Title: An (Incomplete) Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
Rating: T/M
Pairings: Tom/Rachel, Kara/Danny
Summary: It's 1999, and the last thing 27-year-old Lieutenant Thomas Chandler remembers is stepping on a land mine in Afghanistan after breaking up with his girlfriend. When he wakes up, it's to a world he no longer recognizes. Over 80% of the population is dead... ish. He always thought Zombies were just a plot device for cheesy, apocalyptic young adult novels, but the reality is much more terrifying and bloody. [Suspense, Drama, Humor, Romance]
An (Incomplete) Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Chapter 1
March 11th, 1999 - 3:22 pm
When he wakes up, it's to silence. No beeping machines, no voices, no doctors, nurses - nothing. Absolutely nothing. He expected to wake up in a hospital, and he thinks that's where he is, but he didn't expect the silence.
It's eerie.
Tentatively, he stretches, testing his muscles, his arms and his legs. The blast from the land mine had thrown him quite far, he remembers, but he doesn't remember anything after hitting the ground. He remembers being in a foul mood. The breakup with Darien had been mutual, but the others had been giving him shit about it, and he had stalked off ahead of them. None of them knew about the land mines. The area had been cleared a few days previously, and nothing had happened in the preceding weeks, so they had all let their guards down.
All he remembers is the deafening noise, and the heat, and the pain. His whole body had been on fire, burning. He had hit the ground, hard, and then... nothing. Darkness and silence for a very long time.
And now.
Well. What now?
Tom groans, pulling his body into a sitting position. There's an IV in his arm, but nothing is connected to it, and he's dressed in one of those terrible hospital gowns. His feet are bare, and the room is still silent, and it's starting to freak him out.
He's in a hospital, he's sure of it now, because he can see the rest of the building outside of his window. He's high up, maybe on the top floor, because he can't see the street or the ground from his vantage point.
What the fuck is going on? he wonders, and quickly pulls the IV out of his arm, wincing as a small trickle of blood follows after the needle. He clamps a hand over it, hissing, and stands to his feet, testing his balance and strength. He feels weak, but nothing hurts like it's broken. He wonders how long he's been out, and runs a hand through his hair. The strands are longer than he's ever let them grow before, falling past his ears, and he remembers that he had just freshly buzzed it before his team had set out that day.
So, a month at least. He's been out for at least a month.
"Where the fuck is everyone?" he grumbles, and heads for the door of his room while pulling the stupid gown tighter around himself. It's one of the ones that opens in the back, and he's fairly sure his ass is hanging out.
He pushes the door open, and there's a whole lot of the same outside of his room. Silence, empty hallways, darkness. In the dim light from the windows, he can see that the place has been ransacked. There are papers, charts, and all manner of medical equipment all over the floor. He steps over it carefully, and heads toward the stairs that he can see in the distance. Maybe there will be someone on another floor. Anyone who can answer his questions.
He pauses before opening the door to the stairs, frowning.
Clothes. He needs something else to wear first. Maybe there will be some scrubs somewhere. He can't very well go in search of someone to tell him what's going on with everything hanging out for the world to see.
He turns around, opening and closing doors in search of a supply closet. He finds it on his fifth try, and breathes a sigh of relief as he quickly pulls on a pair of scrub pants and a top. They don't quite fit right, but he feels a hundred percent better. Well, at least eighty percent. The only way to feel a hundred percent better would be to take a shower.
Or to find another human to reassure him he's not trapped in some kind of nightmare where the rest of the world has just disappeared.
He heads back toward the stairs, taking them two at a time. He sees a sign on the wall announcing he's on the sixth floor, and decides to head to the ground floor, figuring that's his best bet of finding someone. It takes him several minutes, and several breaks to rest, to finally traverse the final flight of stairs and push open the door to the first floor.
He's immediately ambushed by sound and light, and throws a hand up to cover his eyes, wondering once again what the hell is going on.
He hears a gun cock, and ducks quickly back behind the doorway.
"Don't shoot!" he shouts, and a brief scuffle ensues before he feels safe enough to peek around the wall. If he were in uniform or had a weapon, any type of weapon, he would have charged out and taken control of the situation. But he was still barefoot, confused and disoriented, and didn't want to die only minutes after realizing that he'd barely survived being blown up by a land mine.
"What the fuck, Danny?" he hears, and his eyes snap toward the voice. It's a young woman, with brown hair and brown eyes. She's yelling at a second person, a man, who is slowly lowering his gun. "He's not one of them!"
"He could have been!" the man, Danny, argues.
Tom lets his eyes take in the scene before him, confused. He thinks he's in what used to be the emergency room, and it is a disaster. If he thought that the sixth floor had been ransacked, then the emergency room has been positively annihilated. There are overturned beds, trash, bodies, and blood all over the floor. The sight makes him sick to his stomach (he's seen a lot, having been deployed multiple times, but he's never seen this), so he turns back to the two people before him. The woman and the man named Danny are the only ones alive that he sees, and they seem to have some idea of what's going on, so Tom carefully raises both hands in the air and steps out into the open.
"I don't know who you're hiding from," he says, his heart beating fast as the man raises his gun again. "But I swear I'm not one of them. I just woke up here. I have no idea what the fuck is going on, so if you'd be so kind as to enlighten me, that would be fantastic."
Danny drops his gun, shock immediately taking over his features.
"What?" he asks, and his voice is shocked, quiet.
The girl speaks next. "You... you just woke up? From what, a coma?"
Tom shrugs. "I think so? I was deployed in Afghanistan, got blown up by a land mine. Guess I was transported here. Wherever the fuck here is," he says, realizing that he doesn't actually have any idea where he is, whether he's still in Afghanistan or if he was transported to the United States. He thinks he's in the United States, because the signs are all written in English, but he doesn't actually know. "Please," he says. "Just tell me what's going on. Where am I?"
Danny sighs, and tucks his gun in the back of his jeans. He seems to believe Tom, so at least he won't be getting shot today.
"When was that, man? When were you deployed?"
Tom pauses for a second, remembering. "January 1999 is the last I remember. We were deployed a few months earlier than that. About to come home, actually."
Danny winces, and then runs a hand through his messy blond hair. "It's March. You're been out for two or three months."
Tom nods, filing that information away for later, when he can properly panic about losing two months of his life.
"All right. Now that we've established when I am, how about where I am, and what's going on?"
"Maybe we should wait for ..." the woman says, but Danny shakes his head.
"Nah, she takes forever gathering supplies. You know how she is. We sent Tex with her so she wouldn't take two hours this time." He turns his attention back to Tom, and then says, "We're in Los Angeles. The world has gone to utter shit since you were brought back here from Afghanistan."
"Gone to shit how?" Tom asks, envisioning a World War, or maybe the plague or an atomic bomb.
What he doesn't expect are the next words out of Danny's mouth.
"Zombies, man," he says, and Tom laughs.
"Nice one. Real funny. But for real."
Danny just stares at him, no trace of humor in his voice or on his face. "I'm not shitting you. Zombies. It started with a virus. 100% mortality rate. Our resident doctor can tell you the details. She was studying the virus when ... it happened. Short story is, about two weeks after the virus made its way to the US, it ... mutated. People who died didn't stay dead very long."
Tom looks at the two in astonishment, waiting for one of them to laugh, to cackle and say we got you good, huh? but neither of them do. They don't smile, or laugh, or tell Tom that they're joking.
"Holy fuck. Zombies?" he asks, and Danny nods.
"Yeah. Zombies. Name's Danny, though you probably heard Kara yelling at me earlier. This is Kara Foster. Welcome to the shit show, man."
Tom stares at them, utterly baffled.
Surely this is a nightmare, right?
It has to be.
The only problem is, he isn't waking up.
Yes, I know I have other incomplete stories, but I have discovered that writing is a really great outlet for my depression and anxiety, which has been pretty difficult lately. This story idea popped in my head, and I couldn't help but write it down. :) I'll alternate updates with this one and Shattered, and updates for Burning Brighter will be whenever I get ideas, as it'll be a series of stand-along one-shots.
:) Would love to hear your feedback!
