"I will fill your mountains with the dead.
Your hills, your valleys, and your streams
filled with people slaughtered by the sword.
I will make you desolate forever.
Then you will know that I am God."
-Ezekiel 35
-Ω-
It was only a matter of time before everything went to shit.
Frank and Percy traveled for forty days straight, stopping only to eat and sleep. Their only company was Blackjack and the sky, which had cleared up and was no longer belching out snow the farther they traveled from New York City. For the first day or two, Frank would turn back and see the crumbling skeletons of buildings and bridges in the distance, and he couldn't help but try and picture it for what it had been before; a bustling hub that had been the home to millions of people. It was growing harder and harder to picture that place with every day that passed. Frank would then proceed to get terrible homesickness, but then would realize that he had no home anymore; that had been obvious ever since his house had caved in and buried his grandmother under the rubble.
"How are you holding up?" Frank asked Percy as he walked alongside Blackjack. He didn't receive a reply, and began to grow nervous at the odd silence that Percy had slipped into. He wasn't even talking to Blackjack, which he usually did often, and the horse seemed to be a bit on edge as well, spooking slightly with every scuttle of a rat or snap of a twig. The sun rose higher into the sky, though the air was still brittle and chilled, and Frank's feet burned, blistering to the point where he winced whenever he took a step. He wasn't going to complain, though, or ask for a turn on Blackjack; Percy still didn't have shoes, and the worst part was that he was still morally stable enough to refuse to steal the shoes off of a corpse.
Frank let out a choked noise as he toed aside a basketball that had rolled into the street, gazing at the fallen hoop forlornly. He stared down the driveway of the house and found that the garage door was still open, still brimming with toys, and he quickly turned his gaze to the pavement, his shoulders shaking slightly. Instead of making him sad and longing for the old days, things like that now made him incredibly, unexplainably angry.
The suburbs they were traveling through offered great shelter, the complete ruination of buildings ending about a mile out of New York City, but the families that had owned those houses had died inside of them; they'd seen their first child corpse a few days ago when camping out in a two-story home with a white picket fence, and Frank had been so enraged that he'd smashed all of the windows of the house with his baseball bat.
Blackjack let out a low rumbling sound in his chest, and Percy finally seemed to jerk out of his trance, the cloudiness in his eyes disappearing as he looked down at the horse.
"I agree," he concluded, giving a tight nod. The ex-patient turned to Frank, and the survivor was trying to see if the green-eyed boy had a crazy gleam in his eyes, because he clearly had a screw loose. "Blackjack says we should take a break."
"Sounds good to me," Frank replied, shrugging, and Percy dismounted, following Frank's lead and plopping down on the brittle grass of someone's front lawn, trying to ignore the looming, empty house that stared down at them. The survivor unslung his bag from his shoulder and rifled through it, grimacing a bit.
"And what will you be choosing from our menu, Mr. Perseus?" Frank asked in a horrific caricature of a French accent. "Your options are canned food or canned food."
Their food from the mini mart had long since been eaten, and with every house that they raided, the only edible items came in cans- the most common thing being canned tomatoes and soup. Frank thought he would vomit if he tried to consume any more of those wretched things, but knew that beggars couldn't be choosers. What he wouldn't give for a ripe apple or a bowl full of grapes.
"I was actually wondering if you knew how to hunt," Percy murmured, looking down at his hands. "I don't think I can handle more tomatoes, honestly."
"I know how to hunt, but just a little. I haven't done it in a while, so I'm not very good," Frank mumbled. "Besides, last time I hunted, I had a gun. We don't have any projectiles, just my bat and the knives we've gotten from the kitchens."
"Do you know how to make traps, then?" Percy prompted, chuckling a bit as Blackjack wandered over and began nudging at Percy with his huge head.
"I know your basic ground snare," Frank admitted, rifling through his bag once more and producing a coil of string. "We're probably going to be having rat tonight, if that's okay with you."
"Better than tomatoes," Percy pointed out, and Frank really couldn't find it in himself to disagree.
-Ω-
Frank prowled through the suburbs, slinking through backyards and weaving in between driveways. The rats had all nested in the houses, he knew, but that didn't keep him from searching for entry points. He found some sticks right for the job, and clutched his coil of string like a lifeline. Occasionally, a feral cat would slink past with its prey in its jaws, completely disregarding Frank, and eventually the survivor found a hole in the grey siding of a house. It was used often, by the looks of it, what with the droppings and scuff marks around it, and Frank set to work creating his trap. His fingers fumbled and he had difficulty driving the sticks into the winter-hardened earth, but he managed to make a decent-looking snare.
He could only hope that once it was sprung, the cats didn't get to it first.
He was so used to the sound of Percy talking to Blackjack in the background, that he almost didn't realize that the voices he was hearing most certainly didn't belong to Percy. His heart leapt in his chest, and he let out a ragged breath as he rose to his feet and began making his way over to the source of the sound.
"When they said it was bad on the news, I didn't know that it would be this bad," a female voice said, and oh god Frank hadn't heard a woman speak in months, maybe even a year. It was weird, though, because her words were muffled despite the fact that he was pretty sure they were close by. "Are you sure about this?"
"I don't know, Juniper. But what I do know is that we'll be in huge trouble if the sarge finds out," another voice replied, this time masculine. His voice, too, was muffled.
"You're all idiots," snapped another woman, and Frank couldn't believe it; he thought he'd been blessed when he'd met Percy. Blessed when he found just one person. Now there were three more, four if one counted the 'sarge' that the guy had been talking about.
He was so blinded by his shock and hope that he didn't even notice the twig snapping under his foot.
"What was that?" the first woman, Juniper, demanded.
"It was too large to be a rat or a cat, that's for sure," the other woman replied through clenched teeth. "Do you think someone followed us?"
"No, I made sure of it," the man replied firmly. "A survivor, maybe?"
"Don't be ridiculous, no one survived this," Juniper scoffed, and as Frank made his way over, the trio finally came into view. The survivor realized that the reason why their voices were so muffled was because they were all wearing gas masks, and it unnerved Frank to no end, not even mentioning the fact that they were dressed in military camo and were all holding assault rifles.
"Hello?" he called out meekly, wanting to announce himself first; if he snuck up on them, his chances of being shot full of lead would be ten times higher. The three soldiers whirled around, their guns trained on him, but once they seemed to notice his battered state, they immediately lowered them.
"Oh my god!" Juniper cried, "Oh my god!"
Frank found himself unable to speak, as the three of them rushed over, tearing off their gas masks in the process.
"Are you okay? What happened?" the redheaded man demanded, and Frank was able to read the name tag on his uniform: UNDERWOOD- U.S. ARMY.
There was still an army. People had survived. The government had survived. He found himself growing misty-eyed, and the other woman, whose name tag stated that her last name was 'Chase', grew panicked.
"Hey, it's okay, are you the only one? Did you survive?"
Frank's wet his lips and rasped, "No, I'm with one other person."
"Well what are you waiting for?" Underwood demanded, slinging his assault rifle over his shoulder, "Take us to him! We can get you help."
As if on autopilot, Frank slowly turned and made his way back to Percy, aware of the setting sun. He was trembling so hard he feared he's shake right out of his own skin, and there was a funny taste in his mouth that must've just been from the plaque buildup; their supply of toothpaste had run out a few days ago.
The trio for soldiers exchanged quick, hushed words as Frank led them along, and he wondered just how far Beelzebub's Print had spread. Had the entire East coast been completely wiped out, forcing people to the West? Or, had they just had to migrate to the South and get themselves reorganized?
Eventually, they emerged onto the street where they'd settled down, and the soldiers inhaled sharply as they saw Percy sitting crisscross applesauce in the grass, picking at the chutes. They seemed to be intrigued and revolted at the same time, and Frank soon realized that they were regarding Blackjack, whose ugliness Frank had long since gotten used to.
"I can't believe it," he heard Chase whisper, and out of the corner of his eye he could see her twirling her blonde hair nervously. "I can't fucking believe it."
Me neither, Frank wanted to say, but his vocal cords failed to work.
Blackjack was the first one to sense them, his ears pricking as he turned his sightless gaze in their direction, and once Percy saw Blackjack reacting, he, too noticed them.
"Frank?" he called out timidly, rising to his feet, and Frank gave him a tight smile as he stepped onto the lawn and stopped. "Frank, who are these people?"
"We're here to help," Chase stated firmly, stepping forward, and in that moment, Frank knew that she was, without a doubt, the leader. "I'm Annabeth, and that's Grover and Juniper. We're with the military."
"How'd you find us?" Percy whispered, breathless and wide-eyed, and he looked just as awed as Frank felt.
"We were going to scope out the area," Annabeth explained, and Frank found amusement in how she excluded the fact that she was going against orders by doing so. "And we ran into your buddy Frank. Care to tell us what happened?"
"You'll be here for a while," Frank admitted, and the soldier responded by plopping down onto the grass, her comrades following her lead.
"We have time," Juniper replied, sidling up to Grover and resting her head on his shoulder.
"Well, can we treat you to some canned foods raided from dead people's houses?"
"We have protein bars in our bags if you'd like some."
"Oh god, you have no idea."
-Ω-
"We're from New York City," Frank mumbled around his mouthful of food, trying to savor his protein bar but wolfing it down anyway. He was immediately given another, which he gobbled down with gusto. One doesn't fully appreciate the importance and beauty of protein bars until they're gone. "Well, I'm actually from Long Island, but I went to New York City because there was more supplies there."
"How much do you know about what happened?" Annabeth asked, sitting back and munching on her own protein bar. Her grey eyes glittered with intelligence, and Frank knew that she was more than excited to hear their side of the story.
"There was an epidemic. Beelzebub's Print. And then suddenly whole buildings collapsed. Whoever survived the collapses eventually got the Print," Percy murmured, and Frank was surprised to found that he was picking at his food. Frank knew that that boy could eat like a horse when he wanted to, and the survivor had no idea how the ex-patient was managing to restrain himself from devouring a protein bar of all things.
"Yep," Grover confirmed, stroking his chin and the puff of facial hair that was there. "That's about right. Nobody knows how or why all the buildings collapsed, maybe a terrorist attack or something, but what's strange is that this happened in two other parts of the country."
"Beelzebub's Print?"
"No, the building collapses," Juniper replied. "Three areas, all urban; every building within a mile radius of the city crumbling. That's not the weirdest part, though." She paused, thinking about what she would say next. "Two out of the three cities that were affected had something odd come along with the carnage. New York City, as you should know, had the highest concentration of people with Beelzebub's Print. The building failure went on for a mile out in all directions, but the spread of Beelzebub's Print went at least one hundred sixty miles out, all the way down to Cape May, New Jersey."
"Oh my god," Frank whispered.
"No shit. New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and a sliver of New Hampshire were affected. The whole Northeast has been evacuated and quarantined, and they even made a new Washington D.C. in South Carolina called 'Little Washington D.C.'. They're hoping it'll be temporary."
"It's not looking too good as of right now," Percy mumbled, and Annabeth chuckled lightheartedly.
"Mind you, these three cities all collapsed at the same exact time: 10:47 a.m. EST on April 28th," Grover pointed out. "That's why they're leaning towards terrorist attack. It couldn't've possibly been a coincidence that these places just imploded in unison at the same time."
"What were the other cities that crumbled?" Frank asked. He was glad that Beelzebub's Print hadn't spread and killed everyone in the world, but he was also incredibly wary about the fact that all of these cities were destroyed. How could that be possible? Surely the authorities would've noticed if terrorists had been planting bombs on all of the buildings?
"Santa Rosa, California was one of them. It's the city closest to Jack London's Wolf House, and, like with New York City, every building in a mile radius had structural failure," Annabeth explained. "This time, instead of Beelzebub's Print, there was a gigantic famine. One hundred sixty miles of trees, bushes, grasses, crops, flowers, and trees all withered. Massive wildlife casualties. Some people were able to survive the building collapses and got out, but once scientists got there to investigate, they found that all of the water had been sucked from the soil, as if someone had sewed the land with salt. No one will ever be able to grow anything there again, it seems."
"What could've caused that?" Percy asked, shocked, but something in his eyes made Frank wonder if the ex-patient already knew the answer.
"We don't know. It's a phenomenon. The whole world is talking about it, making theories and trying to explain it. Even the greatest of scientists are baffled," Juniper replied, her fingers lacing together with Grover's.
"What about the last city? What happened with that one?" Frank demanded, patting Blackjack's neck as the horse snuffled around the survivor, probably in hopes of finding crumbs of his protein bars.
"That's the problem; we don't know," Annabeth murmured, running her fingers over the barrel of her gun. "In Las Vegas, buildings collapsed, per the norm, but there was no famine or disease or whatever. Even so, there were no survivors. None at all. They weren't crushed or sick or starving or anything, they simply…died."
"Oh."
They lapsed into silence for a while, and Frank kept glancing over at Percy, full to bursting with concern. The boy had lost his appetite, not even bothering to finish his protein bar, and was staring at the ground.
"Before you recount your adventures, I need you guys to be honest with us," Annabeth began, and she, Juniper, and Grover all rose in unison. "We need to know if any of you, including your horse, is sick. We're going to bring you guys to a populated area, and we can't have everyone dying because you guys are carriers."
"And what will you do if we do have it?" Percy demanded fiercely and stood up, and all of the color drained out of Annabeth's face as the ex-patient rolled up his sleeve and revealed the black handprint on his wrist. The three soldiers were on high alert immediately, and Frank felt his heart sink as they all took several steps back, unslinging their guns. No, no, no, no. This couldn't be happening. They just met these new people, just had a chance to get back to the real world and meet people and be normal again, and now they were the enemy.
His heart jackhammering in his chest, Frank raised his hands in the air slowly, rising to his feet and trying not to make any sudden moves as three barrels were leveled at his and Percy's chests.
"I'm sorry," Annabeth murmured, and Frank saw her gun trembling a bit. "Both of you, I am so sorry."
"Just take us into quarantine!" Frank pleaded, and instead of feeling hopelessness and gut-wrenching sadness, his hands began to curl into fists, though he still kept them raised. "You'll see that I don't have it, and Percy doesn't show symptoms. We've been traveling together for months, and I have never gotten it from him. He hasn't died, obviously, and I swear on my life that he won't infect any of you. You'd think if he was contagious you'd already have the black handprint right now, right?"
On instinct, the soldiers rolled up their left sleeves, and Frank could hear their heavy exhales as they found that their wrists were completely clear.
"Let's say we believe you," Annabeth growled, hefting her gun a little higher. "We bring you back to our camp. The three of us are either punished for going out and bringing threats back without authorization, or we're rewarded for finding survivors. By then, it's not going to be our call on what to do with you. Do you really want to risk that? Risk the government?"
"I'd rather die," Percy spat, and Frank felt himself freeze, turning slowly to his companion, recalling the words he'd said on the first day that they'd met:
"If there are lives left to save," Percy answered, and a furrow had appeared in his brow, "But if you're suggesting that I hand myself over to another set of doctors who'll experiment and jab needles in my arm every five seconds, then count me out." Frank's face fell. "I'm not going through that again."
Blood began to roar in his ears, and his shoulders began to tremble as he imagined Percy being ripped away from him, dragged kicking and screaming to a laboratory that would experiment on him for days on end without rest. Once they were done and had looked their fill, Percy would have withered away from the drugs given to him and the procedures inflicted upon him. All he saw was red, and he felt his face contorting.
"F-F-Frank?" Juniper's voice was trembling almost as much as her gun was. "Frank are you okay?"
He locked eyes with her, and suddenly found himself trying to push all of his inhuman rage at her, trying to get her to understand just how furious he was, and he saw her eyes glaze over for a moment.
Feel what I feel, see what I see, Frank bellowed to her, shoving images of Percy screaming and thrashing on an operating table, a shot plunged into his neck to make him pass out as the doctors prepared to dissect him.
And suddenly Juniper wasn't human, at least, not anymore. A bloody tear trickled down her face before her gun clattered do the ground.
Feel what I feel! Frank roared as Juniper leapt onto Grover, tearing at him with nothing but her teeth and fingernails. Frank let out a strangled laugh as Grover screamed, firing wildly in all directions as Juniper bit down onto his cheek and tore the flesh from his skull, revealing shiny white teeth and pulsing muscle. Annabeth let out a terrified shriek, but she was too weak in mind to think of shooting her friend, instead trying to grab her and pull her off of Grover.
See what I see! And suddenly Grover was fighting back, his teeth plunging into Juniper's neck as blood exploded from her jugular, joining the tears of blood that were streaming down his cheeks.
His hands shook uncontrollably, and his mind was just a haze of fog, and he could dimly register Percy walking forwards. Annabeth was screaming and crying as Juniper and Grover tore each other to shreds, and when Percy touched her shoulder, she turned to face him. All that Frank could see was Percy grabbing onto Annabeth's wrist and the blonde letting out a strangled cry, ripping her wrist away and gaping at the black handprint that was left behind. Her veins began to turn black, and Frank saw it racing up her arms and crawling up her neck, outlining the spider webs of veins against her skin.
She let out another cry before her eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed onto the ground, dead.
And then it was just Percy, Frank, a corpse, and what was left of two soldiers.
Frank didn't have it in him to feel remorse.
-Ω-
(A/N) Yeah, so that was pretty dark. PLEASE REVIEW I KNOW YOURE READING THIS AND YOU'RE GONNA BE LIKE 'NAH' BUT PLEASE REVIEW IT MAKES MY DAY WHENEVER I READ A REVIEW SO PLEASE DO THAT.
DISCLAIMER: None of these characters or chapter titles are my own: the characters are Rick's and all the chapter titles are from certain songs, including: Semi-Automatic by TOP, Trouble by Valerie Broussard, Sippy Cup by Melanie Martinez, The River by Blues Saraceno, and Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums by A Perfect Circle.