Chapter Text
People within a forty mile radius of Portland have been asked to evacuate due to the outbreak of a mysterious neurological virus that appears to allow the recently deceased to rise from the dead. The authorities have made no comment on the recent outbreak. Officials say that this is an isolated incident and that the outbreak is under control. Anyone who has visited the Portland area in the last ninety days is being asked to return report immediately to the St. Vincent hospital to be tested.
“I’m glad Portland wasn’t on our list,” Greg comments as his wife leans over to change the radio station.
“I called Brenda the other day. She says they transferred her to the cancer hospital just outside of Cedar Cove before the outbreak. I’m glad her and Rory weren’t infected, it sounds like a horrible disease.”
“Had to have scared doctors real bad. Can you imagine someone coming back to life like that?” Greg frowned. “What a world to live in.”
“I just hope everything is cleared up before school starts up,” Rita offered with a shake of her head. Greg turned to her slightly from his spot in the driver’s side, offering a reassuring smile.
“I’m sure this is a freak thing, things like this only happen in Casey’s science fiction comics.” Greg chuckled as Casey perked up from the back seat.
“As long as I’m the hero of the comic, I’m cool with that.” Casey grinned as Rita let out a little chuckle.
“Alright, enough talking about all that, let’s focus on our vacation before my babies go off to high school.”
Casey and Bailey couldn’t contain their excitement when their parents decided to take them on a vacation before school started. It was rare that they got to take long breaks from work since the family owned their own dinner; usually they couldn’t close for more than a day or two. Greg and Rita had been setting money aside so that they could take a real family vacation and were finally set to close the dinner for a full week. They surprised the twins with the vacation right after school had let out and scheduled to take the trip at the end of the summer as a final adventure before the twins started high school.
“Hey kiddos, you can see the hotel from here.” Greg announced as they drew closer to a beautiful looking hotel with “HOTEL KARLAN” written on the sign. Greg turned towards the valet stand, several other cars waiting in front of them as Casey and Bailey took in the sights of the hotel out of the car windows.
“Oh, dear look!” Rita suddenly gushed as she gestured to the car that had just pulled up to the valet. “A wedding party, do you remember when we got married here?”
Greg laughed. “I couldn’t forget that! That’s why I wanted to bring the kids here.”
“You got married here?!” Bailey squealed as Rita turned in her seat to smile at her children.
“We did, almost eighteen years ago now.” Rita smiled.
“We’re using this vacation as an excuse to scope out the old venue, maybe see if it’s good enough to renew our vows…” Greg offered with a slightly teasing voice. “Did you think we came on this vacation without a motive?”
Casey chuckled and shook his head. “I knew the vacation was suspicious. Bailey, you didn’t believe me!”
“Tricked again by the ‘rents,” Bailey joked as she snapped her fingers,. “Oh well, we’ll have to enjoy the vacation anyway.”
The four pull up to the front of the valet, getting out of the car and unloading the luggage as the bridesmaids laugh and take photos of each other and the venue. Bailey pulls her backpack over her shoulder as her father walks around the car to the college-aged kid standing at the pedistol. He looks rather bored and doesn’t say much as he takes Greg’s keys. Bright white marble floors and light colored walls greet them as they enter the lobby. The wedding party is spread across the open area, taking photos and talking with cheerful faces.
Bailey notices a man who looks like the groom talking to an elderly man who looks to have fallen ill. He sits on one of the couches and seems to be having trouble breathing.
“Poor man. I do hope he feels better before the wedding,” Rita said when she noticed what her daughter was looking at. “I can imagine it doesn’t feel good to be sick on such a big day.”
“ A video goes viral today regarding the ZB1 virus that had spread through Portland, Oregon.” A small group of people waiting in line turned to one of the TVs in the lobby as the news story played. “ The video shows a man as he reanimates from death. The video was allegedly taken from William Bee Ririe Hospital in Ely, Nevada. Authorities are stating that the video may have been staged, however, the disturbing nature of the video has people asking if the ZB1 virus is as contained as we’re lead to believe.”
“Can we turn that off?” A young man from the bridal party calls over to the desk clerk with an annoyed look. “We’re trying to celebrate here, we don’t wanna hear about this fake zombie shit.”
The young woman at the front desk only hesitates a moment before fumbling under the desk for the remote before changing the channel. A few of the people in line take out their phones as they wait.
“ZB1 virus my ass, that shit sounds fake,” the man states loudly as he turns back to the groomsmen.
Bailey turns back to her brother, who has his phone out. He has a frown on his face and his eyebrows are knitted together.
“What’s up?” Bailey asked as Casey turned to her.
“Lorenzo sent me a link to the video,” Casey commented. “I can’t tell if I want to watch it.”
Greg walks up to check the family in and Rita turns to the two.
“Why don’t we try to focus on our vacation for now,” Rita suggested. Casey nodded and put his phone in his pocket as Greg walked back with several key cards. The family takes their bags to the elevator as Greg hits the button to their floor, humming a familiar tune as they rode up to the third floor. They start heading down the hall to their room when Bailey feels Casey nudge her.
“Wanna go check out the pool?” Casey asks with a grin. Bailey hears Greg chuckle a bit as he turned to the room and unlocked it with the card yet.
“Go ahead you two, just don’t lose your keys.”
Bailey and Casey grinned as they hurried into the room to change with their parents laughing as they watched their kids. Casey had thrown his bags onto the pull out couch in the corner as Bailey threw hers on the single bed before the two split up to change and head down to the pool.
“We’re going to get dinner at around six, so make sure to come back and change before that!” Rita calls as the twins race out of the room.
Bailey hurries to keep up with her brother as they race down to the pool. She sees Casey jump up excitedly when they see the pool is mostly empty, save for a family that looked like they were getting ready to leave. Casey is quick to run over and cannon ball into the deep end of the pool. Bailey laughs as the two kids with the family clap at the large splash Casey made. The mother sees Bailey coming over after her brother and gives a wave as she collects her kids to go back to their room.
Bailey smiled as she slipped off her shoes and shoved her key card in one of her sneakers. Casey is already swimming laps around the large pool. He stops at the shallow end and stands up waving his arms.
“Bailey! Bailey! It’s heated !” Casey yells excitedly as he jumps around the pool. Bailey shakes her head before jumping in. The water was a perfect temperature for the late summer weather, not shockingly cold but not so warm it was uncomfortable. Bailey shakes her blonde hair out as she resurfaces, quickly getting splashed by her brother before he tries to swim away. The two chase each other around the pool splashing each other and swimming laps around the large pool.
Bailey starts to slow down after about thirty minutes of trying to keep up with her brother, who had more energy than a five year old on red bull. He’s gone back to mostly swimming laps while Bailey hangs out in the shallower end of the pool, hanging out and listening as the music from the wedding ceremony travels through the open air.
It’s almost another half hour before Casey’s phone alarm goes off, warning them that they would have to start getting dried off and heading back to the room to change so they could go to dinner. The two grab towels from the hotel’s racks and head back towards the lobby.
“I’m starving,” Casey comments as they start towards the elevator, getting a few looks from members of the wedding party as it seemed to have moved to one of the banquet halls inside the hotel.
“Me too.” Bailey nodded as they got on the elevator and headed back up to their floor. They pass a few people as they get off the elevator, several families heading down to the restaurants on the bottom floor of the hotel. Casey speeds up a little as they pass.
“We should hurry or we’ll have to wait!”
Bailey walks faster to keep up with her brother as they re-enter their room. Greg greets them with a smile.
“How was the pool, you two?” Rita asks as Casey finishes drying his blonde hair.
“It was nice, there was no one else down there,” Bailey answered as her brother grabbed clothes and headed to the bathroom to change. “That’s a big wedding party, we could hear the music from the pool. The lobby was really crowded too when we went by.”
“Your father and I saw some of them earlier when we were walking around. It’s such a lovely reception.”
“Not as lovely as ours was,” Greg quickly added as Casey got out of the bathroom. Bailey grabs her change of clothes and goes to change while Casey plays on his phone for a few minutes, waiting for her.
“Augh, Lorenzo keeps sending me stuff on this virus up in Portland.” Bailey hears Casey say as she changes and runs a brush through her long blonde hair.
“I understand why he would be worried about it,” Rita offers as Bailey comes out of the bathroom, the smell of chlorine still clinging to her skin. “It’s been all over the news lately.”
“Lorenzo thinks it’s cool. Like a video game.”
“Make sure he knows he can’t respawn in real life.” Greg offered as they turned to leave their room and get dinner. “I hear the restaurant downstairs is amazing. Not as amazing as ours, but I guess they try.”
The family walks down to the casual pub style restaurant in the hotel. There were several other families sitting at the tables but the restaurant was quiet overall, most likely due to the wedding party in the banquet hall. The hostess seats them immediately and takes their drink order before walking away to get their drinks.
“I can’t wait to show you kids where your mother and I went on our first date,” Greg chuckled as the waiter brought over his beer and Rita’s wine. He places glasses of soda in front of the twins as Greg continues. “We spent an entire day lost at the San Diego Zoo.”
“We kept walking in circles, your father was terrible at reading maps.”
“Dad’s still bad at reading maps,” Bailey teases as Casey chuckles his agreement.
“Some things don’t change.” Rita shook her head with a laugh.
They order their food and continue to talk about all the sights they plan to see during the week.
“Will we have time to visit Balboa Park?” Casey asks as the waiter passes out their food.
“Of course! We’re going to plan at least one full day there,” Greg nodded. “There are some theatre groups performing there this week. Plus lots of historic sights that your mother has been dying to see.”
There is a moment of silence while everyone digs in to their plates, hungry from the long car ride and from swimming in Casey and Bailey’s case. There’s a lull in conversation when a loud scream echoes through the room.
Everyone in the room is silent as several employees run down the hallway. A manager rushes over and whispers something to the hostess before directing his attention to the patrons of the restaurant.
“Excuse me folks! I apologize, but we have to close up early tonight. We’re asking everyone to please pack up their meals and take them back to their rooms. We’ll have waiters bring around containers for you all,” the manager yells as the few families start to mutter to each other.
“What’s all this about?” Casey asks from Bailey’s left as a waiter frantically leaves several containers on their table.
“We apologize for this inconvenience! Your meals today have been comped.”
“How strange,” Rita started uneasily as yelling came from down the hall.
“I wonder if something happened,” Greg murmured as he started loading the food in the containers with Casey and Bailey’s help. The waiters ran around the serving area, rushing people to leave as quickly as possible.
“Maybe something happened with that wedding party,” Bailey guessed, snapping her container shut.
“That older man didn’t look well,” Rita pointed out as everyone grabbed their containers and headed for the exit. A few other families close by were mumbling about the inconvenience, and some were worried about what might be happening.
As soon as they reached the lobby, the screaming got louder. There was yelling as people ran from one place towards the second hall where the wedding party was celebrating. As the family walks toward the elevator, a waiter for the wedding party rushes out of the room, the front of his uniform soaked in blood with his hand over his neck screaming.
“CALL 9-1-1!” The waiter screams as several waiters stop him from running through the lobby. Bailey feels her father’s hand on her shoulder as he rushes them to the elevator at the sight of the injured man. By the time they get to the elevator it’s already full with the first batch of people while others struggle to get in.
“Calm down!” Greg shouts over the madness. “There are two other elevators!”
Greg turns toward the lobby where wedding guest are starting to appear, covered in blood and screaming. The elevator past the lobby wasn’t an option. Everyone would have to get through the two available on this side.
“Dad, the stairs!” Casey called as he opened the stairwell. Bailey and their parents as well as a few other bystanders rushed into the stairwell. Several people rushed past Bailey and her father, knocking them out of the way on their way up. Casey slams the door once everyone’s through.
“Come on.” Rita urged as they race up the stairs with the other guests. They hurry up the stairs as the sounds of sirens echo through the walls.
They get to the fourth floor in record time as Casey throws the door open and they all run through and towards their room. They stop as they turn the corner, seeing a group of people keeping their distance from a couple on the floor. A young woman in a purple bridesmaid’s dress splattered with blood and the young man Bailey recognized as the one who yelled in the lobby when the news story about the virus came on. He was currently on the ground, a large gaping wound on his throat and blood soaking through his white shirt and dark blue jacket.
“How the hell did you get up here?” one of the older guests asked.
“Please wait! We came up through the service elevator,” the bridesmaid cried as people backed away.
“You stupid bitch! He’s infected!” Another man yelled, “Look! He’s got a bite on his neck!”
“Why would you bring him up here?!” A woman yelled as she pushes her child behind her.
The bridesmaid stood up slowly, the front of her dress more soaked in blood then the rest of her. “Please help us.” She begged, “He’s not dead, please, if we stayed down there we’d be killed.”
“If you’re infected you deserve to be!” the older man yelled as he pointed a finger at her. The yelling continued; the bridesmaid begging for help while the irate guests continued to scream at her. Bailey looked around trying to figure an easier way to get to their room before locking eyes with Casey who gave her a helpless shrug. It looked like the only hallway to their room was the one that was blocked.
“Come on! Just get back to your rooms!” Greg tries to yell as he draws the same conclusion as the twins do. His yell goes unanswered as parents start sharing looks as they hold their children trying to find a way to break through the clog in the hallway.
“Dad, come on,” One of the women with a toddler in her arms said as she tugged on one of the loud elderly men screaming at the bridesmaid. A few of the parents turn to look at each other with worried looks. No one seems to notice when the groomsman’s foot twitches.
Everything goes silent at the sound of gunshots from a few stories below. A few mothers had enough of the arguing and have pushed through the crowd heading down the hallway to their rooms with their children. Rita and Greg decide that it’s their best bet to get everyone back to the room as Bailey feels her mother’s hands on her shoulders as they push through the crowd. They’re almost around the corner when the bridesmaid screams.
The young man starts clambering to a standing position and lets out the most horrific groaning noise Bailey had ever heard. Panic breaks out as people start shoving others and running to their rooms. Someone crashes into Greg and Casey sending them into the wall as someone else hits Rita from behind, causing her and Bailey to hit the floor.
Bailey tries to get back to her feet only to look up and see the deformed face of the groomsman standing by her. He lets out another inhuman noise as Bailey sits there completely frozen before she feels someone grab her arms and pulled her away from the beast as her mother rushes to her feet after her.
“Bailey! Are you alright?” Rita asks as she helps Casey pull her to her feet. Bailey hardly gets to answer when the corpse comes up on them again.
“Mom!” Casey yells. Rita turns quickly as the corpse grabs her. Suddenly, the corpse becomes dead weight on her and she falls backwards onto the floor again, raising her arms to protect her face from snapping teeth and clawing fingers.
“RUN!” Greg yells as he throws his elbow through the glass “in case of fire” case and pulls out the fire extinguisher. He runs over and slams the barrel of the container against the corpse’s skull knocking it away from his wife. He helps Rita up and the four run down the hall towards their room. Casey pulls out his card and unlocks the door quickly as they all rush in, the corpse twitching in their wake.
As soon as the door is slammed shut everyone takes a minute to catch their breath, the sounds of their hard breathing and gunshots from downstairs echoes through the room.
“Mom?” Bailey looks over as her mother holds her forearm. Rita pulls her arm away to shows the swatch of blood quickly forming on the sleeve of her shirt. When she pulls her sleeve up there are noticeable teeth marks marred into her flesh.
Everyone in the room is silent for a few seconds. Bailey feels a new wave of fear creep up the back of her neck as the information processes through her head.
“What do we do?” Casey asked, his voice shaky.
“Everyone calm down, the authorities are here, I’m sure we’ll be rushed to a hospital,” Greg reasoned as he turned to his wife. Casey and Bailey share a look as the room falls quiet, the boom of gunfire hesitating for a few moments before it picks back up, a little louder than before.
Bailey feels her heartbeat pick up as the gunfire restarts a third time.
“Why is it getting louder?” Casey asks in a whisper as Rita goes to lay on the bed, the color had quickly drained from her face and she looked flushed as if fighting a high fever. Bailey took a few steps closer.
“Mom, are you feeling okay?” Bailey asked as Rita looked up at her.
“I’m okay, dear, just feeling a little lightheaded.” Rita assured as Bailey nodded, taking a seat on the single bed next to the queen her parents were going to sleep in.
Suddenly they can hear boots marching through the hallways before banging on doors.
A few seconds later, more gunshots.
Greg’s eyes go wide.
Bailey’s blood suddenly runs cold as she looks over to Casey who comes to a very similar conclusion.
They’re executing everyone.
The cries of confused families start to grow louder before gunshots silence them. Greg suddenly bolts to the window, swinging it open and looking at the scene below before poking his head back in.
“You two need to leave.” Greg grabs Casey and Bailey’s bags that they dropped earlier and thrusts them at them. “You can climb down through the window, there’s a balcony beneath us that you can climb to.”
“But dad!” Casey protests as Greg pushes them towards the window.
“Go back to Cedar Cove where it’s safe,” Greg tells them as he reaches over, placing a hand on each of their shoulders, “Go down to that balcony and then hide until the police leave, then go get the car from the valet and go back to Cedar Cove where it’s safe.”
“What about you?” Bailey asks as Greg gives his children a small smile and looks back over at Rita on the bed. She had moved to a sitting position.
“Your mother and I will figure things out here,” Greg said. “Take care of each other.”
He pulls them both into a hug as the footsteps draw closer. He releases them and pushes them towards the window.
“There’s no more time, you both need to go.”
Reluctantly, Casey turns and climbs out the window first. He lowers himself to the frame of the window below him and scales down to the balcony below before looking up and motioning for Bailey to come down. Bailey glances at her parents one last time, both of them flashing her sad smiles and nodding at her to leave. She takes and breath and turns to scale down the wall like her brother does. As soon as she’s cleared the first window her father closes the window.
Her feet hit the balcony a second before a flash of light followed by gunshots can be seen from the window. Bailey stands paralyzed before Casey pulls her through the room attached to the balcony.
The room itself is the scene of a horror movie. The previous occupants of the room lay sprawled across the carpet in puddles of their own blood. Bailey doesn’t have time to process the scene in front of her before Casey tugs her into the bathroom to hide. He closes the door and runs a hand through his hair, quickly pacing back and forth across the tile muttering panicked curse words under his breath.
Bailey took a look at herself in the mirror and could only see her own scared green eyes looking back at her. She couldn’t quite process her reflection. It felt so unreal. The entire situation felt like a dream, but the aches in her arms from climbing down the balcony and the feeling of her heart pumping in her chest reminded her that it was all too real.
Casey sank down onto the ledge of the bathtub, head in his hands. Bailey tore herself away from her reflection and sat beside him, not sure what to say. The twins sat in silence for a long time, startling whenever the gunfire started back up.
“We have to go down two more floors,” Casey said. “But I think we should hide in here until the police go up another floor, just to be cautious”
Bailey nodded. “How long do you think it will be? Before it’s safe, I mean.”
Casey choked out a bitter laugh. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’ll ever be safe again.”
Spurred on by Casey’s haunted words, the two gathered their things and crept out of the bathroom, determinedly not looking at the corpses and blood on the floor of the room. They climbed down the remaining two balconies, their unease increasing as the gunfire sounds become more and more frequent. They bolted across the lawn behind the hotel to the parking lot, frantically looking around for the valet parking sign. They were able to find the valet stand with the keys easily enough, their keys in a drawer with all the other hotel’s patrons’ keys. Their father’s keychain was decorated with a representation of his alma mater’s mascot, so Bailey found it easily. Bailey ran her thumb over the enamel lion as tears ran down her face. She stood still for a minute while Casey continued to search for the car, neither of them wanting to draw attention to the police by sounding the car’s alarm.
Bailey hoped that this wouldn’t be the last time she saw her parents. But she knew that her mother had been bitten, and the man on their floor who had been bitten had also turned into… something. Something that shouldn’t exist. She prayed that the same thing wouldn’t happen to her mother, even though her nagging logic told her that it probably would.
“Bailey!” Casey yelled, and Bailey startled. She whipped around to where Casey was pointing, and saw police car lights flashing. She closed the drawer of the valet stand as quietly as she could and ran towards Casey, shoving the keys at him. In their parents’ brief driving lessons, Casey had been the quicker learner, and anyways Bailey didn’t trust herself to drive with her shaking hands.
The twins finally found the car and quickly got in, taking care not to slam the doors. In the brief seconds that Casey took fumbling the keys into the ignition, Bailey sent one last thought up to their parents. As gunfire echoed around them, Casey started the car and gingerly maneuvered it out of the parking lot at a turtle’s pace. As much as Bailey wanted to get away from the hotel as soon as possible, she knew it was best that Casey didn’t go too fast and hit another car, or accidentally run off the road. At the age of 14, neither of them were able to legally drive, but Casey had been very eager to learn and had been studying and begging their dad to teach him to drive constantly over the summer. He was their best bet, and both of them knew it as he carefully pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road. Bailey dug through the glove box to look for the car charger for her phone, then set up the GPS app to take them back to Cedar Cove. Casey quickly reached over to check the box that said “avoid highways”. Bailey looked at him strangely.
“Police are more likely to be on highways,” he said, “And I’m… not confident enough to drive that fast.”
Bailey understood. “Okay. Then let’s see how far we can get on the gas that’s left, then we can try and walk the rest of the way?” She pulled her father’s hunting knife out of the center console, remembering that he always kept it there in case they broke down in the wilderness.
“Maybe some gas stations will still be open?” Casey wondered aloud, cruising down the road at 10 mph under the speed limit.
Bailey nodded absently, her mind drifting back to her parents at the hotel. Anxiety started to fill her chest as she thought about her parents. She didn’t know if they were dead or alive, and she hoped her father would call them or send a message when they were safe. She looked forward out of the windshield, and watched the sun set over the two-lane road. This world was one that was unlike anything she’d known before, unlike anything she had ever prepared for. But it was reality, and a determination to survive set in for both her and Casey as they drove down the road, and into a new world.
***
Back in Cedar Cove, a teenager hid under their mother’s hospital bed as police ran down the hospital’s hallways, shooting rapidly at a monstrous figure that stumbled past. They couldn’t see a lot out of the small window in the door, but they saw enough to know what was going on. They switched the TV on, and every channel was broadcasting the same story. On the local channel, the broadcasters called the things zombies , an uncontrollable symptom of the ZB1 virus that had been the reason their family had been transferred to the smaller hospital. On the next channel, government officials told the public to remain calm. On the next, a group of conspiracy theorists denied the whole thing, saying the videos and reports were fake. The teenager didn’t know what to think, so once the gunfire had faded off into a distant section of the hospital, they climbed back up into the chair by their mother’s bed and took her hand, squeezing it and hoping that this would all blow over soon.
***
In the Cedar Cove library, chaos reigned. A librarian had switched the radio on and plugged it into the loudspeaker, and now all anyone could hear besides each other’s terrified groans were the words nobody wanted to hear coming from the radio.
Evacuate… protect yourself… we’re not sure… Don’t panic...
A young boy ran through the panicked crowd by the front door over to where his older brother had been tutoring some summer school students, and tugged on his shirt for comfort. His brother put a hand on the boy’s shoulder to keep him close, but stared transfixed at his computer screen, where he was watching a livestream of the local news. Suddenly he stood, startling the younger boy, and took him by the hand.
“We have to go home.”
***
In a mansion on the east side of town, a fiery-haired girl watched helplessly as her parents ran around the house, loading things into suitcases.
“Why can’t we come with you?” her older brother asked, his temper flaring.
“There’s not enough room in the car,” her mother said, not even making eye contact with her eldest child. He had always been their parents’ favorite, the girl recalled bitterly. She guessed it didn’t matter anymore.
“You’re safer here,” their father said, his voice cold and his eyes devoid of any emotion. The girl wasn’t surprised in the slightest that their parents were leaving them. She looked across the room at her brother, who was pulling on his mother’s shoulder desperately.
“Please, Mom…”
The girl thought she saw her mom’s eyes soften for a moment, before she turned away.
“We’ll come back for you,” she said in a flat voice. “You’re safer here.”
The girl knew they were lying.
***
In Portland, a girl sprinted down the city streets, brown and pink hair flying behind her. A backpack full of books, fresh from EMT training, jostled behind her, making her back hurt. She finally reached a nondescript apartment building and ran inside. She made the mistake of looking behind her and saw the monster, deformed, rotting and ghostly pale, shuffling around the corner behind her. She slammed the front door of the building shut and took the stairs two at a time all the way up to the sixth floor.
When she entered the small apartment she shared with her parents, she only found it empty. And later, long after her parents should’ve been home, it was still empty. She sat on the couch, feeling nothing and everything at the same time, and stayed like that for hours, ignoring the screams and gunfire taking place in the city around her. She’d barely escaped, and had the sinking feeling her parents hadn’t been so lucky.
***