A/N: Thank you, Guest and Someone, for the kind reviews! I'm glad you're enjoying this so far.
Monica tucked Erica and Jack into her and Chandler's bed, smoothing her daughter's hair back as she watched Jack shift in his sleep and move over onto his side. She stood up and turned to Chandler, who was looking paler than usual.
"We need to leave," she said.
"No, no, and also, no. Haven't you noticed how safe we've been inside?"
"What if they decide it might be fun to crash in here for the night?" Monica asked, feeling like it had been days since things fell apart, when it had really been a couple hours. "We haven't heard anything from outside in a while. Maybe whatever this was has already died down."
Chandler grimaced. "Okay, your choice of words? Not exactly comforting.'"
Feeling exasperated and impatient beyond reason, Monica strode past Chandler and over to the window. She moved the curtains to the side, peering down at the street. Chandler joined her a moment later, and she leaned her head against his as they gazed at the empty road.
At the far end of it, an SUV was parked halfway on the sidewalk with its front door open, but other than that, nothing else looked out of the ordinary.
"See?" Monica said, welcoming the feeling of being right. "No one there. Whatever that was, it didn't last long. Come on, let's start getting our things ready."
"Wait," Chandler said when she began to move away from the window, and she leaned back on the sill.
One of their neighbors, a nice enough man in his forties, was running down the street toward the SUV, but he wasn't doing his usual Sunday afternoon jog. When he came into view, Monica gasped as she saw him being chased by five zombies, and she watched, transfixed, as he tripped and fell.
They were on him like flies, crowding around him and hiding him from the window's view. His screams were muffled, but still audible.
Chandler and Monica quickly shut the drapes and looked at each other.
"Give it another day?" Monica asked.
"Yeah huh!"
"My leg," someone screamed from a place Ross couldn't see as he and Phoebe continued their trek back to Central Perk. "Oh, Jesus, she's eating my leg."
"Wait," Ross said, grabbing Phoebe's arm and searching for the source of the anguished cries. "Don't you hear that? We have to help them."
Another sob rent the otherwise still, thick air, and what scared Ross even more than the person's wails was when Phoebe shook her head.
"Phoebe," he said. "Please."
"Oh, great, now she's gnawing on my shoulder," the voice announced irritably. "Just... nobody help me out or anything. Save yourselves. Too late for – AAAUUUUGH!"
"Well you heard 'em," Phoebe muttered, and Ross forced himself into step behind her.
Long after he locked himself in the car and the green-haired woman stalked out of sight, Joey thought the coast was sure to be clear. He didn't want to stay in the car forever, but he was still afraid the woman would still be out there. And if there was one thing Joey was more frightened of than little girl ghosts, it was a grown-up, real life monster.
He just didn't know that fact until today.
Joey rummaged around under the front seats for a weapon, and felt a swooping sense of relief when his fingers closed around the handle of a bat. When he pulled it up, he noticed it wasn't aluminum, but it was better than anything else he had.
Licking his lips, he slowly unlocked the door and let himself out.
The woman was nowhere to be seen.
As soon as he relaxed enough to sigh in relief, he heard a low, guttural sound behind him, and he panicked, swinging the bat wildly as he whirled around.
His bat went right past the woman, smashing into the left backseat window of the car.
She was still coming right at him, clawing at his face. Though the bat was almost half-way through the car, Joey jerked his arms back and managed to clip the side of her head with the butt of the bat.
He would've found the whole situation kind of amusing – well, just the 'butt' part, really – except there was no time for laughing.
She went for his shirt, getting a mouthful of it, and Joey tried to shake her off of him, long past caring about chivalry and the fact that he'd almost hit on her. She fell away from him, tearing his shirt almost completely in half – luckily he was in a Two Shirt Mood when he woke up – and growled.
"Hey," he said angrily, starting to choke up on his bat. "That was a nice shirt!"
She let loose a full throated, bone-chilling roar, and headed for him again.
"Okay, well, it wasn't that nice," Joey said as he lowered the bat.
At a loss for what to do, he shrugged off the shredded remains of his outer layer, and threw it at her. "Here, if you want it so badly, take it!"
To his surprise, the woman grabbed his shirt, sniffed it, and promptly sat right down, loudly chewing on one of the sleeves.
Joey rolled his eyes, then looked up at the nearest highway exit sign.
A little bit less than two miles away.
"This is the worst day ever," he said grumpily as he walked right past the shirt-eating woman.
When Phoebe made it back to Central Perk with Ross, she didn't know whether to be relieved, or terrified at the fact that the entire street was devoid of living people. It seemed like all the neighborhood's residents had checked out of the area for good right after things had all gone to hell.
She went inside the coffee shop, leaving Ross – who'd said, "I'll just, uh, stand guard," because she knew he was too squeamish to go in with her – at the door. As she made a quick pass around the shop, all she could see were spilled drinks and broken glass shards littering the floor. She even searched for Gunther, but couldn't find him anywhere.
Or Mike.
January 2004
He looked up at her, smiling that delicious Mike smile of his, and as Phoebe lowered herself down onto him, he moaned appreciatively, sitting up and wrapping his hand around the back of her head and drawing her in for a lengthy, rough kiss, rolling his tongue in circles around hers.
When they pulled apart, he groaned, "God, you're amazing."
"Thanks," she said breathlessly, lifting up her hips and getting a good rhythm going again. "I know, though. But likewise!"
"No, I mean it," he gasped, letting her take the lead as he tightened his grip on the slick skin of her lower back. "I love you – more and more – every… day."
October 2006
Shaking herself out of her memory, Phoebe wiped sweat and dust off her face as she met Ross back at the door, grateful that he was looking a little better than he had at her apartment.
"Anyone in there?" he asked, looking through Central Perk's open window.
She shook her head.
"Mike's gotta be around here somewhere," Ross said, sounding more sure of the idea than Phoebe felt. "I was thinking we could head up to my place so I can grab a couple things before we leave the city… unless if you want to keep looking for him."
She nodded.
His expression faltered, revealing that he was only trying to be a good friend with his suggestion and that he didn't actually want to look for Mike, but he squared his shoulders, trying to look tougher than he clearly felt. Even while caught in the midst of chaos and cannibalistic New Yorkers, Phoebe found herself almost smiling at his bravado.
"All right," he said, setting his face again into an expression of determination. "Okay. Luckily for us, I've still got my dance-karatay training at the ready."
"You really think that'll help us?" Phoebe asked as they started walking down the street. Phoebe hadn't looked up at his apartment yet, or at the windows of where the others used to live, and she knew it was because she was afraid of what she'd see there, that she'd see the same thing she saw of her own wrecked home. She quickly pushed all that to the side, choosing instead to believe that other buildings were on fire, not the two behind them.
Those two were untouchable.
"Uh, yeah it will!" Ross said, bringing her back to their discussion. "I'll have you know that without my Unagi, any chance of us surviving this would be gone." He turned to look at Phoebe as they stopped in front of an abandoned store that was also missing its main window. "Just... gone. But with my sixth sense at hand, we should be totally —"
Just then, a snarling middle-aged man with a shirt that said "Female Body Inspector" came barreling out of the place where the store's window used to be, hurling himself on Ross's back and tackling him to the pavement.
Phoebe felt herself go on automatic as she picked up a broken tennis racket and smacked Ross's attacker on the back of the head. He ran off, hissing.
"Wait a second," Phoebe said as she stared at the man. "Wasn't that —"
"— Phoebe!" Ross yelled from the ground.
Phoebe looked down at him. He was lying on the street, one hand at a bite mark in his neck and his other clutching at his ankle.
"Oh, right, this is more important," Phoebe as she let her formerly stoned friend run away.
"You worried about the others?" Monica asked Chandler as they sat with their backs resting against the foot of their bed, with her finest steak knives laid out before them. She still wanted to get out, knowing that the longer they stayed inside, the better chance there was of zombies breaking down the front door, and beneath her fear of that, Monica wanted to see if the people she loved were all right. She ached with the need to see the others.
Chandler shrugged. "Sort of. I mean, Rachel's probably with Ross and Phoebe right now, so they should be fine. If anyone will live through this, it's gotta be Phoebe."
Monica raised her eyebrows.
"And you, of course," he added quickly.
She frowned a little as something else occurred to her. "What about Joey?" she asked.
"Oh, he's fine too," Chandler said, though Monica knew a part of him had already begun to worry. "He's probably in heaven right now, you know. Just think of all the free food he can eat."
"So... hungry," Joey moaned as he took another sluggish, trudging step forward, dragging his bat on the concrete.
It had been three hours since he'd last eaten. He was already succumbing to the horrible pangs in his empty stomach.
At least he was well off the highway, having walked down the first exit into town and finding even more bizarre sights than what he'd seen on the road. All around him were scattered dead bodies lying on the pavement, and there were even more crashed or haphazardly parked cars. He'd been too scared to get in another one, which turned out to be a good thing, because almost everywhere he looked, the main roads seemed to be blocked.
The worst parts were the sounds he heard, the flashes of movement here and there that told him there were more zombies - Gotta be zombies, Joey thought because of that book he'd read with Rachel years ago - running around, and knowing that if he didn't find a place to hide soon, he'd end up just like one of the bodies he'd seen.
And he so didn't want that to happen.
The thought of pushing on, of making sure his friends and family were alive, was what kept Joey going. He was just starting to consider taking a chance and checking out the next fast food place he'd see, when a car slowly approached him in the distance.
When it slowed as it neared him, Joey could see a family of four inside: dad, mom, and kids. Joey hadn't expected them to stop for him, so when the driver rolled down the window and looked up at him, he was at a loss for words, even more so than usual.
"Lydia?" He didn't know what was more surprising, running into her here, at this time, or the fact that he remembered her name.
"Joey!" she said, leaning out of the driver's seat. "What are you doing way out here?"
"And alone?" her husband added. He might have been the father of the kid Joey helped – well, watched – deliver. Joey wasn't sure, but then again, he wasn't sure about a lot of things. "You should get someplace safe. They don't like going inside places."
"They don't?" Joey asked, not needing to ask who 'they' were.
"No," Lydia said. "At least, that's what we've seen. Haven't you noticed that?"
Joey shook his head. "I just got into town from the highway." He didn't explain that he'd been too hungry to pay attention, much less admit he'd spent a good ten minutes walking backwards to make sure he wasn't being followed.
"Hey!" one of the kids from the backseat called out to him. "You were on that one show! Look, Clara, it's that guy!"
Joey got a closer look at everyone inside. The adults looked like they'd seen a whole platoon of little girl ghosts, but oddly enough, the kids in the back had the same look of cautious excitement, like they were almost enjoying what was going on. As far as they knew, school was out forever, so that was probably cause enough for them to celebrate.
"Yeah," he said, waving at the kids. "I'm that guy."
It hit him, then, just how devastatingly real the situation was. He knew that it probably wouldn't sink in for the kids until much later. To them, this was like one of their video games, like one of those action movies with all the explosions in them.
Joey wished this were a video game, or that he was just playing a part in a movie. He'd really be kicking some major zombie ass in it if it were, instead of feeling like he had no clue what he was doing.
"Did you get to use your bat on anyone yet?" Lydia's son asked, his eyes wide and earnest.
"Uh..." Joey lowered his weapon, covered in scratch marks rather than blood due to him dragging it. "It's really for emergencies. You should just stay away from all those weird people, all right?" He brought his free hand up to his brow and tipped it at the kids, putting on a fake grin. At least he could pretend to play the part of the hero, even though he felt nothing like one.
"Can we have your autograph?" the kid asked, and his mother groaned, turning around sharply in her seat. "Nicholas!"
"No, it's okay," Joey said, maintaining his fake smile. The kid handed him a notebook and a big black marker from the backseat, and Joey signed the whole page with a flourish, thinking that would probably be the last autograph he'd ever give.
"Do you know where I can find some new clothes? Or a restaurant?" he asked as he handed the notebook and marker back. His stomach growled again, and suddenly that was far scarier than the walking dead.
The man jerked his thumb behind him. "Just keep going down this road, turn right, then right again to get on the main one, and keep going down it until you see a Marshall's on your right. I think it's a Marshall's. Anyway, it's one of those stores, and it should have a couple of fast-food places around it."
"Guess we don't have to worry about which of our teams is better anymore, huh?" Lydia said sadly.
"Nah," Joey said, "the Knicks still rule all."
That made her smile a bit. "Yeah, they rule all at sucking. Could be the last team on Earth and they still couldn't win a game to save their asses. Anyway, you be careful, okay?"
"Yeah," Joey said, "you too. Watch out for the, you know..." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Z-O-M-B-I-E-Z."
Lydia and the guy gave Joey a puzzled look, then nodded before they drove off.
As Joey stood on the sidewalk, watching the car gain speed in the other direction, the kids in the backseat twisted around to look at him through the rear window. Joey felt his chest constrict as he thought about the kids back home: Emma, Erica, Jack and Ben. He hoped they were all right.
When Clara and Nicholas waved to Joey in farewell, he raised his free arm to wave back at them.
As Ross leaned back against the wall next to the storefront, Phoebe examined his ankle, which was already starting to swell.
"It's sprained," she said, lifting up his leg so she could slip a small cardboard box she'd found in the store under it. He winced at the movement and put his hand to the area where his shoulder met his neck.
"Kinda worried about my bite a little more now, Pheebs," he said.
She looked up at him, then screamed, "Don't touch it!"
"I'm not touching it!" he shrieked back, jerking his hand away from the wound as Phoebe stood up and moved closer to his head to look at his neck.
"Yeah, you really are lucky," she said. "Any more pressure, and you'd be bleeding out by now for sure."
"I'd hardly call what happened to me 'luck,'" Ross grumbled.
"I thought you had a sixth sense," she said, though it was obvious she really didn't.
"I do, it just... slipped from me for a second. Look, that's not important. Is it gonna be okay, Pheebs? My ankle?"
"Not now, it's not." Phoebe pursed her lips together as she stood back up, crossing her arms over her chest."You should keep your weight off that foot. Let's go back to your place so you can let it heal."
Ross gazed at her in shock for a moment. "What? No, I – I've got to get outta here, remember? Rachel's still in Long Island, and I... We have to get to her."
"How?"
"What about your cab?"
"That would be a great idea, if the bridges aren't crammed with stalled out cars right now, and I'm sure they are."
"Still," Ross protested. "We should check."
"Look," Phoebe said, "if I had a flying taxi, we'd be on our way to Sandra's right now – and I would be queen of all the land – but I think our best bet is to head back to your place so you can rest."
Deep down, Ross knew that she was using his injury as an excuse to stay in the area, in hopes that Mike would eventually find her.
"But..."
"Ross."
He caught the sound of her voice – her 'Don't mess with me or you'll get a guitar handle shoved up your ass' tone, if a little gentler – and, after a moment's pause, he nodded.
"Okay, Pheebs, sure. But do you think you'll be strong enough to support me?"
"I carried triplets to term. I think I can handle half the weight of a full-grown man," she said, and bent down to help Ross get to his feet.
The doors were closed to the nearest restaurant Joey came across, and they wouldn't break after several attempts he'd made to crack them down with his bat. He moved on to the strip of stores that were past the restaurant and bordering the parking lot, and jumped a little when he heard a car alarm go off in the distance. The only other food establishment he could see was a sushi store, but it looked closed, like several other businesses in the area. It was eerie, how empty the whole place felt, especially during this time of day.
He looked up at the store next to the sushi shop, the one that still had lights shining on the inside.
It wasn't a Marshall's, but a Ross.
Joey readied his bat as he walked across the mat in front of the store.
The doors slid open right away. He took a couple steps inside, then, after listening for the sound of ravenous zombie cries and getting nothing, he started walking down the largest aisle. There was, oddly enough, quiet muzak still playing on the speakers, and Joey was just thinking how bizarre the whole situation kept getting when he heard a clicking sound from behind him.
He froze.
"Drop it," a deep voice ordered him. Joey let the bat fall to the floor, making a dull sound against the shiny, hard surface, and he raised his arms.
The man with the gun circled around Joey until he stood right in front of him. He was pretty big, and could clearly do some damage if he wanted to. Of course, he didn't quite have Joey's stunning good looks – at least, according to Joey, he didn't – but that was neither here nor there.
The guy with the gun wrinkled his nose.
"Wow, man," he said. "You stink."
Joey could see that the weapon aimed at him was a double-barrel shotgun. One hit to the chest, and he'd be finished. He tried to put on a brave face as he forced himself to tear his gaze away from the gun's two holes.
"I know," he said. "I get that a lot."
Another voice from behind Joey called out, "Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?"
The man lowered his gun. "Damn it, Elizabeth! I said to wait at the register."
Joey let out a long breath, wiping the sweat that had gathered on his forehead. He wished the lights weren't so bright. He turned around and saw five other people standing up slowly from behind the cash registers that were at the front of the store. Three of them looked like they were about his age, one of them was another muscle-bound dude who was wearing a torn, white shirt, and the one who'd called out was a pretty young woman with long, curly hair. When she drew closer, Joey could see a tiny splotch of blood on her shirt.
"It is you," she said, starting to walk over to Joey and the gunman. "Honey, it's him! Ross's friend!"
Joey could only stare in confusion as the young woman walked forward and hugged him. After a few moments, he said, "Oh, yeah, I remember you! Ross's hot student!"
She laughed a little. It came out sounding dry and strained, but it was still a laugh. "More like Tag's hot girlfriend," she said as she released her embrace and stood back.
Joey looked at the tall dude who was standing a little behind her. "Oh," he said, shaking Tag's hand. "You..." He paused and looked at Elizabeth. "And you?"
"Yep," Tag said. "Small world, huh? But it's nice to know some things haven't changed."
When Joey was about to ask when the hell 'you and you' happened, White T-Shirt Guy pointed to him and said in an equally gravelly voice as the first dude, "Hey, I know you. You were in that one TV show, right?"
"Oh, yeah," one of the women from behind him called out. "It was the show with the… thing. And the people, and that one place."
"That's the one," Joey said, starting to feel faint with all the confusion coupled with his empty stomach. "Listen, uh... any of you got something to eat?"
"Eat?" White T-Shirt asked. "How can you be hungry in a time like this?"
"Oh, I'm not hungry," Joey said, "I am starving."
Everyone in the store stared at him, until Elizabeth stepped forward.
"Come on," she said, taking him by the arm. "We've got some snacks over here."
Phoebe and Ross were struggling for breath when they got into his apartment.
"That was way harder than I thought it would be," Phoebe said as Ross pulled his arm back from around her neck, relieving her of the extra weight she'd been supporting.
He limped to the couch and collapsed on it. "Well, at least nothing seems to be burning in this building."
Phoebe nodded, her attention drawn toward the window, which had the apartment across the street on full display. "Yeah. The others are gonna be crushed when they see all of this."
"How..." Ross took a long, slow swallow, his throat so dry that it clicked. "How bad is it?"
"Well, at least the fire hasn't spread to any of the other apartments." She sounded like she wasn't too sure it would remain the case for long.
He closed his eyes. "Phoebe, please shut the drapes. I can't look out there right now. It's too depressing."
"I know. How's Santa gonna be able to do his thing for Christmas this year?"
She closed the curtains, then turned to head to the bathroom. The lack of outside light made Ross's apartment look gloomy, and feel even gloomier without Rachel and Emma's presence, but Ross knew that his situation could've been worse.
At least Phoebe was there with him. At least he wasn't alone.
He settled himself on his couch, propping his injured ankle up on the apothecary table – something he would have balked at doing in the past – and closed his eyes again as he continued pressing a wad of napkins against his neck.
When Phoebe reappeared with a first aid kit and opened it, she asked, "Okay, do you want the good news or bad news?"
Ross took the rubbing alcohol and soaked a puff of cotton with it. "Either."
"You were supposed to pick one! Fine, I'll flip a coin to decide." Phoebe started rummaging around in her huge bag, which she'd managed to carry with her the whole time.
Ross replaced the napkins with the cotton, and the alcohol stung him so badly that he started kicking his table, which only ended up hurting his other foot.
"Good news, good news!" he said quickly.
"Oh, now you're cooperating! Okay, well, the good news is your water is still running, along with your electricity, as you can see." Phoebe dramatically spun around and flipped on the light switch.
Ross tossed the napkins into the wastebin next to his couch. "Great, at least there's that. What's, uh, what's the bad news?" He braced himself for the worst, like hearing about Phoebe finding a human head in his bathtub, or that his foot would never heal.
"The lighting in your bathroom is awful! How did you ever get ready in the morning with all that self-esteem shot to hell?"
Ross blinked at her.
"But you've lived here before. You haven't noticed that?"
"Guess I forgot. Fortunately, I look good in any lighting," Phoebe said as she smoothed down her hair. "But God, poor Rachel!"
"Hey, Pheebs?" Ross said quickly, "I'm feelin' a little parched. Do you mind getting me a water bottle from the kitchen? It should be in the pantry."
When Phoebe came back and handed Ross a bottle, she looked impressed.
"Seems like you've got everything anyone could ever need back there," she said.
"Yeah, for like a month," he said, taking a long gulp of water. "But we won't be staying for that long." He put the bottle on his apothecary table and opened the first aid kit.
"What else do you have?"
Ross fished out a bandage roll and winced as he removed the cotton from his neck, ticking off all the emergency essentials he'd stockpiled for years. "Batteries, candles, flashlights, helmets and loads of unperishable food."
Nodding, Phoebe said as Ross threw away the cotton and bandaged up his bite, "Boy, now I'm really glad that you're either very careful, or very paranoid."
"I told you," Ross said as closed the kit with one hand and wearily made the Unagi sign with his other. "Total and complete awareness."
"Wait, what are the helmets for?"
Ross shrugged. "Getting them just seemed like a good idea at the time. Plus, I thought they looked cool, so..."
Phoebe smiled a little at that.
Something suddenly occurred to Ross. It had been creeping around in the back of his mind since he saw the first few people on the streets with what he'd hoped hadn't been blood caked around their mouths, but after being bitten by one of them, he couldn't think of any other possibility.
"I think," he said, "there are zombies outside."
Phoebe looked utterly nonplussed. "Well, yeah, I could've told you that hours ago."
"Then why didn't you? Did you..." He furrowed his brow. "Did you know this would happen? Did you dream that the cell phones wouldn't just kill us, but make us kill each other?"
"Not exactly," she admitted. "I —"
She was cut off by the sound of a loud crash that had come from the apartment upstairs. Both of them froze as they looked up at the ceiling, listening to the noises. A couple more loud thumps resounded down from above, and then there was silence.
"Looks like we're not completely alone," Phoebe said, making Ross cringe at the thought. Having obtained confirmation on just what they were dealing with, a new, horrific thought struck him, and he willed himself not to touch his neck.
"Phoebe," he said, trying and failing to keep his voice calm and steady, "you know what all the zombie movies are like."
"Actually, I've never seen any, and never wanted to. Being homeless was enough nightmare fodder for me," she said, though in typical Phoebe fashion, it came out sounding matter-of-fact rather than bitter.
"Well, in those movies, when people get infected, they tend to..." Ross paused to draw in a deep breath. "Turn into one of them. You might have to... you know." He swallowed, blinking back tears that had sprung up in his eyes. "Kill me."
Phoebe looked down at the ground for a second.
Then she met his eyes and said, "Okay."
"Okay," Ross said, his voice tight and grim. "So you'll probably have to - Wait." His mouth twisted a little. "'Okay?' Okay? You didn't even stop to think about it for more than a second. Do I... Do I mean nothing to you?"
"Hey," she said with a shrug, "you just turned into a ruthless killing machine. I can't be swayed by my attachment to not-zombie you."
He couldn't help but feel stung by her flippancy. "Well, zombies could have feelings too, you know!"
"They probably do," she said. "Feelings of intense, ravenous, all-consuming hunger."
"Fine, you know what?" Ross muttered, turning away from her. "If I become one of them, I am so gonna bite you."
Instead of making one of her usual retorts, Phoebe settled down on the far side of the couch, looking at his ankle. "How is it?"
"Better," he said, "but not much."
"We'll get through this, right?" Phoebe asked him. "We'll get through this, and so will the others."
"Yeah," he said. He was so damn tired. He was beyond tired. The past few hours felt like days to him. "We'll all get through this."
Just then, he heard another dull thump from upstairs, signalling that his neighbor – Pamela, the woman who had cooed over first Ben, then Emma, whenever she saw them with Ross in the foyer downstairs as she got her mail – was still thrashing around, and he pushed the thought of her aside, focusing instead on Rachel.
Rachel. Ross needed to call her and make sure she and Emma were all right. He didn't have his cell phone anymore, but he still had his home phone. Since the electricity was still working, he assumed the phone lines probably were probably open as well.
He slid himself closer to the small table beside the sofa's arm, and lifted his hand to pick up the phone.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Phoebe narrowing her eyes. "What are you doing?"
"Seeing if I can finally get a hold of Rachel, now that things have calmed down a little." When he heard a loud roar outside followed by screaming, he realized that no, this whole thing wasn't really over, not by a long shot.
"No!" Phoebe said, shaking him out of his thoughts. "Don't you get it? That's why we weren't supposed to use the phones!"
"What if that doesn't apply to regular ones?"
"Oh, so you're saying there are rules to this, this freak show? Because the last time I checked, Monica's not in charge here!"
It was a good point, but it wasn't enough to convince Ross. He was tired of being left in the dark. He leaned over to pick up the receiver, and as he did so, Phoebe lunged across the couch to grab it from him, but he twisted away from her – crying out as the pain in his swollen ankle flared up again, throbbing in time to his heartbeat – and pressed the phone to his ear.
He held his breath as Phoebe draped herself over him, yelling at him to stop. The sounds of her desperate pleading were drowned out by the complete and utter…
Absence of sound.
Ross exhaled.
"There's nothing there," he said, not knowing whether he was relieved or disappointed, and Phoebe pulled away from him as he looked down at the piece of technology that had failed him and the rest of humanity. "Not even a dial tone. But I'm still alive."
"Yeah," Phoebe said. He knew she was glaring at him, angry that he hadn't listened to her and further risked his life, yet he also knew she was just as relieved as he was. "I guess that's one thing we can be thankful for. Although, I was kinda hoping you'd turn into one of them so I could kill you."
"What?" he asked as he put the phone back in its cradle.
"Well, one of my predictions has got to come true! I thought it would be that one."
"What are you even talking..." Ross shook his head dismissively. "Never mind."
"I must be losing my touch," Phoebe said as she got up from the couch. "This kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen until January, 2041!"
Rachel was on cloud nine – or, as much on cloud nine as she could be, in this situation. It had taken her much longer than she'd thought, what with using twenty side streets and avoiding a handful of zombies to get to her mother's house. She held onto Emma's hand as they approached the door together, and Rachel let herself in with the key.
Inside, she called out to Sandra, hoping that she was loud enough for her mother to hear her, but not loud enough to attract anyone to the house. After she made a cursory sweep through the house and tried using the phone – which was, for lack of a better word, dead – she realized, with fear crawling up her spine, that Sandra wasn't there.
Regret flushed through Rachel as she remembered the last time she'd seen her mother. The night before, she arrived at the house, barely able to hold back her tears, and Sandra had accepted her with open arms. It wasn't until after Emma was settled in upstairs and Rachel sat down with her mother that she found herself unable to talk about her situation with Ross, that all she really needed was a place to get away and collect her thoughts.
Rachel winced when it dawned on her, not for the first time, how selfish she'd been, and not just with running away to her mother's the previous night. She realized, again, that she almost always treated other people as a fallback for her, as a source of comfort for her problems, then barely ever reciprocated. Just the previous night, she ignored Sandra's advice and didn't even thank her for her hospitality. Up until a few hours ago, Rachel had been so used to expecting care and support from others, that when it came to a point of her losing it all, having to be the caretaker instead of the... takee, she did not know what to do.
She wished she knew what to do.
"Mommy," Emma said, sounding just as tired and helpless as Rachel felt. "What's happening?"
She sighed, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, and tightened her grip on Emma's hand. She willed herself to be the strong one, to live up to her own title as the mother now, rather than the daughter.
"Nothing, honey," she said. "Let's get cleaned up and go to bed a little early, huh? Maybe Grandma Green will come back soon, and then we can go home."
Rachel started up the stairs with Emma, hoping against hope that they'd manage to get some sleep.
After Joey filled his stomach again – a feat which everyone in the store watched with curious, almost awed expressions – washed up, and put on some new clothes, he joined the small group that was sitting in the men's section, talking about the event. The wrestler-looking dude with the shotgun, Derek, was telling everyone his story of what occurred a few hours ago.
Derek was working at the sushi shop nearby, and he'd seen a teenage girl with a pixie haircut talking on a cell phone as he prepared her order. Suddenly, she jammed her finger in her ear as she held the phone away from her face, then did the usual obnoxious, "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?" bit until, out of nowhere, she dropped the phone and, within seconds, grabbed the businesswoman standing next to her, and sank her teeth into the woman's throat. Derek had only stood there and watched as the woman spewed blood everywhere from her throat until she collapsed to the floor.
"I pulled myself together and threw one of my knives at the girl," Derek said, looking down at the floor, away from the others. "But I'm just a chef, not some kinda professional knife-thrower. I got her here," he put his hand over the right side of his lower abdomen, "but it was like I'd thrown a toothpick at her. She just looked at her stomach, looked up at me, and then ran out of the store... growling. Like some kind of wild animal.
"The woman died before I got to her, but Shane and I managed to get out," Derek reached out and grasped onto the hand of the slightly shorter, but just as muscular bald guy who wore a white T-shirt. It took Joey about ten seconds to get that they were holding hands.
Maybe they met at a bowling ball crushing contest, he thought.
"Yeah, we met up with everyone else you see here. We've all just kind of been laying low and hanging out since then," Shane added. "So, Joey, what's your story? Where you from?"
"New York City," he said, still wondering if there was a show on how to break bowling balls. He decided there should've been one. He, Rachel and Chandler would've watched that show in a heartbeat.
"You're not planning on going back there, are you?" Tag asked, bringing Joey back to the present. "It must be sheer pandemonium in the city."
"I've gotta go back. My family's there, and so are my friends." Joey's voice cracked a little on the last word.
"It's gonna take you a hell of a miracle to get back home," Derek said. "Why don't you stay here and wait until all this blows over?"
"Sorry," Joey said, "but I can't." For the first time, he was starting to feel a little less scared and a little more... something. What it was, he wasn't sure. It wasn't courage, exactly, but it was indeed something – and feeling something other than pure, gut-wrenching terror was a welcome break from wanting to go crawl into a corner and just let everything continue to happen around him, until he'd most likely get eaten by a teenager.
Chandler would never let him live that down.
"Look, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but it's dangerous to go out there," Shane said. "Maybe those things out there will all just drop down dead by sunrise."
"They won't," Elizabeth said. "I mean, in all the zombie movies I've seen, they stick around until their leader is killed, or until the military comes to wipe them all out."
"Wait," Derek cut in, his eyes darting back and forth between Elizabeth and Joey. "Zombies? As in..."
"Yeah," Elizabeth said, lifting up her arms and letting her face go slack as she groaned, "Braaaaaaains."
"But that's impossible," Tag said. "How could cell phones turn people into zombies?"
Ross blinked. "What?"
"You heard me," Phoebe said as she pressed the plastic baggie she'd filled with ice on his ankle. "You must have some idea. Aren't you curious about how all of this started?"
He shrugged. "No, I couldn't care less."
"Liar."
"Look, I'm not thinking about how this all started," Ross snapped. "I'm thinking about Rachel and my baby girl, okay?"
"Yes, I get that. I really do," Phoebe said, "but maybe thinking about something else will be more helpful then us sitting here worrying about them."
"Fine," he said, trying to keep himself from touching the bandage on his neck. "What... what do you think happened?"
"Remember that guy in the coffee shop? The one yelling because of his cell phone?"
Ross scowled. "That again? Look, it's highly improbable that cell phone signals could have turned people into vicious killers."
"But not impossible. Isn't there something like, I dunno, some kind of sound wave that could trigger the brain to go on a killing spree? Like those sleeper agents in spy movies. Ooh, or Zoolander!"
Ross opened his mouth to respond, then fixed Phoebe with a curious look. "You haven't seen any zombie movies, but you've seen Zoolander."
"Excuse me for having good taste."
Rolling his eyes, Ross said, "So, you're saying that someone could have programmed a subliminal message that would be transmitted through the cell phone signals around the country."
"Maybe not just the country. Who knows? Even if your cable wasn't down, I don't think we'd be getting any news coverage of what's going on."
"Yeah," he said, even though he wished he'd gotten it working again so they could at least try and see if that were true. "Okay, so let's say, hypothetically, that someone or some group could even pull off something like this. It'd be like..." Ross recalled the laptop on which Chandler had downloaded some virus in Barbados, when all of his hard drive's memory had disappeared. "Downloading a virus into people's brains."
"Exactly. We've always just been as easily breakable as technology."
"But we're still biological creatures, not machinery. I should know about this; I wrote a paper on it a few years ago. If only my colleagues could go back and look at it now, they'd think twice about discrediting it." That was, Ross realized, if they weren't too busy running for their lives.
Phoebe shook her head. "Anyway, I think the things we're dealing with now is what happens when you take away everything else we've built up as a society. Deep down, we're all just hungry killers."
The corner of Ross's mouth twitched. "Does that mean you finally agree with me about evolution?"
She turned over the baggie of ice on Ross's ankle. "I guess."
Glad for the distraction of feeling victorious for a second instead of raw anxiety, Ross felt his mouth turn up more into an actual smile.
"Although I still haven't ruled out the possibility that aliens did this to us. Or maybe gremlins," Phoebe said, sending Ross's brief bout of triumph flying right out the window.
"Getting back to things that actually make sense," he said as Phoebe leaned back on the couch, "I think you do have a point about the cell phone signals."
"Oh, I really shouldn't have gotten you started on this, huh?"
"I'm serious," he said, and then the lightbulb went off in his head. He grasped onto the earlier stray thought that had occurred to him about his laptop. "System shutdown. That's what this whole thing's purpose probably was: getting rid of human emotion and everything that's been ingrained to us through society and culture. All those people who were using their cells..." The eager, scientific part of his brain faltered at the lump in his throat, at the sorrow he felt for the fall of the human race. "I don't think they've just been slipped a trigger, like with sleeper agents. I think they've been wiped clean."
"Wow," Phoebe said, "so this is like the article I read in one of your magazines."
"That's where you got this idea from?" Ross asked. "And what have I told you about going through my stuff?"
"I was in your bathroom when I read it, okay? It was either National Geographic or Cosmo, and I don't need any tips on how to achieve a better orgasm."
"Good to know," Ross said dryly. "Actually, now that I think about it, this did help a little." It was true. As worried as he still was about Rachel and Emma, at least he had calmed down somewhat since this whole thing started. "Thanks."
"And thank you," Phoebe said, "for boring me so much that I kinda wanna fall asleep right now."
As much as the others pleaded with him to stay, even for just the night, Joey knew he was wasting time, and he had to keep moving. After watching the streets outside through the windows and double doors until dusk fell, Joey saw less and less zombies running around. It was almost as if they were heading in the same direction, like they had a curfew. Even he was aware of the strangeness of that idea, but it provided him with more reason to leave.
"Please don't go," Elizabeth said, her eyes sad and worried. "Ross and the others would want you to put your safety first, right?"
"'Course they would," Joey said. But his mind was made up, so he filled a backpack with batteries for the flashlight that had been found in the janitor's closet, snacks, and a spare set of clothes.
Derek said he would walk outside with Joey a little, and when they reached the front of the store, then turned and faced the others, he knew the rest of the group felt just as awkward as he did.
"Thanks," he said to them. "Take care, okay?"
Elizabeth stepped forward and put her arms around Joey. He was surprised at the gesture at first, but relaxed, and patted her on the back.
"I liked that show you were in," she said. "Not that TV even matters anymore, but I wish it wasn't canceled."
"Seriously? It was the biggest pile of —" Tag started to say, until Elizabeth lightly elbowed him in the chest.
Derek told everyone that if he didn't come back in ten minutes - "Not even you, Shane," he murmured before they kissed - they were not to go outside looking for him. As Joey picked up his bat, the others called out soft goodbyes to him, and he waved at them before heading out the doors.
When he and Derek made it halfway down the sidewalk toward the main road, Joey looked down at the flashlight he'd been holding in his left hand, then put it in the side pocket of his backpack, figuring he didn't need the extra light. The lamps on the sidewalks still shone brightly, and as he looked in the distance toward the housing areas, he could see the faint glow of more street lamps.
Derek, meanwhile, was scouting the parking lot and the side-road leading up to the main intersection. When the men reached the end of the sidewalk, they stopped, and he turned to Joey.
"Looks like this is where we go our separate ways," he said, shouldering his shotgun to shake Joey's hand, then reached out and gripped onto his shoulder before he could start walking away.
"You need something better than a bat to get you through your trip," Derek told him. "Shane and I have a place on Milton Avenue. It's a twenty minute walk from here, but you should be able to make it in fifteen without any traffic." He lowered his hand from Joey's shoulder and reached into his pocket, then pulled out a piece of paper; when Joey peered at it, he could see it was a makeshift map. "I whipped this up after you told us about New York. And..." He dug into pocket again to bring up a set of keys, and, after a moment's hesitation, handed them to Joey, who was still staring at him, not quite believing what he was doing. "These are just copies, but don't lose them. Big one's for the front door, and the small one's for the shotgun case. Bethany's not as good as the one I've got now, but she'll do."
Furrowing his brow a little, Joey said, "Look, not that I don't appreciate all of this, but —"
"— I'm doing this because you've got people back at home that you love, Joe, more than anything else in the world. I could see that, too, right when you said you were going to New York. Nothing's gonna stop you from going back to them, and me..." Derek looked back at the storefront, then turned back to Joey. "Well, I know that if I were in your shoes, it'd take a lot more than zombies to keep me from my loved ones."
"Thanks, man," Joey said, clapping him on the arm. "You, uh, take care of everyone, okay? Tag and Elizabeth, they're good people. They deserve to make it through this."
"Yeah, I know," Derek said. "And you take care of Bethany, all right?"
"I will." After thinking something over, which was a rare occurrence for Joey, he said, "Hey, if you ever change your mind, come to New York, okay? I know you all don't want to leave your homes here, but if you decide to leave, come find me. I'll..." He surprised himself even further with another idea. "I'll leave marks on the signs so you'll know where to go, starting with I-40."
"Okay," Derek said, though without the stunned expression Joey would've seen on his friends' faces if they'd heard what he said. "You know how to use a shotgun, right?"
"Sure do," Joey said. "I had to learn how to shoot one for a movie." The truth was, he had to learn after being cast because he lied about knowing how to use one, but it hadn't been that hard: just point, shoot, and try not to stumble back too much because of the recoil. Or at least try to look cool while stumbling.
"Really?" Derek asked. "What was it called?"
"You don't want to know."
"Ouch," Derek said with a wince. "That bad, huh?"
"No, that was the title: You Don't Want to Know."
"So, how did it do?"
"This time, you really don't want to know," Joey said as he began to walk away from Derek. "Anyway, I'll take care of your shotgun. You, uh, named it Bethany?"
"Don't you name the things you love?"
"I did," Joey said, smiling as he remembered his old Barcalounger and how Rachel broke it, then bought an even better chair that they shared for years.
"Best of luck to you, man," Derek said.
"Yeah," Joey called back to him, wondering if they would ever see each other again. "You too. And thanks again, for everything."
Derek nodded at him, then turned on his heel and went back toward the front doors, toward his new family, leaving Joey walking down the sidewalk by himself, armed with a crude map in one hand and a bat in the other, as the cold light from the half-moon and the street lamps shone down on him.
Phoebe listened to the rain.
It had started up around five that evening, coming down in a thin mist, and had gotten steadier and stronger with every passing hour. It was good for dousing out the fires that had cropped up all over Manhattan, but the flashing lightning and booming cracks of thunder weren't doing Phoebe's desire for sleep - or Mike - any favors.
Ross had offered his bed to Phoebe for the night, saying that he'd stay up in the living room so he could keep his foot elevated and make sure no zombies came barging in. She'd been hesitant, as he only had a few stone statues around the apartment for weapons, but he said he could manage.
She ended up tossing and turning until nearly midnight, listening to the alternating thunder claps and the tenant upstairs bang around in the apartment until he or she fell silent, and when Phoebe went back out into the living room to see whether Ross was still awake, she found an abandoned sofa, and a note on the apothecary table.
Phoebe slammed open his front door, dreading the possibility that she was too late to catch Ross, that he was probably already long gone, that he was all alone outside.
She caught him hobbling his way to the end of the hall, panting a little and leaning against the wall for support.
The look on his face when he whipped his head back toward her would've been comical, if she hadn't felt like she was having a mild heart attack. It wasn't until after she dragged him back into his apartment and practically threw him down on his couch that she noticed he was in tears.
"Don't make me handcuff you to anything," she warned him. "And don't pretend you don't have handcuffs, because now I know where you keep them!"
"Just let me go, Phoebe," he said in a hoarse, choked voice, his hand on his ankle.
"I'm actually impressed. Be honest, Rachel used them on you, didn't she?"
"You can stay here, if you want," he said, still ignoring her. "I can go by myself, really."
She looked down at him, still getting her wind back, but didn't say anything. Instead, she reached out to check his ankle, but he jerked away from her.
"What were you doing up, anyway? Thought you were sleeping," he grumbled, twisting himself into an upright position.
"I couldn't," she said, dropping down on the far end of the couch. "Thunder kept me up. So did your upstairs neighbor."
Ross snorted, then set his face in a serious, flat expression. "I'm leaving, Phoebe. You can't stop me."
"Well, if I can't, and our new friends out there can't, I'm pretty sure the rain will."
Suddenly, moving with a surprising burst of speed, Ross jumped up off the couch and tried to run around it.
She got up and circled around, cutting off his escape. When he tried stepping to the right, she followed his movements in perfect sync.
"Phoebe, please! Rachel's out there, all alone, and she's got Emma! Okay, she could have gotten herself into, into very real danger right now - I can't just let her be out there, scared out of her mind, with Emma to take care of! She's got worse than no one with her, she's got her mom!"
"Look, I know you're worried sick about them, and I am too, but I know you, Ross. You're smart, and you were always one of the few living people I sort of respected... But trust me when I say that you are not gonna make it out there."
"Fine, then come with me," he said, a desperate edge in his voice.
"Ross, I've done a lot of out-there stuff, and that's putting it mildly. You think that marrying the ice dancer, mugging preteen boys, and living on the street was the worst of it? All that stuff's just at the tip of the iceberg."
"I don't have time for this," he said between clenched teeth.
"My point is, none of the stuff I've done comes close to what you're trying to do. Even if we did manage to get to my cab and get out of the Village, we wouldn't be able to see anything."
That seemed to strike a chord in him. She knew Ross was nothing if not practical, and she knew that he knew that she had a point.
Finally, he deflated, and they went back to their original seats on the long couch, collapsing onto their ends at the same time. When Ross drifted off to sleep, Phoebe kept watch on the door.
She would never tell him what she'd heard: the faint sound of shattering glass from the window upstairs, and something tumbling past Ross's window to land on the street outside.
A/N 2: Derek is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's character from The Tooth Fairy and Shane is Vin Diesel's character from The Pacifier.