Chapter 15: The Virus
Rapunzel sat in the shower as the water ran over her, rivulets running down her back and down the tiles walls. Showers sounded different when you were sitting instead of standing. The echoes grew louder, the water would land in your face, everything would reverberate inside your skull. She let out a sigh and leaned to rest her head against the shower wall and watch as the water swirled down the drain and listened to the water droplets as they rained down on her, washing off all the sweat, blood, and stink of the last few days. Funny. The last few days, she'd been living in the bathroom and had not once taken a shower.
She often pretended that she was in a rainforest while taking a shower, the rain pouring down on her as she wandered through the humid trees, listening to the echoes of noises created by the animals. All she had to do was close her eyes, and she was there, in a completely different world. That was one of the reasons she liked showers so much. It was a place to escape. A place where she could pretend that she was anywhere but home. Showers weren't the only things, either. Oh, no. There were books. Books upon books upon books. Each story containing an entirely new world to escape to and explore. There was her art. Every wall of the house was covered in her brushstrokes, creating a wallpaper of collages and murals and paintings, each one depicting a world of her own creation. A world she could escape to.
It wasn't that she hated her home. No, she lover he mother more than anything else. It was just, when all you've seen your entire life were the same four walls over and over, you start to dream of someplace else. Anyplace else. Anywhere that wasn't her house. Anywhere that didn't have her mother or her rules. Anywhere that would allow her to leave the house on her own, or let her go running through the woods, or let her see and meet other people. Anywhere that wasn't…here.
But as Rapunzel closed her eyes and listened to the shower as its water rained down on her, she didn't see a rain forest. She saw a corpse lunging at her with dead blue eyes, a snarling mouth, her mother's hair, and the smell of rot. She saw the ragged fingernails that clawed at her as a terrible screech filled her ears. She saw the frying pan clutched in her own hand fingers.
Rapunzel opened her eyes, only instead of water, all she saw was blood. Blood running in rivulets and raining down. A deep, dark red. Rivers of blood running down the walls of the shower. Blood that spread across the tiles in a spiderweb to fill the cracks and spaces as her mother's body lay dead on kitchen floor, her skull leaking crimson.
Rapunzel reached forward and turned off the water, leaving her drenched and naked and vulnerable in the middle of the shower. Her mother had always protected her. Always kept her safe and the dangers away.
Her mother was dead now. Twice dead, actually.
Who was going to protect her now?
Rapunzel came down the stairs ten minutes later, dried and dressed as her long, blonde hair hung in tendrils down her back. Before her shower, Rapunzel had gone outside to start up the small generator her mother had gotten ages ago for "just in case." It was why the lights were on and how she was able to have hot water for her shower. The power for the house had gone out weeks ago. Rapunzel hadn't used the generator before now because Mother had wanted to save energy for when they really needed it. She wasn't really sure if she needed it, but the sun had set hours ago, and the fire had died, but after Rapunzel's little spazz out downstairs, she realized, she still had things to discuss with these strangers in her home. And having electricity might just make things run a but smoother.
Rapunzel came to the landing to find the others in the kitchen, all awake, all nervous.
Bunny was standing by the table, foot tapping at a mile a minute as he chewed his nails. Jack was crouching on a kitchen chair, leaning on his metal staff, while Flynn had his elbows on the table, his head bowed as he ran hid hands through his hair.
They all turned to look at her expectantly when she entered. She didn't say a word. Instead she calmly moved to sit down at the kitchen table with the others and folded her hands in front of her.
"So," Rapunzel started, "Zombies, huh?"
"They're not zombies."
"What?" Kristoff asked, confused by the interruption.
After finding Sven, the group had set up camp. They'd pitched tents, distributed food and had started a fire, right there on the interstate off-ramp on the edge of the city. They huddled around the fire with their cans and boxes of food, Sven included as he happily ate from a large can of carrots, the reindeer laying down as Krsitoff sat propped us against his friend's side Anna to his right, with Sandy on his left, and Astrid across from him. They tried to make conversation where they could, Sandy even contributing with hand gestures and pictures drawn with a burnt piece of wood on the concrete.
The topic eventually fell to zombies, Kristoff having let the z-word drop in front of Astrid.
"Don't call them that," Astrid said with a sigh. "They're not zombies."
"How would you know?" Merida asked, not at all pleased with the interruption of the stranger bundled up on the couch. She and her parents had been at the kitchen table, explaining the sickos to the boys, trying to help them get a better understanding of what they were and how they could be killed. Up until now, they'd thought the boy, Hiccup, had been sleeping, so his sudden input was somewhat surprising.
The boy had been spending more time awake lately, so Merida's parents had decided to move then to the couch in the front living room, so he could be more involved with the rest of the house hold. Merida had put up with it, if only because it was a good sign that he was healing and gaining his strength back that. And that meant, the faster he healed the faster he and that bloody dog of he could leave her and her family bee and they wouldn't have to worry about him any longer. That also, meant, however, that the more he was awake, the more she had to listen to him talk. And that certainly something she was prepared to accept.
Hiccup let out a grunt as he sat himself up on the couch to get a better look into the kitchen. Everything still ached and he tried not to jostle around too much.
"Before the virus hit, I was working on getting my MD to become a doctor. As part of the program, I had to intern at a medical company called Black Industries. It was one of the first institutions that were researching the virus when the first few cases of it were being reported. I managed to get a look at it and hear some things from the researchers and doctors before they got rid of all the extra staff and told me I had to go home to keep the chances of someone tracking the virus into the research facility down to a minimum."
"How old are ye, lad?" Fergus asked, curiosity crossing his face.
"Twenty-one," Hiccup answered. "I graduated high school two years early and earned my bachelor's degree in biology in three years. I was in my second year of med school when the virus hit."
"Bloody hell," Fergus muttered as Elinor let out a "Goodness gracious."
Merida rolled her eyes. She'd barely been passing her high school classes when school was still in session. She didn't need to hear about this stranger being a "perfect example" from her parents.
"Well, it they're not zombie than what are they?" Merida asked, exasperated.
"They're sick," the boy explained. "I mean, they're people and all, but they're just very sick."
"What do you mean they're people?" Rapunzel asked, confused. She remembered the image of her mother charging at her, eyes wild. She'd looked more animal than human.
"Well, according to the reports," Bunny started, "the people that had caught the virus never actually died. They just went in to a coma."
"Wait, wait, wait," Kristoff said, holding his hands up. "You're saying these things…are alive? As in they're still people?"
"Do they look like people to you?" Astird asked, a little fed up with his apparent stupidity.
"Well," Hiccup started. "Technically they are people, but not in the way you or I are. It's like rabies. The virus attacks the brain directly. The body may be living, but the brain is destroyed. The person that used to be there is now gone. They're not even really human anymore. They're just these…zombie things."
"So if these…non-zombies are still alive," Rapunzel started, "why do they look so…"
"Dead?" Jack supplied.
Rapunzel nodded. "They act and look and smell like living corpses, right? But they're not."
"My guess is that there's some some leprosy mixed in with all that mad cow disease," Astrid claimed, nonchalantly. "The virus eats away at you. Literally. It eats and eats away at you until flesh peels away from bone and you actually start losing body parts and your muscles loose their shape. That's probably how these things still walk and breath after months of not eating. They're running off of their own body being eaten away by the virus. But the virus never devours its host completely."
"Why not?" Kristoff asked.
"Well, that'd defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?" Astrid asked. "The purpose of survival. The virus couldn't survive if it's host was dead. So it eats at your flesh and gnaws at your bone, but it never kills you. Not completely."
"So all you're left with is this shambling, walking, rotting corpse that's almost impossible to kill because it's not really dead, but it's not really alive either," Hiccup explained.
"So how do you kill them, then?" Rapunzel asked, trying to keep up. "A shot to the head, right?"
That's what all the books she'd read had said.
Astrid shook her head.
"You don't know much, do you?"
Before Kristoff could become properly offended, Astrid started talking again.
"Yes, any damage to the brain will kill them, but a direct hit to the heart will do it, too."
"I don't get it," Kristoff started. "Why the heart?"
Astrid shrugged.
"Like I said, these things aren't dead. They still have their most essential organs. Which are the heart and the brain. Take out either of those, the rest will follow."
"How does tha' work?" Fergus asked. "How come the rest of em's dead bu' the heart and brain are still alive?"
"It's something to do with the virus," Hiccup explained. "It's what it does. It reroutes all the body's energy to the two most essential organs, turning all the others basically useless. As far as I know, no one at the research lad was able to figure out how it's able to do that. Most theorized the reason the virus shut down all the other organs, was to keep the host more resilient. When you've only got two pinpoints that can kill you, there's a better chance of you surviving, and therefore, a better chance of the virus surviving, as well."
"So head shots and direct hits to the hearts," Rapunzel recapped, making a mental note.
"Yeah, but only go for the heart when you have to," Flynn added.
"Why?"
"Because," Bunny started. "your brain is about the size of two fists placed side by side." He held out his fists to demonstrate. "The heart, however, is only the size of one." He took away one of his fists, leaving only one, suspended over the table. "The brain's a larger, easier target, and you're much more likely to hit it of you're doing anything long range. Up close, it's easier to crack the skull open than to get through the ribcage, chest muscles, and lungs to get to the heart."
"Wait," Kristoff started, thinking back to the city and what Astrid had said earlier after the zombie attack. "These things aren't really mindless are they?"
Astrid raised an eyebrow at the question.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, in the city, they weren't just wandering around. They were grouped together. In packs. And then you said earlier. They hunted. As in going out and actively looking for food. If something's brain dead, it wouldn't really have the cognitive ability to do those things."
Astrid smirked.
"You catch on fast, blondie."
"That has to do with the coma stage of the virus," Hiccup explained. "At least, I think it does.
"The infected still have functioning parts and functioning brains. It was just…not all of it is actually functioning. The coma is the one stage of the virus were the fever spikes, and then dies out completely, giving an impression of a cold corpse. If the fever isn't what fries the brain, then it's the lack of oxygen from the coma stage that does. Whatever it is, it destroys most of the brain's higher levels of function and all that's left is raw, primal instinct. Eat. Sleep. Survive. And eat."
"So why eat humans?" Rapunzel asked.
"Because we're the easiest," Jack said with a shrug.
"The easiest?" Rapunzel asked. She remembered books about the animal kingdom. Pages of diagrams of food chains with humans at the top. How could the top predator sink so low, so fast? It just didn't make sense.
"Yeah, it's sort of pathetic," Flynn said. She was rather sure he'd meant it as a joke, but he wasn't laughing or smiling.
"The easiest source of food available were those that were left uninfected," he continued, his tone dark as he stared at a blank spot on the kitchen table top. "No pesky packaging to get in the way or complicated pantry doors to slow you down. Just some prime, human meat, straight from the bone. That was why they attacked other humans. With our slow bodies and minimal survival skills, we were the easiest targets. You ever try catching a rabbit or deer that's on the run? Most difficult thing in the world, especially if you barely have the muscles to run anymore. Nah, humans are a much easier catch."
"Why don't they eat each other then?" Rapunzel asked.
"Well, who'd want to eat rotting meat?" Bunny asked with a half-hearted chuckle.
"But all of that is beside the point," Astrid said, waving her fork in the air as if to wave away the topic. "The point being that the infected still have brain function and still operate on survival instincts. That means, they aren't just shambling, brainless monsters left to wander aimlessly around cities. Oh, no. The bastards decide to huddle together. To form groups and tribes and colonies. Because that's survival instinct. To crowd together, work as a pack.
"And that," she said as she tossed her empty can of corn at Kristoff, nailing him in the head. "Is why you are such an idiot for going into a city unarmed."
"It's also why loud sounds and noises attract them," Hiccup continued. "They're working on primal instinct. So, they rely on their sense to lead them to the kill. Sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. They can sniff us out, which is how they can separate us from the infected. We smell different. Sound carries further than smell, though. So when they hear something that's different or loud, they follow it on the assumption that food will be there. Basic instinct for finding food."
Rapunzel sat in silence at the kitchen table, taking it in. She knew what these zombies were now. Knew how they were made and knew how to take them down. There was something else, though. Something she was curious about.
"Where did it all start?"
"New England," Jack started, his face unreadable. He looked up at Rapunzel. "Where I'm from."
"They never found a patient zero," Flynn explained. "But everyone's fairly sure it started somewhere up near Main or Vermont. After that, it all just went down hill."
"The thing is, Love, it's not like anything anyone expected," Bunny said. "It wasn't one big event, Wam, everyone's dead. It took months for us to end up where we are. Even longer for the rest of the world to realize what was even happening."
"By the time anyone even realized what it was, the virus had spread across several states," Jack continued. "People only even noticed it was happening when the new reports started coming out about dead people coming back to life. A bite's infectious, but the virus is mostly air-born. It spread and it spread fast. Faster than anything the scientists had ever seen. In three months since the first outbreak, it had spread to the West Coast and everyone knew what it was and what it was doing to anyone that caught it. The thing was, by that point, it was too late," Jack's voice trailed off as his gaze fell to the table again, his eyes distant.
After a moment, Flynn picked up.
"The thing is, Blondie, no one had a cure. Sure, we knew what this thing was doing, but no one had a clue as to what it was exactly or how to fight it. People started going crazy. Trying to get the hell out before they caught the bug. They fled the country."
"The problem with that," Bunny said, "was that some were already infected. They brought the virus with them overseas and then it was everywhere. All over the world, spreading like wild fire."
"Riots started in the streets," Flynn continued. "People were scared, and when a lot of people get scarred, a lot of bad things happen. Riots, fires, shootings, lootings. It was madness. The government sent in military to the cities to try and fight the infected. The thing was, before coma stage of the virus, the infected look like everyone else. So while the soldiers were shooting at the zombies, they were protecting people who were going to become zombies on their side of the trench soon enough anyways.
"When they realized that is when the air strikes started. They dropped bombs on cities, civilian cities. They were trying to kill it. Kill the virus before it infected anyone else. But it was already everywhere. Countries shut down their boarders, not letting anyone in. Only it'd already crossed their boarders. Everyone was in a panic. Soldiers were in the streets shooting civilians, infected and not. Schools had already been shut down for months at this point. Then it was the hospitals, because they couldn't really help anyone, anyways. Then the fire and the police stations. The government. The news stations.
"In less than five months, the virus had infected the entire country. In seven, the world. In nine months, there was nothing. It went from full blown chaos to nothing. No one. Those that had been immune to the air-born strain were bitten and infected anyways, eaten, or killed by other survivors. There's only very few of us left."
Flynn finished, letting a silence fall over all of them.
It made sense now. Rapunzel's mother had always been strict about letting her leave the house, but the last year had been especially strict, until finally, she was practically under house arrest. Now she knew it was because her mother was trying to protect her from what was happening. Trying to protect her from finding out what had been going on the whole time. But then she caught it. Caught the virus, and Rapunzel had found out anyways.
She'd found out on her own and was now left with this giant revelation sitting right there at her kitchen table. Rapunzel broke the silence with a soft voice.
"So I guess it really is the end of the world, isn't it?"
A/N: Eh, tried something new with this chapter. I wanted to make all the details about the virus clear for you guys, but I thought this would be a cool way for all the characters to be together without really being together. Not sure if it worked too well, but…How'd it go?