwing the remote down in a huff.

"No idea. There's nothing anywhere about an attack or an accident or even a case of mass food poisoning. I don't get it. Let's just keep playing – maybe there'll be something reported when the sun comes up."

"Yeah, I guess." Shelley agreed, changing the TV back so that the game could be played again. Just before he went to resume it, though, Sabin interrupted him.

"Leave the curtains open, will you? I want to see if any more come by."

Shelley nodded his agreement, and once the request was completed, they went back to playing.

**

"Here we are on site at Maybury State Park, where just moments ago the Spring Egg Hunt begun. All over there are excited children and their parents, hunting for eggs and looking forward to the events later on! Yes, there will be face painting and...what the fuck is that?" The camera, previously focused on the impeccably presented reporter with the wide smile, swung sharply to the right to focus on a body just emerging from the trees. From a distance, it appeared to be someone splashed with red paint, perhaps still drunk from the night before, given how he was stumbling. But then he came to a sudden stop, and the footage showed his head snapping up. Then he was running.

The smiling parents didn't even know what hit them. In a moment, the person was all over them, and screams rang out across the clearing. Parents, realising that something wasn't right, ran to collect their children, but at that moment several more bodies erupted from the trees, apparently drawn by the screams. They seemed indiscriminate in who they attacked – men, women or children, it didn't matter.

"Jesus Jimmy, stop filming, get in the fucking truck!" The reporter could be heard screaming, out of breath from the run. As if snapped out of a trance, the cameraman – Jimmy – turned and the sound of footsteps could be heard as he started to run, but this got the attention of the nearest attacker. While standing still, he had been ignored, but as soon as he started to run, the person's head had snapped up, face covered in blood, and not paint like it had originally seemed. It quickly scrambled up and starting running, and a few seconds later another man could be heard screaming. Tyres screeched as the truck drove away.

The last image transmitted before the signal cut out was of the body of a woman attacked. It had been still a moment ago, but then it jerked and started to rise.

**

Sabin and Shelley stared at the now black TV screen, mouths agape.

"This has to be some kind of joke."

**