Chapter I: Outbreak

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Ooookay. Did not notice that today wasn't Tuesday. Sorry 'bout that, y'all. It's just this one today, anyway. The others are all nearly done, but I'm not quite satisfied enough to upload them. Yadda, yadda, usual plan holds, yadda yadda. Enjoy.

So, finally finished this one. I had completed it before, but I came up with a better idea (better IMO, anyway) and decided to rewrite it. Like I said in the summary, it's sort of based on a little bit of everything, really. A little Walking Dead (s1 of the game and the series), a little Last of Us, some World War Z (Book and Movie), a dash of Zombieland, a shitload of Resident Evil, even a little bit of Alan Wake (Counting the shadow-peeps as zombies, sort of. Btw, if you haven't played Alan Wake, I HIGHLY recommend you do. It's one of the most fun and involving narratives I've played in a video game ever. So damn good. Plus, the music is fricking awesome too. Poets of the Fall/'Old Gods of Asgard' are amazing.)

The vaguely monologue-style is kind of an experiment, so let me know how that goes. I'm not entirely keen on it. It's hard to keep a consistent Max-voice going backwards and forwards between her telling things from Chloe's perspective in the past and talking to the kids in the present. I'm pretty sure I drop into my own voice more than a few times during. It's why I like the first person perspective. The dominant character acts as the narrator and there's clear boundaries with the other characters. Makes it a lot easier to keep everyone separate and constant. If it's third person, the narrator becomes a new voice to think about, and the most dominant one. Even if it is technically Max speaking, it's not her viewpoint. I'm not sure if any of that makes sense, but hey. Anyways, that's where this one stands, so let me know what you think. And be honest. If it doesn't work, I either need to fix it or change it.

Ok, so, two new things to recommend/fangirl about today. Number One, American Gods. Like, Holy Fucking Crap that show is awesome. Speaking as a long-term fan of the book, they absolutely NAILED it. I haven't loved a TV adaptation of a book series this much since... well. Ever, really. Ricky Whittle and Ian McShane are absolutely fabulous. Whoever was the casting director for that show needs a raise or like, a statue or something. They're totally on point.

Second is a new game called Emily is Away Too. That's a homonym title, btw, too = two. The first game was hella short, but still damn good and this one built on the ideas of the first pretty darn well. Basically, the gist of both is that you're talking to folks over an old-school IM Service. Think Windows 2000-AOL messenger era stuff. Gave me the weirdest sense of nostalgia ever. One of the earliest things I can remember is using Meebo to chat with my friends. Anyways, one of the characters in the second one says Awesomesauce and Deuces and I immediately thought of good 'ole Chloe. They have the exact same 'authentic teen dialogue' that can only be written by 30-40 year old dudes. :D It's about £4.00 on steam and I definitely recommend it to any one of ya.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

There was a Stranger in town.

Well. Not IN town. Just near it. Two days ago, the Stranger had arrived and quietly set up camp a half mile away. They hadn't actually set foot inside the boundaries of Mamelodi Township once since then. They'd simply camped, and waited.

The gossip mill, starved for hot new topics, fixated on them immediately.

Everyone had something different to say about them.

Some people claimed they were a spy here from a rival town, others said they had it on good authority the Stranger was a saboteur aiming to destroy the town, others still dismissed them as just a wanderer trying to find a home. One genius claimed they were the embodiment of Death here to claim everyone in the town and that only he knew how to avert their wrath. He was drunk at the time, so very few people listened to him.

Everyone did agree on one thing.

The Stranger was dangerous.

Parents warned curious children, teachers warned nosy students. The elderly mostly warned each other. Every authority in the Township put forward every effort to keep people away from the Stranger.

Most people listened.

Of course, there's always one.

Or in this case, three.

The small group of teenage friends had been curious about the Stranger from the beginning. Or maybe they just liked disobeying authority. Either way, they made a plan, lied to parents, guards and friends and crept out of the Township after night fell.

Big problem with warning people to stay away from a particular area. That just means they know exactly where they need to sneak into.

"Ow! Fucking fence!" I yanked my hand away from the fence and scowled at the blood dripping down my... my... oh god. "Ow, ow, ow!"

Adi didn't even look back. "Shuttup!" He hissed. "You'll bring the fucking guards."

I glared at the asshole and stuck my bloody hand at him. It shook and wobbled all over the place, blurring so much I could barely focus on it. Was that actually my hand? Huh. "Don't tell me to shut up! That fucking fence stabbed me!" That really fucking hurts! It was weirdly distant, though. Like when you sit on your hand for too long and it feels like it's someone elses? Weeeeird. I think I might have drunk more than I realised.

"Calm your shit, Andrea." Adi pokes at the faint trickle of blood running down my fucking leg. "It's just a little blood."

I gaped at him. Condesc... candescending... Asshole! "Just a little blood?! My hand is fucking red, you bastard!"

He scowled at me. "Andrea, you gotta shut up or you really will bring the guards over. You wanna do this, we gotta do it now and we gotta be fucking quiet, okay?"

I immediately shut up, shaking my head frantically. No way I wanted that to happen. Not with all the stories. Adi's brother had brought the guards over. Nobody had seen him in years. "No, no, nononono. No guards. We've gotta do this Adi! Right, Ozz?"

I turned to my little brother questioningly and kind of desperately. I say little brother. Ozz towered over both me and Adi like a big friendly giant. He smirked and shrugged, saying nothing like usual. I nodded. Right then. "See? Ozz agrees we gotta do this now!"

Adi sighs. "Fine, fine. Just be quiet and as soon as we're away from the fence, we'll take a look at that, okay?"

I nod. "Okay, Adi. Okay." Why did the bastard have to be so reasonable? It's not fair. He'd had as much of that bottle as I had. I think. Maybe? I tried to remember how much I'd had, but the memory drifted away every time I got close. Damn it.

He waves at me. "Andrea, hey? Anyone there?" He frowns, his usual annoyingly patronising concern all over his face. "How much did you drink?"

I shrug. "I dunno. Don't really remember."

He sighs. "Okay, well, come on then."

We keep walking.

I look down at my bandaged hand as we walk. "This is awesome, Adi! Working with the med centre is totally working out for you, isn't it?"

He shrugs, but I can see him hiding a smile. "It's fun. Sabahat is a good teacher."

We chat for a while about it, just enjoying the feeling of being outside the township, of being free, until Ozz suddenly clamps a hand down on both our shoulders and pulls us to the ground. When we look back at him, he nods forward. Cool, we're here!

We peer through the bushes and spot... huh. "Well, they don't LOOK dangerous." Adi mutters.

They really didn't. The Stranger was kind of... small. They had their hood up, so we could only see the bottom half of their face. They were just sitting in front of a fire, staring at it. They poked at it a couple of times with a stick, too. Adi turns to me. "Okay, now what?"

I stare at him. "What do you mean, 'now what'? This was your idea!"

He shrugs. "I didn't think we'd get this far. I was sure someone would stop us."

I open my mouth to retort and... that's when I notice Ozz is standing up behind us. We look up at him, then follow his eyeline to... oh, fuck. The Stranger is looking right at us. They lean back and their coat falls open, letting us see the gun on their hip. "Hi there."

We all freeze for a second. I have no idea what the other two are thinking, but I'm trying to work out how far I can run before they pull out that gun. Adi sticks up a hand. "Uh. Hi?"

The Stranger tilts their head. They look at each one of us, one after the other, then smiles as they look at Ozz. They don't smile at me or Adi. "So, what brings you kids out here at this time of night?"

Adi and I exchange a quick glance and he steps forward."Uh... um, I... that is, we..." He stops and frowns. I laugh and it sounds high and awkward. Where did the confident Adi go? I've never heard him this... stuttery. "We heard you knew how it started. They won't tell us anything, back in the township. About how the virus started."

The Stranger stares at us silently for a few seconds, then reaches up and pulls their hood down.

I think I might've gasped. That might've been Adi though. She's old! Her hair is greyer than my fucking roof. My eyes immediately go to the scar running down her face from her temple through her right eye down to her jaw. "Well, it's true. I know the story. It's been a while, but I still remember it."

She grins widely, obviously picking up on the fact that we're all immediately captivated. "You sure you want to hear it?"

We don't even pause. All three of us nod our heads and walk forward (stumble forward in my case) and plop down next to her fire. Her grin gets bigger. "Okay then."

The Stranger settles back again, poking at the fire with her stick. After a few seconds of shifting ashes around she nods, apparently satisfied. I have no idea why. Then, she starts "It all began one evening, back in 2013..."

"Get your hands off me, you fucking pig!" The girl growled, drunk on a mix of self-hatred and 10 dollar vodka, yanking her hands away from the cop every time he made a grab for them. Her tangled mess of electric-blue hair fluttered in the light breeze blowing through the alley they were in.

The officer sighed, already exhausted. They'd danced to this tune before. Oregon had no drunk and disorderly laws (AN: This is weirdly actually true. Oregon towns are actually prohibited from penalising or criminalising it in any way.), but Chloe got destructive when she was drunk. Nearly every bartender in the bay had his number on speed-dial. "Come on, Chloe. Just make this easy for us, just this once. You're banned from enough bars here already. Do you really want to be banned from this one too?"

Chloe spat in his face and tried to dodge around him, aiming to get back to her truck parked in the near-empty lot across from the bar he'd just pulled her out of. "Get away from me!"

He moved to block her path, keeping her drunk ass corralled easily. They both matched in height, but he had bulk and muscle to go along with it. "Chloe. You're not driving like this. I owe your old man too much to let you do something so obviously stupid."

Heh. That was a stupid thing to say. There was nothing Chloe hated more than being told what to do.

So she hit the douchebag.

Officer Bell caught her fist on the second strike and smoothly wrestled her into a pair of handcuffs, reciting her Miranda Rights as he did. Two minutes later, she was in the back of the cruiser being driven to the police station, cussing Bell out the entire dogdamn time.

"Name."

Chloe scoffed. "You know my name, fuckwit."

Bell sighed again, putting down his pen, glaring darkly over the desk at her. He pointedly didn't mention her feet propped up on the desk. "Why do you have to make everything so difficult, Chloe?"

She crossed her arms and glared at him like a petulant six year-old. "Why the fuck not?"

Bell scowled and scribbled down a few more notes before closing the file. It was thicker than her school-file. Chloe had a penchant for raising trouble, which had lead to a list of petty crimes longer than her arm. "Fine, Chloe. Fine. I tried, for your dad's sake, but if you want to fuck up your life this badly, I'm not going to stop you." He stood up, moving over to the door. He threw an expectant look back to her. "Come on. We'll put you in a cell for the night. See what you think tomorrow morning."

Chloe didn't move, staying slouched in her chair. Bell's scowl deepened. "Chloe..."

When she still didn't move, he swiped at her feet, knocking them off the desk. "Move it. Now."

With a sigh, she swung herself out of the chair and trailed after him down the corridor leading to the cells. I wasn't there, but I'm pretty certain she'd have been muttering swearwords the entire time.

The jail in Arcadia Bay was pretty small, and pretty old. It still had bars instead of doors. He lead her up to the first of two cells and gestured for her to go in. She complied, still grumbling and muttering.

The door slid shut behind her with a clang. She followed Bell through the bars with her eyes as he left, swearing under her breath at 'that fucking bastard cop'. Biting off another curse, she paced back and forth across her cell in frustration, kicking at each wall when she reached it.

When she finally got tired of that, she spun and slumped down on the cot. "You've fucking done it now, Price."

"She sounds like a bitch." I immediately clap my hands over my mouth. "Oh god."

The Stranger laughs, completely unoffended. "She really was. I won't make excuses for her, but she had her reasons for being that way." She takes a deep breath. "We all have people in our lives who act as... the brick and mortar for who we are. These people are..." She pauses as she thinks over what she's saying. "so... completely vital to us, that we take their existence for granted. When they're suddenly not there, we just... collapse into rubble. Chloe lost two of those people. Both suddenly." She trails off with a sigh and just sits, staring into the fire.

I sat back for a second, thinking that over. Adi immediately butted in. His fucking curiosity. "What are Miranda Rights?"

She shakes her head and blinks, flicking her head up to look at him. "Do they not have those in the township? What happens if the guards need to interrogate someone?"

Adi shakes his head. "No. If the Authority wants to know something from you, they take you and they make you talk."

The Stranger snorts. "Hmph. Wowzers." Adi and I exchange a look. He mouths "Wowzers?" at me. I muffle my giggle. "They'd never have done that before the outbreak. The Miranda Rights said that you didn't have to talk, you had the right to legal council and..." She rattles off a list of 'rights', each one more outlandish than the rest. (AN: Post-apocalyptic civilisations always go rather uncivilised, don't they? It's a tad disappointing.)

Adi's mouth drops open. "You didn't have to talk to the guards?" He stares disbelievingly at The Stranger.

She shrugs. "Not if you didn't want to. In the US, anyway. I don't know if they had the same rights here. They were very important at the time. A few people went free because the cop who arrested them didn't read them their rights beforehand."

Adi leans back and stares off into the distance. I put my hand on top of his, trying to be, I don't know, comforting or something, I guess. After what happened to his brother, hearing how it used to be (Apparently used to be. I fucking doubt it.) had to be bugging him.

The Stranger watches us quietly for a second, then goes back to her story.

A rough voice woke her up a couple of hours later.

"Stupid asshole. I'm gonna need a shitload of stitches thanks to this fuck."

Chloe cracked open one eye and watched two cops drag an unconscious guy through the cell corridor. Neither of them were Bell. She recognised one as Juarez. He was the other veteran at the station. The other cop was a kid, barely older than she was. "That was fucking insane. I mean, he bit you!"

Juarez rolled his shoulder. "It'll be fine, Ian. I'll just head over to the hospital once we get this guy processed. Can probably bill the department for it."

They took the guy into the next cell and dumped him on the pallet-bed in a heap. He drooled on the pallet, blissfully unconscious. The guy reeked of cheap booze, like he was sweating out a whole frakking distillery.

Chloe lay there and watched him, listening to the two cops bicker as they left. His mouth was covered in blood.

"You got a visitor, Chloe." A rough voice woke her up for the second time. She opened her eyes to see Juarez opening her cell door.

"What?"

He sighed, clearly hella annoyed by having to deal with her and making no effort to hide it. Juarez was after her dad's time, so he felt no obligation to put up with her shit. "Come on. Time's wastin' and I don't wanna waste my overtime on you."

She glared and opened her mouth to retort, but something made her think better of it. With an irritated sigh, she pulled herself up off the pallet and ambled to the visitor room. She knew the way. Down the hall, through the break room, across the hall of offices and turn right.

She kept her eyes flickering over everything as she walked through, just in case. The cops had never given her that hard a time, but there was a first time for everything. The place was almost silent as she walked though. Arcadia Bay had about a dozen officers and maybe a third of them were on duty at that moment, so she never saw anyone. Apart from Juarez' footsteps behind her, the only noise she heard was the news playing on the breakroom TV. "...scott Foundation Laboratories here in Portland have mysteriously shut down. After noise complaints, officers behind me were unable to contact the owners and are now attempting to breach the building in order to investigate..."

The woman waiting for her had a scowl darker than the deep ocean. Chloe didn't say a word as she came, just ambled over and swung herself into the chair opposite her visitor.

After a couple of quiet, tense moments, she smirked. "Hey Mom. Come to visit your delinquent waste of space daughter again?"

Joyce sighed. "I said that once, Chloe, and I apologised for it."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Sure, 'cause saying fucking sorry makes everything better."

"Why do you always gotta be so damn difficult with everythin', Chloe?"

"I dunno, Mom, 'cause shit is so damn difficult with me?" Chloe fired back. The venom in her voice could kill a snake.

Joyce frowned, stared sadly at her only child for a few quiet seconds, then sighed. "I know you've still not gotten past what happened to your dad, but doing this over and over don't help anybody, kid."

Chloe flipped her mom off and, as usual, started talking without thinking. "Fuck off, Joyce." She spat. "You don't get to talk like that about dad, not with fucking Step-douche in the picture."

Joyce's mouth dropped open. Dog, If there was a line, Chloe had passed it a mile ago at a fucking sprint. Her face tightened and the glare she gave Chloe could've melted steel. I'd only been on the receiving end of it once and I had nightmares for a month afterward. "Chloe. Elizabeth. Price. Apologise. Now."

Remember how I said Chloe didn't like to be told what to do? The minute Joyce tried it, she bristled and pulled up her defences, jumping to her feet and yelling into her mom's face. "No! You don't get to talk shit about me remembering Dad when you're screwing that asshole in his fucking house!"

Joyce stared at her daughter mutely for a few seconds, then her shoulders slumped. She shook her head and then, without saying anything, turned and walked out of the room.

Chloe watched her leave, then sighed. "Damnit." She gently knocked her head on the table and muttered, her voice barely audible. "Damnit."

The cops took her back to her cell a few minutes later.

(AN: That was not fun to write. A: I don't like writing that sort of conflict, B: I'm pretty bad at it. I'm a calm person in real life and I can't even remember the last time I raised my voice, never mind talked to someone like that.)

"She said that to her Mom?" My mouth drops open even further than Adi's had. "I'd get my fucking hide tanned if I talked to my Mom like that!"

The Stranger snorts. "Joyce was a fucking saint, she really was. I have no idea how she dealt with Chloe being like this for that long."

I shuffle around trying to get comfortable on the ground. "How long was she like that?"

The Stranger thinks. "By then, probably about five years."

Wow... We all sit in silence for a few seconds until the Stranger frowns again. "Now, where was I? Oh yeah..."

She blinked and she found herself in a room. A room she recognised. There was a couch, a dining table, a TV next to a door to the garage.

Her front room...

She frowned, confused. Wasn't she just..? But..? How?

A man walked in through the door. He was tall, had strawberry blond hair and an easy smile. As soon as she saw him, Chloe's mouth dropped open. "D... dad?"

William grinned. "Hey kiddo. How was your morning? You and Max having fun?"

She looked down and found her body had changed. She was young again. In place of her short blue hair and tank tops, she had long blonde hair down her back and a fuzzy Arcadia Bay jumper. She looked up and stared blankly at her dad. "D..dad?"

He laughs. "Did you and Max get into your Mom's wine again?" When Chloe just stared blankly at him without responding, he grinned and waved over her eyes. "Uh, Chloe? Hellooo? You okay? Still with me?"

She dashes forward and wraps her arms around his middle. William laughs and bends down to look at her. "Chloe? Why did you let me die?"

Chloe's head shoots up and she meets William's eyes. Instead of blue, they're pure black as he stares down at her. "You could've saved me, told me to stay, done something to stop it. But you let me die." His head tilts inquisitively. "Why did you let me die, Chloe?"

She backs away from him. "I... I didn't! Dad, you know I didn't want any of this shit to happen!"

He walks forward, step by step, forcing her back against the wall. When she can't move back any further, he leans in and smiles. "It's all your fault."

She woke up suddenly, sitting bolt upright. Her breaths were coming in quick, short little bursts of panic as her mind ran through the events of her nightmare over and over.

After a few minutes of panic, she started to notice the mess, the flashing lights, and the complete lack of noise.

Daylight streamed through a hole in one of the two windows occupying the wall next to the door to the rest of the station. The door of the cell next to hers, the one the drunk guy had been in, had been ripped off its hinges and was lying in the middle of the room in a mangled heap.

The rest of the room wasn't much better.

The jail officer's desk had been pushed up against the door, random crap was thrown all over the place and, most importantly, it was utterly silent.

Until Chloe opened her mouth. "What the fuck?"

Her articulately-phrased question went unanswered by the empty room.

She pulled herself up from the cot and skittered over to the door.

Locked, of course.

Just her fucking luck, right?

She shook her head, trying to clear the 'just-woken-up-teenager' fog and focused. Sitting in a cell and starving to death wasn't gonna help her find out what had happened, so she needed to get out.

Her easiest way out was to find the keys.

She took a quick look around the room and didn't spot them. Wherever the cops had gone, they'd taken the keys with them.

"Shit." She sighed, bitching about her crappy lot in life for a few seconds. She complained a lot back then.

Time for plan B. She took a deep breath in... and screamed as loud as she could. "HELP!"

The second she did, something lurched over in the corner. "Chl... Chloe? You're still here?"

What she thought was just a pile of trash in the corner rose slowly and stumbled over to her cell. It was Bell.

Chloe looked the officer over, noting his torn clothing and the blood almost everywhere on him. "Dude. You look like shit."

Bell grinned. "Yeah. Turns out..." He coughs for a second. "Turns out I'm not as quick on my feet as I used to be. Heh. He-heh." He laughs wheezily for another few seconds until it turns into a racking cough that shakes through his entire body. "Goddamn, that guy got me good."

Chloe reaches forward and wraps her hands around a couple of the bars. "What the shit happened in here, dude? It looks like a fucking tornado tore through this place."

He shakes his head, swallows a third cough. "I... I don't know, Chloe. I... Juarez and..." He shakes his head again. "They went crazy," He coughs again. "they attacked me, and Ian... Fuuuck." He trails off, staring numbly off into the distance.

Now, Chloe is... unobservant at the best of times, but even she noticed that Bell was not exactly on the right side of sanity. Whatever had happened had obviously affected him. She doubted his story though.

I mean, his partner attacking him?

That was crazy.

Right?

"Do you have the keys? You need to get me out of here, dude."

He looks up at her for a second, then nods as his eyes focus on her. "Uh, yes, yes I do. One second." He quickly pulled out a ring of keys and, after a second or two fumbling with them, unlocks the door.

The minute the door opened, Chloe scurried out, getting as far from the cell as she could. A life on the wrong side of the law had taught her to be wary of cops and there was no way she wanted to go back in there. "Okay, so. What do we do?"

Bell shakes his head. "I don't know. I tried calling out, but I didn't get anything. I think the line is disconnected."

"Shit." She stares at Bell. "Do you have, like, a first aid kit around here or anything? Should probably bandage that hella soon." She nods towards the cut across his chest that was starting to gently ooze blood.

He nods, then grimaces as pain shoots through him. "Yea... Aargh. Damn. Yeah, we do. It's out there though."

She turns towards the desk "So let's go get it then!"

She gets two steps before Bell's hand shoots out and grabs her. "No! We can't go out there! Juarez and..."

Chloe's answering scowl was clear enough. He lets go of her and steps back. "Look, Bell..." She frowns. "What the hell is your first name, anyway?"

"Fox."

"Your first name is Fox?"

He smirks. "Mom was a big X-Files fan."

Ooookay... "Right, Bell. It's all gonna be fine. We're gonna go out there, be hella quick, grab the kit and get back here before you, like, bleed to death or get an infection or something."

He opens his mouth to talk, but Chloe doesn't wait to listen and instead starts pushing the desk away from the door. He protests, obviously, but she ignores him until the door is clear enough for her to squeeze out. "Look, dude. Just stay here if you want, I don't care. But I'm gonna go and grab it, then we can get you to a fucking hospital or something before you bleed out."

She slides out into the corridor. The destruction in the cells was replicated out there too, doors smashed, windows shattered and mess everywhere. Bell slid out after her. "Come on, let's get this over with quickly. Maybe we'll be able to avoid them."

He guided her along the corridor to the breakroom at a slow pace. When they reached the door, he put out a hand to stop her. "Wait. They might be in there."

She rolls her eyes, still not entirely taking his warnings of danger seriously. I mean, would you? He claimed his coworker and a prisoner had attacked him and created all the destruction around them. But, she was not in the mood to argue, so she played along and waited as he opened the door and peeked in. "Nothing. They're not here. Thank God."

She pushed past him and headed into the breakroom. Tables had been smashed, chairs torn to pieces... Whatever had gone on in the cells had passed through here on its way out.

They breezed through, Chloe stepping confidently and Bell creeping through, jumping at every little sound. Since the station was so deathly quiet, every sound echoed and sounded a lot louder than it usually would.

Bell directed them through to a storage locker tucked away in the back of the station. There was a single door leading to a chained security fence with a solid gate, which Bell input the code to and let them in. She immediately went for the first aid kit.

Bell went for the guns.

"Dude. You really think we need those?"

He nods. "Absolutely. They're not getting me this time." He took a shotgun and a series of bullets and cartridges, stowing them away in various pockets.

She shook her head and, when she could get him to sit down and still, went to clean and bandage as much of him as she could. He had three long gashes across his chest and bite marks across his shoulder. Each one was a sickly reddish colour, almost brown, like rust. To his credit, Bell barely winced when she applied the antiseptic.

Chloe had taken a first aid course when she was younger, so she knew what to do. Her hands deftly moved through the necessary steps. When she'd finished, she stepped back from Bell. "Done."

After a quick stretch, Bell nodded. He smiled at her. "Thanks, Chloe. Now we get out before we get attacked. I think I can get us to the door quietly." He started walking towards the armoury exit. "Let's go." Now he'd been patched up, Bell seemed more himself again.

Chloe didn't follow, going to pick up a gun instead. "Do you even know how to use one of those?"

She shrugged. "Point and pull the trigger. How hard can it fucking be?"

"No." Bell was clear. "You'll just hurt yourself, or worse. Me. Leave it to the professionals, Chloe."

After a hard glare, Chloe agreed, but begrudgingly. "Fine. Let's go."

Satisfied, Bell turned and lead the way out of the room. He didn't notice the handgun Chloe snuck into her jacket.

They crept through the offices, avoiding the main hub of the station. "Open spaces," Bell said. "are a bad idea when you don't know where the bad guys are. They can see you, but you can't see them."

So, they stuck to the corridors. Until they ran out of corridors. Bell stopped them at a nondescript door. "Right. It's just a short distance from here to the front." He takes a deep breath. "We're going to have to be very, very quiet, you understand me? Juarez and the other one... they got set off by loud noises."

At this point, Chloe was willing to go along with anything. To her, he might as well have been babbling on about monsters in the dark, but he had the gun, so she indulged him. "Okay. I can be hella quiet."

He eyed her.

"Hey! I can!" She growled, immediately proving his point.

Another glare shut her up. Nothing would be served by standing around. "Just... let's go."

Bell took the lead, holding the shotgun out in front of him. He crept out into the corridor, then took an immediate left into the back office. All the lights in the room had been smashed.

Bell's face fell when he saw the state of the other door in the room. Everything had been stuffed into it, leaving it bursting like a badly made wrap. There was no way they were getting through. "Fuck." It was barely a whisper.

He waved a hand and they went back to the office corridor. "We're not getting out that way." He took a deep breath. "We're going to have to go through the hub."

Chloe shrugged. She didn't care where they went, as long as they got out. "Fine. Let's go that way." When Bell opened his mouth, she held up her hand. "I fucking know, dude. Stay quiet. I get it." She started walking. "Let's get on with it already."

She lead the way this time, sneaking towards the main room, confident there was nothing there. Bell had his shotgun raised the entire time. When they reached the main hub, they stuck to the edges, trying to stay out of view of anyone upstairs. It was a weirdly big room for such a small station. Shattered tables and desks covered the centre of the floor like giant toothpicks. The door they needed was in the opposite corner to the one they came through, in a slightly recessed corridor.

Bell grinned as they closed on the door to the reception. "We're almost there!" He hissed. "Just a little further..."

That's when they noticed the two figures standing between them and the door.

"Walkers..." I barely breathed the words, but The Stranger still heard me.

She smiled. "Have you ever seen any?" She looked up at Ozz, who shook his head as I did.

Adi stuck up his hand. "I did, once."

I turned and stared at him. My eyebrow shot up so fast it almost ripped itself off my face. "No way you did."

He glared back. "I did!"

I snorted. No fucking way, Adi. "Fine, go on then. When did you see a walker?"

"Two winters ago. They attacked the farms. Dad told me to hide, but..." He grins, that annoying Adi smile. "I didn't. I watched the whole fight."

The Stranger just watches him for a second. Adi's mouth creases and his shoulders sag. "I didn't see the whole thing." He admits. "My Dad and the other workers, they handled the regular ones okay. But then this..." He trails off, trying to work out how to describe whatever the thing was he'd seen. "big, black one appeared. It looked like a big, lanky scorpion, but if it only had two legs. It screamed and I couldn't keep watching. My head hurt, I could barely keep my eyes open."

The Stranger nodded. "A Squealer. They drive infected near them crazy. They get stronger, faster and more aggressive. I can imagine what happened next."

Adi nods. "Yeah. Nearly everyone there died. My dad was the one who finally got it. That was when he insisted I go to the medbay and learn there, instead of working with him."

The Stranger's mouth curled up in this weird smirk. It wasn't like one of Adi's, just a quick flash of humour and gone. Hers looked like she'd bitten a lemon. "That's good. People always need doctors. Now, back to the story. There's still a lot to tell."

They both froze, but it was too late. Two sets of yellowy-red eyes turned towards them. Bell moved first, raising his shotgun and firing shot after shot at them. The rounds hit one's shoulder, tearing it open and sending it spinning. It let out a quick shriek as its shoulder was turned into squishy icky mush and hit the ground hard. The other had its gut torn open and landed on the ground, twitching and burbling.

Bell didn't wait, opting to grab Chloe and push her towards the door leading to the reception. "Don't stop! They're not down!"

True enough, the two walkers were still writhing, and the first one had already started to climb to its feet. It did have some difficulty, having only one arm, but it was already on its knees.

Chloe just ran. She hadn't believed Bell, thinking he was crazy, and now she was worrying about her own sanity. That was why she didn't notice he wasn't there until she was nearly out. She whirled, spotting Bell leaning against the solid reception desk standing in the middle of the room. The door to the hub was closed. "Dude, what the fuck are you doing? We've got to go!"

He coughs. "I'm d... doing my job. I can't keep up, Chloe. If you stay at my speed, those things will get both of us."

Chloe starts back to grab him. "So we'll run faster! Or you can give me a gun and we'll shoot them. You fucking idiot, those things will kill you!"

"It's my job, Chloe." He raises the shotgun to point at the door, which was now shaking under repeated impacts. "Protect and serve." He grit his jaw and glares at her. "You have got to go." He pulls out a set of keys and throws them over. "You can take my car to get back into town."

Chloe catches the keys and stares down at them in her hand. "But..."

"Go!" He shoves her towards the exit as the frail wooden door explodes inwards, shards of wood going everywhere as the walkers stumble in.

One of the walkers stumbles right into Bell, who manages to push him back with the body of the shotgun. He fires at it until the clip empties, but it keeps coming.

Chloe watched, frozen, as the other walker latches onto Bell and takes a huge bite out of his shoulder, tearing it open. He managed to push the thing off, looses a few shots from the pistol at it, but they both kept coming. He spotted her still standing there and let out a yell "Run!" just as the walker came at him again.

Chloe ran.

She wasn't proud of it, but she ran.

She makes it to Bell's car on autopilot. She got in, turned the key and tore out of the car park, turning onto the road towards town. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck... What the shit am I supposed to do now?"

Her hands shook as she played what had happened over and over. "Bell got attacked by a... by a..."

She took a deep breath and admitted to herself what she'd seen. Zombies. Up until then she, and the rest of the world, had thought of Zombies as fiction.

Now she'd admitted it to herself, she found that... she still had no idea what to do. So, she did what Chloe always did when she was having trouble working out what to do.

She went to find Rachel.

"Who was Rachel?"

The Stranger smiled.