Chapter 1

Being a wrestler with the WWE and being on the road for 300 days a year you see some weird shit. The last few weeks though have been some of the craziest I have ever seen. There had started to be some scary stories on the news of people going insane and attacking complete strangers on the street without any provocation. At first these stories were only taking place in the larger cities but all too quickly the number of attacks grew and spread all across the country. Local police forces were becoming overwhelmed so the military was called in and set up shop in the larger cities. This only added to the growing sense of panic that was sweeping across the nation.

I roll into the parking garage of the TD Garden in Boston with my friend Ravyn, her boyfriend Tyler and his tag team partner Fandango. We check in with the military and park the car. "Wonder how big the crowd will be tonight…" I wonder out loud unloading my bags from the trunk. "Even if there is only a few hundred people here it will be better than Chicago last week. That was just un real." Tyler says remembering our show last week where there was hardly anyone in the crowd. "Guess we will just have to wait and see." Ravyn adds closing the trunk and we head inside the building.

I make my way back up the ramp after my match high fiving fans on the way. There was maybe at most a thousand people but they seemed to be enjoying the show despite everything going on. Waiting for me backstage is Ravyn, "great match friend! Keep it up and maybe you will get a title push soon." I roll my eyes, "right, like Princess Bella would give up her title." Ravyn laughs, "Hey she has to drop the belt sometimes why not someone the crowd actually likes right now? Time for a face champ if you ask me." She no more says her sentence and Nikki comes walking to the gorilla position draped over the arm of her boyfriend John Cena as he prepares to go out for his main event match. "Come on, go get cleaned up so we can hit the road." Ravyn tells me and I mock salute her "yes ma'am!" I give her my best shit eating grin while she pretends to be mad at me before we lock up and she pins my arm behind my back and starts to wrestle me towards the locker room as I laugh trying to break her hold before I accidentally bump into someone, "shit sorry!" I apologize before looking to see who it is I ran into and look into the eyes of Dolph Ziggler and he doesn't look very happy. "Don't you two ever behave?" Ravyn and I look at each other and shake our heads and say in unison "Nah." He still looks annoyed "I figured as much. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go steal the show." He walks away towards the stage entrance before Ravyn and I continue on to the locker room.

I take a quick shower and change into my traveling clothes before gathering up all my gear and Ravyn and I go to meet up with Tyler. We find him on an equipment cart texting 'finally! Were the two of you up to shenanigans again?" he jokes. "Naturally." Is my immediate reply. "And who did you annoy this time?" I fake that my feelings are hurt "and who says we annoyed anyone?" he shoots me a look that says 'I know you two' and I roll my eyes, "fine…we may have gotten under Ziggler's skin a bit." He smiles at me and I stick my tongue out at him as he climbs down off the cart. "We not waiting for Dango?" I ask realizing he isn't with us. "He is going to ride this leg with Sami and some other guys." As we walk by the gorilla position there are bunch of people gathered around the monitors. That's not an unusual occurrence, people often gather to watch matches but this doesn't have that vibe to it. I peak through the crowd and see that they are watching the National News. The scene on the screen is one of total chaos. There is a wall of soldiers firing upon a group of people but no matter how many bullets hit the people they don't stop advancing. Everyone is watching in complete shock. The feed changes to another city and it is a moment before the words 'Boston, MA' flash on the screen. Some people gasp while others walk away wanting to leave right then and get out of the city. I glance sideways at Ravyn and Tyler "what should we do?" Tyler shakes his head "I don't fancy turning a corner and running into that. We have no idea where in the city that is, hell they could be right outside here." The words are no more out of his mouth when there is a popping sound off in the distance. "That sounded like gunshots…" one of the crew members gathered at the TV pancis as the sound intensifies.

Our attention is brought back to the TV as the president's face appears. We listen intently as he gives a speech about the state of the nation. Apparently these incidents are happening all over the country. It appears there has been an outbreak of a virus that is causing people to rise from the dead and turn into blood thirsty monsters. The government tried to keep it contained but it became too widespread too quickly and now we are in a state of emergency. He warns everyone to please stay in their homes and to not panic. He wishes us luck before signing off. We are left in a stunned silence. I look over to Ravyn and Tyler. Ravyn has her hand over her mouth while Tyler holds her.

There is a scream down the hallway to our left. I start to take a few steps in that direction my curiosity getting the better of me "J! What are you doing?" I turn back at the sound of Ravyn's voice. There are more gunshots, much louder this this time because these shots are inside the building. The shots are coming from inside the arena and down the hallway where the scream came from. People are screaming out in the arena and soon the backstage area is getting flooding with the crew from ringside and I find myself being shoved aside in the panic and get forced closer towards the doorway where the gunfire is. I try to fight my way back through the crowd but I can't. I can hear Ravyn and Tyler yelling my name but with one final surge of the crowd I get shoved through the doors and they slam closed in my face. I pull on the handle but the door is locked from the other side. "Shit. This is just great." I say out loud and I hear a shuffling sound behind me. I turn around to see a woman making her way up the hallway towards me. She looks injured, covered in blood dragging her left leg. "Hey…are you okay?" I get no response. "Do you need some help?" still nothing. I take a few steps forward but stop dead in my tracks in complete disgust. This is not just any person. This woman appears to be dead. She is riddled with bullet holes, flesh rotting off her bones yet she I still walking towards me. I begin to panic. I turn back to the door and start pounding on it screaming for someone to open it. I glance back to see how far away from the dead woman is and to my horror another dead person comes around the corner behind her. "Fuck" I mutter and I pick up the intensity of my pleas for someone to open the door. I don't turn around again until I hear footsteps and turn to a find a solider run right past the dead one further down the hall and then drive a knife right through the eye of the one closest to me. "You okay?" I nod unable to speak, "you need to get back through that door. We've had a breach on this side of the building. It's not safe." He tells me glancing down the hall way. "The door is locked from the other side." I say finding my voice but not taking my eyes of the other dead person as it gets closer to us. The soldier draws his weapon and fires a shot right between the eyes. "Head shots are the only way to stop them as far we can tell." He tells me holstering his gun as I just stand there in shock staring at the two bodies. The soldier grips me by the shoulders and forces me to look him in the eyes, "Come on, we need to get this door open. There are more coming and I don't have that many rounds left in my gun." I turn my attention back to the door and begin pounding away again. Over the noise of both of us pounding on the door we don't hear the dead ones coming up behind us until they are close. I turn around with a scream when I see them so close and the soldier begins to take them out but quickly runs out of ammo so he goes for his knife and starts stabbing them one by one as they approach but the hoard becomes too thick and to my horror one of them takes a bite out of his throat. I'm too horrified to even scream as blood spurts from the wound and the hoard begins to converge on him tearing his flesh as he screams.

More soldiers come around the corner and begin plowing down the dead ones. I crouch down with my back to the door trying to stay out of the line of fire. Over the noise I don't hear the door open behind me and am caught off guard by an arm wrapping around my torso and lifting me off the ground. I scream and lash out but the arm only tightens around my waist and pulls me through the door. Just before the door closes I see a soldier put a bullet through the head of the soldier who had first come to my aide. I get set down and the arm slowly loosens its grip and I turn around to see Dolph Ziggler staring at me wide eyed in shock at what he had just seen. He still has a hand under my elbow which is a good thing because my legs are shaking so bad that I don't think I would able to hold myself up. "J!" I look around Dolph to see Ravyn and Tyler shoving their way through the crowd and Ravyn engulfs me in a hug "are you okay?" I want to say no because I'm still terrified by what I witness but at the same time I don't want to relive it. "Yeah. I'm okay." I lie as she hugs me again and Tyler puts a hand on my shoulder. I look over at Dolph who is eyeing my skeptically as he disappears into the crowd.

A few hours later I find myself sitting against the wall with my knees pulled to my chest. I keep seeing flashes of the events in the hallway. All around me there is a murmur as people talk amongst themselves. Some people are talking about the news broadcast while others are complaining about being locked in the backstage area. Apparently right before Dolph pulled me through the door to safety there had been some soldiers who told everyone to stay put while they made sure the building was safe and there has been no sign of them since and some people are starting to get stir crazy. "This is crap." Whines Nikki for about the 100th time in the last five minutes. "I don't see why we can't just leave. It's been hours." She has a huge pout on her face. "That lad from da army said we had to stay here." Becky snaps back at her from her seat atop an equipment cart. Nikki huffs, "what does he know?" I roll my eyes unable to take the whining any longer. "Clearly not as much as you Nikki right?" I snap and she glares at me, "Excuse me?" "Well clearly you think you know more than someone whose job it is to keep our country safe. So by all means go out there. See for yourself whether or not it's safe." I gesture towards the locked door that leads to the hallway I had been trapped in. "Oh please." She huffs flipping her hair over shoulder, "I'm sure this is all people over reacting to nothing." I shake my head at her in disbelief at how naïve she is being. "Do you not watch the news? Did you not hear all the gunfire tonight?" She looks at me like I'm the idiot, "you can't honestly believe those reports about people coming back from the dead?" She laughs, "and people think I'm stupid." She laughs again smirking at me and I can't contain myself anymore as I jump up. "You are stupid. It's true. Everything they reported on the news tonight is true." She glares me, "if you believe that then you have no right to call me stupid." I look her dead in the eyes. "I've seen it. The dead coming back to life. Just on the other side of that door." I try to keep my voice from trembling as I admit what I saw. "Whatever. You are just trying to scare me." I open my mouth to argue back but Dolph beats me to it, "no. She is telling the truth. I saw it too. There were people that should clearly have been dead ripping a soldier to pieces." This seems to finally shut Nikki up and I shoot Dolph a glance to say thanks. I go back to my spot and sit down and see that Ravyn and Tyler are staring at me "Is that really what happened?" Tyler asks and I nod recounting the whole story up until the point where Dolph saved me. "Wow. So this really is bad." Ravyn muses.

After another couple of hours the doors open and a few solders walk in. Everyone jumps to their feet eager to hear what they have to say. "Okay everyone listen up. We have secured this building for the time being. I want you all to sit tight as we work out an evacuation plan. We only have a few vehicles at our disposal and a lot of civilians to get out of the city so it may take some time. I suggest for tonight you make yourselves at home, find a place to sleep and hopefully we will be back in the morning with a plan. I would not go outside. The streets are still overrun with the dead so it is very dangerous."

With that said the soldiers turn and walk away leaving us in a stunned silence. "Well…I guess we will just stay here then." Xavier Woods jokes breaking the silence and earning a few nervous laughs and grins. "I guess we should just all go find some places to camp out of the night. There are plenty of offices and locker rooms in this building so we might as well make the best of it." Cena announces standing up and taking Nikki's hand and walking away. Slowly people start to follow suit. I turn to Ravyn and Tyler "Do we follow?" Tyler asks. "You guys go ahead. I'm going to hang back for a bit. I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight anyways. I'll find you in the morning." I turn and walk away before they can say anything. All I want to do is find a place to be alone but everywhere I look I see superstars and crew members. I spot the curtains leading to the stage and begin to make my way there when someone grabs my arm. "Hey, you okay?" It's Sami Zayn with Seth Rollins by his side, "yeah it sounds like you saw some real shit go down." I put on a fake smile, "I'm okay you guys. I just need to clear my head a bit. But thanks for the concern." I continue on to the curtain and poke my head through. Everything seems quiet. Maybe it really is safe. I make my way onto the stage and down the ramp. The lights around the stadium are off but our rigging lights are still on illuminating the ring. I climb the stairs and step through the ropes. Was it only a few hours ago that I was in this ring putting on a match? It feels like days ago. Who knows, that may have been my last match. I sit down in the middle of the ring with a sigh. I wonder what the future will hold now. I lie back and cross my arms under my head and stare up into the catwalk above me. I run the night's events through my head trying to make some ounce of sense out of them and trying to imagine the future in a world where the dead come back to life. But how do you make sense of that?