Chapter IV: Save her, save the world! (Chloe): Day 3/Saturday

AN:
Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Sorry for the radio silence. Something truly terrible happened and it's taken me awhile to adjust to this sad new world I find myself in. I found out that... that... I'm a Hufflepuff! Oh the shame! The ignominy! The mortification! I kid. Hufflepuff fo' Lyfe, bruv. Actually, things have been pretty good recently. I've been planning fics out like crazy and now I've got a pretty detailed idea of where each of the fifteen (fifteen! when did that happen, jeez?) uploaded fics I have are going and how long it'll take to get there. Also been doing uni work and starting my final year psych study (I came up with an idea to pilot study my big idea so I can use it for a masters or doctorate later on and use the pilot study as a 'look! it works, okay? you gotta let me do it, you mean 'ole ethics board!' point when I finally get there). Unfortunately, all that has meant a serious lack of time to write until about two weeks ago. I was gonna upload last weekend, but I decided I'd try write four chapters for this update and took another week instead.

My current plan for this month is to get as many of my uploaded stories as possible to the end of 'Act I' (turns out actually planning and structuring things properly helps; who'd've thunk it?), and maybe start putting together an advance timetable so y'all know which stories you'll be getting uploads for in advance rather than leaving them on hold for literal months (sometimes in excess of a year). It's not a concrete plan, but it might work better than what I'm doing now so it's what I'm going with for the moment.

This chapter gets a little... ramblingly flippant? in places. Christ, there are so many run-on sentences in this thing. I was in a mood when I wrote it and I just haven't been able to bring myself to edit it. I'm a Hufflepuff now, after all. A Huffle-goddamn-Puff. Gotta be loyal to my 'original vision' or whatever. *wails in sorrow*

Also, yes. Zombie films exist in this hypothetical zombie-acquired universe. I've never been quite sure how to feel about the 'horror films don't exist in horror film universes' trope. On one hand, it does excuse the genre-idiocy trope that so often pops up in these things, but on the other hand it does excuse the genre-idiocy trope that so often pops up in these things. When you find habits annoying, giving a reasoned, logical explanation for those habits never makes things better. Also, I really can't be bothered coming up with twelve hundred different names for the undead like these shows seem to do (see The Walking Dead game wiki for about a dozen or so variants, including 'geeks', 'walkers', 'those dead chaps, awful handsy aren't they?', and more!) so zombies existing in popular culture lets me have everyone just call them zombies. Also the second (actually third, but who's counting?), my Evernote spellcheck keeps trying to correct undead to unread, so apologies if any instances of that remain and Chloe end up being chased by individuals inexperienced with good literature.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review

Chloe had decided to be annoying. "So, Davey, can I call you Davey?" She asked, keeping an eye on the road as she babbled baitingly. "I know you're a soldier and all that shit, but I've got experience with these fuckers so I'll give you some tips. Mainly, watch out for the bites, and-"

David sighed the sigh of a long-suffering step-parent. Chloe probably would've called him her 'wicked step-parent' instead, if she wasn't part of the generation that used wicked as a synonym for cool, anyway. "I have seen Dawn of the Dead, missy. I know the rules."

Chloe's mouth dropped open in astonishment and she turned to stare fully at David. Her eyes were no longer on the road at all, unless you counted the sidewalk outside the window on David's side. The car began to drift. "You've seen Dawn of the Dead?"

A loud honking distracted them and David clung bodily to one of the door handles as Chloe's suddenly panicked hands twitched to veer them around the incoming car and back into their lane. After a few hurried breaths and prayers of gratitude for continued life, he muttered "Which of us was actually alive to see that film when it came out?"

Chloe grinned. "Uh, both of us. It was, like, 2004 or something, right?"

David scowled.

Chloe decided to be merciful and left it at that. The next few minutes passed in near silence, broken only by the occasional curse from David as Chloe's... unique driving style threatened his sanity and blood pressure. The familiar site of the water finally came into view as Chloe turned the truck onto the waterfront road. They quickly passed the Two Whales Diner, and both of their minds went to the woman they both worried for. Chloe's voice was quiet as she spoke words neither of the two occupants of her truck wanted to speak, or hear, or really think about in any way. The two of them disagreed on virtually everything, but the one thing they agreed upon was Joyce. "She's bitten. She's going to turn into one of those things, isn't she?"

David grimaced. "I don't know, Chloe. I really don't know. I still don't believe these things exist, but her fever is high and she's not doing well. Remember, if whatever we get here doesn't work, we're taking her to the damn hospital and that's final."

Chloe just shrugged noncommittally, making the truck lurch again. She wanted nothing more than to yell at the man, to reassert her view that the hospital was certain death for all of them, but she couldn't get up the heart to bother. Her mother and her might've had their arguments, their bitter fights, but Joyce was still her mother and Chloe was still her daughter.

I nod at that. "I get it. It's hard to break up with family."

The Stranger returns my nod with a small, bitter smile. "It certainly is."

Something in the smile - and the hand fingering the gun at her hip - told us it was better to not ask any questions. Not if we valued continued breathing.

With David's direction, they quickly arrived at the Everett Pharmacy. Chloe haphazardly parked the truck on the sidewalk outside the building and hopped out, rushing in with David hot on her heels. As it was a Saturday morning in a small town, the store was empty aside from the woman behind the counter. David pushed past Chloe and stormed over. "Morning Janine."

Janine, a tall, willowy black woman that looked far younger than her years, grinned up at him and put down the small book she'd been focused on. "Good Morning, Mr Madsen. How are you doing? What brings you by?"

The smile he gave was... forced, and the answer clipped. "Joyce is sick, and the hospital isn't responding to our damn calls. We need whatever you've got for a fever."

The woman's face contorted in obvious sympathy, and curiosity, at the clear distress in his expression. "Oh, no. I'm sorry to hear that, David. I'll see what I've got." She was already moving to the shelving behind the counter, searching quickly through the boxes and cases scattered about there. As she looked, she called out "What do you mean the hospital isn't responding to your calls? Is there something wrong with your phone?"

"No. We don't know what's wrong." A harsh, commanding look from David stopped Chloe's protest before it started. They really didn't know what was stopping the phone working. Technically, anyway. All Chloe really had were educated suspicions.

"Well, once I've given you this," She started dropping boxes onto the counter. "this, and... these, I can let you call from here, if you'd like?"

Before David could answer, Chloe leapt into the conversation with a hurried, "Yes! Hell yeah, that's awesomesauce, thanks."

David just seemed surprised Chloe had said thanks.

Janine clicked something under the desk and a door in the corner snapped open. "The phone is just through there, Chloe. I'll just stay here with your step-dad and run through the medications with him."

Chloe disappeared into the back of the store and picked up the handset to dial.

I frown in confusion as I realise something. "What's a... 'phone'?"

"An electronic device that lets you communicate verbally over long distances."

"Oh."

That... didn't really clear anything up.

The hospital line was still dead. So, she called the next best option: home. Rose picked up the phone after barely three rings. "He- hello?"

"Hey Mrs A. It's Chloe."

"Chloe!" She actually sounded pleased to hear from her. Though that was probably just delight to hear from anybody. Being alone in a stranger's house with their unconscious mother that'd just smashed holes in the floor, and with a bloody corpse lying in the entryway, wasn't exactly a comfortable experience. "Are you on your way back? Did the pharmacy have the medications?"

"Yep to both. Step-douche is just grabbing the drugs and we're heading back. How's Mom?"

Rose took a deep breath before answering. "She's still unconscious. I've been dabbing at her forehead with a damp cloth, but... I don't know, Chloe. Being unconscious for this long isn't a good sign."

Chloe didn't want to hear it. "She'll be fine, Mrs A. Just gotta get these meds in her and she'll be fine. Hella fine. Yeah."

The silence from the other end of the line was... telling.

Chloe was about to speak again, to say something else to reassure herself that her mom would be okay, when a voice called out from the other room. "Chloe? We're done in here. Get on with it, sol- girl."

"Sorry Mrs A, I gotta go. We're heading back now. See ya soon."

"See you soon, Chloe."

Rose hung up and Chloe replaced the handset.

When she walked back into the main area and found the two people she'd left there giving her questioning looks, she just shook her head. "Still nothing from the hospital. Shit's gotta be going hella bad there if nobody's answering at all."

Janine's expression became as distressed as David's was. "I wonder what's wrong? I hadn't heard anything about any emergencies..?"

David shrugged, planting a hand on Chloe's shoulder and bodily dragging her toward the door. "No idea, Janine. Maybe try the news, see if they're talkin' about anything happening?"

She smiled. "Good idea, David. I hope Joyce gets well soon!"

Her well wishing was the last thing they heard before the door swung shut behind them and Chloe took the opportunity to elbow David in the stomach. As he buckled, she slipped out of his grasp and punched him again. "You fucking asshole! Why wouldn't you want me to tell her that Zombie shit is going down?"

He groaned as he pulled himself back upright and fixed her with a glare. "Because first, we don't know that it's Zombies." Chloe opened her mouth to retort and David's glare only intensified. The tension in his jaw and throbbing vein in his forehead surprised her. He was making an effort to rein in his anger, which was new. When the two of them got angry, they started to fight. It was inevitable. It was entirely her curiosity at that... restraint that made her listen. "Second, if it isn't, then you look crazy. Hell, even it is, then telling her serves no purpose. Tellin' her to go find out herself covers both bases without us having to stick our necks out."

"Huh."

While they were stopped at a crossroads intersection waiting for the lights to change - because David insisted road safety took precedence over speed even in an emergency on Saturday morning clear roads - a scream broke the quiet.

David was moving before Chloe had even reacted, his weapon raised and his eyes alert. As he disappeared down a nearby alleyway, Chloe hurriedly (and untidily) parked her truck on the sidewalk and charged after him, slowing when she spotted the volume of clutter and realised she'd have to work her way through it. The adjacent hardware store apparently used the alley for extra storage; it was littered with locked storage crates, secured bunches of palisade spikes, and stacks of pallets. David stopped at the end, putting his shoulder to the wall and peering out. After a quick glance, his eyes widened and he sprinted out, gun raised. The screamer, a young girl, was pushed up against one of the sturdier looking locked crates just ahead of them by a much larger figure. Her attacker was frantically swiping at her with both arms in wild, haymaker swings and snarling down at her. The girl had one forearm pressed to the the man's throat and was peppering his stomach with punches with the other.

Chloe'd seen her around a few times at Blackwell, but didn't know her name. The girl was tallish, pretty, athletic-looking, with long, auburn hair pulled back into a low ponytail. Chloe thought she might've been a cheerleader. As the girl screamed out for help again, Chloe, with her usual subtle grace, immediately yelled. "Hey, asshole! Get away from her!"

The asshole in question wasn't in a place to answer, if his hungry, yellow-red eyes and desiccated, rotting flesh were any indication. The zombie's head swung to the side to stare hungrily at the two new morsels that'd come into its view. The girl took the opportunity to slam her fist into the thing's stomach in a surprisingly powerful blow that should've made it lose its lunch. The zombie didn't seem all that bothered. Turns out being dead was really quite good for your endurance.

When the Zombie didn't get away from it's prospective meal as she wanted, Chloe yelled at David instead. "What are you waiting for? Shoot it already!"

David shook his head. "I can't! They're too close, I might hit her!"
Chloe turned, stomped her foot, and spread her arms plaintively. Her face was furious. "Just do it!"

Something in the order, whether the bark or the bite, made David's old instincts take over. He raised the gun and fired, taking two chunks of flesh out of the attacker's chest and shoulder. Double-tapped.

Chloe cursed and raced forward, grabbing one of the sharpened two by fours from the stack of palisade spikes. "Fucking useless! I thought you said you'd seen Dawn of the Dead, step-douche! Aim for the fucking head next time!" She took a stance behind the zombie and swung, and the wood connected with the thing's skull with an audible thunk. The zombie groaned, apparently stunned or disoriented by the sudden attack, and Dana took the chance to shove it away from her.

The zombie stumbled back, and Chloe took a swipe at its legs. It fell to the ground and Chloe fell down onto it, keeping her knees dug into each of its collarbones. It wasn't getting up any time soon. Not if she had anything to say about it. She swung the wood down at the thing's head again and broke the flesh of its cheek further, sending little flecks of viscera across the alley. But it was still moving. So, she swung again, and again, and again, and all the while she was screaming in some primal fury at this thing, at her step-douche, at the world that always seemed to want to do her wrong.

Eventually, it went still, and she tossed the now bloody and broken two by four off into the alley, grinning as it clattered over the stonework. David stared at her, the girl stared at her, and Chloe just grinned. Turned out zombie-killing wasn't half cathartic. She hadn't felt that good in years. Not since Max had left.

With a grunt of effort, she levered herself off the corpse - kicking it in the ribs for good measure - then went over to the girl. "Hey, uh... you okay?"

The girl stared.

"Uh..." Chloe rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, unknowingly smearing blood over that spot, flailing about for something to say. "What's your name? You go to Blackwell, right?"

The girl's stare broke and she started blinking rapidly. A quick shake of her head later and the girl finally focused on Chloe's face. "Um. Sorry. What?"

"What's your name? I'm-"

"You're Chloe... Chloe Price, right?"

Chloe nodded, feeling slightly irritated as her hackles rose at the tone in the girl's voice. Fucking Blackwell. "Uh, yeah. That's me. And you are..?"

"Oh, right." The girl blushed redder than the blood on Chloe's hands. "I'm Dana. Dana Ward?"

Chloe could've groaned. The fucking Cheerleader. "Hey. So, the zombie... uh... it didn't bite you, did it?"

Dana shook her head. "No, I don't-" She flinched and started to check over herself. When she found nothing, she sighed in relief. "No, it didn't." She chuckled.. "Guess all those trips to the gym paid off, huh?" Her chuckles began to turn sort of... manic. "Oh my god that was a zombie. That was a freaking zombie!"

"Yep."

"Zombies are real!" Chloe sauntered over and put a hand on Dana's shoulder as the girl began to hyperventilate. "And one just tried to..."

"Yep." Chloe let her hand circle on the girls back, trying not to get distracted by the feel of the muscles beneath her palm and reminding herself that ogling a trauma victim, no matter how pretty they might be, was in kind of bad taste. "But it's dead now."

"It was dead then! That's why it's a zombie!"

"Actually we don't know if that's why. It could be a virus, or some kinda mushroom or something."

Dana gave Chloe a mildly astonished look as the girl rambled on about the science of zombieism. Chloe quickly shut up, her cheeks flushing. She might've looked dorky, but at least Dana was distracted from her panic. "You don't know? But you knew it was a zombie?"

Chloe shrugged. "Yeah, and I know the Titanic was a boat, it doesn't mean I know how they built it."

"Actually it was a ship." Dana corrected.

"What?"

"A ship is bigger and carries boats. Boats don't carry ships. My... Dad was in the navy."

Chloe leant back against a wall, slightly dazed at how fast Dana had recovered from the trauma of nearly being eaten alive. "Really?"

"Yep."

"Huh."

"So. Zombies."

"Yep."

"Chloe?" David finally spoke up.

Chloe didn't actually look at him, just tilted her head so her ear was pointed in his vague direction. "Yeah?"

"Joyce?" He reminded her, and Chloe's face flushed with red again, this time with guilt for... not forgetting, exactly, but almost.

"Shit. Sorry, Dana. We gotta run. My Mom got hella scratched up by one of these things, and the hospital is fucked, so we got some drugs to try keep her fever down." Chloe turned back to David and the two of them made to leave before a sudden outburst from Dana drew their attention back.

"Wait! If your mom needs help, you can take her to Allers!"

Both David and Chloe turned to look at Dana in confusion. "The clothing store down on third?"
Dana matched their confused look with a baffled one of her own. "What? No, the clinic off of Jaffe."

Not one confused look abated at that answer. David simply tilted his head in mild disbelief. "There's a clinic on Jaffe?"

Dana nodded, still slightly confused at how someone could not be aware of her clinic despite having lived in Arcadia Bay for years. "Yeah. I work there whenever I'm not in school. It's small, but the doctor there, Doc Abod, is pretty good. He'd probably be able to help your mom, if anyone here can."

David and Chloe shared a look and a hurried non-verbal debate about whether they should. David, quite predictably, didn't trust her. Chloe didn't know her. But between no trained care and unknown trained care, the actually trained care won out. "Okay, sure. Thanks Dana. You wanna come with, then? We can grab your folks once we get Mom sorta stable too, if you want?"

Dana's expression, previously one of somewhat existential fear (as most would have after finding out monsters that previously only existed in fiction were real and trying to eat you) and distress (again, monsters trying to eat you), turned to a smile of unmistakable gratitude. "Definitely." She lets out a wry little chuckle. "I was not looking forward to trying to get home on my own."

"I am never getting in a car you're driving ever again."

Chloe chuckled as Dana stumbled from the truck, her face almost white with fear. "You're no fun, Dana. You gotta learn to live a little."

Dana shook her head, her eyes going almost distant as she recalled the bat-out-of-hell-off-a-hot-tin-roof-being-chased-by-the-Roadrunner driving she'd just endured, specifically and very unwillingly focused on the one turn Chloe had taken so fast the truck had gone far enough onto the two driver's side wheels that the road was virtually at a 45 degree angle from the window. She very confidently bet herself that it would take some kind of therapy to ever unfocus her from that particular trauma. "I am learning. Why do you think I don't want you to drive anymore?"

Even David chuckled at the validity of that statement. He'd had the... dubious luck of prior exposure to Chloe's driving style, so he'd taken this particular daredevil stunt comparatively well. He wasn't okay, by any means, but at least his therapy bill wouldn't have to go up.

Chloe had locked the truck and the three were preparing to go inside as Dana was chattering nervously about how she liked the house - obviously a lie, in Chloe's mind, as the house was two different colours and the garden looked like it hadn't seen a mower in years - when their relative calm was disrupted yet again by a loud, ear-piercing scream.

David's instincts took over again and he pulled his weapon and pushed the two girls behind him. His gruff instruction to stay there was promptly ignored. Chloe charged past him and through the door, yelling frantically "Mom! Mom!"

The smell of fear is one only vaguely known. The lack of detail - is it pungent? Spicy? Does it have a vague hint of vanilla? - leads most to conclude it's more a metaphor than a literal thing one can experience. Sooner or later though, everyone learns it's all too real. After what she saw that day, fear, to Chloe, smelt of death, campfires left burning, and ginger forever afterward.

The previous destruction of the lower floor of the Price-Madsen Household paled in comparison to how it was when she walked in. The banister was gone, and the spokes were embedded in the wall of the kitchen. The far wall, as the one inbetween had been smashed into smithereens. Planks and tiles of flooring were scattered everywhere, as were bits of furniture, decor, and kitchen attachments.

Of course, the destruction of her family home wasn't much to Chloe. The events between her and her family after her father's death had effectively rendered any attachment she had to the house as dead as he was. What really scared her, what terrified her beyond anything she'd seen before, making her knees quiver and her stomach fill with dread, was the sight of her mother standing shakily in the middle of their living room with a kitchen knife buried in her side. The wound hadn't bled. Her skin was rotting. Her eyes were red. Her hands were bloody. They were too late. The virus had taken hold.

"Shit!" Chloe froze in the doorway, staring blankly at her mother's face. Unfortunately for her, her shout got it's attention. The zombie's face spun around and it peered at her like a curious puppy for barely a moment before charging. Chloe couldn't move, staring at her mother. She'd never seen that look on her face before, couldn't get her head around the hunger and fury in once familiar eyes.

Familiar eyes that were closing on her rapidly as the mouth below it screamed gibberish and gibbered screams. Every instinct in Chloe's body was telling her to get the hell out of the way, but she couldn't do anything except stare in rapidly approaching horror. Seconds before her face would've been eaten off by the possibly reanimated, possibly merely really, really sick corpse of her mother, a hand grabbed her shoulder and tossed her into the garage door. Chloe bounced off it and slid down to the floor just in time to see blood and brains and viscera explode out the back of her mother's head. David's gun hand was shaking as he watched the former body of his wife drop to the ground. He fell to his knees, the gun still clutched in his hand. His eyes never left the body.

"Oh God... Joyce."