I'd nearly forgotten about this until someone reviewed recently! So here's an update... granted, not the most luxurious update (luxurious in this case meaning long) but it'll have to do until I update everything else. I'm trying for once a week or so but we'll see how far we get, yeah? Basic disclaimer applies but I do own Leon. Not a Beatles-related name but his last name is "Pepper" if it makes you feel any better. XD
It had been a long time since New York had seen empty streets. So long that nobody that would ever remember such a time was long gone and empty streets were the thing of legend. There always seemed to be cars, honking, filling up the air with their exhaust. Now, however, it was gone. Cars were parked by the sides of the road, some haphazardly parked in the middle of the road, but nothing moved. Empty buildings stared back at Prudence, their windows dark, like haunted eyes. Max's eyes after the war.
She shuddered and pulled away from the window to find her friends looking back at the television. "What happened?" Her voice was so small, frightened, confused and she was beginning to feel frustrated because they were trying to tip-toe around it.
"You weren't the first," Lucy mumbled as she leaned into Jude tiredly. "It kept going higher and higher and they kept ringing the bells..." Tears slipped down her cheeks, got lost in the blonde hair that fell over her face and Jude pressed his lips to hers, looking distressed if not a little distracted. He rubbed small circles on her back as she brought her knees to her chest, barely sitting on the edge of the chair and more like nearly falling on top of her boyfriend.
When Prudence showed no sign of understanding, Jojo patted the chair beside him and she took a seat, curling her legs under into a 'criss-cross-applesauce' sort of position.
"Like Lucy said," his overall demeanor had changed, his voice that had once been slow and soothing, was somewhat clipped and his tone was a bit sad now, "you weren't the first. Turns out the government was screwing us over. Rather save themselves a country of panic and let 'em all die instead. We don't know what it's been doing but everyone who can stays inside. You don't touch them, you don't look at them..."
"Who?"
Jojo chuckled; the sound devoid of any humor. It sent shivers up Prudence's spine and she looked nervously at the rest who were hardly listening. "Well they're the undead. Like those movies I used to watch..." He chuckled again and shook his head, expression pained. "Shouldn't have lied to us. They developed a cure but—"
"Cheap bastards held it off," Jude mumbled, looking slightly sick. "They just kept saying 'we're gonna get a cure soon, hang in there, support America and we'll get through it together'." He choked slightly, coughed, Sadie's head snapped in his direction and she regarded the Liverpudlian with concern for a moment. "My mum's said people're starting to talk about it back home."
But Prudence didn't understand why they had stayed with her. Weren't they able to contract the virus, whatever it was? Wasn't it possible that they would die?
"What about you guys?" She asked, biting down on her lip and looking at her friends again. "... you said they said it was contagious... won't you get it?"
"Well Leon already did," Max said, speaking up for the first time in a while. "Think he's still back in his room."
As if on cue a frighteningly thin figure stumbled out of one of the back rooms. Leon was a relatively new tenant, a brilliant drummer that had replaced the old one, who had moved on to bigger and better things. He was only seventeen, running from a family he hadn't really wanted to talk about, and was quite an optimistic person, always smiling and a bit stupid at times, but a good kid. Now his face was drawn and he had a blanket held closely around himself. His brilliant blue eyes were dull, usually disturbingly-neat black hair was tousled and he looked rather confused.
"Wazzappened?"
"... we gave him a shit-ton of aspirin," Max added, never tearing his eyes away from the television, "because he wouldn't stop moaning about a headache or something."
Prudence looked into the eyes of the boy that had been going through something so similar to what had happened to her and felt a sympathetic smile tug at the corners of her lips. "Hey Leon."
He seemed to become more awake and gave Prudence his usual dizzy smile, although this one didn't quite reach his eyes. "Hey Pru." A yawn contorted his features for a moment before he padded over to a spot in front of the couch and plopped down, closing his eyes and resting his head on Sadie's legs where he proceeded to fall asleep again.
Eventually, through constant awkward silences and interruptions among the storytellers, she found out what had happened.
Several months ago the first case had been reported, a little boy by the name of Dakota Savoy who had dropped dead in the middle of his Sunday school class after complaining of stomach aches. It was assumed that Dakota had been sick for a very long time, something life-threatening his parents hadn't known about in time and nobody ever looked into it.
The next was a farmer somewhere in Illinois, nameless due to the government's covering the whole thing up, complaining of similar symptoms and at last staggering into a local bar where he died in the doorway. Unable to ignore this (it was spreading amongst the people who had come into contact both with Dakota and the nameless farmer), the government stepped in and began to work on finding the cure, meanwhile assuring the public that nothing was wrong.
At first the general populace accepted this, that it was nothing more than a bad case of influenza, but when things began to go wrong, they demanded real answers. Trying their best to contain the panicked masses, the government issued a placebo, a sort of flu-shot for everyone who felt the need for it and could afford it. Nothing but a very minor sedative but the US settled down none the less (minus those who could not afford it).
Eventually the disease was widespread, all over the country and creeping up into Canada and down into Mexico and South America. People would be sick, writhe about in bed for a few days and then fall still. Sometimes, even during the burial, they would become reanimated and begin to feast on the flesh of the living regardless of relation. The government attempted to hide all of this by decapitating the undead and, finding that effective, tried once more to calm everyone down.
By the time Prudence had contracted the disease (which was easy in a place as big as New York) there were quarantine teams all over the US cutting off people from their loved ones who happened to show the symptoms. Doctors weren't called, but the quarantine men would stand outside the door, armed and ready for the reanimation. Sometimes there would be the lucky ones who would survive and be released from their homes to reunite with their friends and family, but that was a rare occurrence.
People in New York had dropped like flies, catching the virus and dying as swiftly as they had during the Yellow Fever back when America was still a new concept. Bells had been rung, church bells ringing in time with each noted death. Incessant ringing, a frightening sound, and newscasters would rattle off numbers like it was some sort of baseball game that they were never going to win.
"And... that's it?" Prudence asked quietly.
"... most of it," Leon murmured, having woken up during the explanation. "Too many're dying an' we can't stop them forever."
She shuddered at the monotone, peering over the edge of the couch to see him in the same position, staring blankly up at her. "But we're safe, right? I mean... you guys've gotten along just fine so far..."
Silence greeted her painfully hopeful question, and all of the people present in the room jumped as a long, high-pitched scratching sound came from the other side of the front door.
