Epilogue
Ash
"So… If you're taking it like this, how's Missi taking the whole incident?"
"You know, I haven't talked to her about it since after I dropped her off. I'll ask her when I see her in gym class tomorrow."
"What I want to know is why it freaked you out so much."
"It reminded me of the time with the zombies."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember inside the cafeteria?" I felt Emily nod behind me, "Where we were attacking and… killing zombies?" A slower nod, "The two of them were both zombies that I finished off."
"Oh." She hugs me tightly.
"…We haven't yet figured out anything about why or how it happened."
"I'm not sure that we can." It's the barest murmur on the back of my neck. "The angels don't remember it… which is rather frightening when you think about it… and I think we only remember because our files were misfiled… so what can we do but cope?"
"Nothing I suppose."
Emily releases me, "Yeah… You'd better go. If my mom catches you in here when I'm supposed to be grounded…"
"Yeah, OK. …Emily?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"No, Ash, thank you. …Don't forget to check up on Missi."
I'm already halfway out of the window. "I won't."
Emily
Many years later
Knowing the time when you need to fight. Was that the most important thing to come from the Misfile?
Before, I'd lacked the knowledge that there was so much more to life than acting out my Mom's shattered dreams.
After a period of adjustment, of soul searching, I'd found my path. Sometimes, it surprised me.
Always, it provided a source of inspiration.
After all, who could we talk about it with? Rumi was long gone, and with Ash having the harder row, needing every bit of support that, well, was available, why not make what had become such a major part of my life, my vocation as well?
Trauma psychology.
"Doctor?" Thought derailed, I looked up at my secretary, "I'm headed off now. Is there anything else you need?" I smiled, a steady wind to sail with, I have the star to steer by.
"No, but thank you Jenny. Thanks for your work today."
"It's what you pay me for. I'll let your six-o'clock in on my way out."
"What would I do without you?"
A snort, "Write fewer books."
I chuckled, it was an old, pointed, joke, started by Mom of all people. I had yet to write a full book, lots of submissions to medical journals, pamphlets and other consultancy work that had provided help to others writing books, but I had yet to put pen to paper in that way.
I waved to Jenny as she passed my door on her way out. I jotted a quick post-it and affixed it to my monitor, a not-so-subtle reminder of where I need to start tomorrow. And begin to close my computer down. A thought occurs, instead of shutting down my browser, I open a tab to Google and type in a name, and hit 'I'm feeling lucky.'
A figure darkens my doorway, I don't need to look but I do anyway. How could I have ever considered you as just a friend? I am the luckiest person alive to have you. How do you describe love, the slow suffusing warmth of a fire? The blazing brightness of the sun? The beauty of the stars on a clear night? A volcano bubbling on the verge of eruption? Maybe all of them.
"Ash."
The browser silently loads a page, unnoticed by everyone, the computer hibernates from lack of use and the page goes unseen, a page to a wiki with a picture of a face that would have been familiar to both of those in the office. It would have answered a lot of their questions, but Emily forgot about it and the thought would never have occurred to Ash.
Besides, they were rather too busy to care.
The End
Authors Notes:
Saeko and Rei: They are both from 'High-School of the dead'; there were a lot more characters from HSotD running around at one point, but again to compress and streamline they went, so honourable mentions go to Rika and Shizuka. And apologies to people who wanted Saeko to survive. She is however reset and can now be found in her correct fictional universe, as she is now correctly filed (If you couldn't find them while I was writing this, I apologise unreservedly). Any mistakes in the characterising of Rei and Saeko are my own.
Rei meets a few people along the way (Cliff for one, William and Phillip) and a few others are mentioned in passing in other sections (like Mike Mogford) who are real people. Incidentally, sorry if your names are spelled wrong or if I got some facet of your personality wrong, as I've never met you and am going by Jin99's descriptions… Well I'll consider it remarkable if there is anything recognisable.
Angie and Penny: Were originally aged-up versions of Ash and Emily (DON'T HIT ME!) however as I wasn't informed of this until later (much, much later, as in 15 months later), I ran them in a different direction. I thought Angie was an Angelica expy for example (easy mistake to make), and strove to pull her character away from that while leaving enough to make her interesting. They stayed as part of this work primarily because this fiction has a fairly dark tone and I needed something within to provide a little light. I actually prefer their personal zombie infested ending than the one they eventually ended up with, sad huh?
Sarah and the 'Rainbow Girls' (Becky, Charlotte and Jaime [once called sad or Said]): This was originally guest written by someone else. They were original characters, as far as I can tell or at least they were. Rewrites have made them different from their original characterisation, so I'm calling them a joint effort. Originally all their sections were going to be removed to further streamline the story, as the intended purpose (showcasing their early successes against the early failures of the Misfile group) became superfluous. However I enjoyed writing from Sarah's point of view far too much, her dream sequence really cracks me up and it allowed me to run with some of the really weird things from Jin99's draft. Distorting sounds and finding ways of writing them that almost make sense was equally fun. I did run out of things that she could do with a concussion though, so…
RPG: I haven't come up with a better way of describing these sections so my apologies for that first. Maestro is originally a wish-fulfilment self-insertion of Jin99 (no, his name is not Mike); again different from how he was originally. Left in because it showcased some of my better action writing (and the rest couldn't afford to stay). Again some of the people here are real, my apologies for your characterisations (and deaths, and booting you in the nuts, no really, I am very sorry, please don't reciprocate), I worked with what I had.
The Misfile cast: I thinned it down a lot; I reduced some to cameos, but tried to stick with as small a group as I could manage. Again, any mistakes at characterising them are my own.
Also apologies for the self-insertion, I had a logical problem that needed someone who was afraid of heights, because anybody else would have gone out on the roof to avoid the zombies. I couldn't think of a Misfile character that fitted the bill, so… I asked myself "who do I know, other than myself, who's afraid of heights?" …and ended up putting an age-appropriate version of myself in. Ghah. The last name is actually a nickname I was given, it's Welsh, and it means 'one who sacrifices', appropriate huh? And since it was September 2004, I decide to make the fictional version of me as realistic as possible, including: uncompleted surgeries, school record (which Emily could conceivably know), etc. Made me all nostalgic for my youth, not.
The drink mixed by Cliff, is not the Corpse Reviver No.2; although it would have been hilarious if it was, it's a shade too alcoholic for just settling nerves. A cookie to the first one who figures out what the drink was.
Technical Notes:
The zombie infection (whatever it actually happens to be) is treated here as a super-virus, this means that when the immune system detects it, the persons metabolism goes into overdrive. That then causes a rise in temperature.
The human body is good at retaining body heat; zombies, in this case, absorb and detect heat, especially body heat. So their temperature drops to near room temperature quickly.
Thermal Imaging takes a while to determine who is dead and who is not; body temperature falls into the death range slowly as the human body retains temperature fairly well; simply put, its thermodynamics.
A head injury, such as Saeko's can result in brain death, but the body can keep going for some time after such an injury occurs. In this case, Emily doesn't regain consciousness before Saeko passes on. So Saeko is still warm and shows up as alive (or close enough) on Thermal Imaging. Emily doesn't mention that Saeko's warm because she, like you, has no idea how long has passed since the impact. Suffice it to say there is a body in the car, which has been there a while. Long enough to cool, and be detected.
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