Chapter V: On Our Way (Chloe) - Day 3/Saturday

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Gods the American news is obnoxious. And I don't just mean Alex Jones or Fox. I was looking through some old broadcasts to find out how they might talk about a zombie outbreak and the picture painted was... not good. It's no wonder Ye Olde Backeward Christianity is so popular in your country when even the media talk like fire and brimstone preachers obsessed with the end times. And the amount of irrelevant data designed to influence your thinking is incredible. British Media does that too, I don't deny that, but y'all in the States have practically made it an art form of hype and bullshit. After someone does something terrible, all you need to know is what happened. Telling the audience the murderer/patient zero/rogue graffiti artist's backstory and hopes and dreams or whatever is entirely irrelevant to actually informing the people of what happened. Personally, I think it's blame culture coming into play. The News always focuses on who failed and how - 'oh, the murderer was a quiet man, and authorities noted him as a possible danger, but let him go, and his neighbours never saw this coming' or 'the virus is spreading much faster than efforts to contain it' (an actual quote from a news broadcast on Ebola) - and leaves what actually happened as a secondary issue. There are definitely reasons for the jokes about how lawsuit-happy the Americans are. The News alone demonstrates that enough. "Something happened! Who's to blame?"

Also, yes. I totally followed the entire route from Garibaldi/Tilamook (the developer's apparent real-world inspirations for Arcadia Bay) to the Gales Creek turnoff (End of this chapter) to the Courthouse in Portland (Planned end of next chapter, which will also be the end of Act I). Very pretty route, though that's not surprising. Fuckin' Oregon and their picturesque, ukulele-scored cartoon landscape.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review

Chloe stood in her backyard, looking down over the grave of her last remaining parent. Now, she thought with a sardonic smirk, she really was alone. Her one remaining human connection was with a prickish old man she hated and who seemed to do nothing but hate her. At least he believed her about the zombies now, she mused. She shook her head, clearing the uncharacteristic optimism, and stared back down at the grave. They hadn't been able to get a headstone, so the only marker was a small rock she'd written on with her trusty marker. She wasn't sure how she felt, burying her mom in the same circumstances she'd buried her beloved cat (RIP Bongo) nearly five years ago, but she knew Joyce would've been tickled by it.

For a moment, she considered exhuming her dad and bringing him down there to give her mom some company. The sheer... well-meaning indecency of it made her laugh. Joyce would not have been tickled by that.

Her dad would've been though. William was weirdly sentimental like that.

Her laughter trailed off, sinking beneath the waves of the melancholic sea she found herself floating adrift on. No pirates on these waters. Here be dragons.

"Goodbye, Mom. I'm sorry."

She turned away and hurried inside, almost crushing her eyelids together to stop the tears falling. The three inside the house let her go past unbothered. David knew better, the other two didn't know her enough. Honestly, Dana would've tried to help anyway, but Chloe rushed past and never gave her chance to. Girl could be quick when she wanted to be.

Chloe only let herself break when her door was closed and locked shut behind her. Admittedly it was unwillingly, and she was still trying to blink away the tears even as she gave in, but break she did. The tears began to fall and she curled up on her bed, her arms wrapping around her legs tightly as she let herself cry it out. Letting yourself cry unreservedly, like she was, could be almost therapeutic. For Chloe, not so much. She'd spent too much of her life crying, and crying alone was never fun. Especially as the crying became sobbing, long choking sounds that she could feel down in her chest. It racked her body until she ached with exhaustion. When the sobbing finally ceased and the tears finally dried, she found herself dropping slowly off to sleep.

She blinked, finding herself back in that familiar front room, slouched over one end of the old couch that still sat there. Through the window, she could see zombies stumbling about in the back yard. A couple of them were crouched over a bloody, unmoving form... eating. She swallowed back a tide of revulsion.

Luckily for her sanity, the TV blaring was loud enough to draw her attention away from the nightmare outside. The video playing is even more familiar than the room; her mom all in white and her dad in a crisp suit, both happy and beaming in front of a church and crowd of faces she vaguely remembers from half a lifetime ago. Why was she dreaming about this? The last time she saw that video was long before he died.

"Good times, right?"

That voice, coming from the other end of the couch, sent an ache through her chest far worse than the sobbing. Her dad occupied the entire end of the couch, all rugged plaid and broad shoulders. She practically beamed with delight at the sight of him. His answering smile was almost painful. "Yeah, Dad. Hella good times."

He chuckled. "Second happiest day of my life, marrying your mother." His face took on a fond expression as he smiled at her. "David and I have that in common. Or will, anyway."

Chloe overlooked the mention of her hated step-douche, even over her confusion over tenses (Step-douche and her mom were already married, as much as she hated it, so why the 'will have that in common?'), and asked the obvious question. "What was the happiest day?"

William gave his answer with a lopsided grin. "The day you were born, of course." The grin vanished, replaced with a mournful look. "Today hasn't been a good day for you, huh?"

Chloe swallowed and shook her head. All she said was, "No." and it both did and didn't feel like enough.

He reached out a hand and let it rest on top of hers. It's scant comfort, but comfort nonetheless. "I'm sorry for that, kiddo. But it's going to get worse from here on out. Much, much worse."

Chloe scowled at him, rolled her eyes like the petulant teenager she was. "Jeez, Dad. Thanks. Come back from the dead to give me some good news for once, why don't you?"

His resounding laughter echoed through the room like church bells. "Where's the fun in that, Chloe? Remember, bad news-"

"Is just an opportunity you haven't gotten through yet." She rolled her eyes again, before fixing her dad with her best ant-under-a-microscope glare. "Yeah, yeah, Dad. I remember. You used to say that shit all the time."

"Ah, ah. That's a dollar for the swear jar, young lady."

Chloe snorted and shook her head. "We dropped the swear jar when you died, dad. I swore too much and Mom barely fu- freaking swore at all."

William slumped, almost like a disappointed child. "Aww. That's a bummer. I was really hoping her and David would make it to Paris someday."

The two sat mutely for a few moments, enjoying the quiet of each other's company. After Chloe's last... visit from her father, a peaceful and friendly one was practically a godsend to her. The tranquillity was broken by a loud scream from outside. Chloe flinched and almost spun her head around to stare in horror as one of the zombies in the garden narrowed in on her and her father and closed on the door.

She leapt to her feet as it started battering wildly at the glass, which quickly began to crack under the wiry strength behind each swing. She held out her hand to her father, who hadn't left the couch, seeming just as relaxed as before. "Dad, come on, we've got to go!"

He just chuckled idly. "Go, Chloe? Why would we go? The fun's just starting." He looked up, meeting his daughter's eyes just as he caught fire. Chloe stared as he burned to ash in front of her. The powder had barely settled on the cushion before a mysterious breeze blew in and swept it all away.

The door shattered and the zombie charged. Chloe didn't run, stuck staring at the couch where her father had been with blank numbness. As the zombie's hands clamped down onto her arm and waist, she could feel the flecks of spit and fury on her face. Its teeth dug into her throat and began to tear out her flesh.

She jolted awake, disoriented. The dream... He had been so real... She could almost still feel the warmth of his hand, the life flowing through him. But it was fading now. She unravelled her limbs and pulled herself back upright. She felt dizzy for a moment as she did, as all the settled blood went right to her head, but a quick shake of her head cleared the weight.

Her crying jag done with and thoroughly dismissed, she got to her feet and went for the cupboard. It was the work of a few moments to find a backpack and a change of clothes, along with a torch, a Swiss army knife, and a few other possibly useful knicknacks she had lying around her room, and get out of there.

Chloe stomped downstairs, still wiping at her eyes, and found the other three occupants of the house hadn't moved since she fled upstairs. Dana was still perched on a stool at the kitchen bar, David was cleaning his guns on the coffee table, and Rose was at the kitchen table staring off into the middle distance. Every one of them looked pensive and miserable. The radio sat on the kitchen bar was blaring with the measured fervour of a news reporter.

"The number of confirmed deaths is skyrocketing, but the virus has been identified and the CDC is working on a permanent cure. The National Guard has been sent in, and the Secretary of Health has ordered a FEMA quarantine set-up around the entire state, an action only made possible by the generous support of The Prescott Foundation. Several local sources have claimed the Prescotts themselves are at the heart of the current pandemic sweeping Oregon, a representative from the charitable foundation has made the following statement." The broadcast pauses for a moment before a new voice starts, this one still measured, but with the self-assured smarm of a career PR-monger. "The events happening in Oregon are unmistakably a tragedy, and it's entirely understandable the victims are looking for something to blame. The Foundation accepts this is a natural course of their grief and we want to do everything we can to help them get past this horrible experience. We're offering full therapy for everyone affected by this tragedy, after they've been cleared by FEMA Quarantine." The reporter starts talking again. "The Governor is advising all uninfected to stay inside their homes and secure all entrances until this problem is resolved."

Chloe scowled at the radio as she went over to take a seat at the table. "More Prescott bullshit. Don't those fuckers know when to let shit go?"

David snorted. "Not likely. Prescott'd be more likely to donate his entire fortune to Planned Parenthood before he'd let a PR opportunity go by."

The two of them paused, staring at one another in mild horror. Avowed enemies accidentally finding common ground tended to have that effect.

Luckily, their foul musings were interrupted as Rose Amber let her opinions be known. "If FEMA and the National Guard are involved over the local state authorities, we have a bigger problem than we thought."

None of the others had the knowledge a District Attorney's wife would've picked up over the years of being married to a man in the higher echelons of law enforcement, so their attention was immediate. "What do you mean?"

"The protocols for statewide quarantine are lax on a state basis, but the reality of a federally mandated quarantine will be incredibly harsh. To give an example, if we're caught trying to cross anywhere except at designated checkpoint, we'd be... we'd be shot on sight."

Her words dropped into the silence like bullet casings. Her quiet delivery had no menace, no threat to it whatsoever. Her sincerity left nothing to doubt.

Chloe could feel her heart rate spike. "What about cities? If they find out how fucked Portland is, what're they gonna do?"

Rose's answer was in an even smaller voice. "They'll mobilise the airforce and bomb the city."

Chloe's mind immediately supplied her with pictures of the horror. She shuddered as she watched the mental image of her friend burn like she had her father only minutes before. "We have to leave. Now." (AN1)

Once they'd all packed, the group assembled at the front of the house. The stack of bags beside them contained every bit of non-perishable food in the house, clothes and other supplies, every gun David had, and whatever he and his military training thought might be useful. They had entire bag of duct tape, for instance. Chloe had been sceptical about the necessity of that much tape, but when she questioned him about it, he'd just shrugged and said enigmatically "Useful thing, duct tape." and left it at that.

Chloe hadn't really seen the point in any of it, if she was honest. Who cared about food and the apparently miraculous duct tape? Rachel was in trouble and they were standing around packing! How could her mother, who actually seemed like she cared about her daughter, be happy delaying so much when her kid was in trouble?

Needless to say, by the time they were prepared to leave, Chloe was antsy. "Come on, come on! Can't you hurry this shit up?"

David looked over from where he was looking over the last of the supplies. "Do you want to get into a situation and realise you forgot the one thing you needed to get you out of it? Not being properly supplied can get you killed, sol- Chloe. Remember that."

Chloe would've grumbled at the obvious slip, but Dana stepping forward broke her angry stride. "So, when are we going to help everyone else?"

David turned to her in confusion. "Everyone else?"

The girl nodded, the very picture of earnestness. "The town. We can't just leave them, they'll keep running into zombies until everyone is-"

David cut her off. "We're not helping. We have to leave, now."

From Dana's reaction, that clearly wasn't the right thing to say. "What? How can you just leave these people to-"

Chloe cut in before David could piss the girl off anymore. As she started to speak, she felt a momentary pang of surprise at being the one to de-escalate a situation for once. "How would we help, Dana?"

The girl crossed her arms, huffing "We could tell them what's happened, get them to evacuate before-"

"Evacuate from what? A fictional thing? I tried to tell someone zombies existed and had eaten all the cops twice now, and neither of them believed me." Rose and David both had the good grace to look slightly penitent at that. "Why would they? Zombies are fictional, right? What's the point in going around telling everyone something that's just gonna make 'em think we're crazy and not do anything we say? Fuck, I doubt some of 'em'll even listen to the radio broadcasts. Probably think it's a fuckin' hoax or something. And anyone who actually listened is probably smart enough to get outta town without our help."

Dana wasn't convinced, firing back "We could go back to the alley, show them the corpse there-"

Chloe snorted. "People've been trying to prove shit exists with dead bodies for centuries. It didn't work for mermaids, gorillas, or the fuckin' brontosaurus. We'll just get people going to the cop station to report that we probably murdered someone and getting killed for their fucking bother."

Rose, David, and Dana all stared at Chloe in mild disbelief. Chloe stared back in affront. "What? I can't know shit? I can read, you know, you assholes. 'sides, Dinosaurs are hella cool."

Dana shook her head. "That's not the point, Chloe. There has to be something we can do."

Chloe simply shrugged. "So tell us what we can do." She waited for the other girl to say something. Hell, she'd've been happy to have a solution. Chloe might not've given a fuck about the town, but she wasn't a monster.

Dana just wilted. Chloe pressed her more. "If you wanna come with us, we go now. You wanna stay and tell people and get ignored by idiots and abandoned by the smart people who actually listened and got the hell out, be our fucking guest."

Rose gave Chloe a look. Her harsh and unsympathetic tone may have meshed with David, but Rose was a kinder soul that objected to the meanness. "Are your parents here, Dana? Maybe we could go and find them?"

Dana shook her head. "I'm from Wisconsin. My parents are still back there."

Chloe perks up a little at that. "Well, that's good. That they're, y'know, not stuck in this shithole with the zombies and things."

Dana smiled, small and pleased. "Yes. It is." After a few companionable moments, her smile faded. "I guess you're right. But, I know someone I could convince! Juliet, she's my friend. And she's good with guns. She goes hunting every weekend, too."

Chloe looked over to David. "I know my hella natural talent is useful and all, but we could really fucking use someone else who knows how to use a gun."

David paused for a moment, presumably thinking it over, before giving a short nod. "We still need some supplies, though.

Chloe promptly started for her truck. "Awesomesauce. Come on, Cheerleader. You're with me. We'll go pick up your friend and meet the adults at the way outta town. Real quick, though."

Dana's entire form slumped, her shoulders utterly resigned to her fate. "Welcome, Death. Can't wait. It's going to be so fun."

Chloe rolled her eyes, giving an irritable groan. "Shit, woman. I promise I'll drive all slow and boring like an old lady just for you, okay?"

Dana just chuckled, following Chloe over to her truck. "Thank you Chloe. Just remember, if you get us killed with your insane driving, I am so haunting you."

"Y'know, that was easier than I expected." Chloe shifted around to stare at their new companion, who was sat between her and Dana with a camera between her knees, flicking through pictures on the small screen.

Juliet just shrugged. "I trust Dana. She overreacts sometimes-" Dana elbowed her mid-sentence with an affronted expression and a mouthed 'rude' that got nothing but a small smile in response "-but she doesn't lie." The girl holds up a hand to whisper, sotto voce, to Chloe. "She's really, really bad at it. And my parents are in Portland anyway, so I'd be heading back there with or without you."

Dana's face contorted in the beginning of a scowl before her entire expression cleared and her gaze suddenly fixed on something outside Chloe's side window. "Ooooh, Cows!"

Chloe paused for a moment, glaring at the douchey muscle car a few meters in front of her and mentally cursing the fact that David got Rose and she got stuck with Dana, then turned and raised an eyebrow at the far occupant of her truck. The girl looked ecstatic. Over cows. She was a weird one. "Really, Dana? Really?"

The other girl was almost leaning over Chloe, peering past her with a wide smile on her face as she watched a few cows cavorting in the shadow of a tree. She looked back at Chloe, then jabbed a finger at a few of the smaller cows. They were gathered around a single larger one, likely their mother as all shared similar colouration and pattern. Breeding did make that sort of thing easy to identify, even for a layman like Chloe. "But, she has babies!"

Chloe hadn't intended to roll her eyes, but a lifetime of backtalk and sass made it almost instinctual as she quipped bitchily "And those babies'll make a hella great sandwich someday. Keep your eye on the road, Dana. We're going after people here."

Dana leaned back, her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. "You're very cynical, you know."

Chloe shrugged. "Yep."

When Dana didn't respond, Chloe spared a glance out the corner of her eye to find Dana watching her intently. Almost studying her, really. "What, dude?"

The girl shrugged. "Nothing."

Chloe scoffed at that. "Yeah, sure. You're just staring at me like I'm some fuckin' algebra whatever you gotta solve to avoid a month of detention."

Dana's cheeks went pink and her nose crumpled as she shook her head. "No, I-"

"Look, just forget about it." Chloe said, not really interested in the answer anyway. "Keep an eye on shit outside. Those zombie fuckers are faster than they look."

Dana nodded and went silent, peering out into the passing wood of the state forest. The road was clear ahead, so Chloe took the opportunity to put her foot down and speed up. David's face of annoyance passing by as she overtook his muscle car made her wholly happy.

They continued on through the forest, enjoying the peace from the horrors of the morning. A peace that was quickly broken when they reached the first lay-by. Huge skid-marks across the road marked it as the site of an alarmingly violent crash. Dana gasped as she saw the bodies lying aside the overturned and smoking panel van. Whoever these people were, the zombies had gotten to them first. Chloe and Juliet watched the corpses quietly as they passed by.

That may have been the first horror they saw on their journey, but it wasn't the last.

The road swept along, joined to the left by the river. A car passed them, heading back to the bay. Chloe watched it go past with perverse amusement. "That fucker has no idea what he's getting into, huh?"

Dana almost looked distraught at this complete stranger meeting such a fate. "We have to get him to turn around!"

Chloe shrugged, and the truck's path wobbled precariously back and forth with the unhurried movement. Dana promptly grabbed onto the dashboard in fear. "Again, why and how? They'd just think we're crazy. 'sides, if you wanna get us to stop, you're the one who's gotta tell step-douche."

Dana's immediate look of mild dread was enough to make Chloe chortle loudly, sending the truck wobbling again.

She straightened the truck out again just in time to hear the screams. And gunfire. And a couple of gas tank explosions. Whatever was happening up ahead, it certainly was action-movie dramatic.

Juliet's head snapped up from her camera, her eyes locked on a turning ahead and left. "The RV Park. Whatever's happening, it's happening there."

Dana, in her kind and earnest tone, yelled out "We have to help them!"

Chloe was tempted to take a second to think - from the sounds of things whoever was fighting had things well in hand, after all - but she quickly thought herself out of that plan. She wasn't sure why. Her point was still correct, and they were still going to rescue the only person she really cared about while on a time limit of death. It really made no sense. But, then again - and she grinned at this thought - very little she ever did made any real sense. She was still ahead of the muscle car, so David would have to follow her if she turned off. Pissing off her step-douche, she almost instantly decided, was more than enough reason to justify this little side-trip.

She wrenched her steering wheel to the left with a confident of delight and the truck screamed through the hardest turn it'd ever had in its long, long operating life. Dana would later insist that the wind arising from the sheerness of the turn had torn one of the site's signs straight off its nails.

Chloe barely bothered parking the truck, simply resorting to abandoning it at the side of the road and launching herself out into the park, gun in hand. Several more gunshots rang out in the distance, marking the location of whoever this living soul was very clearly. Even more clear was the recognisable voice yelling all manner of panicked interrogatives. And cursewords. Lots, and lots, of cursewords.

"What the fuck are you people trying to do? Do you have any bloody idea who're you fucking with? I'll damn well-"

Chloe ran forward with a grin, ignoring the shout behind her from David demanding she wait the hell up. She dashed through the small maze of gardens and alleyways between the mixture of standing RVs and round, wooden-ish structures that signage marked as a 'yurt'.

Chloe drew herself out of wondering what in the hell a 'yurt' was (other than the name of the building in front of her) just in time to narrowly avoid running into a small horde of zombies surrounding a dirty old RV. The man stood atop it had a pistol in his right hand and a bottle in his left. There were also several guns scattered over the rooftop around him, with a couple more poking out of an open box. The man was taking potshots into the torsos of the dead beneath him. Frank Bowers, local drug kingpin, may have known how to deal with competitors, but he apparently had no idea how to deal with zombies. Chloe, without really thinking too much about it, thought she'd lend a hand. She later claimed she wanted to repay him for saving her life from the last drug kingpin, but that was debatable, to say the least. Nobody who knew Chloe would accuse her of such a dire sin as planning and forethought.

"Shoot them in the head, you fucking asshole!"

Really, her intentions were good, even if her delivery left a few things to be desired. Back when she actually attended Blackwell, the teachers had unilaterally agreed to hire her a manners coach in the vague hope (desperation) it might fix her rudeness. The man had fled the school in tears ten minutes into the first session. Chloe only remarked that she was slipping, she was sure she could've gotten him to run in half that. The school didn't try that again, and she was expelled three months later.

Frank's head snapped up to stare in half-shock, half-unsurprised resignation. Unfortunately for Chloe, her volume had also attracted the attention of the zombies, and almost as one they turned to look hungrily in her direction. The moment they started moving, Frank let off a few shots, killing (or re-killing) a half dozen of them before they could take more than a step.

Chloe, with around a dozen more closing in on her, made a quick mental note to be quieter next time she staged a heroic rescue before raising her gun and attempting to join Frank's assault. Her stand didn't last, and she was quickly overwhelmed and driven back under the furious speed and strength of these creatures. She retreated back through the alleys and gardens, dashing frantically from cover to cover and taking potshots where she could, though very few hit. Fear doesn't make for steady hands.

After far too long of playing cat and mouse - or what felt like too long to Chloe, anyway - she ran out into a wider, more open space that ran between the larger columns of parked RVs, only narrowly avoiding a collision with the ravenous horde. With a frantic spin, she dodged under an outstretched arm, letting off a round into the midsection of the owner of the offending limb as she passed. She continued sprinting across the thoroughfare, disappearing into the maze before they could follow. In a flash, she dropped to the ground and rolled under an RV. Barely a heartbeat later, she heard the pounding of charging zombies roaring past her. The moment she was confident they were gone, or at least out of eyesight, she rolled back out and started running for Frank's RV again.

Unfortunately, the RV park, while technically organised, was intensely maze-like for anyone unfamiliar with the layout. Also, Chloe's sense of direction was truly awful. She approached a few of the same places she'd been running through from another direction and found them completely unrecognisable. So, she quickly became, as she would say, hella fucking lost. She could still hear the screams of zombies in the distance, but things closer to her were uncomfortably quiet. After a few minutes of wandering, she found her way back to something she recognised: an RV with a dozen neon-pink plastic flamingos in the front yard.

That's when something shrieked overhead, sending bolts of pain lancing through her entire body as her nervous system rebelled against her. She clapped her hands over her ears and tried not to swallow her tongue. The screaming was unavoidable. Her limbs felt unresponsive, like all her movements were on a delay. She started moving, trying to keep her legs from shutting down, making her wobbly way into the pink-flamingo RV.

She stumbled down the nave of the RV, bumping off and into almost every surface the entire way. By the time she reached the door to the sitting room at the rear, her arms were battered and bruised and her limbs were so weak it was all she could do to stay upright. She had to hold onto the doorframe for a moment, blinking and shaking her head to clear the dizziness. She leant against the sidewall, feeling almost soothed by the sensation of the cold wood against her skin. At that point, she was drowsy enough to be tempted just to stay there and doze off against the wall. Wouldn't be the first time she'd fallen asleep in a ridiculously uncomfortable place.

Suddenly, a loud slamming sound echoed through the room and the RV shook like it was in a hurricane. Chloe's eyes flicked open, the bright light causing one hell of a headache, and she pushed herself forward. She cleared the room in a second, but her burst of adrenaline disappeared as quickly as it appeared and her legs collapsed just in time for her to reach the wrap-around couch in the far corner from the door. With her last burst of strength, she pulled herself across it, trying to hide under the table.

The door collapsed just as she got settled and three zombies burst into the RV. Their heads swept from right to left as they scanned the central corridor of the RV for her. One of them vanished into the front cabin. The other two, however, started towards her. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and her breath was coming in ragged little pants that she almost felt ashamed of. What kind of badass has a panic attack when hiding helpless from zombies?

Whatever shrieked before did so again, and she couldn't stop another scream from tearing out of her throat. The two zombies immediately zeroed in on her and charged. Luckily for Chloe, she was already screaming, so the fear of these monsters pressing in on her really had no new effects. Every instinct in her body was telling her to run, but her legs just wouldn't get the message. As they reached the centre of the room, she closed her eyes and resigned herself to death for her stupid side-trip. "Sorry, Rach."

An airvent in the ceiling exploded inward in a cloud of shitty construction and air con gases. Chloe caught the glint of a knife in the chaos before a single head rolled out of the cloud, coming to a stop just in front of her, its mouth lolled open and the yellowy-red eyes staring right into hers. As the cloud cleared, she saw a familiar figure screaming profanity and comments about how the dead or infected people hadn't any idea who they were dealing with at the remaining zombie while stabbing it over and over in the torso. With a push of will, she tried to speak "F- Fr- Frank!"

He whirled, dropping the now unmoving zombie and pulling his knife back in preparation to throw. As his eyes met hers, he noticeably relaxed. "Oh. Hey. What're you doing down there?"

Chloe growled in irritation at his casually curious tone. Her mouth still wasn't quite responding to her desire to speak, but she managed to force out "Fucking shrieker thing made my legs go all weird. Everything hella hurts now." in annoyingly disjointed and stuttering bursts. Annoying to her, anyway. Frank didn't seem to mind, just nodding through it all.

He tilted his head, eyes going distant as he listened. "You come here with anyone, Chloe?"

Chloe nodded, stuttered out again. "My step-douche, Rach's mom, and a couple of Blackwell kids. Could you, y'know, help me up onto the couch or something? This shit is fucking killing my back."

He obliged, helping her up onto the cushions. As she relaxed into them, he tilted his head curiously. "Rachel's mom?"

"Yeah. Rach got stuck with her dad in Portland, so we're going over to grab her."

Frank chuckled. "I notice her dad's not figuring in on this rescue, huh?"

Chloe's face took on a dark look. "Would you help that fucker, after what he did? After what you had to do to fix the shitty situation he created?"

Frank shrugged. "Prob'ly not. But since Rachel doesn't know shit about any of that, she'll definitely be pissed you're not helping her old man."

Chloe slumped. "That... is a good point. Fuck."

With a chuckle, he leant down again and looped her arm over his shoulders. "Come on. I'll drop you off with those fuckwits that're wandering around the park. You're parked up by the entrance, right?"

She nodded and, after a beat of thought, asked "Why don't you come with?"

Frank shook his head. "Nah. I got shit to do here. Gotta make sure these dead fuckers-" He kicked the corpse of the one in the doorway. Chloe hadn't even noticed him kill it. "-don't kill off all my customers."

Chloe smirked. "You have the best priorities, Frank." Neither snow nor rain nor the walking dead stays this dealer from the completion of his deliveries.

"Damn straight." Without her really noticing, Frank'd gotten them both to the main thoroughfare of the park and was walking them down the route toward the main entry. She could even see her truck a hundred feet or so away. "How're your legs? Can you walk on your own yet?"

Chloe tentatively put a little more force on her legs, wincing expectantly as she awaited hitting the floor again. Contrary to her expectations, she actually felt pretty good. Her legs stood firm and she grinned. "I think I'm good. Thanks."

He immediately dropped her arm. "Right then," He said. "I gotta get back to the RV. I left Pompidou asleep in the front and the little guy's gonna get sick if he tries eatin' any of those damn zombies."

Chloe nodded absently, her focus gone from the conversation and entirely resting on the four figures walking in from the RV-maze. David looked like he couldn't decide who to be more mad at, his delinquent, idiot step-daughter, or the drug dealer.

Chloe was certain he'd work it out sooner or later, and she was right.

David, despite, or possibly in spite of, her injuries, proceeded to yell many kind, sweet words of concern at her for several minutes. After years of slight variants on the same speech, Chloe c0uld rattle off what he was going to say like a housewife could rattle off her weekly shopping list. So, she ignored him and nodded absently in all the right places, muttering rebelliously where he'd expect. He didn't seem to notice that, or Dana and Juliet's amused looks. Eventually though, when she got bored, she interrupted him midway through a rhetorical "What were you thinking, missy, running off like that?" with an irritable "I'm fine, dude. Nobody got bit, we saved Pompidou and Frank from those things, all's hella cool, okay?"

Needless to say, that did not go over well. David jabbed a finger at her face, leaving it barely an inch from her eyes. Whatever words he said to accompany the wholly aggressive movement were lost to Chloe as she noticed his hand barely seemed to move at all. It was kind of impressing her, really. She'd been shaking the entire time.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts and pushed past him to her truck. "I get it. I'll be careful next time, let's go already."

She left him standing, growling intensely. When he turned his gaze onto them, Juliet and Dana both skittered for the truck. Chloe grabbed his attention and stuck it right back onto her with a sarcastic grin and a "Hurry up, Step-douche. I will drag-race you to Portland, you fucking know I will."

He was in his car half a minute later.

"So... David's kind of intense, huh?" Juliet asked, her tone far too 'casual' for Chloe's liking.

"He's kind of a douche, that's what he is." Chloe responded with a dismissive handwave. She almost went for a sharp glare and a one-fingered handwave, but the almost begging look Dana sent her midway through sent uncomfortable pangs of... something emotional through her. She changed tack instantly, just to get away from feeling. "The prick just loves to try and control fucking everything."

She sped up past the creepy Mills Bridge/Happy Hollow sign that she could never quite work out what the logo was supposed to represent. Maybe ten seconds or so later she'd cleared the bridge, too. She wondered why Dana and/or Juliet hadn't commented on her stated dislike for her sole remaining parent, such as he was. A quick glance at their faces and a distant flash of a muscle car in the rear view mirror gave her the reason.

Her abashed expression was small comfort, it was only her slowing down that finally elicited a sigh of relief and a relaxation of near-white knuckles from both of them. Chloe didn't bother looking back for David. He could catch up. Probably. She made it past the Wilkerson place and he was still 20 or 30 feet behind. The two-car convoy roared past the rest of the Happy Hollow holiday homes scattered along the main road through the forest. Dana and Juliet didn't bother trying to bring David up again. Between her speed and her facial expression, Chloe was exuding enough 'Don't fuck with me on this' vibes to deter even the most oblivious inquisitor.

Instead, they started chatting amongst themselves about Juliet's parents and where they might be. Apparently, they lived in one of the richer neighbourhoods in Portland: the appropriately named 'Homestead'. Chloe had whistled when that detail came up, and drawled "Shit, Jules. What do your folks do?"

The girl just shrugged absently. "Mom's a lawyer, Dad's an executive manager at an industrial company."

Chloe leant back. "Damn. They must make a fuckload of cash, huh?"

Juliet shrugged again. "I guess. We never really talked about money. They paid for my tuition to go to Blackwell though."

Without really meaning it, Chloe said "Huh. That's nice of them."

The looks on Dana and Juliet's faces at that made it clear they'd both picked up on the anti-establishment scholarship-kid-made-bad insincerity. Dana looked almost heartbroken. Juliet didn't seem bothered. "So, can we check out Jules' parents' place after we get Rachel?"

Chloe didn't really have to think about it. "Sure. Seems fair, you comin' with us and all. What was that Latin shit Keaton used to say when he wanted to guilt trip you into acting better?"

Dana smiled, almost fondly. "Quid pro quo." Her voice took on a pretentious, Shakespearean tone. "My prodigious directing ability requires actors of the same calibre, my dear. Do please ensure you hold up your end of the bargain, hmm?"

She and Juliet both chuckled. Chloe's laughter trailed off mid-rollick as she caught sight of another upturned wreck in the river ahead. Then another. Then another. All three of them stared out to the right, feeling some sense of gratitude and dread that the majority of the vehicles were empty. It could've meant these people had survived, but... it could also mean they didn't, and that they walked away anyway.

A terrifying thought.

Further ahead of that, a house had caved in on itself, and what remained of the inside was smouldering embers. The bones scattered outside the front door were evidence of what had happened to the inhabitants.

The situation really was entirely fucked up. Human Beings, as insanely adaptable as we are, struggle to deal with drastic change. One can go to sleep in one world and wake up in another entirely, one utterly unrecognisable to you. The rest of the world may have been unaffected, but to the Oregonians (AN2) in that convoy, their world had been irrevocably altered by the virus.

They drove on in silence until coming to another burning building, though this one was actively ablaze. "Oh no!" Dana gasped. "That's Lee's Camp Store!"

Adama Lee was a notable figure in the Bay, respected and listened to by all despite his rural upbringing and utter lack of formal education. He had a tendency to be somewhat... irascible, but his wisdom and fairness were unquestionable. More than one person had gone onto great things after talking with him. Even Chloe had met him once or twice, mostly as a last ditch effort from her mother when things had started falling apart. It hadn't worked out. Chloe blamed her parents, or wanted to, at least, for the decline of her home life, so a stranger telling her that she held some of the blame as well wasn't exactly welcome. He'd given her more advice than simply that, but she'd never told anyone else about it. Still. She could be charitable, she supposed. "Yeah. Hope the old bastard made it out."

Juliet, in wild opposition to her brusqueness, laid a comforting hand down on Dana's shoulder. "I'm sure he did."

The rest of the trip went by quickly, though for the occupants of the truck it felt like forever. The number of horrors they saw crawled upward as they got further through the state forest, though they were still few. Thankfully, there was only so much death that could be crammed into a forty mile drive. These things may be spreading endemically, but they weren't pandemic yet.

The one bright spot came about thirty minutes into the trip, when Chloe spotted a familiar trail head. Dana caught her grin and asked curiously. "What's got you smiling?"

Chloe pointed absently, still not noticing the shocked faces as the truck lurched when she took her hand off the wheel. "Ma- a friend and I used to go up there all the time. We had the stupidest fucking joke: it's called Idiot Creek, so I'm pretty sure you can guess what it was."

The joke really was terrible, and none of them laughed, but the other two did smile. With the look of unreserved fondness and nostalgia on Chloe's face, they couldn't not. Dana was a kind and empathetic soul who picked up easily on the hesitancy on Chloe's part in naming whoever this friend was. Juliet had no such compunctions.

"Who was your friend?"

Juliet was kind of nosy.

Chloe just shrugged. She was tempted to stay quiet, but... to her mind, it wasn't like it mattered. The girl had left, so... "Max. Her name was Max."

Juliet opened her mouth to ask something more, but shut it immediately after Dana jabbed an elbow into her side. Chloe felt a little spark of grateful satisfaction. She quickly mentally shouted that shit down. She was Chloe Price! She wasn't going to be grateful to anyone for any kind of emotional bullshit!

Still. After a moment's thought... maybe it wouldn't hurt to tell a story or two?

"There was this one time we were pirates, and-"

"-and the priest was fucking furious. Needless to say, that shit got us hella excommunicated." She paused for a moment, then added wryly. "Mom was furious. Grounded us for a whole year."

Dana and Juliet exchanged utterly disbelieving looks, then stared at Chloe for a full ten seconds. The girl shifted uncomfortably under their gaze, only settling when Dana broke eye contact with a facepalm. "Oh my God, you're not joking."

Chloe shrugged. "No need to joke, Danesy-" Dana let out a small 'ew' and shuddered. "-this shit is good enough all on its own."

They smelled the next horror first. One can't really mistake the smell of burning flesh. The trappings of such a fate seem to be something ingrained into us on a basic, primal level. As the river disappeared into the forest once more, the thick treeline along both sides of the road thinned enough that they could see the burning campsite littered with corpses to their left. Nothing and nobody stirred there. Chloe gulped, shook her head, and continued in a slightly forced tone, "You wanna hear about the time we accidentally stuck my Grade School Math Teacher's car to the ceiling of the principal's office?"

Both Dana and Juliet knew what she was trying to do, and thankfully grasped the thread like a drowning man would grasp a life preserver. "How do you do that accidentally?"

"Well, we were supposed to get the Principals car, but we kinda... missed."

Adi laughed. "Sounds like they were a nightmare."

The Stranger just gave a wicked little smirk. I guess she knew whoever this Max was personally? "That would be an understatement. The scourge of Arcadia Bay, those two were. Their pirate theme was driven by more than just an appreciation for eyepatches." (AN3)

Chloe bore right, catching David's muscle car finally catching up to her in the side mirror. They passed the Legend Garage, which seemed entirely untouched by the destruction that had covered the rest of the forest, and continued onward past the small community of Glenwood. Chloe had the unfortunate realisation that the Garage being untouched probably meant the town hadn't been.

When they reached the small line of shops at the road into the town and found them a pile of ash and embers, she knew she'd been right.

They continued south, all three far quieter than anyone who'd known them would expect they could be.

The next stretch of road had more houses and services on, everything from a gas station to a micro-brewery restaurant, and the destruction only seemed to mount the further along the road they got. The thinning treeline along the roadside let them get a good look at each and every last one. They stayed quiet. They didn't know what to say. There wasn't much they could say. They just kept driving on.

Eventually the treeline thinned out almost completely to their right, opening out into a wide space filled intermittently with various houses and farm buildings. Well. The remnants of those buildings, anyway. The large piece of metal in the road with 'ane' spraypainted on, along with the blackened mount by the side of the road with barely legible 'prop' let them know what had caused that particular damage. Chloe wondered faintly whether it'd been a zombie, or a human trying to fight them that'd destroyed the tank of flammable gas.

It wasn't until they passed Dorman Pond that they came to a problem.

"Well, shit. What the fuck do we do now?"

The road separated into two; the Wilson River highway continued to the left, and to the right Gales Creek road continued Southward. Their original plan had been to take the Wilson River highway along to Sunset, where they could take Highway 26 down until they hit Portland. The large, still-burning hole in the road, along with the various wrecks of cars and other vehicles surrounding the exploded hunk of metal that looked to have been a fuel truck prior to its violent and fiery death, had put something of a wrench into that particular plan.

The area was littered with many, many bodies, both burned and not.

Chloe swerved to a halt and poked her head out of her window, looking behind them and calling out. "Hey, Davey! What do you wanna do about this shit?"

David's muscle car pulled up next to her and he gave her a grimace. "There's no damn way we're gettin' around that. Not without chopping a buncha trees down." There was also the river, which would make traversing the rough terrain around the road even harder. He poked his head back into the car. "Mrs Amber? Check the map, see if there's any way we can go back and head around this mess."

A few moments passed with nothing but rustling before Rose answered. "There's no way around, unless we head South. If we go through Forest Grove, we can head north along the Nehalem Highway." There's another rustle. "At that point though, it might be more practical if we simply continued heading east. We could rejoin Sunset Highway in Cedar Hills here." David peered down at the map for a few moments, presumably to Chloe following the route and trying to work out any other way. David always was the type to do that. Don't trust, always verify. And to her, always try prove his superiority.

When he found nothing, or found nothing better, he nodded. "Right then. You catch that, Chloe?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "I'm not deaf, dude. Yeah, I caught that. We're goin' south, then east, then we follow a highway down into Portland."

Chloe thought he seemed almost disappointed. His face was doing something weird, anyway. Might as well be disappointment to the embittered girl. She'd never gotten anything else from him. "Good."

They turned onto Gales Creek road and headed south, expectant and prepared that they'd see far worse before they found Rachel. Though Chloe and Dana both (secretly) held onto some small hope that turning off the highway would mean they'd be going where the zombies hadn't.

Hell, maybe they'd even find someone alive.

AN1 - So, I realised Dana had absolutely no reason to go with the group as it stood, what with having no particular ties to any of them or reason to get out of town and not help out her friends and acquaintances. To resolve that, I decided to take the threat of Michael Bay-ing the entire state and helping her friend out. Pretty sure that's a decent enough motivation, huh? :) It's also probably what would actually happen.

Mass Quarantine hasn't ever really been done more than a dozen times and only then on way smaller populations than an entire state and it's pretty much always been controversial, especially in a country where the rights of the individual are so highly emphasised. Most of the laws on quarantine in the US that I've read all have bits saying 'the minimum restrictions' or 'the least restrictive means necessary' and the like. In the states, a country where people are still crowing about their right to own weaponry even in the face of dead children, I imagine the outcry over a quarantine would be... significant and enthusiastic in the early days of a zombie outbreak. Until someone initiated martial law, of course, then the second amendment (along with all other laws) would be suspended pending military approval. Historically, most of these actions were taken and rationalised legally later, but doing it in the modern period of debate and worldwide instantaneous communication would probably lead to a lot of public commentary. If you're interested in any details, I got most of my research from 'The Final Rule for Control of Communicable Diseases: Interstate and Foreign' on the CDC website. Warning, there is a shitload of legalese in there.

Perhaps ironically though, the actions of those crazy gun-totin' nutbags who value their firearms over other people's children would probably be faster than the military itself. They live locally, and tend to know one another due to NRA or Gun Range memberships and organisations. The US Military is not a fast moving entity. Even the National Guard (local military-ish forces) take 72 hours minimum to give a primary response. What appears to us to take days will have been planned for and prepared for weeks or even a month in advance. Logistically, quarantining a state would be a nightmare. Most of the Domestic Military forces are housed in the south (along with the CDC itself), which is probably why most zombie things are set there. Moving enough soldiers to block off an entire state (approx. 200 people per civilian in the target area) would be hard enough, moving all the logistical and supply crap to keep them there for longer than a day would be even worse. It takes about six people to maintain a single helicopter, for example, and that's just the wrench monkeys and mechanics and so on. Then you need people to look after the fuel and find the extra parts, someone to look after (and find) a landing area, etc etc. It all mounts up. Things like Cloverfield where the army shows up in a couple of hours would never, ever happen. It'd take longer than that to do the bloody paperwork ordering them to move. Militias made up of these second amendment types to augment the National Guard response would probably be able to do more faster than the military would.

That's really the main problem. Time. No matter how effective your weaponry or invulnerable your armour, it takes time to make things happen and that means the disease has all that time to spread unchecked. Personally, I think the Triage Quarantine approach of things like The Last of Us would be the most effective. Stick all the uninfected people in a box and wait it out, sending troops out every so often to bomb/shoot the shit out of the hordes in hopes of speeding the wait up a bit. Far quicker to organise, far easier to contain, and thus, far more effective.

Huh. Y'know, I think this might've become less of an AN and more of an AM (#AuthorlyMusing). Egad, I fuckin' ramble sometimes. Apologies. Back to the story, y'all!

AN2 - America, you totally missed out on a great spice pun here. Still cannot believe you don't call them 'oregano-nians'. :D

AN3 - I really like the idea that the OG game's Max-calms-Chloe-down and Chloe-drives-Max-to-Criminality thing was something that happened in their youth, too. It's a delightful dynamic and I imagine that it'd be far cuter than the game was, being prior to the events that caused of all Chloe's crippling depression and insecurity.