Z

This is my first Fanfic, I put it in the Dawn folder because it's the most populous, it should be said however that a lot of this idea came from Max Brooks' "World War Z", and of course Romero's masterpieces. Comments welcome, I'm still debating on the fast/slow thing since in here (lacking any reference to WHICH Dawn we're talking) I can still choose, so if you've any preference now's the time because once Chapter 1's out it'll be too late :) apologies on it's length and lack of action, but hey...one needs to set things up.

Prologue

Darryl Burrows anxiously checked his watch and instinctively glanced at the clock on the wall to correspond. "You know," a voice muttered from his left, "that's the seventh time you've done that in the last 45 minutes". Darryl took a drag from his cigarette and closed his eyes for a second, "do you have any idea how rare a corneal isoplastic graft is? Fate must have a special place in her heart for this chick." Beth Chatwood glanced at her colleague and raised her eyebrow, "yeah," she chuckled, "and her sister must have really pissed off Atropos."

Darryl put out his cigarette, twisting the butt into the white sand in the receptacle; he loved being a doctor, the money, the status, hell, even the whole helping people thing didn't hurt, but he hated uncertain waits. "So how the hell did this woman die anyway?" Beth asked walking briskly past the triage station, following Darryl; truth was she hated the guy, his perpetual womanizing, complete lack of care as to his patients, and the fact that she was pretty certain he used quite a few stimulants to help with staying awake during long procedures, but she had to admit he was a brilliant surgeon and most people would kill their own mothers to pick up a Fellowship under him. "Car accident," Darryl said, glancing at a passing nurse and smiling, his eyes lingered for a moment at her passing frame before he continued, "somehow managed to swing her car into oncoming traffic and some Mack truck slammed into her side." Frankly, it didn't really matter to Darryl how the woman had died, only that her corneas had remained intact and (so he was told) were on their way to him right now. The patient, Mary...somethingorother was in the OR now and if this damned Ambulance would arrive he could start.

Almost on cue the familiar Wailing sound of an approaching bus came drifting through from the doorway. The two turned and sped purposefully through the complex corridors of the Toronto General Hospital, approaching the OR and began to prep for surgery. The procedure was one that Darryl had extensive experience in; he had spent years specializing in ophthalmology and had the bank account to show for it. The actual surgery went exceedingly smoothly, since the donor was the patient's twin there was virtually no risk of rejection. It took only an hour, there was a small amount of bleeding initially but it stopped quite readily, the patient was moved to another room and the pair washed up.

Beth was famished and made a quick beeline for the cafeteria, ordering a ham sandwich and a coffee. "How the fuck do they always manage to make the ham look like melting ice cream" she muttered under her breath, taking a large bite and trying to swallow without allowing it to touch her taste buds, quickly washing it down with her drink. Feeling a little better she walked to the lounge and grabbed a newspaper, but could find nothing of interest to read. She considered going home to get some sleep but decided to have a cigarette out back first, she was pretty tired and the patient seemed perfectly fine. As she lit the end of her cigarette she noticed the ambulance that had gone to pick up the corneas she had just transplanted, the paramedic waved at her. As he strode over to where she was she recognized that she'd talked with him before she struggled to remember his name, Marty, right, he read philosophy and they'd talked a few times about some of their favourite works.

"Hey Beth," Marty breathed, "you and Burrows did that transplant we just brought in didn't you?" "Yeah, great timing for her actually, went smoothly as you could expect." Marty nodded, "you're lucky they'd been any good, the truck had ripped the top of the window frame in, that's what killed her I think, if it had been a few inches over it'd have ripped right through the eye." Beth nodded thinking back to Darryl's comment on fate; she caught herself chuckling a little, Marty looked at her a little strangely but continued on. "She helped a lot of people though, two organs going to the States, and one more in Holland." Beth smiled and started to comment on some tangential thought on Synchronicity she had when he cell went off. She picked up and mechanically said "Dr. Chatwood", the voice on the other end was the nurse working the floor the patient was on, the nurse quickly stated that the patient's blood pressure had dropped and she had woken up complaining of aching joints. Beth responded that she was on her way, she nodded goodbye to Marty and jogged through the doorway. Why the hell would the patient have joint pain? That had nothing to do with the surgery, the anaesthesiologist was a good doctor, and she couldn't think of any anaesthetics that caused joint pain.

She got to the room and found the patient looking extremely pale, this was all wrong; these corneas were from her twin bloody sister, what could cause such paleness? She touched the woman's forehead, and fever? Looking up she noticed Burrows come walking into the room, he looked at the patient and paused for a moment with a slight look of confusion on his face, "What the hell happened to her?" he blurted out. "You tell me" Beth retorted, feeling a little defensive at his tone, the patient seemed to have slipped from somewhat pained delirium into unconsciousness again. "Jesus Beth, I think she's..." suddenly the EKG let off a long drawn-out tone and showed a flat line. "Shit!" Beth exclaimed running for the bed, the nurse, hearing the alarm came running to the room; Darryl turned to the patient, "Vasopressin, now." He moved to the patient and opened her airways, Beth was already performing chest compressions and he injected the drug into the patient. After a hectic few minutes, and a number of attempts at defibrillation the small team gave up.

Darryl was utterly mystified as to what had gone wrong, he was already thinking how he couldn't wait for the autopsy report to come back and replacing the equipment when he heard a rustling sound behind him, at the same moment he heard the clatter of a metal tray and a scream from the nurse. Turning around he felt a cold, electric jolt slide up his spine and a small squeak emitted from his throat...his patient was sitting up.