Chapter Text
Willamette Parkview Mall, Colorado.
September 22, 2006.
“..You collapsed on the roof.” A young lady nearby quietly sighed, observing the pained confusion spread all throughout the man’s face. Already knowing what the next words coming out of his mouth were going to be. Isabella Keyes had known him enough in these past 3 days to recognize it in his mannerisms, at least.
“I collapsed?” Frank’s eyes lowered, seeming to take that in a moment; the old memories a flash of dazed static in his mind.
“No.. I..” His eyes creased, rather heavy with the realization of it all. The rooftop, his ticket out of this hellish nightmare. Gone, before his eyes.
“I..” He brought a hand to his skull, pulsing with a raging headache at this point. His head and thoughts feverish; yet his skin remained uncomfortably cold. Clammy. He tried to focus, understand this impossible scenario beyond; ‘Do you know how shitty my last 3 days have been?’ and blame the exhaustion on fighting off dozens of maniacs, and zombies, and a government conspiracy plot that was way above his paygrade.
But it wasn’t that simple, and Frank West wasn’t stupid.
His hand lowered though, seeming to follow the quiet, ever-telling expression Isabella dawned. A look that a doctor would give a dying patient to a particularly awful diagnosis. Pitying, and in this horrific case all too revealing. “Does.. that mean..” Frank’s quiet voice dragged along, feeling like nails digging into his throat. His energy dipping slowly, as his exhausted eyes attempted to raise to an acceptable level of alertness.
Isabella arose from her seat on the hideout floor all too quickly, turning away from Frank. Expression impossible to read from this angle, but his imagination was already filling in the unfortunate blanks.
She suddenly turned, her expression a solemn proclamation of all of her knowledge thus far; aiming to ease his fear of the unknown by suddenly jutting the monster into the light instead. Frank just stared up at her. ‘Go ahead, just say it.’ His thoughts couldn’t help but just plead quietly.
“You..” Isabella lowered herself back down once more, eye level to the man as her tone dropped with every word. “.. You must have gotten yourself.. infected somehow..”
There it was.
Frank released a deflated sigh, a culmination of the air he wasn’t aware he had been holding in his throat. His chest, as his heart sank with it, even further. Infected. Infected. Just like the things that had killed his only line of support in this horrific place. His.. friends. Brad, and Jessie.. Ed too.
The quivering breath exhaling from his throat quaked slightly, as he felt himself chuckle. And then strangely.. Laugh. As if any of this was somehow funny. As his shaky hands slowly reached towards his head, cradling what little he was able to somehow preserve. Like his infected body was somehow going to tear off and exist without him. A mindless husk wandering Willamette until the military ultimately destroyed it all.
“The time between infection and zombification differs greatly from person to person..” Isabella explained, with all the sincerity of a parent explaining that the family dog had, ‘Gone to the little-doggy heaven in the sky.’ Unwilling to admit the dog was long, long gone. He was long, long gone. Roadkill, infected vermin- like a rabid timebomb-
Another laugh tried to expel itself from his twitchy throat, but as soon as it arrived, it sounded frantic, panicked at last.
“You’re lucky, Frank..” she comforted, leaning closer to the despondent journalist. “You seem to have a very high level of resistance.” Her tone more confident in that deduction, attempting to contrast the clear panic in Frank’s behavior.
“So.. uh..” the man began, sighing as more attempts of laughing escaped from his mouth. “..So what you’re saying..” his finger raised, “..Is that I get to spend longer waiting for the inevitable. Is that it?” Hand lowering slowly as his head followed suit.
“You know, I’m not sure.. ‘Lucky’ is the word I’d use.” His anguished smile deflated further, as if flabbergasted by the audacity of such a statement. Lucky. Great, he was going to die in the most agonizing, horrifying way possible. ‘If I’d known I’d be so lucky, I would have grabbed a lottery ticket at Seon’s.’ his fist clenched.
Growling as he threw his arms up in a defeated cry to the world; this god-awful mall. Eyes hard to see beyond the dark shades he often wore, especially in such a dark and dingy room like this. Ducked in the ceiling of an old mall, dusty, and smelling of rotten flesh, blood, and years old industrial paint.
He couldn’t help but just wildly state the first thing on his mind to this, amidst the now growing silence between them. “The ..helicopter crashed.” his head slowly turned towards Isabella’s form. Teeth gritting, as the already palpable reality stung even further. “No one’s coming to help us now.” His eyes slowly locked with hers.
“It’s over for us..” his head shook, eyes closing slowly as his hand raised to his head once more. Thoughts swimming with venom and spite, towards the world. Everyone and everything. “No matter what we do.” They were going to die, agonizing eternal deaths.
Yet.. Isabella stared ahead with a quiet rebellion. A white hot determination in an inky uncertain void.
“What.. if..” she began, turning towards Frank. “.. There was some way to impede the infection?” she asked aloud, eyes swimming with a bleak spark of hope. “If we could extract and administer a large dose of hormones from the corpus allatum of an adult queen..” she began fully, turning towards the man as her brain tried to focus.
“It would potentially hinder the growth of the larvae in your blood, slowing the zombification process.” She turned hurriedly, expression wider as she digested her own explanation.
Frank just sat there, stupified for a moment.
“....Hang on a sec,” his weak voice raised slowly, “I don’t understand a word of what you just said-” His body raising weakly from his seated position on the dusty carpet below. “What are we supposed to do?” Trying in vain to understand Isabella’s long scientific jargon.
“I’ll need certain supplies to get this to work, and queens..” she trailed off, glancing toward her brother Carlito’s computer; her own research in the room. “..As many as you can get your hands on.” Her tone emphasized a certain rare excitement.
Frank slowly arose, body weak as he was pulled up fully by Isabella. “Alright..” he sighed, “Sounds like a plan.” Feeling the ache of non-existence pulling on his very soul. A race against time.
“Sure beats sitting around here, waiting to die.”
.
.
.
.
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Hubbard Gulch, Nevada.
September 22, 2007.
“..Give me my good friend Jack, sir.” a fist lightly pounded against the bars table. The voice requesting grated and tired, yet retaining an amount of amused friendliness. Garbled in a clear drunken stupor, reeking of someone who had far too much to drink already. “We’re gonna need someone to carry you out if I get you another one.” the bartender cleverly responded back, cleaning a glass quietly as he saw another five dollar bill hit the table.
He observed it for a moment, as if in ponderance of its existence. It didn’t take much convincing though, as slowly he reached for it. Whistling, as he poured the man across the table another shot of liquor. “You sure your name ain’t Daniel?” came the scoff, watching the one across quickly shot the glass in a pained burning gulp.
“Nah.. I’m..” Hic- “I’m..” the older gentleman wrinkled his nose, whether in amusement or disgust was hard to truly decipher in his current condition. “Haahh.. Wow this is some good shit.” The gentleman chittered, a deep blush of rose on his face.
The bartender's face contorted, as if to respond to him before he was forcibly cut off.
“-Hey- wait, I know you!” came a voice nearby from a woman across the bar table. “You’re Frank West- on TV, you have that show-” she gawked, staring at the inebriated show host. “I saw your channel- the Un…– something-” she explained quickly, reveling perhaps in the mystical shadow of a celebrity being so close to her. “You saw those zombies didn’t you?” the lady prodded, seeming uncaring of the man across slowly getting up.
His face fell with every word, like she had just deeply insulted him.
“Hey, listen. ..lady, I’m not your.. private show pony.” he sniffed slightly, fingers gripping his nose as he felt how truly hot his face felt now. “Now.. if you cough up some cash, then I MIGHT consider telling.. you some old.. ‘war’ stories.” Frank grinned slightly, seeing the change in expression from the nosy lady across.
Muttering under her breath about, ‘Asshole.’ as he just drunkenly laughed in response, shaking his head as he dropped a few dollars to the table. “Thanks. .again.. Bud.” His head turned to the bartender. “Get home safe, Frank.” The drink server shook his head slightly, watching the hammered regular slowly stumble out of the bar. Nearly tripping off the doorway as he disappeared from immediate view.
“--ONe.. more thing- lady-” Hissed the gravely voice suddenly, a hand reaching in sight of the doorway. “The.. show is Uncovered, don’t hiC forget it-” as the hand flipped off the individuals residing inside the bar.
A grand total of two, but it sure felt impactful to him.
His footsteps blended with the noises outside, masking where he had gone.
. . . .
CRRAASHHH– went the sound of garbage cans colliding into the ground, being pushed by a rather obvious force.
“Man come-- on-” came the quiet hiss from Frank West, rubbing his side as he stumbled down the bleak alleyway.
He was gonna feel like death in the morning.