Title: Don't Fear the Reaper

Author: Lori

Disclaimer: Don't own the characters from 'The Invisible Man' or 'The Stand'. But I sure do love to write about them. No money is being made from this.

Category: Horror, Suspense, Drama, whatever…

Rating: R to NC-17 for violence, some graphic imagery and Bobby/Claire smut.

Spoilers: Lots of them. This fic follows the TV Mini Series and the book "The Stand", with some minor changes. So if you haven't seen or read it you'll know what the outcome is. There are also some spoilers for I-Man as well.

Description: The Super Flu kills nearly the entire earth's population, but a few pockets of people survive. Darien, Hobbes and Claire are having strange dreams of an old black woman and a dark man. They set out to find the answers to the mysteries of Mother Abigail and Randall Flagg. Darien finally meets the devil face to face. Will he survive?

Author's Notes: This is in response to Neko's Stephen King retirement fic challenge. We could either write a King-ish I-Man story or a crossover. I chose the crossover. I became a huge fan of his after reading 'The Dead Zone' and for years after that I couldn't put any of his books down. Thanks to Alli for beta reading this for me. The President's speech is taken from Stephen King's "The Stand" the way it appears mostly in the book on page 219-220 (paperback version). "Baby Can You Dig Your Man" lyrics are taken from "The Stand" by Stephen King. Lyrics to 'Born To Be Wild' are by Steppenwolf. I really don't know what the "G" stands for in Darien G. Fawkes, so I used the name "Gerard", since that is one of Vincent Ventresca's middle names.

Warning: There will be major character deaths. Sorry, but not everyone can survive Captain Trips.

Prologue

For two years I thought I was the only secret weapon that the Government had. I was wrong, seems like they were developing another weapon. While our President pushed for Congress to declare war on Iraq because of bio-chemical weapons that Hussein might have, we were making our own weapon for germ warfare. What was that saying about glass houses?

Okay, so here's how it all started. This dude, Campion, an MP at a Government Reservation, he was what you would call the gatekeeper. Well, one day, all hell broke loose. That nifty little flu bug was not going to be contained. Campion was ordered to close the gate, well he did what any highly trained MP would do…he ran. Campion got his wife and baby and took off, broke through the gate and high tailed it out of dodge. The odd thing was, this guy got halfway across the country and eventually ended up in Arnette, Texas as he crashed into Hap's Service Station. How he lived that long is amazing since most of the people on the reservation died within 12 minutes. Later I learned that the super flu mutated once it got out.

The sad thing is the Government thought they had this bug contained in Arnette, Texas. But I mean, this guy and his family had to stop for some Happy Meals you know what I'm saying. So much for containment, every place this guy stopped at the flu was spread to everyone there and they brought it home to their families, work and schools. BAM…instant epidemic. Our country had been plagued by racial or ethnic profiling, this bug was no respecter of person, age or otherwise.

Back to Hap's station, there were about five guys there that night, one of them I would meet, Stu Redman. He was the only one to survive out of that group of men that had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting up with Campion. The wife and baby were already dead and Campion died shortly after.

There would be cover-ups and the army would try to keep a lid on things by killing innocent people who had too much information. A lot of them would be reporters and even radio talk show hosts that fell under the strong arm of the military. But that was nothing compared to what was down the road for me, Hobbes and Claire. There would be a battle between good and evil. Those of us who were lucky enough to survive the flu…some luck, huh? We would be faced with a decision to make, what side of the fence we were going to be on to make our stand?

Captain Trips…that's what we called it here on the West Coast…spread quicker than quicksilver. Killing people and even some animals worldwide, within a week's time, the world had ended not with a bang but with a whimper. Well of course that's from T.S. Elliott, but my version would be, "this is how the world ends, not with a bang, but with a cough."

Chapter 1

There's an old Jewish Folk saying that goes like this; "One should not stand at the foot of a sick person's bed, because that place is reserved for the guardian angel." Well, there are going to be a lot of guardian angels standing at the foot of beds real soon.

Beep…Beep…Beep Darien lazily swung his arm over his body and his hand landed on his alarm clock, silencing it with a thud. His eyes peeked opened and a moan was pushed past his partly opened lips, "Ugghhhh…oh man." Darien grudgingly got out of bed and took a much needed eye opening shower. With a turn of the handle, water shot out of the shower head, flattening his wild hair to his scalp. Darien stood there for a few minutes allowing the water to run down his body before picking up the shampoo.

When he was dressed he made himself a cup of coffee and quick breakfast. The controls to his TV were right beside him, "Well, let's see what kind of mess the world is in today." Darien said with a mouthful of food as clicked on the TV. As usual, the war in Afghanistan topped the news along with the situation with Hussein. Darien rolled his eyes and switched to local news.

Darien saw the reports of a few pockets of some kind of flu outbreak in parts of the city but didn't pay too much attention to it. He grabbed his jacket and headed out the door. On his way he saw military vehicles of all sizes going up and down the streets, "What is going on here?" Darien was too focused on what was happening in the streets that he never saw the black crow sitting on top of a parked car, watching him as he drove by.

Darien walked casually into the Official's office late as usual. He sat down and eyed the Official who wasn't looking good, "Hey, boss, you don't look well."

"Glad you could make it, Fawkes. Now that everyone is here, I need everyone to listen to what I have to say. We're just a handful of people who know what is going on." The Official starts to cough.

Darien raised his hand, "Just what is going on here?"

"We're under Marshall Law, my friend. The army has taken over San Diego and we're not the only ones. Cities all over the country are under Marshall Law, they just don't know it yet." Hobbes said looking a bit on the paranoid side.

"Under the circumstances, Darien and Claire, I'm ordering you two to go to the CDC here in San Diego. Darien, you will be kept in isolation and Claire will watch over your condition."

Darien rolled his eyes, "Aw come on, Chief, I'm not sick."

"Exactly and I want you to stay that way. You three seem to be only ones not sick at this Agency so far. That is why Hobbes, you will be staying here. There are no cases right now and my first priority is to protect the gland." The Official started coughing again and Eberts tried to comfort him.

Hobbes put his hand to his mouth as if trying to protect himself from the germs, "That doesn't sound good, Chief, what you need is bed rest and some good ol' fashion Jewish penicillin."

"Not now, Hobbes. I'm not going to lie to you, this is an epidemic…"

"No kidding," Darien said.

"It's believed that this is a super flu developed by the military and somehow got out. It is highly contagious; it has a communicable rate of over 99%. Claire, I want you to download everything you have on the gland, all your research, whatever you have and give it to Hobbes."

Claire looked at Hobbes and Darien with fear, "Why?"

"Because after you leave with Darien, I'm destroying the lab equipment and everything that has to do with this project," The Official started coughing again, "Now get what you need and leave."

Darien and Claire slowly got up and looked at each other, "I'll help you, Claire."

"Uhmmm…sir, is it alright if I give Fawkes and Keep a hand, there's got to be loads of stuff down there?" Hobbes asked in a voice full of dismay.

"Yes, you can." The Official paused and then spoke, "Darien!"

Darien turned and looked at The Official. If Darien didn't know better he'd say that the Official looked worse than when he first walked in and Eberts was looking pretty bad himself now, "It's been a pleasure…I know I haven't always shown it…" The Official couldn't continue.

Darien looked down, swallowed the lump in his throat and turned his gaze towards the Official for the last time, "Yeah…same here." Darien walked out with Claire and Hobbes.

"Claire, is this Captain Trips thing really that bad?" Darien asked.

"I'm afraid it is. There has been no case of someone getting better. This is the real thing." Claire looked at Darien and Hobbes with a dire expression on her face.

"While you're at the CDC with Fawkes there, will you try to find a cure?" Hobbes asked as he packed some of her things.

"I think a cure is out of the question. We three seem to be okay, they may want to find out why we're not sick." Claire was just about to finish downloading when the door to the keep opened. All three turned to see army men with guns and face masks staring back at them. A guy in a suit with a clip board in hand approached them.

"Agent Darien Fawkes and Dr. Claire Keeply, you two are to follow us immediately."

"Whoa…hey, so soon?" Darien asked looking at Hobbes.

"I'm sorry Agent Fawkes, but we are under orders to get you and Dr. Keeply to the CDC as soon as possible." The man in the suit said. He gazed around and kept checking his watch.

"What's the matter there, think you're going to run out of time or catch Captain Trips if you stay here too long?" Darien said sarcastically. He turned to Hobbes, "Hey, man…uhmmm, thanks for everything." Darien held out his hand to low five Hobbes.

"You take care of yourself okay, oh and Keepie too. Mark my words, my friend; you have not seen the last of Bobby Hobbes." Hobbes gave Darien a low five. Claire came up to him and they hugged, "Claire, I should have told you way before all this began, I love you."

Claire kissed him on his cheek, "I know, Bobby and I love you too."

Hobbes watched as his two best friends left and the door slid shut leaving him alone in the Keep. He looked around and for the first time realized that emptiness had a sound. Hobbes looked up, "Keep them safe and let me find them again." He started shredding papers that Claire left behind. It was his job to make sure that not even a crumb was left behind about the QS9300 Project. Hobbes knew that the flu was deadly and he wondered if Chrysalis was immune.

Claire sat in the back of the troop transport truck close to Darien. He had his arm wrapped around her, "Claire, you're shaking."

"I'm just scared that's all. Darien, we have no idea what is going to happen."

"I know, Claire. The government can put up the money for a 17 million dollar gland but they can't make sure they have a cure for the flu they invent." Darien glared at the man in the suit. The truck stopped suddenly and there were some shouts. "Hey, what's going on?" Darien asked.

One of the soldiers came to the back and reported that there was an accident in the intersection. "Terrific," Darien said shaking his head.

After a few minutes their little caravan was moving again. Claire and Darien watched as they went past the three car collision. "Whoa…look at that crow standing on top of the car." Darien got a cold chill up his spine and his whole body shuddered.

"Darien, are you okay?" Claire asked with alarm.

"I don't know, it was weird," Darien looked in the direction of the cars and the crow was gone. He kept staring at the cars trying to decide if he really felt a cold presence when he saw the crow.

Claire knew that he was lying, "Darien, I'm worried about you now. What just happened?" She checked his forehead for a fever, "You're cold and clammy and your pulse is elevated."

"Isn't that usually what happens when someone has the bejeebees scared out of them?" Darien said with a trembling voice.

"What?"

"I'll tell you later." Darien turned and stared in the direction of the accident. He wasn't sure how he was going to explain to Claire that the voice he used to hear in the back of his mind before the onset of QSM, he heard again. But this time instead of hearing it from the back of his mind, he heard it from the crow perched atop one of the cars and he heard it calling his name.