Author's note -

Hello! Thank you for coming to check out this story. It is kind of a crossover between Morganville Vampires and The Walking Dead. I say kind of because as far as I know, I'm not going to add characters from TWD into this (I may change my mind about this later, we'll see) but I'm using the show's aspect of zombies/walkers.

For the Morganville Vampires part of this story (the main characters and the town, etc.), I wouldn't say it's exactly based around any timeframe or certain book in the series. I mean, it has the same characters and vampires, but I'm creating my own drama mostly. Also, you may meet characters that died in one of the books but that isn't dead in this, or you might see me change a few things plotwise to be able to have a character still alive. We'll just have to see how this goes as I'm writing it as I go along, I don't have this planned out (although I have an idea of where I want the story to go).

Of course, I don't own Morganville Vampires or TWD, but I do however own the original characters in the story. For example, Mr Endcott, Rebekah and Riley whom you will meet in this chapter!

Anyway, I'll be quiet now and let you start reading if you still want to. Please don't forget to leave reviews!

Chapter one

Surviving

Claire Danvers sat in one of her classes, staring out of the window aimlessly and wondering what on Earth was taking this class so long to finish. She usually paid attention in class and listened attentively, but today she just had too much on her mind. The teacher had noticed her ignoring him but hadn't said anything yet, probably because Mr Endcott knew that chances were, she had already read ahead about this particular subject. Which she had.

Her thoughts drifted to one of the main problems she was trying to get through: Shane. Unfortunately, and she hated to admit this, Shane had become a problem to her. For the past three or four weeks, he had been acting secretive about things and numerous times he had left the house in the middle of the night despite the dangers of Morganville at night. She could feel herself slowly losing him to whatever he was hiding. Just this morning she had confronted him about it when he tried to sneak back into the house at 4am, only to find Claire sat on the steps waiting for him.

It was fair to say that the conversation hadn't gone well. He had said something along the lines of, "butt the hell out of my business and leave me alone. It has nothing to do with you and I'm not in the mood for you to start judging me over every little thing that I do, just fuck off Claire." Shane had never once swore at her, nor had he talked to her with such disrespect before, so that was a clear sign that something was going on with him and she was determined to find out what. She was angry that he would talk to her like that and wasn't going to forgive him anytime soon, but this was still Shane and she still wanted to help him in any she could.

And now she was angry at herself for becoming the type of girl to let her boyfriend distract her from her schoolwork. Sighing, she looked away from the window and forced herself to listen to Mr Endcott, but it was just a few minutes later that she got distracted again. In fact everybody got distracted, including the teacher.

A long, high pitched scream came from outside the classroom, followed by a lot more screaming and a lot of shouting. Along with her classmates, Claire jumped to her feet and slung her backpack over her shoulders just as a blonde girl - one whom Claire recognised as being friends with Monica Morrell - burst into the classroom, crying heavily. Claire noticed with a start that the girl was covered in blood.

"Rebekah?" Mr Endcott was the first to speak. "Rebekah, what's wrong? What's going on out there?"

"There's dead... Dead people... Everywhere... Oh god, they're killing everyone..." She sounded hysterical, her body shaking with fear and other emotions.

The classroom door was pushed open again after Rebekah had left it ajar and a man came in, walking slowly and capturing the attention of everybody in the room. His clothes were rags, dirty and covered in dark red blood, and his skin was a pallid grey colour, his eyes glazed over white. Just like Rebekah had said, the man looked dead. He moaned low in his throat before grabbing hold of Rebekah, bringing a scream from her mouth.

And then he... Bit into her neck. It wasn't a vampire bite like Claire had seen before, with fangs and a simple bite. No, this guy had normal teeth just like a human and instead of a simple bite, he literally ripped the flesh from her neck, tearing it open before going in for another bite. Eventually, Rebekah's screams cut off and her body became limp. As her body fell to the floor, the man did too; he continued to literally eat her body.

Disgusted, Claire gipped and turned around to throw up all over her seat. Wiping her mouth afterwards, she looked up in time to see a large group of people that looked just like the man swarm into the room. One had only half an arm, one had a knife stuck into its chest and one had an arm bent at an unnatural angle. But they kept on coming, seemingly oblivious to their injuries. Some of the group fell to the floor around Rebekah and joined the man in pulling out her guts (which made Claire want to retch again), whilst the others started grabbing Claire's classmates. They fought back and tried to get away, but there was simply nowhere to go. Claire watched one grab hold of Mr Endcott before she forced herself to stop being frozen in her spot and to move. She ran to the front of the classroom where there were only two of the monsters, both of whom were too busy over Mr Endcott's body to notice her.

Claire was terrified. She wanted to scream, to cry, to do anything but fight. But she knew that if she wanted to live she had no choice but to leave her classmates and try to escape from these monsters. She had only lived in Morganville for a year but she had already learnt the rules of survival and she was no stranger to fighting. Watching the monsters at work, she knew that she wouldn't stand a chance fighting them though so her only option was to run.

The only thing was, there was a large group of them near the door that had already grabbed a few students who had tried to escape.

"Claire! Over here!" She heard a shout. Looking in the direction of the shout, she saw that one of her classmates had been lucky enough not to be grabbed and had pushed the window open. He was now sat half-in half-out of the room, clearly ready to jump. Claire didn't know him well, just that his name was Riley Bright and he was a rival for her for the top of the class. He was Hispanic, with light brown skin, dark shaggy hair and hazel eyes, and had a tall, slim physique. "Come on!"

She ran over to him, shouting over all of the other shouting and the screams that seemed to be coming from all over the building. "What are you doing?!"

"What does it look like? I'm escaping! I do want to live, you know. And if you do too, follow me," he spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, clenching his jaw in frustration. He had blood on his white shirt, but Claire was pretty certain that it wasn't his own. And then, Riley jumped out of the window.

Claire quickly looked out and down, thankful to see that he hadn't just jumped a suicidal jump. Lucky for them, they were only on the second floor so it wasn't that far of a jump, but still... If she landed wrong, she could easily damage her feet. Should she actually jump out of a freaking window?

That was question was answered for her when she turned her head around to see a dead woman walking towards her, arms outstretched and ready to grab Claire as soon as she got close enough. Claire quickly climbed over the sill, took a deep breath and jumped from the window just as the woman got close enough to scratch her nails down Claire's backpack. She hit the ground roughly, falling to her bum, but breathed out in relief when she realized she hadn't seriously injured herself.

"Come on," Riley said as he helped her to her feet. "There's bound to be some outside of the building too, they had to have come from somewhere, right? We need to get away from here, it's too late for everyone else."

Breathing heavily from exertion as they ran across campus together, Claire quickly asked, "but where are we going to go?"

"I know somewhere, it's okay. Just trust me."

Riley was relatively a stranger to her and Claire had learnt the hard way not to trust strangers plenty of times. But what other option did she have? She didn't know how to kill these dead people, monsters, whatever they were. She doubted she'd be able to get back to the Glass House on her own - and that was only if the other three hadn't been attacked and would still be alive to greet her - and she couldn't think of anywhere else she could go that guaranteed safety.

So, at the end of what felt like the scariest day of her life, Claire found herself with no choice but to trust Riley Bright; she hoped this wouldn't be a decision she would come to regret.

Eve sat on the third to bottom step on the staircase and watched through her tears as Michael and Shane boarded up the front door. They had already boarded up the back door and all of the windows on the first floor of the house, working together quickly and efficiently.

Eve thought back to the events that had led up to this moment. Michael had been asleep in bed and avoiding the daylight, whilst Shane was on his video games and Eve was sat next to him reading one of her magazines. Then they had heard all the shouting. Her and Shane had gone out onto the street to find their neighbours rushing around and shouting things about monsters and dead people and corpses rising from their grave in the graveyard.

One of their neighbours had been running down the road and they stopped him to ask what was going on. Breathlessly, he had explained in a rush. "A bunch of corpses rose from the graveyard and are going around attacking people. Eating them! They're monsters! They attacked the university first, apparently it's an absolute nightmare over there. Some are wandering the streets, breaking down doors to get into houses and just grabbing people off the streets! Get into your houses, board everything up just in case!" He had ran away after that, presumably to go back to his own house and his family.

And they followed his instructions. They'd heard another person shout that the dead people couldn't break down doors, just that people were opening them for them after seeing dead loved ones, but they weren't up for taking any risks so they boarded everything up.

As Michael and Shane finished with the door, they both slouched to the floor, resting their backs against the door. Everything was silent in the house for at least a minute until Eve couldn't take it anymore. "I can't believe this!" She exclaimed. "How is this even possible? People rising from their graves? I mean, seriously... Zombies?!"

Michael sighed tiredly. "I guess if vampires exist, anything is possible. It's crazy, I know."

"Everybody was saying that the university was attacked first, that it was really bad," she said, her voice shaking as tears fell down her cheeks. "Do you think... Claire... Is she okay? Why are we just sat in here, hiding, when she might need our help? Are you not even thinking about Claire at all? Shane?"

"Of course I'm thinking about Claire!" Shane snapped at her. "She's my girlfriend, how could I not? But I'm not stupid, Eve. If this is real and the university really was attacked, there's only two options for Claire. Either she managed to get away and she's hiding out somewhere or making her way back here - which is highly possible considering she's one of the strongest people I know - or... Or she's dead," his voice nearly broke on that last word.

"So we're not going to try and look for her?"

"We can't," Michael answered. "We have to think about our own safety as well. Claire wouldn't want us to go on some suicide mission, she'd want us to stay safe. I know this is hard," his voice turned gentle, "but this is Morganville. If anybody is going to survive a war against a bunch of zombies, it's this town. We're all survivors here, fighters. And of course Shane and I are upset about Claire, but we also know when the right time to just hide is. And that's now. We'll get through this, Eve. Together."

"Right. Just without Claire," she scoffed. "I can't even remember the last words I said to her... What if we never see her again?"

"Will you just shut up, Eve?!" Shane jumped to his feet. "I don't want to listen to this anymore, we get it! Zombies are attacking the town. Claire's probably dead. Half of the town are probably dead. It's the end of the freaking world as we know it. Just shut up for once in your life!" He stormed past her and stomped up the stairs, going into his bedroom and slamming the door behind him loudly.

"Jerk," Eve spat out through her tears.

Michael stood up and moved to sit next to her, wrapping her in his arms and kissing the top of her head. "Everything's going to be okay."

"How can you say that? Clearly, everything is not going to be okay."

Michael chuckled darkly and humourlessly. "I know. But if we don't have hope that this isn't forever, then what chance do we have at surviving?"