Waring: Blood, gore and language
A/N: I want to say thanks for all the nice reviews that everyone has left on this story. I never realized how motivating they can be so keep them coming. Also I own nothing.
Beca slowly made her way above the ridge and stalled her bike. Before her stood the city of Atlanta, Georgia or at least what was left of it. Smoke plumes could be seen rising from the city and several of the buildings looked worn down and derelict. She could tell that nature was already starting to take back what was lost, vines had started to grow up the buildings that she could see and the entire city looked like a jungle. The buildings themselves looked worse for wear, worse than they should have been for only a few months. She could see that large sections of buildings were missing, as if they had been blown apart. Sam had mentioned that the military had been deployed to the larger cities but she also said that the incursions had become blood baths leaving no survivors. There was an eerie calm surrounding the city, the only sounds being the idling of her bike and the whistle of the wind as it blew through the abandoned city.
Shockingly, for as long as Beca had lived at Barden she had only visited Atlanta a few times. Unless there was a Bella party like a birthday or just a random group get together Beca just stayed on campus. There were a few times she went into the city on the rare occasion she snatched a DJ gig but that hardly meant that she knew the city. So to avoid the troubles of a) getting lost and b) running into an undead horde, Beca decided to make her way around the city instead of going through it. She hated it, she really didn't want to do it since it would add hours to her trip and she was so close to Barden she could almost taste it. But she hadn't made it this far by making rash decisions that ultimately would have gotten her killed.
"We're almost there Bella, just a few more hours." She reached to her shoulder and scratched the monkey's neck. Bella had taken to riding on her shoulder now that the weather had started to warm up. If Beca had to guess it was either early March or very late February, she had been on the road for almost three whole months and she finally had her goal in sight, well figuratively speaking she would have to make it around Atlanta before she could literally see Barden.
She reached down and pushed the kick stand back, revving the engine a little as she did so. She flicked down the visor on her helmet and shot forward on her bike, the anticipation of finally being home weighing on her shoulders. She kept the city to her left as she made her way around, careful of any stragglers that had moved to the fringes looking for food. She kept stealing glances at the city while dodging wrecked cars and roaming zombie groups. Honestly she felt a little sad that she hadn't spent more time in Georgia's capital. Say what you will about humans but the ingenuity and creativity that went into building these sprawling metropoleis was truly staggering. And now all of those cities were slowly crumbling to dust. Beca wondered if humanity would ever reach this level of civilization again, she doubted it given that most of the population was walking around with their guts hanging out. But maybe one day humans could rise from the ashes of their own creation and build a better society.
Beca shook her head trying to clear her thoughts, since when had she become an optimist? No, she had only survived by being a realist, looking at the situation, accepting it and adapting. That's how she was going to survive, she could worry about rebuilding society later, after she found Chloe.
As the sun rose higher in the sky Beca could feel her impatience growing, almost to the point of her thinking she was going insane. For instance she could have sworn she saw someone in the distance on horseback riding into the city. She had to shake her head at that, what moron would willingly enter a huge city during a zombie apocalypse? As the day dragged on she had to fight the urge to just push her bike to its limits and fly around the city as quickly as possible. The roads around Atlanta were trashed with large potholes, wrecked cars, roads that were completely blocked by cars and in some cases the road was just completely missing. All in all it was taking her much longer to go the long way than she had anticipated. So she stopped to look at her map to see if she could find a shortcut. Unfortunately the map she had been using was not as detailed as it could be. All the major roads were marked but any access roads or or potential shortcuts were left off. Oh how she missed the days where she could just look up the shortest route on her phone. She let out a frustrated sigh and took a look at her surroundings. Cars, cars and more cars, basically she was on an abandoned stretch of road that had been flooded with people trying to escape Atlanta and had wound up clogging the road like a bad artery. She moved closer to one of the vehicles surrounding her and looked inside.
WHAM!
Beca jumped back from the car, placing a hand over her heart while trying to calm herself. The zombie continued to thrash and beat against the window causing quite a racket. Beca looked around to see if the noise was attracting any more undead but for now it looked like it had not. She approached the car again while unslinging the bat from her backpack. The corpse looked like it had used to be an old man, it still had a bit of the scraggly white beard and there was a pair of glasses hanging off the one remaining ear.
Beca cautiously approached the car with her bat raised. Bella chattered nervously on her shoulder before hopping off entirely and retreating back to the bike. Beca reached out with her left hand and tested the door handle to see if it was locked or not. Unfortunately for her it wasn't. After she released the door handle the thrashing zombie managed to push it the door open the rest of the way as Beca fell to the ground. She quickly got back to her feet only to discover that the zombie was trapped by the seat belt it still had on.
"Huh, guess those things really do save lives." She took her bat and swung with as much force as she could. The zombie's skull shattered under the impact and fell limp, half hanging out of the car still stuck in the seat belt. "All right old man, let's see if you have a map."
Beca moved to the other side of the car and opened the passenger side door. A light thump from the roof caused her to look up but it was only Bella, staring at her with a curious gaze. Beca just shrugged and climbed inside the car. She opened the glove compartment and rooted around a bit. Inside she found the registration for the car, the manual and...hello. Beca pulled out an ancient looking revolver, probably as old as its owner. It looked well kept but when she spun the cylinder she noticed it was a bit stiff. She shrugged to herself thinking 'hey a gun's a gun'. She figured she could clean it later and maybe it would work better. Besides, all the chambers were filled and it would be a shame to waste bullets like that. She stuck the gun in her waistband and turned back to her search. She ruffled around in the glove box a bit and let out a huff, there was no map.
"Fat lot of good you did me." The zombie next to her had no response, thank goodness since that would have been weird. She leaned back in the seat and let out a sigh, 'Well, looks like I really do have to go the long way around' she scoffed to herself before hearing a rustling noise from the backseat. She turned to find Bella rooting through what she assumed was the old timer's food supply.
"Bella stop that, we don't need anymore food." And it was true, their food supply hadn't been a concern for a while now. "What we need is a map." Bella just looked at her with what appeared to be a cheese puff in her mouth before going back to rummaging. Beca leaned forward and grabbed the monkey to place her on her shoulder. As she was leaning back she saw a thin book sticking out of the pocket on the back of the passenger seat. She grabbed it and moved to the hood of the car. She couldn't believe her luck, it was a full atlas of the United States. She opened the atlas to the page about Georgia and studied the map. After flipping through some more pages she found one with a detailed layout of Atlanta and the surrounding area. After scouring the map for any sort of shortcut she found one, only the path she had found brought her dangerously close to the city.
So now Beca was faced with a choice, take the shorter more dangerous route or play it safe and take longer. The logical part of her brain was telling her to take the safe route, after all she had been playing it safe for most of the trip, random games of whack the zombie notwithstanding, and because of that she was still alive. But on the other hand she was so close to her goal. Once she cleared Atlanta there was only about a half hour drive to Barden and Chloe.
She was still agonizing over the choice when she felt a couple of raindrops hit her on the head. Looking at the sky she saw a rain cloud approaching from the south and let out a curse. She had noticed the clouds earlier in the day but had hoped that the bad weather would just skip right over her. Only now she realized that her luck had run dry, and based on the size of the clouds she and Bella were in for a rather large downpour.
Beca quickly packed the atlas into one of the saddle bags hanging from her bike and hoped back on. The threat of the storm had made the decision for her about which way to go and she was opting for speed over safety. Bella had crawled back inside the backpack as Beca started back down the road, angling towards the city. Over the weeks of travel Beca had noticed several quirks about her furry little companion, one of which was a fear of thunderstorms. Beca couldn't really blame her, being caught outside during a downpour was exactly Beca's idea of fun either. But, maybe if they got lucky they could outrun the storm and make it to Barden before the worst of it hit them.
Beca was about to learn how wrong she was.
She gunned her motorcycle and raced off towards the city. The closer she got the more crowded the streets became and she was once again grateful for choosing the bike when setting out. She managed to weave her way through the debris with relative ease but each car she had to maneuver around caused her to lose speed. The rain was starting to come down harder and she could have sworn she heard thunder over the roar of her bike. The sky was growing darker and she was forced to turn on the bike's headlights. She really hated doing this since it meant that she was basically sending up a flare of exactly where she was but right now she didn't really have a choice.
She finally made it within the city limits when she realized how much of a mistake she made entering the city. Before her were thousands of zombies if not millions. It was like the entirety of the population of Atlanta had come out to welcome her. What was worse was that she had already been noticed. Some of the zombies at the front of the horde had started moving towards her so she spun around on her bike and started looking for an escape. She noticed an alley to the left and swerved just in time. She looked behind her and saw at least a dozen hunters closing in on her. Her bike jumped a bit and she had to focus on the path ahead. The alley was trashed and it took all her focus to just maneuver around the obstacles that were in her way. Her breathing was coming faster and faster and it felt like her heart was about to burst through her sternum. But at the same time the entire world seemed to be slowing down. Her veins were flooded with adrenaline and it seemed her reflexes had heightened. Even the sounds of the screaming hunters behind her weren't enough to deter her and she just kept driving. Beca had heard about the whole "life flashing before your eyes" thing that you're supposed to feel right before you die but all she could think about was survival. She was so close to reaching her goal and instead of feeling a sense of dread at the prospect of facing an undead army all she felt was a feeling of denial. Beca's mom had always said that she was as stubborn as a mule and the only thought currently running through Beca's head right now was "Not today."
She burst through the end of the alley and turned back onto the actual street. The way before her was clear but she could see zombies starting to filter out from other alleys and roads trying to block her way. Beca just pushed her bike faster, the hunters behind her were closing in and right now they posed a bigger threat. She reached down and grabbed the shotgun from its holster. Without looking she fired behind her, she must have gotten lucky because she heard a zombie screech out in pain. She fired the second round but this time with no luck. After holstering the shotgun she desperately tried to come up with a plan. She could see the route she needed to take, a big green sign with the word Barden on it with an arrow pointing to the exit. She would be there in less than a minute and she needed to do something to get the hunters off her back. If she could reach into her backpack she might be able to get one of the grenades that Sam had given her before they went their separate ways. Only she really didn't want to try and maneuver the pack around when she was going, glancing down at the speedometer, roughly seventy miles per hour while dodging wrecked cars and zombies at the same time.
BOOM!
She swerved a bit as the shock wave from the massive explosion nearly knocked her clear off the bike. Looking over her shoulder she saw a massive fireball erupting in the middle of the street. She saw Bella waving her arms in the air and her mouth was open screeching up a storm. Beca wasn't sure what had just happened but whatever it was had probably saved her life. She veered towards the Barden exit and pushed the bike to its limits as she escaped the city.
She drove for a few more miles before slowing down and stopping. Her body needed to cool down before she crashed from the adrenaline high and fell off her bike. She pulled over to the side of the road and took off her helmet. Bella took this as an opportunity to climb onto Beca's head and look for grubs. Beca just leaned forward and tried to catch her breath, it really had been stupid to try and go into the city. She pulled her bag around and looked inside, out of the three grenades Sam had given her there were only two left. She pulled Bella off her head and gave the monkey a quizzical look.
"Did you throw that grenade?" The monkey obviously gave no response but just climbed back up Beca's arm. It was the only thing that Beca could think of that would explain what happened. In retrospect she probably shouldn't put high grade explosives in the same bag as a monkey but it appeared to work out fine. The best explanation Beca could come up with is that Bella had just thrown the closest thing she had at the zombies. The grenade must have exploded when it hit the ground and that caused the cars on the road still filled with gas to catch fire and also explode, thus the huge explosion. She refused to believe that Bella had somehow figured out how to pull the pin on the grenade because the thought that the monkey knew how to work military grade gear was terrifying. Still, just to be safe, Beca moved the remaining grenades to one of the saddle bags to keep Bella from playing with them.
Beca got back on her bike and put her helmet back on. Bella crawled back into her little nest in the bag and let out a screech when they heard a roll of thunder pass over them. Beca looked up and noticed the thunderclouds had caught up to them and let out a small curse. The rain came soon after, it wasn't too bad, granted during normal times she would never have ridden a motorcycle in the rain but the rain wasn't nearly as cold as she thought it was going to be and it was coming down as hard as she predicted. She started her bike back up and made her way to Barden, the miles slowly disappeared behind her and she finally saw the campus she had called home for the past three and a half years.
She let out a breath that she hadn't realized she was holding. "Finally." she whispered to herself and a tear might have slipped down her cheek. Despite the disastrous results of the last time she was impulsive, Beca threw caution to the wind and raced towards campus. The different buildings flew by her as she made her way to the Bella house. She recognized the english building where her dad worked. She passed Baker Hall where her freshman dorm was located. Beca vaguely wondered if Kimmy Jin was doing alright and figured that the girl could probably stop the undead with her steely glare. As she rounded a corner she spotted the Treble house in the distance, from here it looked like the building was fine which gave her a little hope. Jesse and Beca might not be together anymore but she would prefer to not have her ex-boyfriend be a walking corpse. She rounded another bend and the sight before her nearly destroyed her.
The Bella house was a burned out husk of what it used to be. The building was still standing technically, it had not collapsed yet and she dismounted her bike before slowly making her way inside. Everything was torched, the kitchen, the living room, everything. Beca took a cautious step up the stairs but the step crumbled under her foot. She took a step back and fell to her knees, thunder sounded from outside and rain was leaking from the ceiling but she didn't care. Because beneath the collapsed stairs was a burned out husk of a body. She looked around and noticed several more littering the hallway and the kitchen and something inside Beca snapped.
"NO!" Beca screamed before falling to her knees and sobbing, Bella crawled out of the backpack and tried to comfort her but Beca ignored her. She had driven thousands of miles, fought hundreds of undead, heck she had fought in a stupid gladiator ring for crap's sake, and all of it was for nothing. Her friends were gone, her whole reason for living was gone. Beca could feel the complete and utter dread settle over her as she realized that she was never going to hear another one of Amy's crazy stories. Never again would Stacie bug her about going shopping or conning her into going shopping. And most importantly she would never see Chloe again, she would never be able to tell Chloe how she felt.
Beca slowly fell to the ground and curled into the fetal position as the rain leaked through the roof. The exhaustion of the cross country trip was finally making its effects known to her and she felt Bella curl up against her neck and slowly cried herself to sleep on the floor.
A few hours later Beca woke up feeling cold and soaked. The rain had stopped but she barely noticed as reality crashed around her. Beca's sleep had been plagued by visions of her friends dying all around her as she stood helpless. Bella stood next to her and was busy trying to shake the water out of her fur. Beca sat up and remembered where she was. The burned out husk of the best home she had ever had. And all her friends were dead. That realization left Beca feeling hollow as she stood up and moved back outside. She was vaguely aware of Bella crawling up her back as she mounted her bike and rode off. Clearly there was nothing left for her there so there was no reason to stay. Instead she just drove aimlessly for who knows how long. Eventually she looked up and saw that she was back in the outskirts of Atlanta.
No longer caring about what happened to her, Beca drove straight towards the city. All Beca could think about was ending the constant pain she felt in her chest but she figured that if she was going to die she might as well take a few of those undead bastards with her. She drove into the city and was surprised to find little to no zombies. Sure there were a few stragglers but the massive horde she had fought yesterday was nowhere to be seen. She rounded a corner and found where the horde had gone.
Outside what looked to be a pharmacy of some sort were dozens of zombies pushing themselves up to the glass. Beca figured there must be someone inside or the zombies would not be trying so hard to get in. Beca stopped the bike and leaned back to retrieve the two grenades from the saddle bag. She figured that if she was going to die she would go out in a blaze of glory. Bella poked her head out of the backpack and gave a concerned whimper.
"Now's your chance Bella, if you want to live I suggest hopping out here. You're pretty smart, I'm sure you'll survive." Bella just shook her head and ducked back inside. "All right we'll go out together."
Beca got back on the bike and flipped her visor down on her helmet. She then did the one thing that she had sworn to never do on the bike. She turned on the siren. The bike suddenly came alive as the red and blue lights started flashing and the siren, along with the engine, roared to life. The horde noticed immediately and started to shamble towards her. Beca reached for one of the grenades and pulled the pin. She held down the trigger as she charged towards the zombies and when they were about thirty feet apart she threw the grenade. It sailed over the first few rows of zombies and hit the ground, a second later the grenade went off and a large portion of the group were blown to smithereens. Beca drew the pistol from its holster on her thigh and picked off a few more zombies before bursting through the hole the grenade made. The siren was still blaring and the zombies followed the noise, Beca hoped that the person trapped inside the pharmacy would get out alright but right now she had more pressing matters to attend to.
She was about to make a sharp turn around a corner when she felt the wheels underneath her lose traction as she hydroplaned on the wet road. Beca tried to regain control of the bike but there was no stopping the inevitable. She was vaguely aware of the sound of glass shattering as she flew through the front window of what looked like a clothing store but her vision started to go black and she passed out.
She wasn't out long since Bella had somehow managed to crawl out of the bag and was currently smacking her in the face. Beca let out a groan and tried to sit up, that's when she felt horrible pain shooting through her leg. She looked down and saw that her bike had landed on her right leg and was pinning her to the floor. She tried to lift the bike but the pain in her leg made her feel woozy and weak. Groaning from the shattered window brought her attention to the horde trying to make its way inside. Beca looked around desperately for a weapon she could use and saw her pistol sitting just out of reach. She tried to scoot over to grab the gun, the pain in her leg was making her want to throw up but she choked down the bile and managed to grab the gun. She turned towards the window and fired at the zombies that had managed to make it through. She kept firing until her gun made a clicking sound signaling that she was out of bullets. The zombies continued to pile through the window and Beca reached for her last grenade.
"Bella thanks for coming along for the ride." Beca reached to pull the pin but a noise from outside distracted her. There was a strange whooshing noise coming from behind the zombies that was causing the monsters to turn around and move away. The noise kept getting louder and now Beca could see flames erupting from behind the zombies. "Is that a flamethrower?"
As the rest of the zombies fell before the flame throwing maniac a figure appeared in the window and crawled through. The figure was silhouetted by the setting sun behind them and try as Beca might she couldn't make out a face. However, she could tell that the person was rather...large. The person kept approaching and leaned forward while Beca pulled off her helmet to see better.
What she saw was a face.
A big fat beautiful face that she thought she would never see again.
"SHAWSHANK!"
A/N: Like I would actually kill them off...well at least not yet. Anyway i just wanted to warn you guys that the next chapter might take a while since the BeChloe week prompts have dropped and I'm excited to participate for the first time. Hopefully it won't take me too long and I can come back to this but I'm a well known procrastinator so don't get your hopes up.
Also happy early birthday to the good old U.S. of A and happy Independence Day to all my American readers. And to any British readers...no hard feelings right?