A/N: please note that this fic contains graphic depictions of violence.
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. . .
Turns out that the ass-end of nowhere, Wyoming, is exactly where you want to be come the zombie apocalypse.
Vic's thinking about that as she stands in the bed of her truck, under the bright sun of late spring, covering Cady who's twenty feet down the road. There's been a lot of time lately to ponder the series of choices that brought her here, to Durant. Laid out like a map in her mind, she traces the paths not taken from each of those crossroads to see where they lead. If she'd moved to Australia with Sean. If they'd taken the transfer to Texas instead of Wyoming. If she'd turned a blind eye to Bobby's corruption. If she'd never been twenty-four and stupid enough to fuck Ed Gorski in the first place.
All those lives she isn't living stretch out to the horizon like the flat stretch of highway under her tires, as if the future itself is a sphere. In most if not all of them, she's probably already dead. Or close enough to it as to make no difference, like half the population and counting. Like her family back in Philly. Like almost everyone she ever knew.
Yet here Vic is on this pretty day in Absaroka County, with a light breeze fluttering the ends of her hair and some fluffy white clouds skidding above her across a sky of hopeful blue. Maybe none of it would mean much to the poor son of a bitch about to get shot in the head, she reflects philosophically, but it's not like he'll have time to think about it one way or the other.
. . .
A statement released today by the CDC confirms that a recent outbreak of the homopathogenic fungus P. coccophagus has been contained, though it warns that isolated cases may continue to arise. The federal government has been urged to raise public awareness of the deadly infection, which attacks the frontal lobe of the brain as well as nerves in the spinal cord. Inhalation or ingestion of spores is the primary route of transmission, with mucous membrane contact a simultaneous or secondary route. The average incubation period of P. coccophagus is 4-6 days, although rare cases of asymptomatic infection lasting up to 14 days have been recorded. Initial symptoms may include mild irritability and headache, combined with decreases in concentration and impulse control. Anyone who believes they have been exposed to P. coccophagus should report to a medical facility for testing as a matter of urgency. The use of personal protective equipment, particularly masks, in public spaces is encouraged until the pathogen is completely eradicated.
. . .
Depending on who you asked, it was terrorists, the Chinese, the Russians, Muslims, Jews, the government, aliens, or the liberal elite who were to blame. Then there were all the religious nutjobs taking perverse delight in watching the Lord's divine retribution rain down upon the sinners. Of course, their delight only lasted until the clouds of that same retribution started to rain on them as well.
Headlines everywhere screamed Zombies! no matter how many statements the CDC and the White House put out about parasitic fungal infections and host organism syndrome. It had become almost, but not quite, a joke, Vic thought. They were somewhere in the middle of the third week of the outbreak — before anyone official had used the word pandemic — and with the nervous laughter of a bad liar, the nation continued to pretend that everything was fine.
In a way it was disappointing to discover that all those disaster movies with their big explosions, inspiring heroism, and sweeping soundtracks had been wrong. Everything didn't fall apart at once. People mostly kept on living their lives. TV and radio stations still broadcasted; the internet buzzed with truth and fiction; trash still got collected. There was still electricity and running water and credit card bills and mortgage payments and dentist appointments. Crime still kept her and Ferg and Walt in plenty of business.
The threads that bound society together only frayed a little at a time. The news reports got bleaker, the infection kept on spreading, and the boogeyman slithered out from under the bed to show how very real he was. Everyone sat and waited for the hero of the story to be revealed, for the uplifting third act to begin. No one seemed to realize they were working from an old copy of the script.
This time the director was taking the story in a wholly new direction. Vic was pretty sure there'd be no orchestral score written for what lay ahead.
. . .
France has recalled its ambassador to the United States and closed its embassy in New York, citing safety concerns for its citizens. French president François Hollande today announced that repatriation efforts for French nationals living in North America will be expedited due to the escalating health crisis.
. . .
Cady is a good shot, almost as good as Vic herself, but for some reason she's just standing there, shotgun hanging uselessly from one hand.
"What's the problem?" Vic calls.
It's the only infected they've seen on patrol this morning, and it's pretty slow. The farther gone they are, the more dangerous; you never know when they're going to pop. This guy is shambling drunkenly along the road, listing slightly to one side with what looks like some of his guts slipping out of a slice in his belly.
Vic is glad she's upwind. "Shoot the fucker!" she yells at Cady, who's still standing there like a statue.
They all know better than to play chicken with a zombie. The zombie always wins.
But it keeps coming and Cady keeps not shooting, until finally it's almost inside the dispersal radius and Vic has no choice. She raises her own rifle and takes it out with a single shot to its head. The bullet strikes dead center, crumpling the skull on its way through and leaping out the back with a spray of brain matter and blood like the tail of a comet. A solid sort of squelch is the only sound the body makes when it drops.
Practically vibrating with anger, she jumps from the truck and stalks down the road, grabbing Cady's arm and swinging her around. "What the fuck is wrong with you? If that thing had gotten any closer I would've had to shoot through you!"
"I couldn't do it," Cady says softly, pale-faced and wide-eyed. "I went to high school with him. His name is Bradley. He has two little kids. I couldn't kill him."
Vic stares at her with a head full of static. After months of nothing but horror and fear, nothing but death and survival, this is the moment that breaks her.
"He was already dead!" she hears herself shouting. "He wasn't a person anymore. None of them are people anymore. They're fucking sacks of meat walking around with time bombs inside them. Is that worth dying for? Is that worth your life? 'Cause I sure as fuck don't think it's worth mine."
"I'm sorry, I—"
"Sorry?" Her voice rises to a scream, scraping like razors in her throat. "Is that what I'm supposed to say to your dad when I tell him you got yourself infected? That I had to shoot you in the fucking head? 'I couldn't keep your daughter alive, Walt, but hey, I'm really sorry!' You think that's gonna make him feel any better about losing you? Jesus, Cady, you're all he's got left!"
Cady opens her mouth but Vic's going downhill with her brake lines cut and no way to stop until she hits bottom.
"How am I supposed to face him if something happens to you? It would destroy him! I might as well just get in the truck and keep on driving because there's no fucking way I can do that. Don't you understand I can't do that to him? I can't," she repeats helplessly.
In silence, Cady takes the rifle and sets it down with her shotgun, then puts her arms around Vic. They stand there in the quiet emptiness of the road for a long time, with Vic crying so hard she can barely breathe. Tears and snot drip down her face and she shakes until her bones feel like they might shatter. All the while she stares, unblinking, at the still form of Bradley, who used to be a man with two kids.
The way the blood seeps out around his head and shines against the asphalt is really almost beautiful.
. . .
Following last week's shock announcement by the French government, three more countries have declared their intent to close embassies and consulates located on U.S. soil.
. . .
Vic answered her phone without bothering to look at the display. "Moretti."
There was a long enough pause that she started to pull the phone away from her ear before a voice said, "Hey."
Her stomach knotted up in an instant. "Sean. Hi."
"Hi."
For a few seconds she was stunned speechless, trying to remember how polite conversations were supposed to go. "How are you? How's Australia?" she asked, wincing at the high, false pitch of her voice.
Sean made a sound that might have been a breath of laughter or a sigh. "I'm okay. I, um... How are you?"
"Uh, I'm okay. Yeah." Why the hell was she so nervous? Vic ordered herself to pull it together. "I guess you've heard about what's going on over here."
"Yeah. I've been talking to my parents almost every day."
God, she felt terrible. She hadn't thought about his family at all since the divorce. "Are they all right?"
"They're worried but they're fine so far."
"What about your sister?"
"She's okay too, and the kids. They're staying with Mom and Dad for now."
"That's good."
"Yeah. How's your family?"
"You know the Morettis. Nothing can keep us down."
"Right." Sean cleared his throat. "Listen, I'm calling because... I'm sorry about the way we left things. The way I left things. I just wanted you to know that, in case... Well, I just wanted you to know."
Wouldn't want your ex-wife zombified still thinking you were a shithead, Vic thought snidely and immediately felt guilty. It wasn't as though she'd behaved like a paragon of virtue, either. At least he was making an effort.
"I'm sorry, too," she told him. "I really am."
Silence fell between them then but it wasn't awkward or heavy. It felt as though they'd both let go of some unspoken weight. For the first time in too long she felt close to him again, despite the distance.
"I should let you get back to work," Sean said eventually. "Take care of yourself, okay?"
"You too."
She waited for something more but heard only the ghost of a sound, as if he'd started to speak and cut himself off. She pressed the phone harder to her ear, sharply aware that this might be the last conversation they ever had. "Sean?"
"I love you, Victoria."
It stole her breath, the way he said it. It made her wish so many useless things. That she could have loved him the way he loved her. That she could have spared him the pain she'd never meant to cause. But the words stayed stuck in her throat. What good could they do now, for either of them?
"I love you too," she told him instead, and meant it.
After a long moment, he said, very gently, "Goodbye, Victoria."
She squeezed her eyes shut tight and whispered, "Bye, Sean."
Then he was gone.
. . .
More riots have broken out in major cities overnight. Crowds protesting the refusal of some groups to burn infected bodies on religious grounds turned violent when Congress returned a vote of No to the passage of the Temporary Burial Suspension Bill. Opponents of the Bill, which would have required all human remains to be cremated, objected on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. Proponents argue that it meets the requirements of the strict scrutiny standard and the compelling interest requirement of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. A CDC spokesperson has decried the result of the vote, calling it a short-sighted decision that poses a devastating risk to the safety of every man, woman, and child in the country. The CDC, along with the AMA and various other medical bodies, continues to urge Americans to sign preemptive burial waivers in case of infection. As the spores of P. coccophagus remain viable for dispersal up to 48 hours after a host's death, immediate cremation is so far the only reliable method of halting the spread of infection.
. . .
She's got third watch tonight. After driving them back to the cabin, Cady had offered to take the shift herself, but Vic refused. It gives her an excuse to go to bed early and it's her third night on, which means she has tomorrow off. She doesn't think she'll actually be able to sleep, so she's surprised to be woken by the quiet beep of her alarm at 2 a.m.
Lucian is at the kitchen table when she wanders over to the coffee pot, yawning.
"Anything?" she asks him.
He doesn't look up from the magazine he's reading. "Not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse."
"You could just say 'no'."
"What man having a late night rendezvous with a beautiful woman ever says 'no'?"
Vic snorts into her mug but doesn't reply. After all these weeks of living in close quarters, she's gotten used to Lucian's sense of humor. In spite of his penchant for blatantly ogling her tits, she actually likes him. And she doesn't mind the ogling all that much, either, since it's the only action she gets these days.
The air outside is pleasantly cool when she steps onto the porch. As the weather gets warmer the cabin feels increasingly stifling once they put the blackout shutters up at night. Blocking the airflow is a necessary evil to allow them to turn on the lights between sunset and sunrise. Though they're in the middle of nowhere, a single lit window shines a long way in the dark, and zombies never seem to sleep.
She stands still for a minute or two, letting her eyes adjust. Now that they've finished rigging their simple tripwire alarm system, night watches rarely involve anything more strenuous than the effort of staying awake. Vic likes to be outside for as much of her shift as she can manage. Solitude is hard to come by when they do almost everything in pairs. It's safer, but sometimes she feels like she's living in Noah's fucking ark.
Spending time outside on her own makes the rest of it bearable, and the darkness performs a kind of magic. It erases the differences between what is and what used to be; it rinses the stains of infection from the world. Night becomes a quantum state, holding millions of Schrödinger's cats inside it. As long as no one opens that box the dead are also alive. Vic's never been much for make-believe, but for now she suspends her disbelief gladly.
The sky is clear tonight. The moon is almost full and stars are scattered in every direction like spilled glitter. An insect symphony fills the air around the cabin, accompanied by the wind rustling through the tops of the trees. Walt's horse makes two short snorting sounds and then falls silent. She wonders fleetingly if horses dream. One of these days Cady's going to teach her how to ride but Vic isn't in any hurry.
The night feels huge around her and yet close against her skin, like she's floating in a black, tranquil sea. She falls upwards into the stars as though she's weightless and for a little while she pretends that everything's the same.
Then the wind shifts and carries the scent of smoke in her direction like a haunting.
Fires are always burning somewhere and their smell is never completely gone. She thinks of the pyre they'd had to build in the parking lot of the hospital. There were so many bodies they'd kept it burning for three days straight. So many familiar faces had been thrown into the flames. Vic can see them in her mind, the Absaroka dead: Doctor Weston and Doctor Bloomfield, Donny from the path lab who'd had a crush on her, the nurses whose names she'd never bothered to remember.
All ashes now.
There's no chance for grieving or even goodbyes anymore. There's just the burning dead and the living left trying to survive them.
. . .
Emirates Airlines becomes the fifth international airline to suspend its North American services. In a press release today, EA president Timothy Clark expressed regret at being forced to take the action but said that his primary concern must be ensuring the safety of the company's employees. Emirates Airlines has pledged full fare refunds for all affected flights.
. . .
Situations at the Red Pony in the early afternoon were unusual. That time of day was the domain of career drinkers like Bob Barnes who tended not to be a rowdy bunch; they preferred to do the serious work of getting shit-faced in peace.
Today it had spilled into the carpark by the time she and Walt arrived.
"I see ten, maybe twelve people," Vic said, getting out of the Bronco. Most of them were milling around a smaller knot of struggling bodies. Unlike every other brawl or bar fight she'd ever witnessed, this one was oddly quiet.
"Sheriff's department!" Walt yelled and the knot in the middle seemed to explode.
Onlookers pulled back into the spaces between cars, while four bodies were propelled from the center like a scene from an action movie. All of them showed visible signs of serious damage, and rising from among them stood a figure covered in blood, brandishing what looked like a broken-off chair leg.
Vic gaped. "What the fuck is this guy on?"
Walt shook his head. "Drop your weapon," he called, "and put your hands in the air."
The guy's head swiveled towards them and his face was eerily expressionless. Vic unsnapped her holster and drew her gun before he'd taken two steps, a chill coiling down her spine. Something was very wrong here.
"Drop your weapon," Walt said again, his own gun unholstered.
The guy kept coming.
As Walt went right, Vic went left to check on the closest victim. With a glance she registered the unnatural angle of his neck and the vacant, staring eyes. Poor bastard, she thought. What a crappy way to go.
She heard a shot, looked up, and saw the assailant down with a bullet center mass. Shocked, she turned to Walt, ready to demand the reason he'd pulled the trigger unprovoked, but the panic on his face stopped her cold.
"Vic, get back! Everyone get back!"
In two strides he was close enough to grab her arm and yank her back towards the Bronco. She'd never seen his face so pale.
"What the hell is going on?" she demanded.
Walt flung open the door and reached for the radio mic. "Look at his eyes, Vic. He's infected."
His eyes. With all the blood that already covered his face, it was nearly impossible to tell, but... Yes, she saw it now. Bleeding from the eyes. The only warning before they popped.
"Holy shit," she breathed, as Walt snapped orders at Ruby to contact the CDC, Highway Patrol, and anyone else she could think of. "We've got to get these people away from here."
But they were out of time.
For a fraction of a second the front of the man's skull actually seemed to bulge. Then something punched through it from the inside as though the bones had no more resistance than a paper bag. Two long, thin tendrils waved from the misshapen ruin of his head, their tips nodding lazily with the weight of the berry-like bodies that carried their spores.
A scream lodged itself in Vic's throat.
Turning to Walt, she saw the same terrible knowledge and her own horror reflected in his eyes.
They were all on notice. Zombies had arrived in Absaroka.
.
[TBC]