Title: The Fragile Army
Pairing/Character(s): Nate/Serena, Chuck/Blair
Rating: R
Warnings: Gore, violence, profanity, character deaths
Spoilers: Nothing you wouldn't already know, as it's set a few years in the future and veers off from Season 3 into AU-land.
Summary: All's fair in love, sex and the zombie apocalypse.
Chapter One: what it feels like to be a ghost
Word Count: 2, 593
Notes: I like zombies and I like Gossip Girl and what is writing fanfic but combining all the things you like? Comments and constructive criticism would be love!
The Fragile Army
chapter one: what it feels like to be a ghost
Blair knew that if she thought about it too much, she would scream and scream and never stop. So she summoned up from the depths of her scarred soul the legendary iron will that had made her queen of the Upper East Side--- although there was now no Upper East Side to speak of--- and concentrated on weapons training and all the other things pertinent to survival. On the rare occasions that she did allow herself to turn it over in her mind, she surmised that it was all very Edgar Allan Poe. A party--- laughter and music and too much to drink--- in a room full of bright lights and glittering clothes. And death slithered in with the night air, effectively putting a stop to the merriment.
Unlike Poe's plague, however, it didn't come in secret, insinuating itself into the crowd before spreading its shadowy tendrils. Rather, death descended on Gloria Beaumont's lavish twenty-second birthday bash in an explosion of fury, in the form of moaning, gray-skinned figures that broke through the windows and promptly began to feast--- not on the delicate appetizers the waiters were passing around on vermeil trays, or on the sumptuous main courses that had the buffet tables groaning under their weight--- but on the young revelers. Some were too inebriated to react immediately, and most were too jaded to believe it was anything more than a practical joke.
A practical joke that quickly turned sour. Blair had been standing with Serena in an alcove on the second floor that overlooked the whole ballroom, and she'd seen for herself the panic that spread through the crowd like wildfire as soon as the people nearest the windows were grabbed and set upon by the ghastly horde, blood and bits of organs flecking the marble tiles.
No matter what else they are, human beings are hardwired for survival. In moments of extreme peril, the part of the brain devoted to rational thinking graciously surrenders the reins to instinct, and Homo sapiens sapiens is harnessed by a pressing need to escape before the situation goes critical. Blair didn't waste time thinking this shit only happened in horror movies. The word zombie didn't even cross her mind. She only knew that she was in danger and she had to get out now. She hadn't been conscious of her actions then, but, upon looking back, she found she could remember every nuance of those fear-addled moments, as if she'd merely been a casual, distant observer, watching the film play out before her eyes, instead of living it…
Serena's vodka highball slipped through her fingers. The crackle of breaking glass was swallowed up by the screams and rushing footsteps that rent the air, along with the hideous sounds the otherworldly beings made as they spread out in a slow yet unstoppable wave.
"S, we have to go!" Blair shouted, gripping Serena's arm. The latter's skin had gone cold with terror. Blair tugged, but her friend was rooted to the spot, blue eyes fixed on the gruesome scene below. "Serena! We have to get out of here now!"
With a strength she had not known she possessed, Blair hauled Serena out of the alcove and into the hallway. The other girl's instincts finally kicked in through the barrier of shock, and then the two of them were running, as fast as their feet could take them.
"Down the back stairs. Servant's entrance." Blair gasped, thanking her lucky stars that, due to a slew of previous visits since childhood, she was familiar enough with the layout of the Beaumont mansion to know where all the possible doors were.
Compared to the throng in the ballroom, only a few people were on the second level, but Blair felt like she was fighting her way through a veritable ocean of bodies as the other guests scrambled for the exits. Cries of confusion, shrieks of fear--- the entire spectrum of sounds and emotions a human voice can paint in times of crisis--- resounded in her ears. Her heel turned and she went crashing to the floor, wincing in pain when her skull banged against the tiles.
Serena pulled her up. 'It's--- these--- shoes---" the blonde half-sobbed, half-choked, as she tore at the straps of her Manolo Blahniks. Trembling, head throbbing, Blair followed suit, and then they were running again, bare feet pounding on cold marble, fuelled by adrenaline.
After what seemed like an eternity, they hurtled down the stairs, carried by the flailing, panic-stricken multitude. Someone's elbow rammed into Blair's stomach, knocking the breath out of her. Serena's loose golden hair was yanked back by a stranger who tried to claw past them. Despite the urgency of the situation, Blair couldn't help feeling a little disgruntled--- after all, did these people not know who she and Serena were? But tonight, for once, there was no status quo; it had disintegrated under the weight of mass hysteria, and it was everyone for themselves.
When they reached the first-floor landing, the groans of the monsters reverberated in the air like a faraway, storm-tossed ocean. Blair knew, she just knew, with a sick and dreadful kind of certainty, that they were making their way through all the rooms in the house, and it was only a matter of time before they caught up with those who had survived the first assault. She and Serena followed the crowd out the servant's entrance, the fresh evening breeze flooding their lungs. Around them, people scattered, some piling into cars and driving away, others just running for it.
Blair caught sight of a familiar flash of shiny black hair next to a lemon-yellow Aston Martin. "Kati!" she yelled, almost weeping in relief as she and Serena hurried up to the other girl.
"Blair!" Kati Farkas' almond eyes were wide with fright. "What the hell is happening?"
"Do I look like I have any idea?" Blair snarled. "Just drive, Kati. Get us out of here!"
The three girls got into the car, which, moments later, peeled out the driveway and onto the main road, tires screeching. Kati flipped on the radio. They listened, silent and stunned, as news reports filtered in through the crunch of static about strange attacks all over the city.
"The public is advised to remain indoors and await further information…"
Serena dug into her black Chanel 2.55 for her phone. "I have to call Eric," she muttered, fingers flying over the keypad. "He went out to dinner with some friends--- oh, God---"
"Eric's a smart kid. He'll be fine." Blair's confident tone sounded hollow even to her.
Her own phone started ringing. She glanced at the caller I.D. and quickly picked up. "Where are you?"
"On my way back to the penthouse," came Nate's deep voice. "I got in early from the Hamptons. Listen, is Serena with you? I can't reach her."
"She's fine. She's calling Eric."
Serena shot Blair a quizzical look. Nate, Blair mouthed. The tense expression on Serena's pale features momentarily crumpled in relief before she turned her attention back to her phone. So many loved ones to worry about, not enough time…
"I just wanted to check up on you guys," Nate said. "Something weird's going on. I'm in a cab and people are running. I see police cars everywhere."
"Don't get out of the cab, whatever you do," Blair informed him tightly. "Go straight home, and---" And is Chuck all right? Is he safe? Is he---
"Chuck's at the Empire," Nate said into the brittle silence of swallowed words. "He called me a few minutes ago."
What, are you clairvoyant now? Blair thought sourly, but she was saved from having to respond when Serena uttered a cry of frustration.
"Eric's phone is turned off. Either he turned it off, or the battery died, or---" A shudder wracked her slender frame as she appeared to consider possibility after dreadful possibility.
"Is that Serena?" Nate asked in Blair's ear. "Can I talk to her?"
But he never got the chance, because, at the exact moment that Blair handed the phone to Serena, Kati made a sharp right turn into a street swarming with more of the foul creatures that had crashed Gloria's party. As they gave chase to hapless pedestrians, the glare of the Aston Martin's headlights illuminated the sickly sheen on their rotting faces and the blood trickling down their mouths and the white spaces of their eerily blank eyes.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Kati switched into reverse and then U-turned so abruptly that the momentum jerked Blair and Serena out of their seats. Bags and cellular phones tumbled to the floor. The car roared down the street at breakneck speed, Kati driving like her life depended on it--- and it did. It truly, literally did.
Blair righted herself as they neared an intersection, just in time to see the large truck that seemingly appeared out of nowhere from their left side. "Kati, watch out!" she cried, but the other girl didn't even have time to swerve. It was too late, too late…
Even though the months that followed were saturated with worse kinds of relentless horror, Blair, as long as she lived, would never forget that crash. The grating squeal of tires and brakes. The severe, heart-stopping jolt that threw her body forward. And Kati's face--- a brief glimpse of Kati's face, pale as a sheet in the rearview mirror, before the front of the car was completely obliterated in the crunch of glass and the twist of metal and the collision's swift, white heat.
"Kati," Blair croaked into the momentary stillness that always ensues after a noise of deafening proportions, but her friend had vanished from sight, smashed between the two vehicles. A few stiff fingers poked out from the debris, the bright pink lacquer on the nails adding to the surreal quality of the scene.
"Oh, my God…"Blair started dry-heaving, drowning on air, because there was no way, there was absolutely no way that she was looking at bits of Kati's hand. Kati wasn't--- couldn't be dead, because just a few hours ago she'd been gushing about her new crocodile Hermes Birkin and her upcoming trip to the French Riviera, surrounded by smiles and sparkling flutes of champagne, and this was only a dream and Blair was going to wake up any second now---
"B," Serena mumbled, dazed but rallying. Her bare arms were streaked with blood from where errant pieces of the shattered windshield had sliced into her skin. "We have to run for it, B. They're coming."
Blair didn't move. Serena latched on to her shoulders and forcibly made eye contact. "Blair Cornelia Waldorf," she said, urgent and earnest, blinking back pent-up tears. "I need you. Please."
Her words spurred Blair into action, filling her with a certain cold clarity. They could mourn Kati later; right now, they needed to stay alive. They crawled out of the mangled Aston Martin, two girls in cocktail dresses and bare feet and disheveled hair. Blood dripped from a cut in Blair's forehead onto her lashes, and through the watery haze she saw a group of zombies lumbering in their direction. Zombies. That was what those things were, there was no denying the fact any longer, no matter how ludicrous it was in a non-Hollywood setting.
They're slow, Blair realized. We can outrun them. She glanced around to get her bearings, calculating the distance to the penthouse she shared with Nate and Serena. Not too far. Completely doable, in fact.
"Let's go," she told Serena, and they ran.
Dorota was waiting for them outside the hotel, which swarmed with people begging to be let in. Guards had been stationed at the doors.
"Dorota! Why--- aren't--- you--- inside?" Blair asked between deep gulps of air. Serena stopped behind them, gasping, hand over the stitch that had blossomed in her side.
"Miss Blair, Miss Serena, I heard on news. Beaumont mansion attacked. Was going to look for you," Dorota replied, her accent thicker than usual, as it always was in times of distress.
Blair was touched by her nanny's selfless loyalty, but she decided to focus on more important matters at hand. "And Nate---?"
Dorota shook her head. "Mister Nate not home yet."
Serena began to cry. Blair hugged her, even though a chill of dread had run down her own spine. "S, it's okay, it's okay. He probably got held up in traffic. He'll be safe. He's in a car. He'll be here any moment."
"We were in a car, too!" Serena burst out. "Look what happened to us! Oh, God, no not Nate---"
Before Blair could continue to soothe her, there was a commotion a few feet away as a woman fell to the ground, wracked by forceful spasms. Her companions gathered around, but not before Blair noticed the huge gash on her shoulder that looked like a bite wound.
A man knelt down over the convulsing woman. "Stella! Stella, what's---" His words were cut off by his own scream when the woman suddenly grabbed him towards her and sank her teeth into his throat. His blood spurted out in a vivid red arc that caught the light of the street lamps.
It was as if a switch had been turned on; several people started moaning and shaking and then lunging at the persons in their immediate vicinity. Cries of agony and alarm filled the air as the crowd realized what was happening. The guards hurried down the steps, guns at the ready.
Blair and Serena flinched as loud shots rang out, but Dorota stared transfixed at the woman--- Stella--- who was now viciously tearing the man apart.
"It's the zywy trup," she whispered, crossing herself. "God help us. Come, Miss Blair, Miss Serena!" She grabbed each girl by the arm and they were darting away, leaving the churning mass of the living dead and their victims behind.
The streets of New York were strewn with dead bodies and debris, lit by the small, flickering fires of car accidents. Zombies--- Dorota's zywy trup--- were everywhere, shambling along, feasting on human flesh.
Serena collapsed on the sidewalk, her bare feet torn to blood-spattered pieces by glass shards and rough cement.
"S--- we have to--- keep moving," Blair panted. "We need shoes--- a place to hide---"
"Weapons," said Dorota. Her round face was ragged and shiny with sweat, but her eyes were steel walls, hardened with resolve.
"Weapons," Blair agreed. Although she had never held a real gun in her entire life, she now foresaw a harsh, bleak future where she would have to fight in order to survive.
"I can't go on anymore," Serena murmured, voice dull and tired, blue eyes glassy with shocked hopelessness.
"No, you must, you have to." Blair leaned down, gently catching Serena's chin in her hands. "Remember--- back in the car--- you said you needed me. It works both ways. I can't do this without you, S. Come on."
She pulled Serena up. For now, there were no monsters in sight, so they walked, Dorota bringing up the rear as Blair and Serena leaned heavily against each other, dizzy with fatigue and loss of blood, shivering in the cold evening air. They had no idea where they were going, no idea where their friends and family were; they felt helpless, and terribly alone.
this is quick, but not quite painless
are you up for, are you up for this?