Saturday Shakedown

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(a zombie memoir, or how Damon Salvatore discovered that he is, in fact, the worlds greatest zombie slayer ever.)

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—

The world ends on a Saturday.

Which is entirely not fair in the context of things. Perhaps it's God's big fuck you, Damon, get off your lazy ass, turn of those cartoons, and get a job. But no God, he will not get off his lazy ass, because hello, somebody has to watch Bugs Bunny pull a fast one on Elmer Fudd. And besides, he's a high school senior and what self-respecting high school senior wants to skip over Saturday morning cartoons to get a job? Plus, he's not even religious so God can suck a fat one and leave him alone.

But anyway.

The world.

It gets fucked on a Saturday in September (on the upside it's a weekend, but that's really the only upside. But forgive him for wanting to cherish the little things. It's like nobody has seen Zombieland.), but the day starts out relatively normal. He gets up, pours himself some Lucky Charms, and plops his ass down onto the couch in front of his flat-screen.

Bugs Bunny in Drag is in the middle of a date with Elmer Fudd when he hears it.

It's loud, a banging, and he figures it's his little brother Stefan snoring like a furious dragon and kicking his feet against the wall or something, so he ignores it and laughs at Elmer Fudd. He goes back to his cereal and the TV, ignoring his brother and his peculiar sleeping habits. Only when the banging continues does he think that, hey, maybe it's not his brother. He sloppily slurps the milk from his cereal bowl and dumps it into the sink before following the source of the noise. It's not leading upstairs, which means it couldn't be his brother. As he walks by the steps, he hears his brother's snoring, and it's nothing like the banging he's hearing. He passes the TV and turns it off, and the noise gets louder.

Damon runs his tongue over his teeth, approaching the front window. The curtains sway and shake, and the banging grows louder, as if somebody is knocking on the window. And, well, knocking isn't the right word. It's like somebody is trying to shove themselves through the window via their head. (Which should have been the first sign that something was seriously wrong.) He grips the edge of the curtain before whipping it aside.

His mouth falls open, and he takes a step back in shock. The mailman, Jim, is banging his head against the window. "What the hell are you doing, man?" he cries, banging his fist on the window, "If you break this window, so help me God—" Jim growls, banging his head harder against the glass. On impact, his skin splits and blood drips down the window. Damon jumps back, a sharp curse escaping his lips. Jim keeps fighting against the window, teeth snapping. His teeth are sharp and his gums are filled with...chunks of something. He prays it's hamburger meat clinging to his incisors, but he knows it's not. Fighting down a bout of nausea, he steps forward and looks over Jim's shoulder.

His street is on fire. Flames lick at the base of the house across from his, and a women runs out, arms waving in terror. Her husband—no, it couldn't be her husband, because the thing is trying to eat her—chases after her, jaws snapping, skin a dull grey.

It clicks when her husband catches up to her and tackles her to the ground, teeth digging into her skin. She screams and screams, but the others on the street are too busy battling their own attackers to notice. "Are you fucking kidding me?" he cries, mostly in agitation that no, he's not going to be able to finish his Saturday morning cartoons. "Damn it all." he mutters, pulling down the collar of his shirt, scratching at his neck.

Zombie Jim bares his teeth at the sudden expanse of flesh he's revealing, "Keep dreaming, Jimmy." he growls, "You're not getting a piece of this. And I'm so not tipping you." he makes a disgusted face as Jim smears blood all across the window. He flicks the curtains closed, turns, and calmly moves towards the stairs to wake up his brother.

The thing is, he's not scared. Not really. He's been preparing for this day since he'd stolen a copy of Night of the Living Dead from the movie store when he was eleven. His closet is stocked full of aluminum baseball bats, a copy of the Zombie Survival Guide, and an array of things needed for this type of venture. He kicks the door to Stefan's room open, ignoring the screams and the banging from downstairs. Stefan's head is stuffed under a pillow, and Damon whips the curtains open, letting the faint sunlight fall onto his brother.

"Go 'way," Stefan mumbles.

Damon smirks, "Not a chance, baby brother. We've to get a move on."

Stefan's head pokes out from under his pillow, hair mussed, "Where are we going?" he grumbles, eyes bleary.

"Remember when we were discussing possible endings of the world and you thought it would be the national power grid shutting down?" Damon asks, thumbing through Stefan's dresser. He tosses a pair of jeans and a t-shirt at his brother before going back to the window, peering down at the street below.

Stefan's eyebrows shoot up, "...Yeah?"

"Turns out I was right and you were wrong," he says gleefully, perhaps too gleefully for the given situation. Jim, it seems, has given up on getting into their house, and Damon watches him chase an elderly woman down the street, smiling widely. He turns back to his brother, shit-eating grin plastered across his face, "Come on, dude, we've got zombies to kill and places to be."

—

Elena Gilbert has always prided herself on being level-headed, but it's kind of hard when your neighbor is trying to eat you.

She scrambles away from her elderly-neighbor-gone-bad, whacks at him with the newspaper she's holding, and runs for her front door. She clutches her bathrobe tighter to her, jiggles the doorknob, and realizes Jeremy hasn't fixed the door—hadn't she told him to do that yesterday? Now she was going to die and it was going to be all his fault!—a second too late. "Crap!" she cries, flinging her arms up as the zombie (seriously, she can't even believe she's thinking the word 'zombie'. This isn't a George Romaro movie.) advances on her, teeth snapping, grey skin looming closer. She closes her eyes, lifting the collar of her bathrobe over her face.

The bite she's waiting for never comes, and when she looks up, she meets the eyes of her neighbor, Mr. Mikaelson. He stands over the zombie, brandishing a fire-poker. The zombie groans, face pressed into the ground. Mr. Mikaelson looks roughly the same as always, suit polished and prim, hair gelled to perfection. The only thing out of the ordinary is the light spatter of blood drops dotting his face. "Mr. Mikaelson?" Elena gasps. He smiles, and fuck her if it's not the prettiest smile she's ever seen.

"Call me Elijah, dear." he says pleasantly, examining her bunny slippers and fuzzy pink bathrobe with interest. The body of the zombie lying on the ground between them lets out a sharp gurgle, and without breaking a sweat or wincing, Mr. Mikael—Elijah brings his fire-poker down, shoving the sharp end through the zombie's eye. The zombie's blood coats his shoes, but he doesn't seem too bothered by that. He casts a calm glance down the street, sees a few more zombies coming their way, and gestures to her door, "Shall we, Ms. Gilbert?"

Elena's mouth falls open, "Um, the—the door." she stutters, and without a word, Elijah steps over his zombie kill, whips his poker out of the zombie's eye, and with a sharp shove, Elijah gets her door open and ushers her inside.

"Do you have any tea? I'm a bit parched." he asks, shutting the door behind them both.

—

Matt's declaration of, "Zombies, dude, fucking zombies." has Jeremy raising an eyebrow as the blonde crashes through the Grille's door. He falls to his knees, palms braced on the floor, gasping for breath. Jeremy stares down at his blonde head, shakes his own, and goes back to cleaning glasses. Matt gasps something unintelligible, and Jeremy rolls his eyes.

He finishes drying off the glass he's holding, and asks, "Did you and Tyler have a twenty four hour Black Ops marathon again?"

Matt looks up, gasps, says, "No, dude. Fucking zombies. Real ones. My neighbor—she fucking...holy shit." he jumps up, crossing the empty Grille, grasping Jeremy by the shoulders. He shakes him lightly, "She tried to eat me, man."

"Is this another one of your stupid I'm-too-good-looking-for-anyone's-good jokes? Because those are seriously—"

The Grille's doors crash open once again and Matt yelps, diving behind the counter. Jeremy rolls his eyes for the fiftieth time since Matt had shown up, picks up his pad and pen, and goes to serve his first customer of the day. The woman staggers towards him, hands stretched out. "Would you like to hear our specials—holy fucking shit!"

Her eyes are pitch black, veins around her eyes bulging, teeth snapping. She reaches out towards him, and he freezes, and he thinks, hey, maybe Matt's not so crazy after all. Before he can run, the zombie stops moving, and blood spatters across Jeremy's face.

("Ew." Matt chimes in, popping up from behind the counter.)

The zombie falls to the ground, and Jeremy wipes the blood from his face with his apron, hands shaking. Tyler Lockwood comes forward, kicks the zombie out of the way, and wipes his bloody bat on Jeremy's employee shirt. "Zombies, man." Tyler says, swinging his bat onto his shoulder, completely serene, "Fucking zombies."

—

Caroline Forbes blinks in rapid succession, tilting her head to the side, "I don't know, Bon, it's kind of artistic." she says, hand that's not holding her bloody ax falling to her hip.

Bonnie gives her a sidelong glance, "Um, excuse me, did I wake up in the Twilight Zone? How is a set of pre-shoolers eating their teacher artistic?"

Caroline gives Bonnie her biggest smile, "They're fighting the system, man." she says, hefting her ax onto her shoulder. She marches forward, dispatching the pre-schoolers and their teacher with a few precise swings. She jumps back up after wiping the blood off of her bare calves, smooths down her cheer skirt, and turns to her friend, smile bright and obnoxious. Caroline's always been a morning person, but Bonnie thinks this is a little ridiculous. She'd just killed a gaggle of six year olds, for God's sake.

"You're scary good that this," Bonnie says, examining the bodies, trying not to let her disgust show. "I'm impressed." and she is, she's cool with it as long as she doesn't have to heft around an ax and bash little girls faces in. She glances up at Caroline, who grins back. The blonde turns to survey the park.

"We should get out of here." Caroline says, "Hole up somewhere safe until the military shows up."

"If the—"

Caroline whips around, slapping a hand over Bonnie's mouth, "Nuh-uh, what did I say about being a Negative Nancy?" she asks as a biker rides past them, three zombies in tow. The biker crashes to the ground, and the blonde doesn't blink as he starts screaming, zombies tearing into his flesh, ripping open his stomach and slurping up his organs like it's her mom's Sunday night spaghetti. She lifts an eyebrow, waiting for her best friend's answer.

Bonnie mumbles something that sounds like, "Tofu." and Caroline drops her hand.

"Can you repeat that?" she asks.

"To not to." Bonnie sighs.

Caroline smiles, chipper as ever, and grabs her hand, "Come on! Let's go to the Salvatores. Damon told me they've got a bomb shelter for a basement. We can stay there until this blows over."

Bonnie raises an eyebrow, glares at the zombies munching on the biker as they pass, and says, "You mean, let's-go-there-so-Damon-and-I-can-have-loud-zoo-animal-sex while Stefan and I cower in the basement?"

Caroline beams at her, "Technicalities." she singsongs, letting Bonnie's hand go and swinging her axe into a zombie-fied soccer mom's face, all the while smiling like a kindergartner on Christmas.

—

tbc

notes: yeah so this is for sure not as serious as cdiw, and i wanted it to be that way because i have a zombie fetish and i needed more daroline zombie love in my life but i can't update cdiw because i have NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT IN THAT STORY UGH I'M STUCK. and i also wrote this because the influx of delena fics coming in after last thursday's ep is pissing me off asdfghjkl. anyway, i hope you enoy this snarky rendition of vampire diaries meets zombieland.

even moooore notes: this fic focuses on damon/caroline, elena/elijah, jeremy/tyler/matt brotp, with stefan/rebekah, kol/bonnie aside.

love me xox