October 1, 2006

"Hi," Ross said sadly.

Phoebe was sitting on the long couch in Central Perk, about to take a bite of her muffin. She paused when she heard Ross, looked up at him, and winced.

"Oh, no," she said, putting her plate down. "It's Rachel, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Well, knowing you, it's either Rachel or dinosaurs, and I just don't think you'd be this upset over things that have been dead for millions of years."

For a second, Ross was about to contradict her, but he sighed and nodded as he shrugged off his coat and signaled for Gunther to bring him his usual. "Yeah, it's Rachel. We kind of had an argument last night."

"Oh, that's not so bad," Phoebe said. "I thought you two had worked out a system by now. Y'know, fight, have sex, make up, fight, have sex, the usual."

"Well, things went a little differently this time around," he said, irritation taking over his previous sense of regret. "We went from fighting to Rachel taking Emma to her mom's. Do Not Pass Sex, or anything."

Phoebe opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again and said mildly, "Okay, that is not how that was supposed to happen."

Ross's frustration softened. "No, it really wasn't. Look, Pheebs, I'm sorry for being a little short with you. It's just, you know, I'm still kind of out of it right now, what with Rachel leaving..."

"Yeah," Phoebe said, "I understand. And I hope she comes back before, you know, your wedding."

"That would be nice, yes," Ross said as he took his coffee from Gunther, ignoring his death glare.

"So, okay," Phoebe said, "we'll figure out how to deal with Rachel Crisis #324 later —"

"— You've been keeping count?"

"But first, I have to ask: why didn't you pick up your cell phone when I called you?"

"Oh." Ross patted his pockets and felt the device's outline. Right before he left, he checked his landline twice to see if Rachel had called, but in the haze of getting ready and reeling from the previous night, Ross had left his cell on his bedroom nightstand. He'd just grabbed it after his afternoon lecture before heading down to the coffee shop, cursing as he scrolled through the list of calls that weren't from Rachel. "Yeah, sorry about that, Phoebe. I forgot it at home, but I brought it here. What'd you call me for?"

Phoebe pursed her lips and said, "Okay, I know this may come as a shock to you, so it's probably best that you're sitting down." She patted Ross's arm comfortingly, drew in a deep breath, looked him in the eyes, and said very slowly and seriously, "The reason I kept calling you was because last night I had a dream that all the cell phones are going to kill us."

For a long, long moment, Ross just stared at her.

"The cell phones are going to kill us," he repeated.

"Yes!" Phoebe said. "And that's not even the worst part. I went over my minutes because I used my cell to warn everyone I know! Or, well, knew."

Ross shook his head. Even for Phoebe, this was completely out of left field. "And you think this is going to happen because…"

"Well, it was a very realistic dream."

"Okay," Ross said slowly, wondering if it would be wise to humor her. "How did… How did they kill us?"

Phoebe tilted her head to one side. "I don't know, exactly. But we died, a lot of other people died, and it was really scary and, and gross. So I think it's best if we don't use our cell phones ever again. In fact, I threw mine away this morning." Phoebe frowned, then added, "Wish I could do the same with the bill."

Ross chuckled. "Look, Pheebs, I know you hate those things, but I, uh... kinda need mine. We all do."

"That's funny. Mike said the exact same thing."

"Well, if you're so worried about it, why aren't you at home with Mike, you know, battening down the hatches?"

"Because he didn't believe me either, so he went to his studio to work on some new songs. And I came here because I wanted a muffin." Phoebe picked it up and held it in the air, scrutinizing it for a moment. "This could be the last muffin I will ever eat. I have to make sure it counts." She broke off a piece and slowly chewed it, then said, "Eh, I've had better."

Ross shook his head, then took his cell out of his jacket pocket.

"What are you doing?" Phoebe nearly shrieked, causing Ross to fumble his phone.

"Checking my messages?"

She put down her plate. "Really. Did you not hear anything I just said?"

"I think I'll take my chances," Ross said dryly as he held up his cell to listen to it - then cried out when Phoebe snatched it away from him.

"Give it back," he said in a warning tone.

"Fine, get killed by your wireless network. See if I care," she said, handing his phone back to him. He glared at her, then shifted in his seat and pressed the voicemail button again.

Sure enough, Phoebe had been the one to leave him several messages. In the first one, she sounded frantic and half-asleep. In the second, she was calmer, but repeated her warning about cell phones. The third message featured a song about Ross being a dingus – "Ooh, that reminds me, I'll have to expand on that later," Phoebe remarked, leaning in and listening to her messages next to Ross's ear – and in the fourth one, she'd yelled, "You're such a pain in the ass, Geller!" before hanging up.

"If you were so worried, why didn't you just come over and tell me?" he asked as he played her next rambling message.

"Please," she said with a laugh, "I have a life, remember?"

Ross deleted the message and moved on to the last one. I knew I should've programmed Sandra's number, he thought as he sat up, listening intently to Rachel's voice. The second he heard it, everything else faded into the background. As he scooted over on the couch, away from Phoebe, he listened to what Rachel had to say.

"Hi. Emma and I are still in Long Island. We're gonna stay here a little longer, then you and I can... We'll talk when we get back."

Still in a daze, Ross saved the message and shut his phone, stared at it for a second, then blinked and slid it back in his pocket.

"What did Rachel say?" Phoebe asked.

"Um, not much," Ross admitted. "She and Emma are coming back soon, and she didn't sound mad anymore, so that's probably a good sign."

But she did sound tired, he added to himself.

"Are you kidding? This is a great sign!" Phoebe said. "Like I said, you two will figure things out when she gets back. You always do."

That cheered Ross up a little. "Yeah, you know what? You're right." He sighed in relief. "I think everything's gonna be okay."

"Ahhh!"

Ross jumped in his seat a little, turning around to pinpoint the source of the noise. A man at the counter had yelled in obvious pain, holding his cell phone away from his face and jamming a finger in his ear. For a moment, Ross thought that what Phoebe had predicted was coming true, that it really was the end of the world.

Then the man shook his head, apologizing to Gunther as he put his phone back to his ear.

"Don't know what the hell that was," the customer said. "Must've been the damn reception."

Ross turned back around in his seat, fixing a slightly smug look upon his friend.

"Well, Pheebs," he said, "if the cell phones really are trying to kill us all, they're gonna have to do a lot better than that."

Then, suddenly, the large front window of Central Perk shattered into pieces.

"So, apparently Erica's been a little terror at daycare for the past two weeks," Monica explained as Chandler played with the twins on the living room couch. He was trying to get them to pull his finger, but they both ended up grabbing it and just holding on, laughing like that was the joke.

"Really," he said, only half listening.

"Yeah. I think we might have to take her somewhere else. And if we move her, we're going to have to move Jack, too."

Chandler looked up at Monica. "This is the third center we've tried. Maybe the real reason nothing's worked out for us is because Erica won't listen to anyone except for you. No one else can get her in line like Mommy can, right?" He switched his attention back to his daughter, who grinned and clapped her hands in agreement.

Monica blew her hair back from her forehead in exasperation. "Well, as flattering as that is, we need a sitter to look after them, at the very least. Okay, what with your commute to work and my hours, we can't just let them stay here by themselves."

"I think they'd be all right," Chandler said. "I mean, it couldn't be any worse than whenever we left Joey by himself."

"Good point. But just for now, I'll call that new place that opened up near Mom and Dad's. It'll be more expensive, but we can manage it."

"I could still quit my job and freelance from home," Chandler suggested. "Or be a stay-at-home dad. I could do this all day." He leaned over and blew a raspberry into the twins' faces, sending them into fresh peals of laughter.

When their giggles subsided, a scream suddenly rang out from somewhere outside. Not the usual scream of some kid who was having way too much fun, but a genuinely terrified one.

Chandler and Monica exchanged a look.

"What was that?" Monica asked.

Chandler shrugged. "Maybe someone at the new daycare center heard that you're planning to call."

Monica headed into the kitchen. "At least they knew ahead of time."

"Hang on a second," Chandler said as he noticed some movement through the living room window. He got up, putting Erica down on the couch before he moved toward the window, gazing at a teenage girl on the lawn of the house across the street.

"What's up?" Monica asked as she came over from the kitchen, with her phone in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

"That girl across the street's doing her funny dance again," he remarked, glancing over his shoulder and then looking back out the window. She was, but this time she was waving something around in her right hand and, after a moment, she…

… Bit into it.

Chandler turned to face Monica and asked, "Since when did our neighbors start eating severed arms?"

Joey was on the highway when it happened.

Hours ago, he had automatically accepted Phoebe's warning about cell phones. Right after the call ended, he'd rolled his window down and chucked out his own phone, afraid it was going to 'get' him.

Five minutes after doing that, he realized that wasn't such a good idea, and five hours later, he was still berating himself for throwing the device away. He'd had dozens of numbers that belonged to hot women stored in the phone's memory, and he'd never be able to get them back. Not that he was going to call any of his one-night stands, but still!

"Stupid technology," he said, glaring at the sleek dashboard of his car. "Who needs you, anyway?"

Almost as if in retaliation, the minivan in front of Joey's car jerked wildly over to the left lane, barely avoiding crashing into the stone and metal guardrail. It slowed, and after Joey drove past it, he was just starting to wonder how much the minivan's driver had been drinking, when said driver suddenly rammed the vehicle into the rear fender of Joey's rental car.

He lurched forward, almost losing control of the wheel, but grabbed onto it as he accelerated.

"Okay, okay, I take it back: we all need you!" he cried.

Joey's backpedaling had apparently fallen on deaf metal; the minivan sped up right behind him, slamming into the back of his car with more force. Panicking, he swerved all the way to the right. Letting his instincts take over, he guided the rental over onto the side of the road. As he did so, he vaguely heard the sound of honking further along up the highway, but the sound faded beneath the rapid thudding of his heartbeat in his ears.

For a moment, Joey just sat there, attempting to absorb what had just happened to him in the last twenty seconds.

"Dude," he said.

Rachel was in a grocery store in Long Island, pushing a shopping cart and occasionally glancing down at her daughter, who was sitting in the child seat in the cart, swinging her legs back and forth.

As Emma shook the can of nuts that was clenched in her hands and listing all her favorite juice flavors, Rachel found herself drifting in and out of the present, reflecting on everything that had been going on with Ross.

Not just the previous night, but the past two years, and how they had gotten to this point.

May 2004

"What did he say?" Ross asked quietly, closing the door to the room that had been Rachel's when she lived there before, and that was going to be Emma's nursery.

Rachel sighed as she put the phone back down in its cradle. "Well, the people at Louis Vuitton weren't happy to hear about me flaking out on the trip, that's for sure."

"So…"

"So, they're not interested in paying for another one. Actually, Mark said they found someone else who, 'knows the proper way to get on a plane and, more importantly, how to stay on it.'" When Rachel finished quoting him, she bit her lip and visibly tried to fight back oncoming tears. A few seconds later, she lost that battle, bringing her hand up to her mouth, and Ross was at her side in an instant.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," he said. "You can always go back to Ralph Lauren, or find a job somewhere else. I'm sure there are plenty of other stores with names I can't even try to pronounce that'll be happy to have you."

Rachel let out a small laugh that sounded more like a sob, and leaned into Ross's embrace. "Actually," she mumbled, "I don't think so, honey. Stuff like the stunt I pulled gets around fast, and I don't even want to think about the kind of recommendation Mr. Zelner would give me."

"Well, Zelner's an idiot," Ross said before reaching out and tilting up her chin, getting her to meet his eyes. "Don't worry about him. We're gonna figure something out, all right? You'll be back up to your neck in peasant blouses and skinny jeans in no time."

Rachel laughed again, and this time, it wasn't tinged with sadness. "Maybe we should find a job in fashion for you, too."

Ross smiled, and smoothed her hair down with his hands. "You'll see," he said after they kissed and parted. "You'll get something soon. Everything's going to be just fine."

January 2005

"Well, it's not," Rachel said. "It's not a big deal. Really, Ross, it's just a couple of drinks. Y'know, I finally manage to make some headway with my co-workers, and you make it seem like it's gonna turn into one one of those pornos Chandler tries to hide."

"That's not true, and you know it."

"Okay," Rachel amended. "One of those pornos Chandler and Monica leave in their DVD player. Sure, the kids weren't there, but c'mon now!"

"I'm being serious here," Ross said with a huff. "Okay, maybe I'd be blowing things out of proportion if I didn't want you to have lunch with these guys —"

"— Which, if I may remind you, you haven't wanted me to do for months."

"— But you've been getting cozy with them ever since you started working at Marc Jacobs, and I've seen the way they look at you. Trust me, they're just waiting for the right moment to make their moves."

Rachel went from frustrated to incredulous in two seconds. "Excuse me? First of all, I don't know how anyone could miss this," she paused to raise her left hand, displaying the shining engagement ring on it, "and second of all, I thought I already made it clear to you just how gay my co-workers are."

"You're saying this to the guy who's seen Holidays on Ice more times that your little group has, combined," Ross said. "Men don't need to be gay to appreciate fine art, or to work in fashion. And it's not like that ring acts as some horny guy repellent, either."

"All I'm saying is, maybe it's about time I started making some new friends. I don't know if you've noticed this, Ross, but our social lives? Not what they used to be!"

He frowned. "Three of our friends move away, and it's the end of the world?"

"Oh, you know what I mean," Rachel snapped. "I don't really have any other close friends in the city besides you and Phoebe, so I'd like to hang out with other people sometimes. Y'know, instead of sitting around here on Saturdays watching the Discovery Channel, or helping you work on your stupid puzzles!"

"Hey," Ross said, pointing at her accusingly, "you said you liked the last one I bought!"

"Yeah, I liked it for the first two nights we worked on it, but looking at a giant chipmunk gets a little old after a while!"

"Again, Rach, not a chipmunk. It was a prairie dog," Ross ground out. "Look, if you're so sick of, of being stuck here with me all the time, why don't you try getting to know the women in your office?"

"Please, you know I haven't been getting anywhere with them!" Rachel clenched her fists and lowered them, barely keeping herself from stomping one foot on the ground. "I just don't get along with those women."

He glared at her. "Right. Why take the time to get to know them better when you've already got the guys wrapped around your finger? Wayne, Tony, and, and Phil, and Ted? I'm sure they'd love to have some really excellent adventures with you - in bed." Still scowling, he turned his attention away from her as he shook his head.

After taking a deep, calming breath, Rachel walked over to Ross and put her hands up on his shoulders, then his neck, searching his face until he finally met her gaze.

"You don't have to worry about anything happening between us," she said. "I love you, not them. Come on, Ross. Do you really want to go down this whole paranoid jealousy road again?"

"No," he said quietly.

"Then forget about them, and kiss me."

He did the latter, at least.

September 30, 2006

"It's not that difficult to understand!" Ross yelled, pressing his fingers to his eyelids. "What, what don't you get?"

"Oh, I get it, all right," Rachel said. "I think I'm getting it loud and clear, now. You want me to quit my job so I can stay here all the time."

"No, I'm saying if you took some time off from work, we'd actually get to have dinner together more than twice a week and finally get to start planning, oh, hmm, I don't know, I was thinking maybe our wedding?"

Rachel closed her eyes, running out of patience for what felt like the hundredth time in the past two years. "Ross, I can't – I can't deal with this right now. You said you'd stop giving me a hard time about my hours and my co-workers."

"And you said you were going to spend more time at home, but look at how that's been working out. You know, 'fashionably late' doesn't apply to coming home!"

"Are you kidding me?" she asked, her fists shaking with disbelief and barely controlled rage. "Please tell me you're joking. I feel like all I'm doing when I'm not at work is hang out here these days!"

"Rachel," Ross said in a low, steady tone. "We have a child to raise. We are getting married. Obviously not tonight, but someday, we will. Please try to understand that you can't just drop everything here to go do whatever you want elsewhere, anymore."

She froze, stunned. "So you're telling me that I don't care about my own daughter?" she asked, her voice trembling. "That I don't care about you? I gave up Louis Vuitton for you, Ross. I gave up Paris."

Ross rolled his eyes. "Again with the 'P' word—"

"—No," Rachel said, so sharply and loudly that she even startled herself. Emma's in the next room, she thought, and took a deep breath. "You do not get to joke your way out of this one. That wasn't even funny the first twenty times you said it."

"Well, I wasn't laughing the last thirty times you used it to guilt trip me."

They stood there, glaring at each other for a long time.

"Okay," Ross said finally, in a sigh as he rubbed at his eyelids. "You know what? Call Phoebe or Phil and have a night out on the town with them, if that's what you really wanna do, Rach. Just, just go. I'll stay here with Emma."

Rachel continued to stare at him as the seconds ticked by, tears welling up in her eyes.

"No," she said, then heading for the phone.

"What are you doing?" Ross called after her. She could swear she heard a twinge of panic in his voice. A small, petty part of her enjoyed hearing it.

"I'm gonna take Emma to my mom's," she said as she picked up the receiver. "We'll stay at her new place in Long Island for a while."

"What?"

Rachel turned away from his incredulous, wounded expression as she began dialing the taxi cab service. "Look, I really, really don't need this from you right now, Ross. When I come back, we'll talk."

As she brought the phone up to her ear and gave the address to the apartment, then her mom's place, she turned back around to face him. He was still watching her, looking like he was about two seconds away from stopping her, from reaching out to take the phone away, begging her not to go - maybe even kissing her if that would get her to hang up on the taxi service.

Instead, he pursed his lips and walked away, leaving her in the living room to finish the call.

"Fine," Rachel heard him mutter.

October 2006

She still remembered what Ross had said the night she'd gotten off the plane, that they were done being stupid, and she remembered being in complete agreement with him.

She also remembered the past two years with Ross. They shared some really great moments after getting back together – most of them in bed – but she couldn't help wondering if, maybe...

Are you really ready to go there, when you go back? she thought. You're engaged, and you have a child with him. You should be thinking about Emma, more than anyone else.

Right, and fighting outside her bedroom every two weeks is a spectacular way to raise a child! she argued back.

But you still love him, don't you?

Rachel frowned.

Oh, we're going around in circles, here. Stop thinking about this for two minutes. It's why you left in the first place, isn't it? And it's not all that bad, since Joey is —

Suddenly, someone brushed past her in the store, shaking her out of her thoughts. Upon closer inspection, she saw that the rude person had – unsurprisingly, to her – been a teenager, his shoulders hunched and his gait even more slouchy than teenagers usually walked.

"Kids these days," Rachel said, looking down at her daughter. "You're not gonna turn out like that, are you, sweetie?"

"I want orange juice," Emma said firmly.

Rachel laughed. "All right, Ems, let's go get you some."

When she got to the frozen section, one other person was already at the milk aisle: a woman bent over low, flailing around and knocking all the cartons and plastic jugs off the shelves.

"Hey," Rachel called out to the angry person, jumping when another milk bomb exploded onto the floor from the top shelf. "If all the milk's expired, you could just let the manager know."

The woman turned around in a jerky, unnatural sort of way to face Rachel, and, still bent over, she started walking toward the cart, looking like one of those wind-up toys Monica and Chandler had bought for Emma.

"Rast," the woman said in an odd, hollow tone.

Rachel frowned.

"Oh, yeah? Well… Well, rast you," she said, more out of confusion than anything else, twisting her cart away from the oncoming crazy person and entering the next aisle. Living in the city had taught her to ignore people who were acting out in public, so she forced herself not to look back and see whether the milk destroyer was following her. She didn't hear any sounds behind her by the time she got half-way down the aisle, so she figured she was in the clear.

"That's weird," she muttered, pushing the cart down the deserted linoleum path, feeling more and more like something was not quite right. "It's not Halloween yet."

When she made her way toward the front of the store – avoiding a lone cell phone lying on the floor, which creeped Rachel out even more than the flailing milk lady – she directed her cart to the left, toward the express lane.

"You think we're being Punk'd?" she muttered to Emma, who seemingly had forgotten about her need for juice and was back to examining her can of nuts.

Suddenly, Rachel heard the sound of what probably had been dozens of cereal boxes crashing to the floor, and a loud, keening groan elsewhere in the store made her skin break out into goosebumps, sending her adrenaline into overdrive. Things had definitely gone from 'weird' to 'get the hell out of here,' so she was going to do just that.

After she'd give one of the store's employees a piece of her mind.

"Excuse me?" she called out, still rolling the cart up to the express lane and trying to ignore all the crashes, bangs, and screams that were gaining more volume in the aisles. "Look, I don't know which one of you thought this would be even the least bit funny, but —"

She froze at the end of the lane, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open as she took in the sight before her.

Normally, she'd have taken more time to get a closer look at the stranger, picking up on details like fake jewelry and shirt colors that should be banned from the public eye, but all Rachel registered was a man in a suit. He was half-leaning, half-balancing himself over the small counter between him and the cubicle, seemingly unbothered by the credit card device digging into his stomach.

She wasn't focused too much on his stomach, though, because he was biting the cashier's neck. That pretty much got her attention.

All the sound seemed to rush right out of the store and into Rachel's head, which started pounding harder and faster as she took in the sight, not even really believing it was taking place.

"It's a dream," she said. "I'm dreaming. I'm gonna wake up now."

The man in the suit tore out the cashier's throat and he crumpled backward, slipping out of sight.

"Any minute now," Rachel said, clutching onto the metal bar of the cart.

He was coming straight at her cart, spitting as he tore open his blood-spattered shirt, as though his clothes were too confining.

"Flaughn," he said.

"No, I - I don't want any flan," she said randomly, but was so shocked she could not move.

Emma did, though.

"Go away!" she yelled, throwing her can of nuts straight at the man in the suit. The can bounced off of his forehead and flew several feet away, and, miraculously enough, he dove for it.

"Nice shot," Rachel said, momentarily impressed, then snapped out of her trance and started pushing the cart toward the door.

She pushed it clear across the parking lot, ignoring the sounds of screaming sirens in the distance, and thanked her lucky stars that she'd decided to wear her sweats and tennis shoes, rather than putting on heels and her current favorite skirt. Emma bounced up and down in the cart, and Rachel distractedly apologized to her as she neared her mother's navy blue BMW.

Praying that this wouldn't be like the horror movies she watched through her hands, Rachel managed to pull out Sandra's car keys and pressed the automatic unlock button without dropping them under the car. She wrenched open the back door, hastily dropping Emma in her car seat and buckling her belt.

When she got into the driver's seat and locked all the doors, she thought she'd never heard a more beautiful sound.

"It's okay, honey. It's okay," she said to Emma as she twisted around and stroked her daughter's tear-stained cheek reassuringly. "It's just a prank, okay? You wanna go see your bubby? Huh? Let's go back and see her. When we get home, everything's going to be fine."

She turned back around in the seat, trying to think past the gory last few minutes in the store. Distantly, she could hear more screaming, and she barely caught the lightning-quick image of someone running through the parking lot, dashing past her car in the rear view mirror's reflection.

"Joey," Rachel ordered herself, trying to will her body into motion with just her words. "Call him, then go to Mom's. Call Joey. Do it. Now."

Then she froze, realizing what she'd just said.

Call Joey?

No, call Ross.

While she was still puzzling her way through that train of thought, another one occurred to her: Phoebe's message.

"So after you listen to this, you should throw your cell phone away, because it will kill you."

And then Phoebe had said something about dreaming a bunch of cell phones eating them all – but this was reality, damn it. Rachel was just starting to realize how real this all was, and dream or no dream, she had to call someone.

"Okay," she said out loud, "I can do that."

She brought her hand up in front of her, with the cell phone clenched tightly in her fist.

She slowly loosened her grip and flipped it open, then pressed the button to get to her history screen. After she looked at the last two numbers she'd dialed and debated which one to press, she —

Thump.

"Oh my God!" Rachel cried as she jumped in her seat, hitting the top of her head on the ceiling.

A woman had slammed right onto the hood of the car, baring crimson and coffee-stained teeth as she grinned through the front windshield's glass, her eyes wide and empty.

Rachel instantly pulled her hand back, launching the cell phone at the woman's face, and it bounced off the glass barrier, cracking it as the device ricocheted onto the gigantic dashboard. Rachel ducked, putting her hands over her head, and a few seconds later, she lowered her arms.

There was nothing in front of the car, except for the van that was still parked across from her, and a small red streak on the windshield just under the crack the phone had caused.

No more monster in sight. Just the van. Just a thin streak of blood.

The cell phone.

Turning her attention away from the window, Rachel leaned forward and grabbed the device off the dashboard. The battery was still in place, but when she opened the phone and turned it on, she saw a blank screen.

The cell phone was broken.

Okay, so, calling anyone is out of the question now, Rachel thought. She would have to go to her mother's new house and try to reach someone from there.

Rachel found the key chain, and with a definitely unsteady hand, turned on her car as she hoped the others were doing a better job at handling the end of the world.

Phoebe and Ross sustained minor cuts from the breaking glass, but they weren't mortally wounded. They'd both ducked down on the couch when it had happened. When they got back up, it was pandemonium. Ross was still gazing at the front window in shock when Phoebe pulled him up and dragged him out of the store, ignoring the sounds of the confused, screaming patrons all around them.

It wasn't much better outside.

People were rushing around, some yelling, others calling out nonsense words as they ran in a sort of shambling, animalistic way. Another taxi further up the road had crashed right into a vendor and turned it over, and Ross could've sworn he saw two people with blood caked around their mouths as they rushed past him and Phoebe.

His first thoughts were of Rachel and Emma, but when he pulled out his cell phone again, Phoebe knocked it out of his hand and crushed it with the heel of her boot.

"What the hell are you doing?" Ross yelled over the din of the ensuing chaos. His question was forgotten when a wave of screams resounded several blocks over. He winced and let Phoebe pull him away, bumping into several others as they ran from Central Perk.

Out of the corner of his eye, down the side street and up toward the main one, Ross saw a police car pulling up into their street, and, almost as if from far away, he watched Phoebe scream at them as she waved her arms around wildly, "Put down your phones! PUT DOWN YOUR PHONES!"

"I think it's a little late for that, Pheebs," he said, but she ignored him.

Joey surveyed the scene before him from his seat in the car.

He was waiting. Waiting for something to start happening in his line of sight. Anything.

"What the hell's going on?" he wondered aloud as he shifted his gaze back and forth across the highway, keeping a close watch on a few other vehicles. One of them – the minivan from before – had successfully crashed into the stone barrier further up the road, but no one was getting out of the vehicle, and Joey could see a trail of smoke billowing up to the sky a few miles ahead.

He debated turning on the radio, but hesitated when he put his hand out to the knob as he remembered Phoebe's warning. Maybe the same thing went for radios, too.

Then, he paused when another, more terrifying thought occurred to him.

If things got so crazy on the highway where he was, the same might have happened in New York City.

The same things might have happened to his family.

To his friends.

To his favorite hot dog stand in Central Park.

And maybe even to Rachel.

June 2004

After Ross and Rachel broke the news of their engagement and Chandler cracked a few jokes – one of them being, "And this time, make sure you two won't puke right after the ceremony," – the group had a celebratory dinner for the happy couple. They got sitters for the kids and went out to a fancy restaurant, toasting to Ross and Rachel for finally getting back together.

Everyone was pleased as punch with how things had turned out for them, especially Joey. He felt a sweeping sense of relief along with the happiness he felt for his friends. Not only would Ross and Rachel finally settle down and be a family, it was also about time that Joey got that last kick in the pants to get over Rachel.

Only, deep down, he didn't think he ever could.

Still, Joey was pretty sure something great would happen to him, sooner or later. He'd finally get to know a woman better and grow to actually like her instead of indulging himself in meaningless one-nighters. He'd done it before. He'd developed feelings, real feelings, for Kate, Ursula and... What's her face.

Ross turned to him, interrupting his well, thought, and said, "Joey, would you do us the honor and perform the ceremony for our wedding?"

Joey gaped at him, genuinely shocked. "You sure?"

"Yeah, Rachel and I talked about it, and we want you to do it," Ross said. "It's kind of turned into a tradition between all of us, right?"

Rachel caught the surprised look on Joey's face, put her hand over his and quickly said, "But if you don't want to do it this time, we could always find someone else."

Joey was, as usual, dumbstruck for a moment. Though, really, he should've expected this to come up. It took him a moment to regain his bearings, and when he did, he said, "No, Rach. I'd... I'd love to do it."

When he flashed her a grin, it felt forced.

"Oh, good, so we won't have any best man issues this time," Chandler said with an audible sigh of relief. "I could not go through all that drama again."

"Aw, thanks so much, sweetie." Rachel leaned over to wrap her arms around Joey's neck. "That really means a lot to us."

"Hey, no problem," he said, squeezing Rachel's back as she kissed his cheek.

Two months later, Joey moved to L.A.

October 2006

He knew he had to get back home. He'd already gotten a head start on that, and he decided that he wasn't going to let a little road weirdness throw him off.

Although, because of Phoebe's warning and what had just happened on the highway, Joey didn't think he should drive anymore, so he got out of the car, and did something he used to go out of his way to avoid.

Walking.

Rachel could barely get out onto the main road from the grocery store because there were so many crashed cars and bodies on the streets. When she managed to get several blocks away, she rolled to a stop in what looked to be a deserted part of the neighborhood.

She broke down sobbing, not knowing what else to do.

This must be what being in shock feels like, she realized with a profound numbness. It was shock from all the things she'd just been through: seeing actual people tearing others apart and leaving them to stagger around helplessly, and the random memory of milk cartons spilling their contents onto the polished floor. There was a joke in there somewhere about not crying over spilled milk, but Rachel couldn't think of one.

Chandler would, though.

Well, look on the bright side of all this, he said to her suddenly, appearing in her mind's eye and wearing his trademark smirk. At least you aren't in New Jersey.

Rachel let out a burst of laughter at that, then bit down on her lip before she went right on like that, laughing until she died.

Stop, she told herself. That's not really Chandler. He did have – please, let it be 'have' instead of 'had', she prayed – a weird sense of humor, but at least his jokes were funny, now and then. Nothing about that last joke of 'his' had been funny.

Nothing about any of this was funny.

Rachel shook her head. You have got to focus, she told herself sternly. Greens do not quit, and you're still a Green. You have a child to protect. You have friends to get back to, a... Ross to get back to. There's no place like home, right? Get back to Mom's, get back home, and maybe then you can start freaking out.

She wondered, though, how she could do that when there were so many wild killers on the loose. How she could make her way across hundreds of miles of what seemed to be a minefield of…

Wait.

Could the not-people really be zombies?

September 2003

After dropping Emma off at Sandra's, Rachel let herself back into her apartment to find Joey reading a book at the counter.

"Hey, Joe!" she said brightly, slightly puzzled at the sight. "Whatcha reading there?"

When he showed her the cover – the book was called The Zombie Survival Guide – Rachel was genuinely confused.

"What? That's an actual book? Without pictures of naked women in it?"

"Yeah, it is a real book!" he said with an excited grin. "Someone at work let me borrow it. It's really neat, and kinda scary. But hey, if we ever get attacked by a bunch of these guys, we'll know what to do, thanks to this!" He nodded with renewed certainty as he flipped open the book again.

"Well, I guess it can't hurt to be prepared," Rachel agreed lightly, humoring him. She sat on the E-Cliner and listened to him read a page out loud.

October 2006

I really should've paid more attention to what he was reading, Rachel thought, checking on Emma – who was thankfully dozing – by adjusting the rearview mirror. The only thing Rachel could remember from the book was that zombies didn't have to be technically dead; they could just be infected with a disease that would make them violent and crave human flesh. She gathered that must have been what happened in the grocery store. Somehow, a full-scale virus had broken out and would hopefully – definitely, Rachel assured herself – die out soon.

She never thought she'd accept an explanation like that so readily, but after going through what she just went through, any sort of explanation, no matter how ridiculous, would've made sense to her.

Rachel turned the car key in the ignition, ready to redouble her efforts in getting back to her mother's house.

Chandler and Monica were sitting on the couch in their living room, each of them holding a twin and trying to speak as casually as possible about the recent turn of events.

"So, zombies?" Chandler asked.

Monica nodded. Or that could've just been her head quivering out of sheer terror. "Uh huh."

Chandler blinked, rubbed his eye, then said again, "Zombies?"

"Yes, Chandler: zombies. You've said it so many times, it doesn't even sound like a word anymore!"

"I... I just…"

"Don't say it!" Monica tried to warn him, but she was too late.

"Why zombies?"

When Joey made it about a mile down the long, nearly empty road, passing a few crashed and abandoned cars, he finally found someone.

Relief swept through him as he approached the person who was hunched over the closed trunk of a car – he glanced at the cell phone lying on the ground next to a front tire, which was further proof that Phoebe's prediction had come true – and something more than relief came over him when he drew closer and registered that the stranger was a young woman.

Joey grinned as he stopped several yards behind her, and, out of pure reflex, said, "Hey, how you d—"

The woman whirled around and spat out a finger.

"AHH!" Joey yelled.

The woman reared back on her heels, and launched herself at him.

Normally, Joey wouldn't have complained one bit about having a woman literally throw herself at him, but the way she had tackled him to the concrete and was lunging at him, he gathered that she probably wasn't trying to hit on him. After getting over his initial shock, he used his size and strength to his advantage and pushed her off before she could bite him.

Why is she trying to bite me? he wondered. I mean, I know I'm pretty bitable, but still!

He got a better look at her as she lay on her side a few feet away from him, still snarling. She would have been an attractive woman, except for the neon green streaks in her hair.

And maybe the fact that she was trying to eat him.

"Okay," he said, standing up, "you're not in the mood. I got it. How 'bout we go our separate ways and pretend this never happened?"

She growled and charged at him.

Joey did the second thing that day he'd always tried to avoid: running.

Luckily, he didn't have to go very far, since he targeted the car that the woman had been bent over earlier. Temporarily forgetting his suspicion of vehicles, he scrambled into the unlocked back seat, slamming the door behind himself just before the green-haired monster could get to him.

He watched her through the window, cringing as she headbutted it.

"Nope, didn't think so," he said, then slid down the back seat, yelping as she shook the car in fury.

"It's ironic, isn't it?" Chandler said, wincing as the sound of hoarse yelling erupted from somewhere on the street. "Usually when something bad happens, all you want to do is call someone."

He was in the kitchen with Monica and the twins, still trying to push past the initial shock of what was happening, only to arrive to the conclusion that there was nothing left to do but stare at his cell phone on the counter and wish that whatever was going on was actually the World's Worst Prank.

"So, let's do it," Monica said. "The water and lights are still working, so the lines probably aren't down." Her voice sounded strong and even, but she hadn't budged an inch toward Chandler's cell phone.

"I don't know," Chandler said. "Remember what Phoebe told us earlier? What if it's true, that phones really have something to do with this?"

"The world must be ending," Monica remarked as she shook her head. "I never thought you, of all people, would ever take Phoebe seriously."

"I wouldn't be if we both didn't see our neighbor go all Hannibal Lecter on an arm," Chandler pointed out.

"I still think we should go for it," Monica said, shifting Jack further up on her hip and nodding at the phone. "I mean, when have Phoebe's dreams ever come true before?"

"What about the one where we had sex on the balcony?" Chandler asked, still trying to stall the inevitable.

Monica raised her eyebrows. "That was your dream, honey."

"Oh, yeah," he said, momentarily lost in the fantasy.

"Let's try calling Ross first," Monica said, snapping him out of his reverie. "Then we'll call the police. I mean, if we aren't supposed to use the phones, we'd have gotten another warning sign by now."

"Fine," he said. "I'll do it. It'd be nice to prove Phoebe wrong, anyway."

He reached out with his free hand, balancing Erica in his other arm. Before he could even flip open his cell phone, she knocked it out of Chandler's hand.

He and Monica watched it crash down to the floor between their feet, almost as if the whole thing were happening in slow motion.

The impact didn't break the device, but Chandler kept his eyes on it, as if he were waiting for it to start spinning around and laughing maniacally.

"Well," he said, looking back up the same time Monica did, "I'd say that's as good a sign as any."

After getting to Mike's studio and finding it empty, Phoebe and Ross rushed to her apartment, pushing past other panicking, weeping New Yorkers.

When they got two blocks away from her place, Ross's face fell as he caught the sight of smoke billowing out of several windows. Papers, torn up belongings, and ash littered the street he was standing on. He already knew that they were things that had fallen from Phoebe's ruined building.

People were still running around and there were crashed cars everywhere, but to Ross, it was almost as if the screeches, snarls, and blaring alarms had been muted, somehow. The smells around them, on the other hand, were overpowering: burning flesh, gasoline, and caramelized rubber.

Ross glanced at Phoebe, who was craning her neck up toward her demolished apartment. He knew they shouldn't be hanging around here, out in the open where it seemed anything could hurt them. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw someone flailing around nearby, but he or she must have been distracted with something – or someone – else, because they vanished out of sight within seconds.

"Look, Pheebs," he said after clearing his throat, remembering to breathe through his mouth, "I'm really sorry about your apartment, but we… We gotta get out of here."

Ignoring him, Phoebe lowered her gaze, then moved toward something amidst the debris on the street. Ross followed her as she bent down and picked up something small, round, and white.

"Oh, sure!" she said to her busted smoke detector. "Now you're not beeping! Well, take that!" Before Ross could stop her, she flung the small object down the street.

Ross didn't know whether to chastise her for drawing attention to them, or congratulate her on her throwing skills. He chose to look down at something that had been lying underneath the smoke detector.

He bent down to pick up the item, and when he looked at it more closely, his entire body flooded with ice.

Phoebe looked over his shoulder as he held up a blood-stained picture of the gang at Central Perk, one that Gunther or someone else must have taken. Ross couldn't place the date, but the photo had clearly been taken after the group came back from their beach trip, right before he and Rachel had broken up the second time.

He and his friends smiled up at him, frozen forever in that moment in time, from behind a scratched, crimson veil.

All Ross could do was turn his head and cough violently. He nearly fell to his knees, but Phoebe grabbed him and pulled him up and away, letting the ruined photograph slip out of his fingers and flutter back down to the street.