Chapter 1 – The Change

July 15th, 2013

My heart is pounding in my chest, and I can't breathe. Jenna, a young female victim from a previous case, is standing in the precinct waving a gun. She starts shooting, kills two suspects we have in a holding cell, and then turns and shoots Sister Peg who I am standing right next to. I crouch down over Sister Peg and notice the blood pooling around her. She is shot right in the chest. She has no pulse. She is not breathing. Sister Peg is dead. I heard another gunshot and looked up. Jenna is now lying on the floor, and I see Elliot aiming his gun at her. He killed Jenna. I am trying to process what happened. I look at El and say his name, but he vanishes into thin air. I then heard an alarm in the distance and realized it was my alarm clock blaring and I was just dreaming.

I reach over and shut my alarm off feeling groggy from another restless night. It's been over two years since my partner, Detective Elliot Stabler, left SVU, and was never heard from again. We were partners for twelve years and I thought we were as close as two people could get without being intimate. I thought about being intimate with him, but he was married with five kids, so I kept those fantasies to myself. He was separated from his wife for a couple of years during our partnership, but he never made any romantic moves towards me, so I assumed my romantic feelings for him were a one-way street.

The shooting with Jenna happened right before Elliot left. In fact, that horrible incident is why he left SVU, but I still don't know why he stopped talking to me. I texted and called him multiple times in the days following the shooting and never heard from him again. I was depressed for months after he left and kept telling myself that I had moved on but then the dreams came. I should describe them as nightmares since it feels like my heart is being ripped out of my chest every time I have them.

I continued my morning routine of getting ready for work. I headed into the kitchen to make some coffee and a bagel. I turned on the tv to get a glimpse of the daily headlines. I froze with the first headline I saw which read, "Boston Medical Examiner is Killed in Morgue." I was shocked and intrigued by how a medical examiner could be attacked inside their own morgue. I immediately thought of Melinda Warner and a wave of concern overcame me.

I turned the volume up and listened to the reporter, "Dr. Alec Miller, Boston Medical Examiner was getting ready to start the autopsy on an adult male when the deceased person suddenly came to life and attacked Dr. Miller. There was an assistant in the room who witnessed everything and said the deceased person seemed possessed and bit Dr. Miller multiple times until he bled out. A security guard ran in and shot the deceased in the chest, but he continued to come at the security guard. The guard then shot him in the head and killed him. This is an ongoing investigation, but authorities are warning everyone to be alert and report anything suspicious."

I turned the tv off with an uneasy feeling in my gut. There had to be an explanation for an alleged dead guy coming back to life. I have heard of people being declared dead but are really in some sort of coma. I have never heard of those people waking up and attacking someone. I was hoping this was a one-off occurrence, but a voice in my head told me this was only the beginning.

I arrived at the precinct around the same time as Detective Amanda Rollins. She came to SVU shortly after Elliot left and I was skeptical at first about working with her. Over the last two years she has proven to be a damn good detective and we have started to become friends. She said good morning and asked if I had heard of what happened in Boston.

"Yeah, I saw the story on the news this morning. It sounded like a story from a horror movie. Too bad Munch is on vacation. He would have a field day with conspiracy theories about zombies."

"Yeah, I bet he would."

We both tried to laugh the news story off, but I could hear some fear in Amanda's voice. I had a gnawing feeling of something bad coming, but I really hoped I was wrong. Detective Nick Amaro, my new partner, came over to say hello and let me know that Dr. Warner had called to let us know she had finished the autopsy on a rape/murder case we were working.

We arrived at the medical examiner's office and went in to see Dr. Melinda Warner. Dr. Warner had been the medical examiner for Manhattan almost the entire time I had been at SVU. She was meticulous at her job and rarely missed anything. We had become close over the years, and I considered her a friend. She was going over the victim's file with us when I noticed movement coming from the table behind her. I looked over and saw the table had a deceased older male. The deceased man suddenly sat up, started groaning, and began to move off the table. I screamed, grabbed Dr. Warner's arm, and pointed towards the zombie-like corpse moving towards us. She turned around, eyes widened, and blurted out an expletive. Before I could react, Amaro pulled his gun and shot the corpse walking towards us. He shot him in the chest, but he just kept coming towards us. He then shot him in the head, and the corpse fell and was still. Dr. Warner and I just froze unsure if what we witnessed was real. We looked at each other, mouths gaping open, trying to figure out what to do next.

I blurted out, "This is exactly what happened in Boston. We need to get out of here now. Something bad is happening and we need a plan."

The three of us arrived back at the precinct to let the others know what happened and try to figure out what was going on. It was getting chaotic outside with people panicking and there were traffic jams everywhere. I went over to Melinda and said,

"Hey, what do you think is going on? Is this some sort of disease that is causing people to turn into zombies? There must be a reasonable explanation, right?"

"I don't know Olivia, but I just witnessed a dead man sit up and try to attack us. The only explanation I have is he turned into a zombie. We are living in a real-life horror movie."

Melinda was frazzled and had a panicked look on her face which made my anxiety even worse. I gathered the squad around to let them know what happened and expressed that we needed to get out of the city.

Just then, we heard screaming from outside and ran to look out the windows. There were dozens more "zombies" attacking people and police trying to stop them. It was too dangerous to shoot them with so many people around, so they were using batons to try and shove them away. I witnessed a zombie sink his teeth into an officer's arm while he was trying to push the zombie away from another bystander. The officer was just screaming and there was nothing we could do. I turned towards everyone and yelled, "We need to find a secluded place away from the city and we need to leave now!"

Our Captain, Donald Cragen, spoke up and said he owned a cabin west of the city that we could all stay at until we figured things out. Melinda called her husband and gave him the location of the cabin so he and her daughter could meet us there. We all gathered into two sedans and headed out west.

Getting out of the city was not easy but we finally got around traffic and were able to start moving a little faster. I couldn't help but think of El during the drive and what he was doing right at this moment. I had no idea if he was even still in New York or not. As angry as I was that he ghosted me; I still hoped he was ok. I told myself that I had moved on from our partnership but deep down I still yearned to see him again. It now appears the world is coming to an end, and I would never have closure as to why he left without speaking to me.