Some reviews have been asking if this is the first zombie story involving the DPverse. Honestly, I have no idea, but I would love to find out. I'll look into it.

When you picture these zombies, think Zombieland zombies. For now. Oki?

Oki.

I have a feeling this chapter is gonna pissssss you offffff. Woooooo.

I don't want to give anything away, so I'm gonna go get ready for work. Hehe.

I don't own Danny Phantom. Enjoy! (:

Wide Awake

Chapter Two

November 24, 2012

Sam was never fond of summer. Sure, it meant that school was out and she was no longer required to spend seven hours a day trapped in a room with Paulina and Dash, and Tucker's birthday was in the middle of July, but other than that...

She viewed it as a necessary evil. It was three months in which mother nature sought revenge for all of her burned and baked animals by attempting to cook the humans with ridiculously high temperatures. It was all she could do to keep herself from hissing at the sun every time she left her home.

Of course, spending almost all of her time with Tucker and Danny made it a little better. They had a funny way of making her forget she was completely miserable. They, at least, appeared completely unperturbed by the skin-melting temperatures. They would laugh at her disgruntled expressions and hug her just a bit too tight, ruffling her hair until she squealed and shoved their arms away. And despite her assurances that it was incredibly annoying, she enjoyed it.

About two weeks after school ended, Danny told her something strange. They were going to dinner, just the two of them, because Tucker was being forced to stay home and have dinner with his parents for his mother's birthday. They had just sat down in their booth at the Nasty Burger, neither of them saying much as Sam assumed they were both starving, when suddenly Danny leaned over. He looked her dead in the eye and whispered "I think there might be zombies on the loose."

"What?" He leaned back, a smug grin on his face for having completely captured her attention. "I'm sorry, did you just say zombies?"

"Yeah. I saw it on the news right before you picked me up." He popped a french fry in his mouth, still grinning through his onyx hair at the incredulous look on her face. "There was a video of it and everything. It looked like the real deal."

"You're joking." Sam said accusingly, shaking her head mostly at herself for half-believing him. "Zombies don't exist."

"I bet you would have said the same thing about ghosts four years ago." Danny pointed out. She paused mid-bite, contemplating the truth behind that statement. "And look at you now. A certified, accomplished ghost hunter."

She dropped her veggie burger on her plate and grumbled something about it wasn't the same thing and how impossible he was. Danny laughed, and then their attention turned completely toward their food. After that meal, though, once she was back in her room and away from other people, she searched YouTube for the video Danny half-described. Her eyes went wide as she watched.

From that night on, it seemed as if the entire world was seized with zombie-fever. Reports of zombie-like behavior crept up from all corners of the globe, many of them much too close for comfort. It became quickly apparent that this was not just some hoax put on by bored college students, especially when video of a man hunched over a motionless woman, eating what appeared to be the muscles of her arm cropped up on YouTube. The video was taken down the following day, and then YouTube itself vanished from the confines of the internet, and it was not long after that when the internet completely went out. It all seemed to go like that; at first, just a few channels disappeared off the air, until one day she turned on the television and every single channel was nothing but white noise.

Danny said he had a plan to keep them safe. Amity, somehow, was one of the last pockets of population that remained momentarily unravished by the disease. They were using as much of the time as they could to gather their belongings and prepare for evacuation. Danny mentioned something about the mountains about thirty miles from town after it was discovered that zombies are not particularly skilled climbers. They would be leaving the following day, leaving everything behind for good, which made Sam incredibly nervous. Her father and grandmother had been out of the country on business for several weeks, much longer than originally planned, and Sam was forced to assume the worst. She was left alone with her mother.

The night before Danny was supposed to take them all to safety, Sam could not sleep. She lay in her bed, tossing and turning, trying to figure out if the faintest high-pitched keening sounds she was hearing was part of some half-formed zombie apocalypse nightmare or her overactive imagination. Finally, around three forty-five in the morning, she gave up and rolled out of bed. She shuffled forward, wearing nothing more than shorts and a tank top, and descended the stairs. She made it all the way down to her kitchen, yawning and stretching, thinking she would make herself something to eat. Her appetite evaded her that night at dinner with Danny and Tucker, but now she was rather hungry. She pulled out the loaf of bread her mother kept in the cabinet and set out to make herself toast.

As she waited for the toaster to finish, she glanced around her kitchen. It was all exactly as it had always been, all shining appliances and gleaming countertops. She smiled sadly, trying to assure herself that it would all still be this way after this whole zombie mess was sorted out. It was not that she felt as if she needed all of the frivolity; in fact, she felt quite the opposite about it all. It was merely the fact that this place had been her home since she was three years old. Huge and unnecessary and probably a gigantic waste of money, but, still. Home.

Her purse was exactly where she had dumped it just hours before, but it had fallen over and some of the contents had spilled out. She sighed and swept it all up, sitting the purse in its' upright position. Her plum colored lip gloss was settled on top, and as Sam stared at it, she grinned at the multitude of memories of Danny pausing and staring when she would apply that lip gloss in front of him. Tucker told her, once, that it was probably Danny's favorite thing about her. He told her that the boy dreamed about the way she smeared that purple-tinted gloss across her mouth. He told her that Danny admitted once he wanted to know what it tasted like. She blushed furiously as she applied just a little bit on her lips. It was beyond frivolous and stupid, but it somehow made her feel closer to him. Just for a moment.

She pocketed the gloss as the toaster sent her finished snack up. She pulled a small plate down and carefully picked the smoking bread up out of the toaster, dropping it quickly on the plate to alleviate the burning sensations in her fingertips. She settled in the corner bar stool pulled up to the island in the middle of her kitchen, staring off into space as she ate.

The sounds of someone moving upstairs did not reach her until they were actually on the stairs. It was a loud crash, like a body falling down the stairs, followed quickly by the sounds of someone standing and shuffling forward. Sam paused, her lips and teeth against the bread, as she listened. It was just her mother and her in the house. But the footsteps she heard were nothing like her mother's light and dainty steps; they were heavy, shuffling, and accompanied by the strangest grunting sounds. Sam ripped the piece of bread off and chewed quickly, dropping the bread on her plate and wiping the crumbs off of her hands on her shirt. She swallowed and sucked in a deep breath. "Mom?" She called hesitantly.

The shuffling and grunting stopped. Sam sat very still, both hands planted on the counter in preparation to push off and run if necessary. The shuffling was back, much faster than it had been before, almost as if whoever it was approaching was running. Adrenaline and fear wound their way through her belly and made her quickly regret ever trying to eat.

Her mother roared from the doorway of the kitchen as she came barreling into view. Sam had just enough time to absorb the matted tangles her usually immaculate red hair was reduced to, framing her pale, boil-covered face and sticking to her wide, gaping mouth before she was lurching forward and swinging violently at Sam. Sam shoved against the counter, sending her bar stool toppling backwards as she ran. Her mother clambered over the fallen chair, gnashing and baring her teeth and screaming in her fury. Sam darted around the opposite side of the island, unable to tear her eyes away from what was once her mother. Her breaths were coming in sharp gasps as she tried to think quickly.

So her mother had been bitten. Sam wondered when it happened, or if she was even aware of it happening. She wondered if her mother had gone to bed that night knowing what she would become within just a few hours. She wondered if her mother knew, even now, what she was doing.

She was shaken out of those thoughts when her mother tipped her head back and howled, low and gutteral, at the ceiling. She was unable to hold her own whimpers back when her mother fixed two clouded, pale, deadened eyes on her face.

That's not my mother anymore, Sam thought as her mother slowly rounded the island, snarling and growling as Sam mirrored her movements to the opposite end of the island. That's just a monster. It's a monster that wants to kill me. What are you gonna do, Manson? You gonna let a monster kill you in your own home?

Not in this life, she thought with a growl as she lurched forward. Her mother snarled and attempted to round the other side of the island, intending on catching Sam around her waist, but Sam was prepared. She seized one of the handles of the rarely used butcher knives, and as her mother raced forward, arms opened wide to trap her, Sam stabbed her.

The blade sank up to its' hilt in her mother's breast, drawing a terrible, ear-shattering scream from the now-convulsing woman. Sam watched in horror as her mother reared back, stumbling backwards, trying to find something to hold on to. She stumbled all the way back to the trash chute, where the backs of her knees hit and she collapsed. She flipped over backwards and fell, head-first, down the chute. Sam stared at the place where she had stood just seconds before, trying to snap out of her shock. She knew the chute dropped directly over a furnace. She knew what was about to happen. But she could not bring herself to move.

A fireball bigger than her entire body rocketed out of the trash chute, shooting directly up into the ceiling and catching the sheet rock and wooden beams there, spiraling up in massive flames. Finally, Sam felt her legs moving as she dodged crumbling debris. She was running up the stairs, coughing as thick black smoke unfurled in the air around her. She needed to get out before her entire house went up in flames, which would be fairly quickly for how dry the area had been over the summer. She lurched forward, into her room, which had somehow already begun to fill with smoke. She heaved and coughed through the smoke, ignoring the tears streaming down her face, as she tried to gather anything and everything she could reach to shove in the empty bag she had at the foot of her bed. She managed to yank her boots on and to grab a few shirts and a pair of black pants before the smoke became too thick for her to breathe.

She yanked the bag up, slung it across her back, and raced back to her door. She flung it open and stumbled into the hallway, coughing violently as she attempted to see. The staircase seemed to be clear, so she ran toward it. She kept her left hand firmly gripping the railing as her right covered her nose and mouth, trying to help her breathe. She made it down to the third floor, half-way to the second, before discovering that the flames were quickly climbing up the stairs. She was forced back up, to the third floor, where she ran down to the far end of the landing and shouldered her way into a spare room.

The smoke was thick here, but not as thick as in her room. Sam crossed the room quickly, shoving the window open and sticking her head out. She gasped as fresh air assaulted her senses, accompanied by the sounds of her town falling apart. "Help!" She screamed, unsure of who she was expecting to help her. She screamed the first name that popped into her head: "Danny!"

"Sam!" A familiar voice called from above her. She looked up, hardly believing what she heard. Valerie lowered herself to Sam's level. She was in her ghost-hunting suit, on her hoverboard, with the visor of her helmet pushed up. "Are you alone?"

"Yeah!" Sam shouted desperately, glancing back at the strengthening glow of the fire beneath the door. Even more smoke was pouring in through the cracks. "Please help me!"

Valerie seized Sam's arms, pulling her out to stand on her hoverboard. "Be careful, don't fall!" She said loudly, her hands gripping Sam so hard she was certain she was bruising. "Are you sure there's no one else in there?"

"My mom," Sam's voice shook as Valerie helped her stand. "But don't bother, she's already dead."

"How do you know?" Valerie asked, her voice rising in panic.

"I killed her."

They flew in silence, the sounds of the city dying scarcely reaching them as Sam's story threatened to crush them. Valerie was silent from the moment Sam began describing what had happened in her kitchen, offering nothing more than a gentle squeeze around her shoulders when Sam finally submitted to crushing grief. It was some time later that Sam was finally able to look up again, and when she did, she realized they were on the complete opposite side of town. "Where are we going?"

"There's an old bunker out here. Used to play in it when I was a kid," She did not look around at Sam. "A lot of people are gathering there. It's the safest place we've got right now."

There did not seem to be any zombies around when Valerie touched down outside the bunker. Sam glanced around in nervous paranoia, expecting them to all come rushing at them at any moment. They never did.

Valerie, once inside the bunker, led Sam through a maze of twisting hallways and descended several narrow staircases. Sam was just about to give up and ask how much longer when they were deposited at the end of a very long hallway. At the other end was a single door. Valerie glanced back, a small reassuring smile on her face, and walked forward. Sam trailed uncertainly behind.

Inside, Sam could see almost a hundred people sitting on benches or huddled on the floor. Some were obviously families, clutching at each other in silent desperation. Others were orphans like her, sitting alone, staring into nothingness, faint but pronounced tear tracks glittering on their faces. Sam's heart ached at the sight of them. "Dad?" Valerie's voice broke Sam's reverie. "I found another live one."

Mr. Gray stood, off in a far corner, surrounded by people. "Good. Get her a blanket, some water. Sam," His voice was soft and gentle. She suddenly felt like crying again. "I'm so glad you're okay."

"S-Sam?" A familiar voice asked hesitantly from behind Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray stepped to the right, revealing none other than Tucker. Their eyes met and in an instant Tucker was scrambling to his feet and rushing toward her. He practically tackled her for how hard he hugged her, and she hugged him right back. She buried her face in the dip of his shoulder and sobbed. She could feel him shaking with his own tears as his hands roamed her back, fisting her hair and holding her close. They stayed like that for several moments, ignoring the fact that people were watching them. Finally, Tucker pulled away, but he kept his arms around her, which she was fine with. His face was flushed and pale beneath his glasses. One of the lenses was cracked. But other than that, he seemed to be unharmed. "I was so afraid that -"

"I know, me too," She said. She yanked him back down into a second hug, releasing a watery chuckle when he lifted her feet off the ground for a moment.

"Are your...did you...were you the only one that made it out?" He asked when he pulled away. She grimaced. "I mean I'm taking it from the soot all over your entire body and the fact that you smell like smoke that you were in a fire?"

"My house caught fire." Sam muttered. "Because a zombie fell into the trash chute and blew the furnace up."

"A zombie got into your house?" Tucker asked, his voice flaring in panic. His arms tightened around her waist as a fit of overprotectiveness washed over him.

"She was already in the house when she became a zombie." Sam said in a small voice.

Tucker's eyes widened in understanding. He crushed Sam to his chest again, silently remembering the terror he woke up to when it was discovered that his mother had succumbed to the disease sometime in the middle of the night. He blocked the memories of Valerie pulling him to safety on her hoverboard, before turning and trying to help his father out as well. But his mother was too fast for them. She managed to latch on to his ankle just as Valerie was pulling him out of the window, and after a brief battle of tug-of-war, his hands slipped out of Valerie's and he fell. He could not think about it now.

"I'm so glad you're okay." He whispered to her. She whimpered and pulled herself closer to him. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the temporary moment of relief. After he realized that his parents were no longer able to be saved, finding Sam was the first thing that he felt needed to be done. Finding Danny was the second, but there would be time for that later. After all, Danny was a half-ghost. All he had to do was slip into intangibility and he would be fine. He and Sam were the two that were at the most risk, and since he was safe, he desperately wanted her to be, too.

"We've gotta find Danny." Sam mumbled into his shoulder. He leaned away and she was looking up at him through eyes full of fear and determination. "He'll be freaking out right now, if he's even awake."

"I can't imagine him sleeping through that," Tucker glanced up at the ceiling. "But you're right. We should go look for him." He turned to Valerie. "Val?"

She stepped forward from the edges of the group, where she had been watching in silence. "What's up?"

"Think you can drop us off at FentonWorks?"

"That's in the heart of the city." She said, her voice low. "I'm sorry, guys, but -"

"Either you drop us off or we find our own way." Sam said sharply. Valerie sighed.

"I'll take you, but we're gonna go a roundabout way. I don't want anyone figuring out where this place is." Her voice was low, as if she knew exactly who she was keeping the location a secret from. Tucker and Sam exchanged a look, but did not say anything.

"We'll be going back to Sam's neighborhood," Valerie shouted over the wind. Sam was staring down at the streets, where pandemonium reigned free. Several other large fires had broken out across the city, and a few buildings had already crumbled under the pressure. "Hold on."

Sam tightened her grip around Valerie's waist, feeling Tucker do the same around her own waist as the hoverboard sped up. Her house was clearly visible from that altitude, and she heard Tucker gasp when he noticed it. "How did that happen?"

"She fell down the trash chute." Sam said, refusing to look at the house longer than a moment. "That's why I always told you guys to stay away from the chute."

"It's gonna burn the whole city down." Tucker said loudly.

"Let's hope so." Valerie said darkly.

She curved around about a block before Manson Manor, dropping down to just below the tops of the buildings and coasting toward FentonWorks. "You think he's still gonna be in there?" She asked as they drew closer.

"Not sure. He could be out running around." Sam glanced back at Tucker. "Maybe Tuck and I should go on foot, to see if we can find him down on the streets?"

"Normally, I would say hell no. But I get the feeling that neither of you would even hesitate to kill a zombie if it was attacking Fenton." She dropped down into a darkened alley, not quite touching the ground, but low enough for Sam and Tucker to jump down. "'Specially you, Manson."

Normally, she would have blushed and punched the living daylights out of Valerie. But instead she just nodded grimly. "I'm gonna fly up, keep an eye on things. You guys go get him."

Valerie shoved two ecto rays into their hands. "They don't do much, other than royally piss them off, but we're still scouting for guns and ammo and those will distract them long enough for you guys to get away. Please, for the love of God, be careful." And with that, she was off, fifty feet in the air above them. Sam and Tucker stared at the bottom of her hoverboard for a moment before turning and jogging out into the streets.

They paused at the entrance of the alley, looking this way and that as zombies chased people at break-neck speeds. Cars shot by so fast they were blurs. Sam swallowed and stepped out.

"Sam!" Tucker's hand was suddenly vice-like around her arm as he yanked her backwards. A tan Jeep Grand Cherokee went flying past. A very familiar tan Jeep Grand Cherokee.

"That's my car!" She shouted, watching as it careened around the corner and out of sight. "Some asshole must have hotwired it and stolen it!"

"We don't have time, let's just go!" His hand found hers and he dragged her down the sidewalk toward FentonWorks. She swallowed her fury at whoever stole the car, wishing them a painful death, as they neared the Fenton's street. They turned the corner, heading down the same street her car turned on to but in the opposite direction, and Sam chanced a glance over her shoulder. She could just see the tail lights of her car through the bodies sprinting back and forth through the street, apparently heading toward a gas station. She growled and turned back to face the front.

"What?" Tucker choked. He skidded to a stop so suddenly that Sam crashed directly into his back. She stumbled, grabbed his shoulders, and straightened herself up. She peered around his shoulder.

There was an empty lot between two achingly familiar buildings. Sam stared at it uncomprehendingly. Wasn't there a house there?

"It's gone!" Tucker gasped. "FentonWorks...it's...gone!"

"No," Sam shook her head. She stepped around Tucker, staring at the empty lot. "There's no way it's gone. We're on the wrong street, it's -" Tucker silenced her and pointed to the scorch marks visible on the wall of the building beside the empty lot. There were even places where the wall was crumbling.

"Their house blew up." He said, his voice hollow. "It was here, it blew up, and now it's gone."

Sam whirled around to face him, her mouth open in a snarl, but before she could insult his intelligence a deafening, ground-shaking explosion down the street cut her off. She stepped around Tucker and gasped. The gas station her car had been heading to had exploded, and it was now alive with fire.

"That was my car!" She screamed, staring at the dark, Jeep-shaped mass engulfed in flames. "That was my fucking car!"

"Sam!" Tucker seized her shoulders and shook her. "Forget about the damn car!"

"Holy shit!" She gasped. She whirled back around, her eyes dancing over the place where FentonWorks once stood. It was impossible. She had eaten dinner there, with Tucker and Danny, just hours before. There was no way it was gone. No way he was gone. "Danny!" She screeched. She took off down the street, ignoring Tucker's desperate calls and dodging flailing limbs as she ran. "Danny!"

"Look out!" Tucker bellowed. Sam turned to her right and saw the a man with an enormous belly, riddled with disease, charging directly at her with a deafening roar. She skidded to a halt and lunged at him, swinging the ecto ray still clutched in her hand down on top of his head as hard as she could. She heard bone crack and the zombie dropped heavily, body motionless. She leapt over him and continued running.

"Sam!" Valerie was suddenly there, cutting her path off. The ghost huntress caught Sam around the middle and hoisted her up into the air, holding her down as she struggled to get free. "Let it go!"

"No! Danny!" She could feel the veins bulging in her neck as she fought with Valerie.

"He's gone!" Valerie screamed in her ear. Sam froze, her body rigid. "He's gone, and he's never coming back, okay? He's gone. Let it go."

"B-but -"

"Let. It. Go."

Sam's entire body began to quake as a hurricane erupted inside her soul. It felt as if everything had been smashed to pieces, leaving her floundering in a mountain of salt and broken glass. Everything hurt. Even the deep, shuddering breaths she gasped grated against her heart.

She collapsed on the hoverboard, ignoring the way the device teetered violently as it took her sudden redistribution of weight, and sobbed. She felt Valerie lowering them to the ground, and then she felt Tucker gathering her up in a hug. She clung to him as she sobbed, desperately wanting to tell him the news but finding herself incapable of speaking. Valerie explained softly over Sam's head, making her cling to Tucker even more tightly as the news washed over her again. Danny was dead. He was dead. He was never coming back again.

"We need to get out of here." Valerie said, her voice suddenly hard. Sam heard Tucker agreeing, his voice low and rumbling in his chest, and before she knew it she was being lifted. She peered blindly up at Tucker, who was climbing on to the hoverboard, and as he lowered her legs down so that her feet were touching the board she buried her face in his chest. She did not want to see the outside world. She wanted to forget, to crawl inside herself and never come back out again. After all, there was no pain there. In her mind, Danny was still very much alive. In her mind there were no zombies, her mother was not dead, and her father and grandmother were unharmed. Everyone was there, safe, and it was perfect.

Why would she ever want anything to be different?

Typical DxS hit/miss.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

- Tori