Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading, reviewing, and alerting. I know that this is a super busy time of year and I appreciate your time.
Kono woke to bright sunlight on her face and the sound of waves in her ears. For just a moment, she imagined grabbing her board and heading down to check out the surf. Then memory kicked in and she bolted upright in bed.
Seeing the time on the bedside clock, Kono swore viciously. Ben had taken it upon himself to turn off her alarm. The two weeks since Lanai had been a nightmare of one outbreak after another that had kept Five-0 frantically on the go from one area of Oahu to another. There had been outbreaks on the other islands, but they were being left to fend for themselves as best they could. Last night, Ben had been complaining about tired how Kono looked. Apparently, he had decided that she should sleep in.
Kono snagged a t-shirt off the floor, pulling it over her head as she marched down stairs to give Ben a piece of her mind. In her haste, she left her gun sitting on the dresser. When she realized the house was empty, her anger kicked up another notch at being denied a target.
She stabbed at the coffee maker with more force than necessary. While she waited for the precious black liquid, Kono turned on the TV to get the latest news and then went in search of her phone. It had been missing from the nightstand so she assumed that Ben had moved it so that the ringing wouldn't wake her.
Fortunately, he had left her phone in the center of the coffee table, where she spotted it easily. There were 17 missed calls, 7 from Danny and 10 from Chin. Guilt sucker punched Kono in the gut. With Steve gone, Alt having fled back to HPD, and Lori still unaccounted for, the three of them were all that were left of Five-0. They had become insanely protective of each other. The two men must have been so worried when she hadn't shown up at HQ.
Kono was just about to call Chin when the images on the TV caught her attention. They were showing aerial footage of Queen's Medical Center. The woman doing the voiceover reported that the hospital had become completely over run. Two divisions of marines had been sent to form a perimeter around the building. No one was being permitted in. On the screen, Kono could see sporadic gunfire as the marines shot at the occasional figure that staggered out of the hospital. They didn't seem too concerned with separating the infected from the healthy.
A strange repetitive banging noise distracted Kono from the news coverage. It sounded like it was coming from behind the house. She was about to investigate when her phone rang. It was Chin, for the eleventh time.
"It's me. I'm okay," Kono assured her cousin before he could say a word, "I stayed at Ben's last night because it's more secure than my little cardboard house. He turned off my alarm."
"Thank God you're okay," the relief was audible in Chin's voice, "Call Danny right now. Tell him you're alright and see where he wants you to meet him."
"Isn't he with you?" Kono asked as she peeked through the vertical blinds on the back door.
"Danny had a meeting with the Governor this morning. I'm on my way over to Queen's. Things are bad over there and Malia didn't come home from her shift last night. I want to go check on her," Chin was trying to sound casual but Kono could tell he was really worried.
Kono's eyes were drawn to the TV where they were still showing footage of the hospital. If Malia was still there Chin wasn't going to be able to help her. Trying was suicide.
Something large slammed into the glass next to Kono. She screamed and dropped her phone. A zombie was outside on the deck, banging on the glass. He had been a tall man, around Kono's age, and had died wearing board shorts and a t-shirt, both of which were torn and smeared with gore. One of his eyes was missing, leaving only a bloody hole surrounded by shredded flesh. Several large chunks were missing from his arms and shoulders.
Despite the gruesome site, Kono relaxed once she realized it was alone. The thick glass on the back door could keep a single zombie out for quite a while. Long enough for her to get her gun and take it down from the second set of French doors that opened out further down the deck from the dining room. She cursed at herself for leaving her gun upstairs. It was a stupid mistake. If the zombie had gotten into the house with her, that mistake could easily have been fatal.
"Kono! Kono, answer me! Answer me now!" Chin's voice sounded tinny coming out of the phone on the floor.
She scooped up the phone and headed back to the bedroom for her weapon, "I'm fine. There's a zombie on the deck and it surprised me, but it can't get in."
"Are you sure there's only one?" Chin had learned over the past few days that being suddenly surrounded by a pack was extremely hard to survive.
Kono opened one of the bedroom windows so that she could safely lean out and survey the deck that ran the entire length of the house. It had stairs that led down to the beach. At the bottom of the stairs was a small walled-off area with a gate. That way surf and scuba gear could be kept there and didn't have to be hauled up the stairs onto the deck. The gate should have been locked but Kono could see it swinging in the breeze.
"The gate's open," she reported to Chin, "There are more zombies down below. I think maybe 3 but I can't tell for sure with the deck in the way."
Chin hesitated for a second, "You can take care of them, right? I want to get to the hospital right now."
Kono froze. She had a full clip in her gun, plus a backup piece and extra ammunition for both. She could take down the one on the deck and then catch the other as they were forced to come up the stairs single file. Then Chin could go to the hospital, where he would die in a pointless attempt to reach Malia.
"I don't know. I can't see the basement door but I think it might be open. There might be zombies in the house with me," Kono prayed that Chin wouldn't hear the deception in her voice. Her plan worked.
"Hang on Cuz, I'll be right there."
Kono ended the call on the pretext that she needed to call Danny, who was probably worried out of his mind about her by now. She pushed aside the guilt she felt about lying to Chin. She'd seen the footage from the hospital, if Malia was there then there was nothing he could do for her.
Kono had already lost so much: Steve (she would never say it out loud, but alone at night as her tired mind replayed the horrors of the day, she couldn't really believe that Steve would make it home), Lori, Max, a dozen or so extended family member and friends (What did it say about her life that she had lost count?), and now it seemed that she had to add Malia to the list. Kono could not lose Chin, too.
Quickly pulling on her clothing, Kono strapped on her back-up gun and added several knives before heading back down stairs, weapon in her hand. The zombie on the deck was still pounding on the door. The glass was holding but the creature's hands were becoming a gory mess.
How the hell did the gate get open in the first place? Kono wondered. And where was Ben? The area of Honolulu where his office was located was currently inaccessible. The military and civil authorities were focusing on keeping high priority areas (like hospitals) and densely residential areas clear.
She eyed the French doors in the dining room and considered stepping outside to clear the zombies, but decided to wait for Chin so it would seem like she really needed his help. There was no harm in waiting.
Kono dialed Danny and frowned when the call went to voicemail. Even if he was meeting with Denning it was extremely unlike him not to take her call. She left a voicemail assuring him that she was okay and demanding to know why he wasn't answering. Checking her watch, she hoped that Chin hurried so that they could take care of the zombies here and then go find Danny.
Kono's attention was suddenly captured by movement at the water's edge. At first, she thought it was another zombie but then quickly realized that it was a surfer coming ashore. It took another few seconds for her to recognize Ben.
"Oh my God!" Kono gasped. Ben would head straight for the gate, unable to see the danger that waited inside.
Kono rushed out onto the deck to warn him away. The monster pounding on the living room door zeroed in on her immediately. Kono made the head shot automatically, the experience of the past two weeks serving her well. At the sound of gunfire, Ben dropped his board and raced up the beach towards the house.
"No! Ben, stop!" Kono screamed from the edge of the deck, relieved when Ben stumbled to a halt.
The three zombies inside the wall stopped their aimless wandering and focused on the woman above them. They immediately started up the stairs, eager to reach her.
As Kono had predicted, the stairway worked in her favor, acting as a choke point that forced the zombies to approach single file. She was easily able to shoot each one.
On the beach, Ben was transfixed watching his girlfriend fire shot after shot, globs of brain, bone, and hair flying through the air. He never noticed the four figures staggering up the beach behind him, concealed until now by some large rocks. By the time their hungry moans penetrated his consciousness, it was far too late.
Kono took a moment to scan the area under the deck to make sure there were no stragglers before turning her attention back to Ben. She looked out at the beach just in time to see the first zombie pull him down. He didn't even have time to scream before one tore his throat out. Bright, gaudy red sprays of blood stained the sand.
Kono fired at the undead, knowing it was already too late. From that distance, with a strong breeze coming off the ocean, her handgun didn't allow for accurate headshots. She ran for the beach but the stairs were blocked by the remains of the zombies she had already killed. It felt like it took an eternity to pick her way through them.
She shot the rest of the zombies from less than 20 yards away. They never even turned away from their grisly meal to acknowledge her presence. When they were all truly dead, Kono collapsed onto the sand, unable to look closer at the ruined remains of her lover. Blinded by tears, she wondered if this was her punishment for keeping Chin from Malia.
Chin found her there 15 minutes later. He was also forced to pick his way down the corpse strewn stairs to reach her, gun in his hand, searching for any active zombies.
"Kono, are you all right?" he asked gently as he crouched down beside her, eyes scanning her frantically for any sign of an injury.
Kono took a deep, shuddering breath, "its Ben . . ." She gestured towards the bloody pile of bodies.
Chin's eyes filled with sympathy as understanding dawned, "I'm so, so sorry Kono." He pulled her into a hug.
Over Kono's shoulder, Chin saw one of the bodies in the pile stir. Even after all the carnage they had witnessed recently, seeing Ben with his throat torn open and his head flopping off to one side still made bile rise in his throat. Before Kono could see the thing that had been Ben, Chin pulled the trigger.
Author's Note: This was supposed to be the first half of a really long chapter but it's taking a long time to write and I didn't want to wait to long between postings, so I'm breaking it into two chapters. I'll give you the teaser that the next chapter will reunite Steve with some of the other Five-0 characters.