Chapter Text
"Alright, see you next week!" Lizzie called to her coworkers as she walked out the back doors of the hospital where the employees entered and exited, heading to where she had parked her car. It was a dark night, and the artificial light of the street lamps and her headlights were the main source of light in the parking lot as she began her drive home.
Normally the darkness didn't bother her too badly, but it had been a relatively slow night, and there had been time for some conversation with her coworkers. And after having heard stories of zombie videos that were apparently circling the internet, the darkness wasn't particularly comforting.
Her first instinct upon hearing about the videos like this was to think it was some sort of prank, maybe some edited videos or something of the sort. But she began having doubts when someone pulled up a screenshot from one of the videos so she could see the level of realism in them.
There were very differing opinions between her coworkers who had actually seen the videos. Some had simply brushed it off as some sort of joke; just some videos of kids in costumes trying to get attention, or maybe clips from a movie. Meanwhile some others claimed that they were too real to be faked, that if it were people trying to get attention, how did they manage to get ahold of such realistic costumes and special effects makeup?
Lizzie had apparently managed to miss all these videos, but she hadn't been on social media very much the past few days. She had been mostly preoccupied with work and binge watching shows with her husband.
One of their favorite shows had a new season being released, and Lizzie had managed without much difficulty to convince Joel to binge all the previous seasons with her before they started on the new episodes. It had become their temporary routine if they both had the energy when Lizzie got back from work.
Lizzie parked in their usual parking space and gathered her things, then locked the car before quickly heading inside the apartment building they lived in. She felt safer once she was within the well lit halls of the building, and it didn't take long for her to make her way to the second floor and inside of her and Joel's apartment. She barely had time to lock the door behind her and take off her shoes before Joel had arrived, kissing her forehead before his usual check in.
"Lizzie! How was work?" He asked, and Lizzie sighed in response.
"It was a long day, mostly. Pretty normal, maybe a bit slow. By the way, have you been on social media much lately?" She asked, and as she talked the couple went into the kitchen, where Lizzie sat at the counter while Joel pulled the pasta he had made for dinner out of the fridge.
"Well, not a lot, but I haven't been entirely offline. Why?" Joel asked as he served Lizzie a plate of food and put it into the microwave to warm it up.
"My coworkers were just talking about some weird videos circling the internet. They said they seemed like zombies." She said, and Joel scrunched up his nose.
"I think I have seen a couple of those. I'm pretty sure they're just some sort of leak for some new zombie movie. They must have a pretty good special effects budget, the zombies look nasty." He said before pulling her plate out of the microwave and giving it to her with a fork. Lizzie hummed as he got himself a glass of water and sat down next to her, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
"Sounds interesting. Any information on what movie it could be from? Some of my coworkers seemed really convinced that they're real." She said before taking a bite of her pasta, and Joel shook his head and started tapping on his phone as he responded.
"I haven't seen any information on any of the ones I've seen, but I've only seen a couple. Zombies aren't real though, so it must be some sort of movie." He said, clicking on a video that had been pulled up and immediately pausing it. He set his phone down on the counter and pushed it towards Lizzie. She swallowed her bite of food before tapping the screen to unpause the video.
The screen started by showing a small parking lot with a few people in it, and almost immediately zoomed in on one of the people. The way it zoomed in didn't give the best quality image, but it was clear enough. This person looked dead. Sickly pale and gravely injured, and the injuries hardly looked fresh. There was no way this person, if they were even real, should be alive. Yet somehow they stood in the parking lot, looking around slowly.
"What is that thing?" A captioned voice that seemed to belong to whoever was behind the camera asked, and the quality changed slightly as a car window seemed to be rolled down to get a better view.
"Hey, zombie!" Another voice yelled, and the camera zoomed out enough to show another individual, this one a normally healthy looking person. The zombies head seemed to immediately snap towards the second person, and it started dashing towards them. It wasn't as fast as a person could run, but far faster than any dead person should. This seemed to catch the person off guard, and the camera was dropped seconds after the zombie violently attacked the person. The person recording was heard saying, "oh my god," before the video cut off.
Lizzie stared at the screen in shock as Joel tapped it again to prevent it from replaying. "I've seen a couple things like that. Pretty nasty looking movie." He said, and Lizzie shook her head.
"What kind of movie has scenes like that? That looks like it was recorded off a phone…" Lizzie said, taking Joel's phone and scrolling to the next video. She scrolled through a few videos, and everything that applied under whatever search Joel had put in seemed to have the same sort of ominous feeling about them. The monsters all had very similar looks despite having obviously been different people, and none of them quite seemed movie level production quality.
The more she looked the more uncertain she felt. Zombies shouldn't exist, it scientifically shouldn't be even a possibility. The closest thing she had heard of to zombies were things like "zombie deer disease" or "mad cow disease", but those mainly affected the animals. She was aware that in the rare case that meat from a cow who had mad cow disease was consumed the consumer would eventually become gravely ill and die. But from the limited research she had done, it didn't look anything like this.
"Joel… If these are all from some sort of movie leak, why are there so many of them? They seem too raw to be from a produced film." She said, passing Joel's phone back to him and looking up at him warily. Joel looked apprehensive.
"Lizzie, they're videos of zombies. There's no way zombies are real." He insisted in a deadpan tone, and Lizzie shook her head.
"It shouldn't be possible, I don't know… Has there been anything on the news?" She asked, pulling out her own phone and searching for news about the zombie videos. Several articles came up, some of which had thumbnails with the possible zombies. Headlines like Nevada Fires, Firetrucks found crashed and empty, "Zombie" reports reaching the hundreds, and more similar titles were all over her screen.
"Look at these," Lizzie said, turning her phone so that Joel could see. She watched as concern flashed over his face as he read the headlines, but he shook his head.
"All the news has an agenda these days. You know, fear mongering and stuff like that. That's probably what this is." He said, and paused for a moment. "Besides, even if zombies were real, what are we supposed to do about it? It's not like we can just go uproot our lives over something that could very well be some sort of prank!"
Lizzie sighed and leaned against him, and he responded by putting his arm around her. "I don't know what we'd need to do. Gather supplies? Camping stuff, maybe? Really all I do know is that I'd prefer to uproot our lives than just die." She said with a shudder.
"I guess you've got a point…" Joel sighed after a few moments of quiet. "I still don't believe this is real. But it's late, we should get some sleep for now."
Lizzie glanced at the clock on her phone. It was past midnight, and while they had stayed up far later before, Lizzie was tired. And going to bed sounded really nice about now.
"Yeah, sleep sounds good." She said, standing up with a yawn. She moved to clear her now empty dinner plate, and the couple went about their night routine together before climbing into bed.
"Goodnight, love." Joel said, moving to cuddle with Lizzie, and she cuddled back up against him.
"Night, love. Sleep well!" Lizzie responded, and Joel hummed sleepily at her. She smiled and let herself drift off to sleep as well.
~ The next morning ~
Initially upon waking up, Lizzie didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Joel wasn't in bed with her anymore, but that wasn't particularly uncommon. What was uncommon, she realized as she began to be more aware of her surroundings after stretching and sitting up, was the noise coming from the apartment outside of her bedroom.
She could hear the sounds of things being moved around, as well as Joel's voice and the voice of another person. Whatever was going on was causing quite the ruckus. Lizzie shook off most of the remaining sleepiness, and went to leave the room.
As she stepped into the small hallway leading to the rest of the apartment, she found Oli kneeling on the ground in the living room. He was surrounded by a few different suitcases and containers, as well as a decent sized cooler. It seemed that he was sorting things between them, and Joel was complaining as he was ordered to put things away or go search for things.
"Joel? Oli? What on earth is happening?" She asked, and Oli immediately turned to look at her and smiled brightly. At the same time, Joel glanced at her with a 'save me' look.
"Lizzie! You've awoken! Have you heard the news? There's zombies, we need to leave right away!" Oli exclaimed in typical Oli fashion, and Lizzie blinked.
"The zombies are here?" She asked, raising her eyebrows. "I thought they were in Nevada!"
"Don't listen to him, Lizzie, he's being overdramatic again! Even if they do exist, they're not here, and there's no reason to be in such a rush about anything!" Joel exclaimed, carrying some bagged produce from the fridge and putting it into the cooler.
"Have you never seen the zombie movies, Joel?! Time is of the essence! If we don't evacuate now we're as good as dead!" Oli proclaimed before thanking him for the veggies and turning to Lizzie.
"Now, Lizzie! You're the medic here! What sort of medical supplies do we need to bring?" Oli asked, and Lizzie went to a closet and pulled out a black backpack with pink accents and a red plus on it. It had been a graduation present from Joel when she had gotten her nursing degree, and she'd kept the majority of the first aid supplies in it since.
"This has got most everything we have and most things we should need, there's another first aid kid on the counter, and more medicines in one of the cupboards." Lizzie said, bringing the backpack over to the cluttered area and pointing towards the first aid kit that stayed on the kitchen counter in case of emergencies.
"Lizzie! We don't need to evacuate immediately, why are we humoring him?!" Joel protested, and Lizzie shrugged.
"If we do need to evacuate being prepared certainly can't hurt! And you're the one who let him into the house in the first place!"
"I tried not to! He barged his way in and I can't get him to leave!" Joel exclaimed, and Oli looked up at him with a dramatic gesture.
"Joel! You'd rather me leave you here to die alone?! I'm doing you a favour!" Oli said with the same dramatic flare as the gesture he'd made.
"I would not be dying or alone! The zombies aren't real and I have Lizzie! You're the one who would be dying alone, and you'd be doing me more of a favour if you went back to doing that!" Joel insisted, folding his arms and glaring at Oli, who gasped in response.
"You want me to die alone?! I thought we were friends, Joel!"
"You're basically trying to kidnap me and my wife!"
"Because if I don't you're both going to die!"
"Zombies aren't real, Oli!"
"But Joel-"
"Boys!" Lizzie finally yelled, cutting off the argument. Both men stopped to look at her expectantly and she raised an eyebrow at them.
"Sorry, Lizzie." They said in unison, and she sighed.
"There's no reason to be arguing over this!" She started, cutting off their attempts at protest. "Oli, I appreciate your concern. Joel, it's not very nice to tell your friends that they're going to die alone. I thought the zombies were in Nevada?"
"They are! Nevada isn't that close! He's overreacting!" Joel said with an eye roll.
"I am not overreacting! The apocalypse is spreading, the infection started in Las Vegas and they've already made it into Los Angeles! The government is sending out emergency alerts for it!" Oli insisted, and Lizzie and Joel both turned to look at him.
"You've got to be joking." Joel said, his tone becoming more serious than annoyed for the first time since Lizzie had woken up.
"I'm not joking! Here, I'll show you." Oli said, pulling out his phone and putting in a google search. Lizzie moved to stand between Joel and Oli, who were a few feet apart. "Look!" Oli said, holding out his phone screen, and the couple moved so they could get a better look at it.
Oli had opened a news article with a screenshot of the alert and further information about it. The alert on the screenshot read, "EMERGENCY ALERT: Officials have discovered there is some kind of disease that is slowly killing people and sending them into a zombie like state. It is spreading quickly. It started in Las Vegas and has spread to as far as Kingman Arizona, Lund Nevada, Los Angeles California in just a few hours. STAY INSIDE. Do not panic. Barricade your windows and keep your doors locked. Officers and scientists are working on how to stop the spread of the disease."
"Emergency alerts sent out at approximately 2:30 AM this morning… This mysterious disease is spreading at alarming rates and anyone in proximity to these places should take cover?" Lizzie read aloud before glancing between Joel and Oli.
"There's no way this is actually real… It's literally impossible! A disease like this doesn't exist!" Joel exclaimed, looking at Oli, who raised his hands in a pose of surrender.
"Don't ask me! That's just what the government said, do I look like the government?" Oli asked, and before Joel could respond, Lizzie grabbed his hand.
"Joel, think about it." She started, and Joel glanced at her, but didn't fully turn to face her. "All the videos, the fires, the crashed fire trucks, the news articles, the emergency alert… Even if it's not actually zombies, there's got to be something happening. And based on the alert, it's happening fast. I'd feel a lot safer getting out now and coming back if we decide it's safe than just waiting until potential zombies are breaking in and killing everyone." Lizzie said, and there was at least a minute or two of silence before anyone spoke.
"I…" Joel started, before sighing and shaking his head. "Fine. For the record, I still don't believe in zombies. But if it makes you feel better, we can leave for a few days. It's not like either of us would be missing work, as long as we're not gone for too long. What else do we need to bring?" He gave in, and Lizzie squeezed his hand and smiled at him.
"Oli? You seem to be the expert here." She said, and Oli grinned.
"I'm so glad you asked! I knew you'd come around, Joel!" Oli said, and Joel grumbled something in response before moving to get the things Oli said they'd need. Lizzie followed suit as Oli listed off more items. Together the three of them got whatever supplies Oli said they needed packed into the back of Oli's car, where he had apparently already packed everything from his own apartment.
"Is that everything? Are we ready to go then?" Lizzie asked as the last things were put into the trunk.
"That it is! I've been ready all day!" Oli exclaimed, and Joel rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm ready. Let's go on this weird impromptu road trip, I guess." He said in a bored tone. And with that they went to get into the car, hopefully prepared enough for whatever this adventure would throw at them.