A/N: I meant for this to be a small flashback and it turned into a full chapter. Thanks for the reviews!

Chapter 11

Jody sat at the kitchen table, huddled over a mug of coffee. She could hear the news in the living room, the volume turned up too loud. The sound of another beer being opened could somehow be heard clearly despite the tv. Jody sighed and stared down into her coffee wondering if she should try to talk to her husband about his drinking problem yet again. Jake had been going on about zombie attacks that had apparently been reported on the news. As though zombies were real. Sheriff Jody Mills had seen the real monsters, and they weren't zombies. Because even the idea of zombies was ridiculous. Stupid horror movie crap. Ever since Jake had lost his job at the construction company he'd been staying home, watching the news obsessively. And drinking. Someone was pounding on the front door. Jody looked in the direction the sound was coming from but made no move to answer it. Chances were, Jake's friend and neighbor Gordon was coming to rave about whatever exciting thing had happened on the news today. She could hear Jake grumbling something about why he had to answer the damn door, but chose to ignore him. She returned her attention to the coffee, eyes closing in satisfaction as the dark elixir warmed her, soothed her. There were voices at the door, talking loud and fast. Possibly frantic.

"Jody! It's happening. I fuckin' told ya." Gordon pushed his way into the kitchen so he could tell her to her face. Jody frowned up at him, fantasizing about arresting him for disturbing her so early in the morning- interrupting her coffee.

"Told me what, Gordon?" Jody asked in annoyance.

"Zombies at the hospital." Gordon looked at her as though she should already know this. She opened her mouth to tell him how ridiculous this was getting but before she could say anything a high pitched scream rang out outside. Jody jumped up and ran out the front door, Gordon following. Jake stood at the bottom of the steps, staring down the road at a young girl struggling against an older man. Their neighbors had ventured out as well, some were shouting at the man to let her go. It took Jody a moment to realize the girl was bleeding. There seemed to be blood covering her right arm. A closer neighbor ran towards them and pulled the man away from the girl. Everyone watched in confusion as the attacker turned on their neighbor and bit deeply into his forearm. Now the girl's savior cried out, tried to push the attacker away, calling out for help. Jody ran towards the action, pulling out her gun.

"Alright buddy! Police! Let that man go! On your knees!" Jody called out. The man was unfazed. He went in for another bite, the victim screamed struggling uselessly against the unyielding hands that pulled him close. There was so much blood. Jody took a deep breath and shot the attacker in the side, unable to get a clean shot anywhere else. The attacker was still unaffected. Jody shot him again. There was someone beside her now. They held out a gun and shot the attacker in the head. He fell and a couple neighbors ran out to check on the victim. Jody turned to see that it was Gordon who had made the shot.

"What the hell Gordon? You can't just—" Jody was ignored. Gordon walked over to the victim.

"He's been infected. We have to take him out too." Gordon said, pointing the gun at the man's head. There was now a crowd standing in the street. Everyone was arguing, asking what the hell had just happened, others talked of zombies. Down the street there were more screams. Jody moved forward to insist that Gordo put his gun away, but it was too late. The shot rang out, the bullet punching a hole right between the man's pleading eyes.

"Holy shit." Jake stood beside her, staring down the road.

"They're coming from down town!" Someone shouted, running down the road towards Jody.

"We need to get the fuck out of here." Gordon said, turning to fact the others.

"And go where?" Jody snapped. There were people being attacked down the road from them.

"I have to help those people." Jody shook herself and headed down the street. Gordon stopped her, his hand grabbing her upper arm a bit too tight.

"There's no saving them, Jody." Gordon growled at her. She frowned at him.

"What do you mean? I don't know what the hell is going on here but-" Gordon looked past her and nodded. Suddenly everything went black.

Jody had woken up in the backseat of Gordon's car in a town she didn't recognize. They had taken her gun in anticipation of her waking up angry. They argued for a good while until they pulled into someone's driveway. Gordon announced that they were here to meet up with one of his good friends. He insisted Jody get out and follow him inside. Jake looked back at her strangely. She would later understand that he was excited and worried about her reaction at the same time. Gordon's friend Zack led them down to the basement, going on about how he'd chained his neighbor up shortly after he was bitten. Jody stared at the man, wondering if all of Gordon's friends were crazy. The man held captive was clearly sick and injured. He was frightened and kept begging Zack to let him go.

"Told ya man. It's too damn late for you." Zack told his neighbor. "Killed the son-of-a-bitch that bit him, but was too late. Brought him down here to see how long it takes."

"You knew he had a guy held captive in his basement?" Jody asked her husband and his friend. Gordon rolled his eyes.

"Why do you think we brought you here?" He asked. The man in chains coughed and cried a bit.

"This is stupid. You're all crazy. Let this poor man go." Jody began to approach the man.

"Whoa, there cupcake." The owner of the house held out his arm to stop her from getting too close.

"She needs to see this or she won't believe it." Jake told the others. Zack nodded and looked around for something to use to keep her still. Gordon and Jake moved together to handcuff her hands behind her back.

"This isn't funny, Jake. Let me out of these, right now." Jody turned to frown at him. He shook his head.

"You have to believe us, Jodes." He told her, his breath still smelling of alcohol. She closed her eyes and started counting slowly to ten.

"Look, look. I think it's gonna be happening soon." Zack said excitedly. Jody opened her eyes and looked with the others. The man they'd held captive had slumped over in the chains, silent, possibly dead. Her heart was beating furiously. Had they really chained a man up and let him bleed to death? What the hell was happening here? She looked around at the others. They were crazy. They were all crazy and now she was held captive too. They stood there in silence for a few moments, long enough that the men looked around at each other. Gordon whispered furiously to Zack, questioning whether he'd known for sure this man was infected. The chains rattled, pulling their attention back to the captive. He made some sort of gasping noise and struggled against the chains. Jody asked if he was okay and he lunged towards the sound of her voice, despite the chains holding him back. When the man looked up at them his eyes were clouded over with death, blood drooling out of his mouth. He gnashed his teeth at them, hungry for a bit of fresh human. Jody stared at him in horror as Zack elbowed Gordon happily. It'd been two hours since the man had been bitten. And now he was dead.

Now he was a zombie.

Zombies were fucking real.

The world swirled into blackness and when Jody opened her eyes again she was embarrassed that she'd fainted at her earlier realization. She was the only woman around, she was supposed to be stronger than this, damn it. Thankfully the handcuffs had been removed. She now lay on the couch in Zack's living room. The men were talking excitedly in the kitchen, no doubt over a couple beers. Jake came to check on her and smiled when he found her awake.

"So…Zombies…" Jody said, sitting up to try to come to grips with all this.

"We're going to be fine. Just have to get away from large populations and stick it out until the frickin army or whatever takes care of it." Jake said.

"Yea. Zack here has a plan. A safe house." Gordon smiled. Zack nodded.

Jody still thought they were all crazy, but she went with it. They never made it to Zack's safe house. The men were too cocky. When they'd stopped for supplies on the way to Zack's new place he was attacked, his throat ripped out before they could get to him. From then on it was just a matter of gathering supplies and trying to find a safe place on their own. Jake wouldn't stop drinking, which had begun to infuriate Gordon. Times were changing, they couldn't afford to be drunk in case they ran into danger. The two friends had gotten into a fight about it and the next day Jake had been attacked by zombies. Apparently Gordon hadn't been able to save him. Jody suspected that Gordon had let his friend be killed to save himself. His eyes challenged her to call him out on it. She didn't know what to do. It wasn't like she wanted to continue on her own, so she'd left it alone. Had continued on as though nothing had happened.

She was relieved when they'd run into other survivors. A British man and an Asian teen driving a big black truck. Gordon wasn't very impressed with them, but he did like the truck. Crowley and Kevin were both intelligent, quite a change from the rednecks she'd been with since this thing had started. She warned them about Gordon. It didn't seem likely that he would let the two men go without taking it personally, so they were forced to stay. After a couple weeks of Gordon getting them into dangerous situations and treating them like they were beneath him, they started discussing running away together. The three of them. They had no idea where they would go and Jody had a sinking feeling that wherever they went Gordon would follow. Then Kevin had a vision. It was hard for Jody to watch, she held onto the teen hoping he would be alright. He seemed to be having some horrible headache. When he calmed down he'd told her everything, waiting for her to call him insane. But she had felt a spark of hope, of faith and had pulled Crowley aside. Whenever she wanted to talk to the British man alone they just pretended they were going to make out or something. Gordon always rolled his eyes but stayed out of it. She urged Crowley to listen, to believe. Of course he'd looked at her like she was insane, throwing a glance to the teen. It was like he expected to be let in on the joke. Jody had turned his face back to hers.

"Maybe you don't believe, but I do. And Kevin does. And what other options do we have?" Jody pleaded with him. She smiled sadly and he sighed. Sometimes he would look at her a little too intensely, as though he could see right through her. He always found something positive in her eyes, however so it didn't bother her anymore. Whatever he found in her eyes always worked out in her favor. He kissed her hand, removing it from his face. She hadn't even realized she was still touching him. Blushing slightly, Jody stood and went off on her own, knowing Kevin would follow.

"Jody…in the vision, Gordon was there. And he was mad at us for running off without him." Kevin whispered. Jody raised her brows at him, waiting on him to continue. By the look on his face, it got worse than that. "He kills Crowley, the other group shows up as I'm surrounded by zombies… There was an angel's voice telling me that it didn't have to be that way. He said his name was Gabriel and if we got to the warehouse his brother would protect us from Gordon."

"So we have to tell him about it?" Jody groaned. How the hell were they going to get Gordon to go along with this? They sulked, trying to come up with some sort of game plan. Jody kept finding herself staring at Crowley. She'd become quite attached to the guy, Kevin too. They were her friends, whereas Gordon was as much of an enemy as the zombies. She couldn't just shoot him, as much as a voice in the back of her head urged her to. . Later when Crowley asked how they were supposed to get away from Gordon successfully he didn't understand Jody's reaction, her insistence that they find a way to convince Gordon to go with them. Crowley had winked at her and assured her he would make it happen. He had sat with Gordon, waxing poetic about this warehouse he owned that would be a great place to restock their weapons and maybe even hole up for a while. He was a brilliant conman and managed to get the other man to agree. It wasn't like Gordon had plans anyway.

When Gordon announced where they were going next Jody and Kevin looked at Crowley with wide disbelieving eyes. He simply smiled at them. The plan was that Kevin would give the directions because his dad had worked there and Crowley couldn't give the directions because he was horrible at it. Gordon bought it, excited about the weapons that Crowley had promised him. Jody couldn't help but worry about how Gordon would react if they got there only to find there were no weapons. None of them knew what kind of warehouse they were going to. Everyone was too stressed about the situation to sleep, Gordon too eager to get to the weapons to stop along the way.

The warehouse, as it turned out was full of seemingly pointless junk. Different types of wood and other building materials. Gordon's smile had faded upon entering the warehouse. They had been attacked almost immediately by a couple zombies that had been trying to get out. Gordon took them out and turned to Crowley with his gun pointed straight at his face. Kevin and Jody cried out, moving to try to reason with the gunman. Kevin looked around frantically for any signs of the group they were supposed to be meeting up with but there were only more zombies coming out of hiding within the warehouse. Gordon shut the door behind them and turned crazed eyes to Jody.

"You and the boy spread out and find me some kind of damn weapons or I'm blowing his brains out." Gordon pressed the gun against Crowley's head to emphasize the point. Crowley winced slightly and glanced at the others.

"Gordon! It was a mistake. We must've went to the wrong warehouse." Jody pleaded.

"Find. Me. Something. Or I shoot him." Gordon growled. Jody and Kevin looked around frantically and decided to split up. There was a small office area that might have some sort of weapon. Jody made a run for it, taking out a few zombies on the way. Kevin found a desk on the other side of the room and began digging through the drawers. He shouted out when he found a shotgun under the desk. Gordon perked up. While Kevin was fighting off a couple zombies Gordon knocked Crowley out with the butt of his gun and shoved him down one of the aisles. He moved quickly to help Kevin so that he could get the shotgun.

"Where's Crowley?" Jody yelled. She'd climbed to higher ground to escape a group of zombies.

"Probably hiding." Gordon laughed and held the shotgun lovingly. Jody turned her gun on him. Gordon pulled Kevin towards himself, disarmed him and threw him towards a group of zombies. Jody tried to take out some of the zombies but she just didn't have enough ammo. Not allowing herself to overthink the consequences she turned her gun back to Gordon and shot him right in the chest. He looked up at her in surprise and fell to the ground. The nearby zombies were attracted by the smell of blood and descended upon the man. Ripping and tearing his flesh. Jody stared in horror, her eyes pulled away from the carnage to make sure Kevin was okay. They fought for their lives for a moment before the door was opened and they were saved by the group they'd almost died to meet.

A/N: This chapter didn't happen the way I'd planned on it, but I hope you liked the peek into Jody's side of the story. Busy week this week, so I look forward to being able to write the fun stuff for next chapter. Probably doing that this weekend. Thanks guys!