MY ZOMBIE VALENTINE
By: Darkinyron
Well this chapter pissed me off . . . I seriously rewrote the second scene FOUR times. The final "draft" was a complete rewrite because my main laptop's backlight went out (and is still out; I can't afford to fix it) and I didn't have enough time to get that ONE file with that damn scene onto the external hard drive before it happened. Luckily, I got all of the other important files for this story onto it, so I won't be forced to rewrite anymore, I hope. And thankfully, my grandma bought me this beautiful new laptop for my birthday back in June so I'm not completely out of commission!
Sorry yet again about the update wait. -_-; Aside from how frustrated I got with this chapter, I'm also having severe financial issues right now and I've had an abnormally sickly winter, both of which are taking their toll on my mind and body. I promise I have not forgotten about my story! My stress levels are just through the roof right now because life's a demented bitch who's been amusing herself by running me into the ground or at least giving me one hell of an allegorical beating. -.-;
Two or three more chapters after this and we will be returning to the original story! :) Once I can drag my tired ass through them, updates will come more frequently because a lot of the post-Season 2 stuff is already written and what's not is stuff I am actually excited to write. XD
~ CHAPTER NINE ~
BROMINE
DAY BETWEEN SEASON 1 & SEASON 2
(The group finds a parked semi attached to an unleaded fuel tanker at a Sunoco gas station and uses it to fill their vehicles with gasoline for the trip to Fort Benning. They decide to camp out inside of the Sunoco for the night and hit the road in the AM.)
AN ELECTROFYING CRACK of thunder that was loud enough to wake the dead startled Shane from an abysmal slumber.
"Chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chooo chooo!"
Train noises didn't make sense in Shane's mind. He opened his drowsy eyes and felt his neck protest against the annoying stiffness it had obtained from its poor angle during the night.
Something soft brushed against his five o'clock shadow as he straightened his achy neck. Looking down, Shane saw Katharine Burke's head resting heavily against the front of his shoulder and identified her hair as the softness he'd felt. A smile spread across his tired face before he even realised it. Finally, after all these months, the woman he'd quickly fallen for was using him as a human pillow.
"Chug, chug, chug, chug, choo, choo!"
More train noises led Shane to glance around and process his surroundings. They were sitting on one of the sofas in Kat's house, a place he'd never been before. He glanced down at her sleeping form and noticed that she was still in her police uniform—something he'd soon learn was a habit of hers when she got off of work and was too tired to shower or even change. Her duty belt and boots were in the middle of the living room floor amidst an array of scattered toys that had not been there the previous night.
"Chooo choooooooo!"
Shane almost flinched when he felt something lightly bang into his left foot, reminding him that he'd fallen asleep in a sitting position. The object continued to gently ram into his ankle before motoring its way over his toes and against his other foot. Whatever it was felt like it had wheels.
Careful to not wake Kat up, Shane leaned forward a bit and saw a small Aryan girl looking up at him.
"Hi!" the messy-haired girl quietly exclaimed.
"Hey there," Shane murmured, his voice raspy from being woken up. He glanced around and found a pillow beside the sofa, picked it up, and gently eased it under Kat's sleeping head. Once he was satisfied that she would not wake up, he slid out from beneath her and lowered her cushioned head into the crook of the couch's armrest and the area he'd been sitting.
"Mr. Policeman, is Mumma okay?" the little girl asked worriedly.
Shane glimpsed at Kat and saw her swollen eyelids. She looked as if she had suffered another form of allergic reaction, but in reality her eyelids were puffy from finally failing in her attempts to withhold her impending and much needed emotional release following Steven Burke's fatal motorcycle accident.
Glancing back at whom he presumed must have been the daughter of Kat and Steven, Shane smiled weakly and assured her. "Yeah . . . Yeah she's fine."
"Is she sick?" the child wondered, her face stricken with obvious concern. It occurred to him then that she'd probably never seen her emotionless mother cry, so to see her wrecked face in a state more appropriate for someone much younger was understandably troublesome.
"No, no." Shane whispered, shaking his head. "What's your name, sweetie?"
"Erin. What's yours?"
"My name's Shane."
Erin Burke leaned back on her knees and pulled the object she was playing with away from Shane's feet. He looked down and saw that a plastic model of Thomas the Tank Engine was the culprit and that an oversized, half-naked Barbie doll that was sitting on top of Thomas' freight car of coal was his accomplice.
"How old are you, Erin?"
"I'm three. Mumma says I'm gunna be four next week!"
Another crack of thunder rattled Shane's bones, causing him to jump in his spot. He eased off of the couch and onto the floor, leaned his back up against it and Kat's knees, and smiled down at Erin.
"How long you been in here play'n with Thomas 'n Barbie?"
"I dunno; a little bit. The storm woke me up. It's too loud to sleep."
"Do storms scare you?"
"Nope, I like 'em. The rain is pretty. It's raining!"
Raindrops were slamming into the roof and siding, their sound tempting Shane's brain with another nap. He was exhausted, but a nap would have to wait despite how badly he yearned to curl back up on the couch with his crush and be her big spoon. "I hear it," he yawned.
Erin giggled as he spoke while yawning. "Sleepy?" She maintained her voice's whispering tone so not to disturb her mother.
"Yeah!" Shane replied, keeping his own voice the same. He looked at his watch and saw that it was just after 8:00 AM.
"Why are you here?" Erin finally wondered, cocking her head curiously at the newcomer.
"I umm, I brought your mom home from work last night."
"Oh." Erin shrugged without much thought. Shane smiled at how young and innocent the three year old was; she wasn't mature enough to deeply question why a strange man would be in her house, passed out on a couch with her mother in his arms.
"Man I'm thirsty," Shane whined, that quirky smile ever present on his face. "Think your mom would mind if I snagged something to drink?"
"Nope!" Erin then stood up and grabbed Shane's hand, urging him to get on his feet as well. "C'mon, Shane! I'll show you the fridge, where the apple juice is!"
When he'd forced his stiff joints to make him stand, he stretched and silently promised himself to never again fall asleep while wearing a bulletproof vest.
"You're tall!" the three year old giggled. "You can reach the cupboard 'n get a cup!"
Children were funny when they spoke. Shane chuckled and let the girl take his hand again and lead him into the kitchen.
"Mumma always gives me apple juice in the morning," Erin was saying when they arrived in Katharine's average-sized kitchen. "She says it's good for you. You should drink some."
"All right," Shane agreed as he watched Erin Burke use all of her tiny weight to pull the refrigerator door open. When it finally separated from its suction of a latch, she reached in and removed a carton of Welch's apple juice then brought it over to him.
"Close the door, sweetie," Shane reminded her, taking the plastic carton.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot!" Erin said in the midst of running back to the fridge.
Shane couldn't help but feel a sense of happiness. The wide smile and the gentle expression he knew was on his face was something he hoped would never leave, even though it was something he classified as alien and almost too good to be true.
In the past few months Shane had been feeling the urge to grow up and settle down. Seeing his best friend get married and welcome a baby into the world only a few years ago had changed him. The party life of the resistant, almost delinquent rebel he'd been starting at the age of fifteen was gradually growing old. He was a cop now, and he surprised himself in that moment when he thought that he was actually becoming pretty damn good at his job. One night stands and meaningless, short-term relationships were becoming less and less appealing as his career and mature group of friends and co-workers replaced the bad crowd he had once associated with.
Yet Shane refused to let his inner kid completely die. Growing up wasn't allowed to completely suck, if he had any say.
As he found a glass and poured himself some apple juice, Shane wondered what he would have thought five years ago if someone had told him that he'd actually fall in love with somebody and settle his wild ass down. He imagined his teenage form would have laughed at the idea. But now he was gazing back in time and mentally laughing at what he was at the age of seventeen. My, how things reluctantly changed . . .
Erin Burked reached up and placed an empty sippy-cup on the counter. He removed the lid and filled it for her.
"I don't remember the last time I drank apple juice in the morn'n," Shane commented almost to himself.
"What do you drink when you wake up?" Erin wondered.
Shane didn't want to admit that just a few years ago it had been beer or that in the more recent times it was typically a Mountain Dew or a Coca-Cola. "Coffee," he muttered. It wasn't a full-blown lie; whenever he'd get stuck on first shift, coffee was a cop's best friend.
"So does Mumma," Erin grumbled. "Or Pepsi Throwback."
Apparently he wasn't the only one.
"You stick with your juice, little one," Shane advised, handing the sippy-cup back and rustling her messy blonde hair. "Caffeine ain't good for someone your age."
"I will!" she promised before taking big gulps of her apple juice.
A sly smirk ran across Shane's face and he bit his lower lip to hide it. He noticed Kat's coffee pot and plugged it in, filled it with water and what he hoped would be enough grains of her typical morning drug, and turned it on.
"Think your mom will like that?" he asked, pointing toward the brewer and it startled to gurgle and heat up.
Erin nodded with childish approval. "Yep!"
"Good."
Erin suddenly darted back towards the living room. Shane picked up his glass and followed her, hearing her tiny footsteps running up the stairs to the second floor. He paused in the hallway and stood there stupidly.
Kat was still asleep on the couch. He assumed the rain was responsible for keeping her in such a blissful state. He felt his smile return as he gazed at her, hoping he'd get more opportunities to become her human pillow in the future.
While waiting for Erin to return, Shane glanced at some family photographs that were mounted on the wall in wooden frames. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine as he gazed upon an image of Steven Burke holding his daughter in his arms while Kat stood behind him, her arms crossed and her face empty. It was a recent image, one probably taken in the last couple of months given Erin's age. Just last night he'd been unable to recognise the man's body on his own. Now, seeing a photo of the man when he was alive was rather creepy.
Erin Burke was a spitting image of her father. They were both blonde, shared the same nose, the same hairline, the same thin lips, and the same blue eyes. Their expressions were soft and they both had wavy hair. Katharine's physical features—such as her brown-black straight hair, hazel eyes, thin nose and eyebrows, and her full lips—were all absent in her daughter's image.
The sound of Erin making her way back down the stairs summoned Shane from his trance. She stomped a little obnoxiously and reappeared around the banister, a large teddy bear in one hand, a brush and another member of Thomas the Tank Engine's family in the other.
As she came down from the last step, Thomas' red pal fell from Erin's grip and clattered against the linoleum floor.
"Oops!" Erin gasped, setting the other objects on the ground.
"It's all right," Shane whispered. "Need help with that?"
"I'm okay."
Shane noticed Kat shifting in her sleep in response to the noise. She brought her hands to her face as she started to wake up, most likely in response to the undoubted headache that had formed between her pathetic emotional breakdown and the effort she had put into preventing it and ending it after it had escaped.
"Can you help me find Daddy?" Erin whined, ignoring her mother. "I dunno where he is. He's gotta brush my hair when I get up, but he's not in his room."
Happy innocence fled as Shane remembered his real purpose for being in Katharine's house. His smile disappeared and he could only hope that sometime soon it would return. It sucked that he couldn't be here simply because he belonged here, and he had to admit that the idea of that was farfetched in reality.
Erin immediately noticed the change in Shane's demeanour. She picked her stuffed animal back up and held it tightly. The thumb of her empty hand went into her mouth and she ambled over to him with the teddy bear.
Shane knelt down to be eye level with the little girl. He knew it was time to tell her and he didn't want Kat to have to do it. She'd told him she didn't want to, that she didn't know how. He didn't want her to get stuck with the gruelling task. She was uncomfortable with it and given the topic's delicacy and seriousness, she was likely to mess it up due to lack of confidence. All last night she'd gone over it with him a million times, how she would tell Erin that her father had gotten himself killed via his own stupidity. None of the ramblings she'd offered—more to herself than to him it seemed—felt like the best way to go about it. In fact, the more ideas she'd come up with, the more distressed she'd become.
Shane didn't see the point in rehearsing a dialogue or even planning one. He'd had to give people bad news before. Through experience and just based on his recent interactions with her, he believed himself to be better at it than Kat.
He took a deep breath and sighed, looking at Erin as gently as he could.
"Your daddy isn't here," he whispered. "I will brush your hair for you if you'd like."
"Okay!" Erin agreed. She fetched her brush from the floor and handed it to him. "Where did he go?"
As he accepted Erin's silver hairbrush, Shane noticed Katharine Burke watching him from the couch. She'd picked her head up and was supporting herself on her elbow, waiting to see what Shane would say. Shane then looked back at the wall of photographs and spotted a wooden crucifix among them. Rick Grimes had mentioned the importance of religion in Kat's family so he decided to incorporate it into the conversation he needed to have with Erin.
"He went to Heaven, sweetheart."
Erin cocked her head and studied her new friend curiously. Shane could see the gears of her mind turning, processing at their own pace which was then unknown to him. Her face seemed neutral for several moments until her eyes shifted to the floor. Erin's mouth fell open, then she quickly looked back up into Shane's eyes.
"He went to see Jesus?" she wondered, almost casually.
"Yes, sweetie."
"When will he be back?" The question would have been ridiculous to any adult or older child capable of understanding death in its entirety. But this girl had never experienced a loss before. Most likely, she had no defining knowledge of the word 'death'.
"He's not coming back," Shane said, keeping his voice gentle and soft. "He went to live in Heaven."
"Why?"
"Well . . . because he died."
"He . . . he died?" Erin's face melted into what Shane interpreted as a mixture of fear and sadness. Apparently Erin had heard of death before.
Shane felt his heart break for the little girl. She was so young, so innocent, so undeserving of this bad news.
He nodded slowly. "Yes, sweetie."
Erin hesitated. "Why?"
"It was his time to go to Heaven, I guess. We all have our time when we pass on and we will all die, someday. We never know when though. Do you understand?"
"Kinda."
"Then you know that one day, you will see him again."
"Can we bring him back home?"
"No little one, we can't. I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"Because death is permanent. It's . . . a forever thing. His body doesn't work anymore. If we brought him back, he wouldn't be the same. Therefore, it's not possible. It's just the way things are."
"Daddy broke?"
"His body did."
"We can't fix it for him?"
"No, I'm afraid we can't. When we die, our bodies stay dead. They can't come back to life. Our souls remain, but since souls don't have bodies anymore after death, we can't see them. But he's still with you, in Heaven, watching over you. Everything works there, and he's happy there, I bet."
"But I'll miss him!"
"I know, sweetheart. I understand. But you'll see him again, someday."
"Are you sure, Shane?"
"I'm sure."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Shane hadn't noticed Kat rise from the couch. When she came and knelt behind her daughter, he looked into her eyes for some form of feedback.
Kat smiled softly at Shane—a genuine smile. Her eyes were still wet but they told a tale of relief now that Erin had been informed and that she had taken it so well. Her smile widened just a bit and she nodded her head to him.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Erin looked over her shoulder and up at her mother. "Mumma, Daddy died!" she whined.
"I know, baby. I know." Kat kissed her daughter softly on the forehead. "It will be hard for you."
"He went to live with Jesus!"
"Yes he did," Kat agreed, letting a single tear escape her bloodshot eyes.
"Don't cry, Mumma," Erin chirped, letting her innocence talk for her. "Jesus is nice. He'll like living with Jesus. Right, Shane?"
Kat and Shane couldn't help but chuckle in response to her cute words. Kat wiped her eyes and somehow managed to keep her lips turned upwards.
"Of course," he chuckled. "Now turn around so I can brush your hair."
"Okay!" Erin exclaimed, scooting into the opposite direction.
Kat took a seat up on the edge of her wooden coffee table and watched as Shane started to gracelessly comb through Erin's thin, knotted locks. The little girl was beaming happily, almost as if nothing had changed in her life. Young children were like that—often oblivious to the seriousness of death and inexperienced in grief-inspired emotions.
Once Shane had worked out all of the night's knots and awkward curls, Erin stood and turned to face him.
"Thank you, Shane!" she cheered, taking the brush from him and setting it on an end table. "Will you come brush my hair tomorrow?" she wondered.
"Maybe . . . if I can."
Erin watched Shane's gaze shift to meet Kat's again. Kat was studying him, her mouth hanging open slightly and her head cocked as if she was trying to figure him out. He let her hazel eyes capture him, draw him in, and validate to him all the more that she was the one he wanted to marry someday. He knew his eyes were glazed with that unfamiliar feeling that people called 'puppy love' and he silently wondered if she recognised it.
He couldn't tell what she was thinking; he was too lost in her eyes and his own hopes. It wasn't long before she smirked rapidly and narrowed her eyes at him. He snapped out of it and refocused.
"Is that coffee I smell?" Kat inquired with a one-sided grin.
"Thought I'd make ya some," Shane admitted with a shrug. "Erin here told me it's your morn'n drink."
"It is."
Katharine stood and walked toward the kitchen. She looked over her shoulder at him as she walked away, her unilateral smirk still present. As she disappeared behind one of the kitchen walls, Shane felt a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest and knew he'd earned some points with her.
Shane was startled out of his peaceful slumber by an urgent tap on his shoulder.
"Wake up, man."
Instinctively, Shane shifted his head up and saw T-Dog standing beside him. He scowled and sighed at the realisation that he'd actually been asleep, reliving his memory in the form of a dream. A brief flicker of rage spread through him when he remembered that he was a survivor during a zombie apocalypse and that both Kat and Erin were dead. Faerie tale memories of genuine, loving romance had no place here.
"Sorry, fell asleep," Shane yawned.
"Go inside . . . lay down 'n get some sleep. I'll take watch for a bit."
Meanwhile . . .
After helping syphon gasoline out of the fuel tanker, Rick Grimes washed up in the Sunoco's exterior bathroom then went inside to find some gum. He grabbed a few packs of Trident for himself and took them into the gas station's office where he had left his suitcase. Waiting for him on the desk was an old iPod he'd found in a car outside, which had some good tunes on it and still held a considerable amount of battery life.
Rick was tired. He knew he should have crawled into his sleeping bag hours ago but something was bugging him.
Closing the office door, Rick remembered a pair of headphones he'd shoved into the suitcase years ago prior to an airplane flight. He clicked on his flashlight and set it up on the desk for some illumination, then rummaged through the suitcase, wondering if they were even still in the pocket he'd left them in. After pulling out several Ziplock bags full of soap, deodorant, toothpaste, and other toiletries, Rick felt his fingers grasp what he was looking for. He grabbed the iPod and connected it to the headphones, found a song he liked, and smiled at the simple peace the music brought him.
Deeper in the suitcase, Rick found the laptop and the manila folder that Dr. Jenner had given him. His curiosity over their contents could wait no longer.
Rick set up the laptop on the office's wooden desk and turned it on. He figured it had to be a potential communication link and wondered if he could attempt to contact Dorian Chambers. If not, it must at least have some interesting documents about the plague or video footage for him to watch.
Immediately after booting, the computer demanded the entry of a password to access its contents. Rick frowned and opened the manila folder to get guessing ideas.
On top of the overflowing stack of papers inside of the folder, Rick found a hastily scribbled, handwritten message from Dr. Jenner spanning the length of four very large sticky notes. He pulled them apart and read them beneath the light of his flashlight.
Officer Grimes,
I had a feeling you wouldn't accept the painless gift I offered you and your group, so I printed off all of my daily research notes and decided to give them to you, along with my laptop. This is my personal laptop. I trust that you will respect it as such. I decided that you were the best candidate to receive it given your stable personality, your leadership skills, and your determination to keep your group alive. The password is wildfire65_20.
Understand that I could not go on like this. My wife's brain matter samples were destroyed by my own carelessness the day before you arrived. Without TS-19, there is nothing left for me to experiment on or study.
The laptop contains several thousand more pages worth of both my own research and that which was conducted by others here at the CDC and around the world. Read through them if you'd like but I do not guarantee that you will understand them. You will also find video recordings of my communication sessions with Dr. Dorian Chambers and a copy of the Enhanced Internal View of TS-19 that you were just shown. If you ever find Dr. Chambers, please pass this folder and this laptop on to him. Assuming he is alive and still researching, they will be of great help to him. Fill him in on what happened here and remind him that he is probably humanity's last hope to develop a specific anti-viral medication, or at least a vaccine, for Walker Fever. And let him know that I am not angry with him, nor do I blame him, for my wife's death. She was bitten by a walker and died by nature's hand after risking her own life to do what she knew was right. He has no reason to be experiencing the guilt he felt.
I wish you and your group the best. Life is so fragile, yet your group has proven how enduring it can be. Good luck and I hope you find yourselves a reliable safe haven. I am sorry that the CDC could not be it.
Sincerely,
Dr. Edwin Jenner
Rick read the note over a few times before clicking off the flashlight and entering the password. He immediately dimmed the screen to prevent his group members from seeing its light beneath the office door and to conserve battery life. It also became obvious that he would not be connecting to the internet or whatever space satellite Dr. Jenner had spoken of either.
Dr. Jenner wasn't kidding with his warning that he may not understand the written documents. The medical terminology, graphs, diagrams, procedures, and even some of the photos were well beyond his level of education. He quickly became frustrated and gave up.
Rick's eyes began to hurt in response to the screen's artificial light and his own exhaustion, but he shut down the iPod, plugged his headphones into the computer, and forced himself to open a few video recordings. They were all neatly organised into their own digital file folders, many containing even more folders within themselves. The ones he went through first were nothing more than Dr. Jenner's ramblings in what he assumed was a daily blog the microbiologist had kept out of boredom during his period of solitude. Others were recordings of autopsies the coroners had performed on walkers.
Footage within one folder in particular both greatly disturbed Rick and fascinated him in such a way that he could not pull his eyes away or bring himself to stop watching. A Microsoft Office Word document in the folder identified the videos as the daily scientific documentations of an anonymous brain surgeon out of Michigan. The first video in the series documented the final moments of Claire, the man's mistress, who had suffered numerous human bite wounds on various parts of her body. An EEG was hooked up to her, recording her brain function.
Claire hadn't been fortunate enough to rapidly bleed to death out of a severed carotid artery in under a minute, like Amy had. Nor had she experienced alternating periods of calm lucidity and psychosis as Jim had. As she lay dying on what appeared to be an autopsy table, Claire thrashed and howled in agonising, bloodcurdling screams as if she was being tortured by the world's sickest homicidal maniac. But her only obstacle was the zombie fever and a makeshift leather belt that kept her restrained to the table around her waist. Rick clenched his eyes shut and turned away, unable to watch the woman's death because it was simply too upsetting. But his headphones kept the echo of her screams alive in his ears until they too evaporated into peaceful waves of deathly silence.
Certain that the videotape had recorded the woman's demise, Rick opened his eyes only to see that the MP4 had ended. He took a deep breath and opened the next in the sequence, which began with the surgeon's actual documentation of her time of death. He then noticed that the video was supposedly over five and a half hours long, so he fast-forwarded through it. It was nothing but a camera watching her dead body.
The next bit of footage began a few minutes before the woman's chest began to rise and fall. The doctor had been at her side the entire time, staring at her, unmoving, waiting. Rick shuddered when he noticed that the EEG was beginning to detect brain waves again, but the woman's revivified life mirrored that of TS-19 from the CDC. When the zombified Claire took her first breath as a walker, her cheating partner stood from his chair and backed away, trembling violently. He looked unable to decide what to do, but when the fresh revenant growled and attempted to lunge at him from beneath the leather restraint, his instincts sent him into fight for flight mode. A trembling hand latched onto a handsaw which he nervously positioned over the raging woman's neck. Swatting her hands away repeatedly, the surgeon whimpered and began sawing her throat like a piece of wood.
Rick's hands fell over his eyes to hide the vivid decapitation. His body tensed in response to hearing the mix of pitiful human cries and zombie screams which soon slurred into curdled, hallow gags, and eventually an almost appropriate, squishy carving sound as her reanimated cervical spine was severed from her body.
Scary movies weren't Rick's personal favourite as far as genres went. But he felt like he'd literally just watched something out of a horror flick and suddenly, none of the frightful works of fiction he'd sat through seemed so bad anymore. When Rick finally found the courage to pull his hands away from his face again, he saw the surgeon leaning over the now motionless body, quivering hysterically in response to the repulsive act he'd just committed, the serrated saw still dangling in his hand. When he glanced at the decapitated head, he jumped. The zombie's wide eyes were glaring at the camera and her lips were curled back in a quivering snarl.
Rick suddenly felt dizzy and sick to his stomach. He closed out the window and turned the laptop off, pulled out his headphones, and packed everything away. Still shaken from the insanity he'd just witnessed, Rick promised himself he'd find Dorian's videos another day. He came out of the office and decided to seek out some Pepto Bismol in the hopes that it would sooth his nagging nausea.
All he found was his friend, Shane Walsh, sitting against the counter where he'd found the gum.
"Can't sleep either, huh?" Shane asked with a yawn.
Rick shook his head. "Bad dreams," he lied.
"Walkers?"
"Yeah." It wasn't too far from the truth, and Rick figured he'd probably be having nightmares anyways after witnessing the CDC explode and after the video he'd just watched.
"Me too," Shane sighed.
"I don't feel good," Rick admitted. "You seen any Pepto around here?"
Shane shook his head. "There's some ginger ale in the fridges, I think. Prolly warm, though."
"That'll do."
Rick located a bottle of Canada Dry and savoured its fizzy taste. It wasn't as cold as he would have liked, but it would do the job. He grabbed one for Shane and returned to the counter, sat beside him, and handed him the green drink.
"She's haunting me," Shane muttered.
"Huh?"
"Kat. She's haunting me."
"What do you mean she's 'haunting' you?"
"I keep see'n her . . . see'n her as one of them. I let her die, Rick. It's all my fault."
Rick's face screwed up and he shifted so he could look right into his best friend's eyes. "What do you mean you 'let her die'? It wasn't your fault!"
"I shouldn't have let her go after him," Shane explained, referring to Kat's father. "I knew it was a dumb idea, yet she convinced me to let her go. We should have gotten you out first, and then went in after her father, together. Then you would have been taken to Kindred and everything would have worked out just fine."
"But I'm not pissed at you for what happened. I can't blame you for any of this. If you were in the wrong, I wouldn't even be have'n this conversation with you right now."
Shane gave his friend a sick, confused, and guilty look. "That doesn't make it okay."
"Well, I still forgive you. Not that I was ever pissed at you to begin with . . ."
Shane's gaze shifted to the floor and he swallowed hard, looking like he too was ready to throw up.
"You did your best, Brother."
"But my best wasn't good enough. And that's why she's haunting me. And I ain't just see'n her in my nightmares. I'm see'n her in these fucked up hallucinations too." As if on cue, he rubbed his eyes and shook his head in an attempt to make one go away.
"A little PTSD is normal in circumstances like this, I would think," Rick offered as comfort.
"They scare me. I want her back. I . . . I dunno . . ." Shane was rambling.
"What if I told you Kat was still alive?" Rick wondered, trying to keep the thought casual.
Shane glared at him. "C'mon man, don't you start with those pointless mind games. I found her bloody badge. She's dead . . ." Now choked up, Shane blinked hard and swallowed repeatedly as he felt yet another bout of depression rise in his throat. "The walkers got her. She's not alive . . . not like that."
"You don't know that," Rick snarled. He paused and waited for Shane to say something. When he didn't, Rick kept talking. "Just because everyone else is dying of this plague, doesn't mean she did. It doesn't mean she's dead right now. You told me Kat promised you she wouldn't die."
"I'm sure she had every intention of keeping that promise," Shane muttered.
"Then tell me if this means anything to you," Rick barked. Shane leered at him again. "Get busy living, or get busy dying."
The other deputy's face paled as if he'd just seen a ghost and his mouth fell open.
"What did you say?" Shane's eyes narrowed; how could Rick have any knowledge of Lynn Sommers' final words?
"You heard me," Rick snapped childishly. "I believe you will see her again someday. Have some faith."
Shane stared stupidly at Rick, who got up with his ginger ale and marched out of the Sunoco. He was left to wonder just what Rick was hiding . . .
SEASON 2 – EPISODE 1
(The group is en route to Fort Benning in Cusseta, Georgia and gets stuck in a traffic jam of abandoned vehicles on the I-85. Sophia's lost after running from some walkers on the thruway. Daryl is leading the group around in search of her when they come across a church. Lori confronts Shane outside while Carol goes inside to pray.)
Everywhere he went, the ghost followed. Every time he blinked, he saw her face. Every guilty act he committed, she knew of.
And now, she was speaking to him.
Shane saw her now. He glanced out over the small cemetery that made up a significant portion of the old church's property and locked eyes with the visually opaque zombie of Katharine Burke.
"Shaaaaane . . ."
Still in uniform and soiled by crusty layers of foreign blood from her nose all the way down to her knees, the rotten hallucination was perched atop one of the larger gravestones, balancing in such a way that it would be impossible for a real zombie. Had it been night time, Shane might have been able to see her eyes glowing a bright, animated yellow, much like the creepy walkers from the Call of Duty: Black Ops and State of Decay video games that he'd openly enjoyed long before the apocalypse. It was unrealistic characteristics such as these—which were present in Kat's ghost—that reminded Shane that she wasn't really there.
"Shaaaaaaaane!"
The ethereal voice never failed to send icy chills right through him. The terrifying, wheezy whisper juddered over the imaginary corpse's larynx and escaped from between her bloody teeth in exaggerated, elongated syllables. The walker had yet to say any more than his name, as if she was only speaking it just to remind him of her death and to further drive his progressive insanity.
Stuck in a trance and oblivious to the world around him, Shane swallowed hard as the deathly doppelganger agilely leapt from the headstone and landed perfectly on another that was much closer to where he was standing, only a few feet away. Blood-stained teeth clacked softly at him as deep, rapacious growls chugged up from the zombie's vibrating throat like the mechanical bursts of a car's revving engine.
Looking into the ghoul's unnatural eyes, the frozen cop could figuratively see the agony of betrayal beneath Kat's typical empty, blank, zombified expression. It was an emotional tossed salad of unnerving, heart wrenching, surprising, and relieving. Shane's guilt didn't help his psychosis. Whether this was a legitimate ghost or the hallucination of a mental illness, he couldn't help but treat it with the respect the real thing would have demanded. And when the departed sheriff's deputy launched off of the second tombstone and landed on the one right in front of him, he flinched with a gasp loud enough to motivate a nearby murder of crows out of a tree.
It was eerie seeing his presumably extinct lover balancing on a gravestone like a demented gymnast. Unlike the prior two, this ivory memorial was shaped like a cross. Kat's zombie stood with a foot on each of the crucifix's arms—a clueless act of religious disrespect that would have outraged her in life; she leaned down over her surviving pseudo-spouse, still growling, exhaling her sickeningly rancid, hot breath into his face, mocking him, reminding him that even in death, she reluctantly had him wrapped around her little finger, and that she was still aware of everything he did.
Shane wondered if the zombie would bite him. He almost wished she would, just so he could join her. Despite the almost demonic presence before him, he longed for her. When Kat was alive, he'd never been able to truly bring her to life. If only she would bite him, he could at least join her in death and become the half of the zombie that he signified alongside her. Shane then thought that perhaps the carcass couldn't bite him. In their relationship, he was, after all, representative of the hungry, carnivorous predator that made the walking dead so dangerous, while Kat was the wandering, soulless, and decaying aspect that made a zombie so terrifying.
It was true. Even separation by being confined in the world of the living and the realm of the dead respectively, Shane and Kat couldn't function without one another.
But he yearned to join her so bad, he didn't have words to describe it. If only she would bite him . . .
"Are you really leaving?"
Shane jumped in his skin and whipped his head to the side, startled by Lori's voice. He found the skinny woman watching him from the safe distance of two metres away, nervously picking at her shirt as she dared to ask the seemingly exciting question.
When Shane turned back to the crucifix-shaped grave, the ghastly hallucination was gone.
Lori had quickly noticed that Shane seemed to have done a 360 overnight. Just two days ago he'd tried to sexually assault her and force his delusional feelings upon her, and now he was blowing her and Carl off as if they were his nemeses. Lori had no idea what was going on now.
Earlier in the day, she'd stumbled across Shane while he was cleaning out a new car in the traffic jam and trying to get its engine started. He'd told her that everything that had happened between them, especially the incident at the CDC, had all been a mistake. And now, for some mysterious reason, he was planning to leave.
"Don't ya think that it's best for all of us?"
"I think it is," Lori agreed with a sigh. "What made you decide?"
"I've gotta back away," Shane breathed softly, exhausted both physically and mentally from the intense summer heat, the search for Sophia, the dreams and hallucinations, and Lori's drama. "I'm just try'n to be the good guy here Lori, even if you don't see it." He turned and watched her confused facial expressions, trying his best to remain calm and not get all fired up. "None of this was intended. I hope you know that . . . Pffft, it don't matter as long as I said it."
Lori's inner storm was obviously brewing but because her husband was only a few yards away within the confines of the church, she too kept her temper low as she angrily marched right up to Shane. "You're just gunna disappear?! You're not even gunna tell Rick?!"
"Don't try to stop me. Look, that's on you. You tell him what you want, or tell him noth'n at all. You're his wife."
"And Carl? We dragged him into this!"
"I love Carl."
"He thinks you hate him."
"I'm trying to put some distance between us. I'm trying to make this easier. This ain't easy on any of us . . . least of all me. I'm the one who loses you."
"You never had me to begin with!" Lori hissed. She quickly glanced over and saw Andrea eavesdropping on their conversation, her mouth hanging open in shock. Annoyed, Lori lowered her tone and spoke harsh whispers almost directly into Shane's ear. "You never had me. Get it through your head, Shane. I'm not yours. I never was. I never will be. Find your own family, goddamn it!"
"Why do you think I'm leaving?" Shane snarled. "So I can find them."
Lori took a step back and her eyes widened. "They're dead, Shane."
"Well I have reason to believe they may still be alive."
"Oh really?" Lori put her hands on her hips and stared at him as if he were a disobedient child. "Have you lost your mind?"
"No, Lori. I haven't."
"Well then . . . ! Why the sudden change?"
"That's none of your business."
"I think it is my business."
"And why is that? Like you said, I never had you, so what makes what I do any of your business?"
Lori took another step back. Her mouth moved, trying to form words, but she was left speechless. What had happened in Shane's mind? Just yesterday, he'd been everything Jacqui had described. Now, he was the opposite. It was a miracle, one Lori knew had to be too good to be true.
"Well, Lori?"
"Shane . . . She's dead."
"What?"
"Kat's dead. Dead!"
Shane's eyes shifted to the floor. "And what if she ain't?"
"She is."
"She might not be."
Lori couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You said it yourself; she's dead."
"She might not be. I was wrong to jump to that conclusion."
"What?"
Shane looked sadly into Lori's eyes. "I'll accept her death only when I know it's for certain." Ironically, he felt as if the ominous visions were suddenly motivating him—almost ordering him—to leave and begin an inter-county search instead of merely accepting Kat's fate and moving on. Coupled with Rick's seemingly paranormal knowledge, Shane felt as if he had no choice but to go look. He was even beginning to think for the first time since the 15th of April that his favourite lady cop may have survived after all.
Appreciation for all of the obvious signs indicating that Kat's zombie-ghost was just a creepy phantasm—such as the walker's unrealistically pristine coordination, her once hazel eyes that now glowed yellow like miniature headlights at night, and her ability to enunciate words—was also setting in. The psychosis was easy to accept; the fact that it was most likely a symptom of what would have earned him a classification among the mentally insane in the pre-apocalyptic world was not.
"And if it is? What are you going to do then?"
"I don't know."
"You are not making any sense. You're not thinking clearly. Something happened to make you change your mind." Despite her overwhelming desire for Shane to leave, Lori didn't feel that it was her place to be cold enough to banish Shane or encourage his departure. Kat would have done that; she would have thrown him out onto the streets and walked away. Lori would not play the role of Katharine Burke anymore. So instead of raising her voice and acting rash, she bit back her anger, hid her enthusiasm over the idea, and tried to knock some semblance of sense into Shane's thick head.
Shane heard the concealed question in Lori's last sentence and refused to give her the satisfaction of answering it. "Like I said, that's none of your business." He didn't see the point in telling Lori about Dr. Jenner's revelations about Dorian Chambers. She would just scoff at it anyways.
"Are you taking anyone with you?"
"No."
"That's insane. You're as good as dead out there on your own."
"What do you care?"
"I may be pissed off at you, but I'm not heartless. Nor am I going to approve of you going on a suicide mission to chase a ghost."
Shane let out a rather loud, sarcastic chuckle. "Almost sounds like you're fishing for an invite to come with me."
Lori felt an eruption of rage fire up, but again, she bit it back and kept her sharp, alto voice steady and as civil as she could muster. "You've got to be kidding me!"
Shane simply shot her a knowing look. He still believed somehow that there was more to Lori's subconscious feelings for him than what she was leading him to believe.
"And what if Kat isn't really dead? You want Carl and me to be there when you find your biological children and your imaginary wife? Without Rick? What would you do with us? Carl and I would be in your shoes right now—right where you are with Rick being back. What would you do? Be as cold as Kat and send us away like she did to you all those years? Noooo—nope! You're so selfish, you'd keep us around, wouldn't you? Cuz why settle for one woman when you can have two?"
Shane suddenly raised his hand as if to punch Lori right in the face, but a sudden burst of self-restraint stopped his fist mid-air. Lori flinched; when the blow didn't come, she peeked out from beneath her arm's defensive position and saw Shane storming off through the set of graves she'd found him peculiarly engrossed with just a few minutes ago. He was glaring at her over his shoulder with eyes colder than ice, baring his teeth at her with an almost predacious rage that she'd only ever seen on the faces of convicted murderers on truTV crime documentaries, psychopaths like Ed Peletier, and walkers.
Lori knew she had taken her words way too far that time and cringed with a silent hiss. Biting her lip with regret, she turned and trotted back up into the church and decided to take advantage of this rare opportunity to privately confess her recent sins to the Lord and repent for them while Carol, Rick, and the others did the same.
Well like I said, only two or three chapters to go and I'll be starting a completely original version of Season 3. :D What do you guys think of Season 3 as it is on TV so far? Anything in particular from Season 3 that you guys would like to see (or not see?) in my upcoming, original version? Feel free to name anything you'd like to see or don't want to see, whether it be certain characters, places, symbolisms, events/scenes, themes, or whatever! I'm game for all kinds of suggestions and I'd like to incorporate some of the canon Season 3 things into this story! NOT all of it though, and certainly not exact scenes from the show, because that would make things boring of course and I'm not about to waste my time re-writing a scene that you can just go watch on television (as you've noticed by my writing so far lol). That, and my original story is way too different for everything. But I think it would be cool to incorporate some things, even if it is just a few of the new (or returning) characters or ideas. A handful of aspects from Season 3 have already been woven in, but still, I wanna hear your ideas/suggestions/wishes! :D Of course, feel free to make your own original suggestions too! I'd love to hear them! :)
Thank you for all of the reviews last chapter! :D I get super duper excited whenever I get a new review! Keep 'em coming! *squeeeee!* ALL OF THE REVIEWS FOR THE LAST CHAPTER GOT ME ALL MOTIVATED TO BUST THIS CHAPTER OUT! PLEASE REVIEW THIS CHAPTER TO KEEP ME MOTIVATED AND SO YOU GET THE UPDATE YOU SO BADLY WANT WAY FASTER!
SERIOUSLY, I SQUEAL LIKE A LITTLE GIRL WHENEVER I SEE A NEW REVIEW IN MY EMAIL INBOX! Reviews will make me love you forever!
Do you have any suggestions, ideas, comments, or critiques? Pairings you'd like to see? Characters you would like to see zombified or just flat out eaten alive? Suggest away in your review!
My Zombie Valentine copyright © 28 March 2012 by Darkinyron
The Walking Dead copyright © Robert Kirkman
