A/N: this was written by request with the prompts "something creepy for Halloween" and in the Apocalypse Now! canon...so I guess I'm ficcing my own fiction. Reading the first story isn't necessary to understand this one since this helps to fill in some of the blanks of the original. All feedback welcomed. This story takes place before the beginning of the first chapter of AN!.
After eight weeks the team realized it would no longer be possible to go home. This was remarkably evident when the CDC and the military ordered the evacuation of the most dense population clusters in the cities, threatening to nuke Boston when the hope of halting the outbreak began to spiral around the garbage disposal.
Olivia refused to leave Boston without finding her sister and niece; Walter refused to leave the comforts of his lab or his cow. And Peter flat refused to leave without either of them, so he was more or less stuck. Astrid only stayed behind because, in all honestly, she had nowhere else to go, her family having long since retired to warmer climates and there was no means of transportation to get to them. So they all hunkered down in the only place Walter could work. Boston General became overrun with the undead within the first few days, so the armed forces, with the help of military-grade explosives, blew the building to bits in an air raid one night without warning. It didn't even put a dent in the zombie population and Boston burned for days afterward.
At first, there were stretches of hours when the sirens wailed warnings from a distance, signaling the impending nuclear blast of the would-be last resort by a government that wasn't prepared to deal with the outbreak of mutated shapeshifters, but after that, no help ever came. No bombs, no backup, no plans of rescue. The federal building where Olivia worked crumbled quickly and she never found Broyles or Charlie; the fear-fueled chaos and pandemonium trickled across the remaining residents, catching like wildfire, and looting became rampant and the rioting became so explosive that it was dangerous to leave the lab.
And then after a while, the sirens stopped. The riots died and Boston became a ghost town. Those who survived trickled to the outskirts and then disappeared altogether.
There were days when they didn't see another living body outside the lab. Peter, Astrid and Olivia piled the dead they found along the courtyard for so long that even the contamination showers couldn't rid them of the smell. There was no power, no cellular service, no one to help them, and no one they could help. They were utterly alone. They tracked the days in purple skies and fiery mornings when they were brave enough to search for food.
Then bodies started to emerge from the broken buildings that were once abandoned: from underneath burnt concrete and bloodied pools on the streets. Then they weren't alone anymore. The last ditch effort of the military had failed. It wasn't long after the rioting had ended that the remaining survivalists that had disappeared went from single people into the Resisters. Hunger and fear had driven them into more ruthless beings than the shapeshifters they feared. They had to be on high alert for both whenever they left the lab for supplies. Which incidentally, had to be today.
"He wants us to get what?" Olivia asked Peter after Walter had smashed the crumbled paper into his palm with a flash of secretive eyes.
"Don't ask. You don't wanna know." Peter replied cryptically, scanning through the list and crowding Olivia from reading over his shoulder. He tucked Walter's scrawled handwriting into an inside pocket of his jacket and away from Olivia's eyes and pointed north. Olivia caught the faintest smile on Astrid's lips and followed after Peter out of the lab.
"You don't think I need to know what it is we're risking our necks for?" Olivia said finally as they left the outer perimeter of Harvard's courtyard in the late afternoon, her gun out of the holster and on the ready. Peter's snicker was a stab at being disarming, but irritated her all the same. She was quick to anger lately, Peter noticed.
"Let's just say that when we evacuated our room at the hotel there wasn't time to pack many essentials." Peter said as he readjusted the strap to the pack, settling into a brisk walk down the destroyed street. He followed closely behind Olivia, looking for signs of danger, his face friendly but his eyes dark.
"Did Walter forget to pack his toothbrush?" Olivia snapped as they walked the long stretch of deserted sidewalk to the old hotel room that Peter shared with his father when they worked for Fringe. They hadn't returned since the first wave of rioting.
"You try wearing the same pair of underwear for weeks at a time, then we'll talk about what classifies as essential," Peter muttered as he grabbed Olivia's elbow when he picked up an unfamiliar noise in the distance. Olivia froze next to him, swinging the gun in the direction Peter was straining to hear. Olivia felt the heat from Peter's hand on her, the coil of his fingers wrapping around her arm and couldn't help but become distracted by the gentle contours of his knuckles. Luckily, there was nothing out of the ordinary that he could discern so Peter let go and continued on like nothing had happened. "I'm really doing this for the well-being of our group; eventually he's going to realize he won't need underwear at all."
Olivia didn't complain after that and was content to walk in silence, her arm burning where Peter's hand had been.
The walk trickled by uneventfully until Peter walked too closely by an expensive-looking Lexus when a shapeshifter lurched at him from inside the driver's side seat, and Peter nearly broke his neck launching himself out of the way.
"Holy hell," he gasped, fisting his shirt as he tried to breathe through the heart attack ravaging inside his chest. Olivia was beside him in an instant, training her gun on the muddled face of the man as it tried to slither out of the car's shattered driver's side window. Peter's reaction was just a smidge faster than Olivia's as he shot out a hand to stop her kneejerk reaction to blow the face off the zombie as it hissed at her, arms outstretched through the broken window.
"It's fine," he wheezed as he waited for her tension to loosen before he removed his hand from over hers. "It's not going anywhere. We're good." When Olivia finally dropped her gun he bent to grip his knees to continue breathing. On closer inspection, Olivia could see he was right: the shapeshifter was safely pinned inside the car, its seatbelt pressed firmly across the chest and into the bloodied material of the ridiculously impeccable tailored suit, the skin on the man's arms almost completely eaten away.
"They ate his arms?" Olivia said incredulously as she took a few steps closer, trying not to show the revulsion she felt. The dead man in the car continued to thrash as it reached for her, the whites of his bones weaving through the sinew and left over flaps of skin.
"Looks like they're saving some for later," Peter mustered. Olivia had a grayish twinge to her face as she stared at what was left of the man. Peter gave her a gentle nudge, signaling that it was time to move on.
"Losing daylight," he said as Olivia ignored him. "C'mon, he's not hurting anyone." Olivia finally gave Peter a pointed glare before turning her head to the shapshifter who continued to moan and thrash angrily against its restraints. Peter opened his mouth to say something when he felt her shift, but the blast cut him off as she fired a round into the car, splattering brains and skull against the inside of the windshield and the zombie slumped against the wheel. Peter jumped for the second time that day before he took a step back, disgusted.
"I'd do to the same to you," Olivia warned him darkly. The sound of the eruption forced them to run the rest of the way and Peter didn't doubt for a minute that she meant it.
It was nearing twilight when they made it through the threshold of Peter's old room and board, pressing through the shattered glass doors and into the main lobby.
Olivia didn't say anything as they swept the main floor for danger. Peter could sense her tension; felt the quiet anger brewing just below the surface of Olivia's face, but for the life of him couldn't understand the cause of her outburst. She was always tightly wound, but always held a tight lid on her emotions and whenever she slipped Peter always found it fascinating.
They're up the three flights of stairs with they tactical precision they've adapted: Led first by Olivia and the gun, followed by Peter with the flashlight and pack, watching her back as she looked ahead. The place had already been ransacked from the riots, furniture overthrown, white spaces on the walls where frames used to be. They both ignored the sections where blood was smeared in long ribbons along the walls but kept a wary eye in case they were fresh.
It took longer for them to walk the three flights than for Peter to pick the lock into his old room. Olivia watched; memorizing the way Peter's fingers worked the mechanics of the sophisticated lock as she held the flashlight for him.
"Why'd they even bother giving you a keycard before?" she said and Peter snickered. The door opened with a click and they were inside.
It was just as they had left it, the bed still unmade from when Walter had slept in it last, the air stale and musky.
"Jackpot," Peter whistled, trying at the light switch but he wasn't surprised when it didn't work. "Just give me a few minutes." Olivia stood by the door as lookout while Peter swept the room with the list that Walter had given him in hand. It took him a while to find everything: from Walter's favorite wooly socks to a cardigan that Peter swears never existed and finally the more "private" items Walter requested, which Olivia learned was a bong and a small baggie of dried-out weed.
"That's what we came for? Weed?" Olivia asked, her hands splayed impatiently on either hip as Peter inspected the contents of the bag, wrinkling his nose a bit in the process. Peter pocketed the bag just as soon as Olivia's frown set in.
"It's not good weed, if that makes a difference." Peter said. According to Olivia's unimpressed face, no, it in fact did not make a difference.
"Well," Peter started as he took a final sweep at the place he never really called home, "as much as it'll make Walter more tolerable to live with for the next few days, it actually isn't the only reason why we're out here." That caught Olivia's attention.
"We're only a few miles away from your apartment—" he started but Olivia was already waving him off, ready to leave.
"We could get there if we hurry and be back to the lab before it gets too dark," Peter chased after Olivia, placing a firm hand on her shoulder to still her. He didn't touch her often, and she took notice when he did. "There's gotta be something you want." He finished. Olivia looked everywhere except him, traced the flowery painting that hung above Walter's bed instead.
"Olivia," Peter prompted after the silence.
"I'm not interested in anything else there, Peter." Olivia said and Peter finally withdrew his hand, surprised she hadn't knocked it off by now.
"Nothing?"
"I don't want any reminders of what it was like before."
The confession wasn't what Peter was expecting. It made his stomach ache in a way that he disliked; Olivia was unlike any other woman he'd ever known and he was sure that she was the only woman who could kick his ass if he stepped too far out of line. Something about that was deeply attractive to him. But he could see the lingering traces of sadness just under the surface of her face so he changed tactics.
"On the rare occasions that I saw the inside of your apartment, I remember seeing some of those awkward teenage photos in your entryway," Peter began airily, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he started to leave. "It might be a laugh for Walter to have some of them around the lab to feel more…like a home and not a bunker."
He felt Olivia's smile on his back as she followed him out of the abandoned motel.
The night darkened faster than usual Peter noticed, the lavender stretching into every corner, the ground burning in silence under their feet. Out of fear of breaking the progress he'd made with Olivia, Peter didn't mention his apprehension; Olivia was afraid that if she said anything at all they'd be forced to turn back and she suddenly really needed a token to prove that Rachel and Ella still existed.
They made a few forced stops along the way: the first caused by a shapeshifter that wandered aimlessly between the streets a few blocks away from Olivia's apartment that they preferred to avoid; the next was a rather chaotic sprint to a more scenic route when they caught sight of a small group of shapeshifters tearing into an unfortunate person that lay dead in an alleyway.
It was nearing eight before they saw the familiar brickwork of Olivia's old apartment building. Instead of being excited, Olivia was met with a wave of apprehension as they approached.
"It's surreal isn't it?" Peter asked from out of nowhere, the pack he'd been hauling irritated his shoulder. When she didn't move he forged ahead of her, taking the steps and lingering on the landing to wait for her to catch up.
Something sinister was twisting in the pit of Olivia's stomach; a tangled mess that made her feel colder than it was outside. Peter's face was bright and excited and she knew this was his attempt at doing something nice for her. And she wanted to be excited, she did, but there was something that felt off kilter now that she was staring at the shattered windows of her old home. She swallowed it all down and followed.
The front door swung lifelessly off the hinges of the frame, deep gouges embedded the wood and it nearly fell off completely when Peter tried to push it open. They didn't look like fingernail scratches he thought solemnly.
"Think this is a bad omen?" He asked aloud as he rifled through his bag for the flashlights, handing one to Olivia before clicking his to life. The hallway's darkness was broken by two thin strips of light, unearthing the entrance an inch at a time as they entered.
"Remember how this wasn't my idea?" Olivia fired back, her gun outstretched as she entered, taking aim at every creak in the floorboards, every heavy sigh of the building settling. The inside hallway was covered in the same deep grooves as the security door, embedded on the walls and floors like a giant record. Olivia put her fingers in a row of grooves to find they fit perfectly. Peter's light settled on a blotch of wetness that was splattered against the walls and he paused.
"Is that blood fresh?" Peter asked as he kneeled down to get a better look at the where the moisture had pooled onto the floor. Olivia didn't need a closer look, she could smell it. The metallic odor was thick in the air.
"Yup," she said without looking and moved past Peter to head to the door to her old apartment. She pushed along the wood, feeling the rough timber under her fingers until she found the knob. The door swung open with a long, drowning creak and the dread was enough to make her shiver. She pointed her gun into the darkness; Peter's light shining over her shoulder so she could make out little slivers of the apartment.
Her place never really felt particularly homey when she was living there. Dust danced between the beams of light as they pushed their way past the threshold. It felt different but perfectly intact as she left it; a bowl of fruit forgotten and fully decayed on the counter was the only token that time had passed at all.
"Do you smell that?" Peter whispered from behind her, smothering his nose with his hand. "What is that?" Peter's beam darted around the room as they separated, Olivia's eyes starting to adjust to the darkness and the familiarity of the room as she went toward the bedroom while Peter went into the kitchen to inspect the fruit. The smell was thick, suffocating like rotting skin and burnt hair.
Olivia smelled it too, but dismissed it as soon as she made out the small desk that led to her bedroom. Peter clunked after her to pick up one of the frames she ignored to inspect under the light. The picture was of Olivia standing alone with a cap and gown and looking away from the camera, a smile playing against the youth of her face and she obviously hadn't know that her picture was being taken.
"Is this high school, Olivia Dunham?" Peter asked in utter amusement, He looked up to find Olivia rooting through the darkness inside her bedroom.
"What?" Olivia said and poked her head out from behind the doorway.
Peter shined the light over the photo and back to Olivia's face in time to catch her annoyed grimace.
"A gift from my sister," Olivia said as she disappeared behind the doorway again to continue rooting through pictures. "Thought she was so clever. And you're right, I was eighteen in that picture."
Peter smiled as he tried to imagine the same strong-willed Olivia Dunham as a teenager. He couldn't. He pocketed the frame into his bag while she was distracted and caught up with her.
"I think Rachel has a real calling, this is the first time I think I've ever seen you in a photo where you don't look like you're about to shoot something," Peter commented, swinging the flashlight around the rest of the corners of the living room. Olivia gave him another nasty glare he couldn't see and continued through a box of mementoes that she hadn't bothered to unpack. Peter noticed the smell worsened as he approached the bedroom so he swung the light around the living room trying to place where it was coming from.
"I was about to be shipped off to the military, what's not to be excited about?" Olivia's voice was gruff, pulling out another frame from the box to look at under the light before tossing it aside. When Peter didn't see anything useful he leaned against the doorframe and watched. Something in the bedroom moved in the corner, a shadow that shouldn't have been there.
He flicked his wrist to trail the light into the room.
Over Olivia's shoulder the shadow moved, and Peter saw the face before Olivia did, and had it been anyone else Peter wouldn't have hesitated. As it was, as soon as the profile moved into the beam from the flashlight Peter became rooted, horrified and disgusted as he recognized what Olivia had yet to see. It wasn't until the whites of teeth flashed and it moved toward Olivia's back as she stared at him expectantly that Peter was finally forced to act, dropping the flashlight and launching himself into the darkness before the shapeshifter's teeth clamped down on Olivia's throat.
He didn't have the vaguest idea about what the plan was, fueled by the quick glimpse of rotted face and withered skin, its mouth and shirt drenched in blood so he tackled them both, catching Olivia off guard as he slammed into her and the three of them tumbled hard onto the floor and Olivia's flashlight was knocked to slide across the floor. He felt the quick jerk of Olivia's knee to his gut and it was enough to knock all the oxygen out of his lungs and bursts of lights to flash where he was blinded by darkness before.
"Hell," Olivia managed, but she attempted to manage more as the overwhelming weight of Peter's body crushed hers, pinning her to the ground as he thrashed above her. It took a solid three seconds of struggling: her struggling against Peter, Peter struggling against god knows what for her to realize that he wasn't fighting her. She felt the jolt of cold fingers against her face and the angry snarl of a voice above them and she was instantly flooded with adrenaline as she stopped fighting against Peter's weight and focused on the shapeshifter who was trying to get through him to her.
It took an enormous effort on Peter's part to not throw up as he fought against the tangled mess that was comprised of cold and warm limbs, scratching fingers and angry snaps that were too close to his ear. He could feel Olivia's huffs of breath against his neck as she twisted from under his legs and searched for the gun that had fallen from her grasp when Peter had tackled her.
"Olivia wait," Peter grunted as Olivia scrambled and felt the angry snap of teeth and subsequent snarl when he twisted his head out of the way. Olivia ignored his caution, but shifted her weight to land a hard kick to the shapeshifter's head, throwing it backward for a moment and took her chance.
She found the flashlight first, the yellowed end poking out from under the dresser like a snake and she dove around the shapeshifter to grab for it. She heard Peter shout something as she spun the light around, skimming past the shapeshifter to catch the glint of the butt of her gun a few feet away. She raced to it, the smack of the shapeshifter's feet only a few seconds behind her.
"Olivia, don't!" Peter shouted again, lifting himself up on shaky legs to try to find her in the dark. With the wind knocked out of him he was slow, Olivia's gun already raised pointed and he barely had time to launch himself into the shapeshifter that was shuffling toward her, feeling the crunch of broken bone under him as he took it down before it reached Olivia. It growled as it worked to get its arms under it and Peter had to clamor over its back to where Olivia was standing. He barely knocked Olivia's gun off course in a pop of bright light and a deafening sound, accidently tossing Olivia against the dresser, trying to smother her into a bear hug as the light flew overhead. He couldn't stop the discharge from catching the shapeshifter in the chest, throwing it backward to land on the bed with a crunch, squealing as it struggled to get back up.
"Are you crazy?" Olivia hissed into Peter's face as she tried to shove him, elbowing him hard in the ribs and he grunted but didn't budge. "Olivia, wait…it's-" Olivia leaned back and got her foot between them and one solid push to Peter's abdomen and she was free, propelling Peter backward to land in the darkness with a thunk and a curse. Her back was sore and probably bruised, but it didn't diminish the wild fury to destroy the thing that violated the home that was supposed to be hers.
She twisted the flashlight onto the bed with her gun drawn. The exact moment that the blade of light shined on the face of the wounded shapeshifter did she finally hear Peter's strained voice booming through the darkness.
"Olivia, it's Rachel!"
For a solid, hot second she just stared in disbelief. Unable to do anything. Felt every thud of her pulse in her ears, white-hot and boiling. At the end of the light lay the face of her sister, or what was left of her sister: dead, flat eyes, haggard skin that sloped in ways it shouldn't have; her clothes covered in fresh blood from the bullet wound in her chest. She wildly tried to think if she remembered the clothing, thinking back to the last time she saw her sister. There was another wash of horror when she realized she couldn't recall.
"Rach?"
Olivia was tentative, her voice crumbling and the light jumped in her trembling hands. At hearing her name, the shapeshifter shifted her head, jaw gaping open like she couldn't close it and looked at Olivia. There was a flash of something, recognition, Olivia thought and lowered her gun. That split second is when Rachel exploded.
Peter had watched from the floor, his head spinning and ribs aching as Olivia came to the realization that the zombie they were fighting wasn't just another shapeshifter. He was afraid to breathe, holding his breath and feeling helpless and devastated. He didn't dare move a muscle as he waited for Olivia to react; and no sooner had she dropped her gun did Rachel spring from the bed, an angry, snarl grinding behind withered lips and he shouted for Olivia and reached out blindly to catch one of Rachel's legs, clawing into the denim to bring her down with a sickening thud. He was thankful he couldn't properly make her out, the sound of bones breaking twisted his stomach but there wasn't time to dwell as Rachel continued to fight to get out of his grasp.
Olivia just stood there, the gun dropped uselessly next to her hip, she couldn't breathe a word when Peter tackled her sister for the second time. She didn't move when he struggled out of her flaying grasp to get up and run, didn't respond when he shouted in her face and gripped her shoulders to shake when she didn't do anything. All she could hear was the pounding. She let Peter drag her out of the room, saw the body that was once her sister lift itself up slowly on broken arms and legs before disappearing behind the door that Peter slammed shut as he dragged Olivia into the living room.
"Listen to me," Peter shouted, hands enveloping either side of her face. "Listen!" he snarled when Olivia didn't respond. In that moment his voice broke through the pounding and it was like she could hear again. Even in the dark, she could tell Peter's face was furious, his cheeks flushed and the line in his forehead a deep black in shadow.
"You cannot check out now, you hear me?"
Olivia jumped when the pounding started on the other side of the door. Her eyes swiveled to look but Peter shook her again and she focused.
"There is nothing you can do for her, Olivia. We need to leave. Now."
She had seen a small handful of times Peter's temper, but never had it been directed at her. She wanted to throw him off, to shred him apart, but the shock was so heavy and she didn't feel like fighting it. It wasn't his sister in that room. Wasn't his sister that was dead. Poor Ella…
"Ella-" she said, as every sound eruption in stereo in her ears. Peter's eyes widened and Olivia finally reached to pull his hands away. "Ella, Peter. Oh god…" she didn't finish the thought as she shoved him away to speed through the apartment.
"Ella!"
"Olivia, stop." Peter pleaded, trying unsuccessfully to silence her frantic voice. The whole night was coming alive outside the windows of the apartment, and Peter chased after Olivia as he tried to keep her alerted to anything that hadn't already heard them.
"She could be here!" Olivia continued as she threw open the closet door, tearing through the shelves and tossing aside the contents. "Ella!" The pounding continued on the other side of the closed bedroom door, the snarling escaping through the cracks. Peter felt enraged by regret that he'd convinced her to come here. When Olivia opened the refrigerator door, Peter had had enough though.
"She's not here," he said as evenly as he could through the chaos of Olivia's anguish. He grabbed Olivia's shoulders again, forcing her to listen, holding tight as she instantly tried to throw him off. "She's not. That's not your sister in there, not anymore. We have to go, or we're not going to make it back to the lab. Do you understand?"
Olivia's face crumbled as she realized Peter was right. She didn't cry though, and Peter was chilled to the bone when he watched her face turn hard; jaw tightening into rock and he finally let her go.
"I can't leave her." She finally said, voice flat but defiant.
There was another long, strangled cry from the other side of the door, but he didn't dare look away from Olivia's face, unsure what she was going to do. His back tightened when she lifted her gun to slide back on the clip. The click it made echoed and Peter's mouth went dry. He knew without asking what she intended to do. He knew her well enough to know she didn't mean bringing her back to the lab. He thought about Rachel on the other side of the door and felt like he might be sick.
"Are you sure?" he asked softly, blocking her path to the door. Olivia's eyes were glazed in the dark; but leveled and determined.
"I'd do it for you." She said. Only on the last word did her voice crack. She took a step before Peter grabbed her wrist as gently as he could to stop her. Peter's face was the mask of understanding, his hands too big around her wrist as he looked at her like he was trying to read her mind. She stared at the door and away from his judgment. The sounds behind the door weren't human. They didn't sound like her sister. It wasn't her sister anymore.
Wordlessly, he held out his hand for the gun. She was shocked that he would offer this, and for a moment it felt like a betrayal to her sister. But she was also deeply relieved, broken inward and in the same silence, handed him her gun. He walked away to leave her standing in the darkness, his heavy boots padding lightly across the wood floor and she followed each step with a held breath. She knew it was the right thing to do, but it felt like the last piece of her past being severed and that this was really happening.
She closed her eyes and tried to think of that day from graduation, of Rachel's red overalls that she loved so much and how annoyed Olivia was when she followed her around that day with that old Canon. That damn camera. Didn't she know that she hated her picture being taken?
The bang of the round echoed through the empty apartment, and even though she was expecting it, it still made her jump. There weren't any more sounds from behind the door and the absence made her swallow her revulsion back. She heard the rustling of his bag opening, and then the sound of the door opening, the creaking of floorboards. There was a squeal somewhere out in the night and her skin crawled. She was never coming back to this place.
Peter didn't say anything when he joined her in the kitchen again, surrendering her gun without comment or explanation and she took it without thanks, holstering it and trying to ignore the smell of residual gunpowder that lingered in its wake. Peter stayed an extra moment, just in case she wanted to check for herself. Olivia didn't want to see. So she walked on without him.
"Losing daylight," she muttered as she left her apartment behind. Peter walked behind her lead, his bag tightly secured across his back again, made a little heavier by the handful of picture frames he'd rescued from the inside of her bedroom.