Chapter Fifteen: The Hunger
Author Note: The journal entry (conducted in 2008) will refer to the Sydney Superdome. I am aware that in 2006 it was renamed the Acer Arena. However, the events which occurred in the interview happened during the zombie outbreak of 2004. Therefore, it is logical to assume this altered events enough that the Superdome was not renamed and thus it is referred to by its original title.

Carrying On...

Friday, January 30, 2004

Nina had been in and out of Wolfram & Hart over the last few months, but her previous experience had only taken her from the front door to Angel's office to her holding cell with an occasional turn past the bathroom. She hadn't realized exactly how large the firm was until now.

Jill was finally starting to settle into the idea that the Hendersons really were demons and they really weren't going to eat her. Or Amanda. Or the furniture.

Even so, she hadn't quite made the jump to Nina herself being a werewolf, so when it had been announced that the bar/movie theater they had set up on the twelfth floor needed volunteers to get up and running, Nina had jumped on the offer.

Lorne really was a sweetheart. Once he had figured out that she was an art student, nothing would do until she was set to painting things on the walls and arranging funky centerpieces for the tables made from the odds and ends the green demon was scrounging from somewhere in the firm.

And today, when Lorne asked her to take a special invitation for the grand opening to Angel himself, she jumped on that offer too.

She found Angel's secretary missing when she arrived. The doors were closed, but she could see that the lights were on through the frosted glass. Nina bit at the corner of her lip, at a loss as to what to do. The distant sound of a siren, faint and filtered through walls of glass and concrete gave her an idea. After a quick glance around the room to make sure that no one was paying attention to her, she stepped closer to the door and just listened.

It was the first time she had thought of her lycanthropic senses as anything other than a curse. With a tiny, guilty thrill, she realized that she could hear the conversation on the other side of the door, quiet and muffled though it was. At first she could only hear Angel talking, but after a moment, a woman answered him.

Nina hesitated. She had only wanted to know if she would be interrupting something if she knocked on the door. She knew the answer to that now. She should go. Leave the note in the secretary's inbox and get back to Lorne and the others. Really, she should.

So why was she leaning even closer to the door, then?

"What were you thinking?" the woman's voice managed to be quiet and piercing at the same time.

"I was thinking that she’s staying with him," Angel replied.

Nina was surprised by the amount of anger he managed to infuse into that last word. The woman made no response Nina could hear, but she must have done something, made some unseen face or gesture, because Angel answered defensively, "Look, it's not like that… It's just… It's Spike."

Spike. He was the bleached blond guy Nina had seen around the firm a couple of times. He had seemed okay in a bad-boy wannabe rocker kind of way.

"You're telling me this has nothing to do with Buffy? With you and Buffy?" Nina's stomach dropped at the jealous undertone in the woman's tone of voice, well masked by real concern. She didn't want to be here, didn't want to hear this, but she couldn't seem to move.

"Yes. No. I don't… Cordy, it's not like that. Not anymore," Angel sounded indecisive, beaten. His tone made the uncomfortable clench in the pit of Nina's stomach move to the region of her heart. In her eyes, Angel was a hero, a champion, and heroes shouldn't sound like… that. So beaten down and world weary. It made her heart ache.

Silence. The clock behind the empty secretary's desk ticked away the seconds, hammering like a drum in Nina's ears. She was creasing the letter in her hands.

Finally the woman – Cordy – spoke. "If you say so. I'm going to go see if Fred needs more help with the plants." Her tone was stiff, hurt. Nina didn't want to think about what that might mean. Whether Angel was, well, with her. Or this Buffy person. Or…

Footsteps. Too late, Nina's ears registered the sound of the soft tread across plush carpet. The door swung open before she could move, revealing a face to go with the woman's name.

Nina gaped like a fish. The woman was beautiful, but her face was twisted into an expression that she surely had been hiding from the man behind her. An expression that Nina understood to the core of her bones at that moment. Without really thinking about it, she extended the letter forward, as an olive branch, or maybe a shield. The woman, Cordy, took it numbly, looking down at the glittering ink on the heavy parchment paper.

Nina fled.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Interview, Survivor from the Sydney SuperDome

Conducted 5 July 2008

Irony didn't even begin to cover the situation we landed in. At first everyone was feeling secure and comfortable. Our government had taken quick action due to the massive riots and outbreaks throughout Europe and the U.S.

The armed forces were deployed to secure all airports and railway stations; patrols of the coastal waters by border security were increased. No one was gaining entry into the country, all airplanes were grounded, and ships were turned back. A few incidents of guards shooting at small water craft occurred, but overall we thought it was fairly civilised.

The government was confident they could control the outbreak by separating those who were infected before they caused significant damage to the country. Even though people were told that the infected appeared to be turning within 24 hours and the chances of coming into contact with an infected person was quite low, paranoia set in. There was a significant increase in immigrant violence during this time, as Asians were seen by most as the main carriers of the disease. Like the SARS epidemic before, contact was feared be it people, livestock or products.

The source of the disease is now believed to be an infected diplomat, but it has never been proven. Once the government acknowledged that we had a small outbreak of zombies, they deployed the army to round up large parts of the population and secure them in the Superdome and other sporting or event centres.

The screening process was intense. There were sniffer dogs, blood tests, primary and secondary containment centres. They were determined that no one who was infected got into the country or into the protected safety zones. For once, the bureaucracy of the government worked for us. I didn't hear of, or see, one infected person inside the Superdome, and those shuttled to other nearby defensible locations, such as prisons and coastal fortresses, reported the same. No one turned, no outbreaks occurred, it was safe from zombie infection. Of course with that many people? Flus and infections ran rampant, along with a few murders.

The paranoid killed anyone who showed flu like symptoms. I thought it was incredibly stupid. If they were going to turn into zombies, why speed up the process by killing them? It wasn't like we had guns for a head shot, or superhuman strength to rip off heads.

In the Superdome, we had protection along with water and food. Everything we could want. Murders happened but were still fairly uncommon. Overall it was good. Sure, privacy was an issue, but outside those doors… well, it had the potential for chaos, death, and destruction. Everyone thought we were pretty smart. Get inside, behind armed guards and let the government protect us.

The only thing we didn't realize - who was going to protect us from ourselves?

The first month was rowdy, but we survived. We had supplies. We had hope. Science would save us and life would return to normal. We would go home and bury those who had died – both the walking and otherwise.

We were so incredibly naive.

No one counted on the sheer epidemic scale of the apocalypse. No one counted on traditional science not finding the answer, no one counted on running out of food, out of water. Of people who were content turning on each other. Of having to flee the Superdome because it was better to take your chances with the hungry dead than with the starving masses confined to a small space.

No one counted on the fact the idea of zombies actually killed more people in Australia then the actual outbreak itself.

No one counted on the greatest threat being the humans.

No one counted on our own hunger.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Friday, January 30, 2004

Min was at the end of her rope. Or at least the end of her ammo. Rope, she actually had plenty of, but there were only two bolts left for her crossbow.

Courtney was missing, too, and had been for two days now. Considering the slight… infestation… that the crappy hotel had seemed to develop over the last forty-eight hours, it didn't take a great deal of cogitation to figure out what had probably happened to her.

She was either dead or… well… dead. Dead and walking around. Dead and eating people. The kind of dead that wasn't.

Min hated all of it. Hated the idea that Courtney was probably a zombie now. Hated that she couldn't contact anyone from the Council. Hated that she was sleeping in the bathtub on a pile of smelly pillows because she had used the beds to barricade the windows and door of the hotel room. But most of all, she hated the unending noise from outside. The shuffling, the insistent banging on the door and walls, the groaning. God, the groaning…

All of Min's training was screaming that the things outside her door weren't people, not anymore, but in their groans, she thought she sometimes heard the sound of a word, a name. A horrible shadow of who they had been before.

Before.

The thought brought a bitter twist to Min's already dark expression. Before the zombies. B.Z. Was she now living in 1 A.Z.? Or did the count start at zero. 0 A.Z. Here she was, at ground zero during 0 A.Z., in the middle of an apocalypse - maybe even The Apocalypse - huddled in a skeezy hotel and nursing the kind of cramps that made her want… no, need, to kill.

She had to get out of here. Even if she wasn't going entirely stir crazy from the unceasing moans, her food supplies were only in slightly better shape than her crossbow bolts. Besides, if she had to eat any more canned ham, she might just off herself.

There were so many things that she probably should have been thinking about: her parents, the other slayers, some hare-brained scheme to 'fix' all of this and save the world. Something. But she wasn't. More like couldn't. She was the tactician, the one who actually read and enjoyed Sun Tsu. She knew a damned near hopeless situation when she saw one.

The irony was that in spite of everything, she still had hope. It was scrawled out in blue ink on the back of a paper grocery bag. She knew that it just might be the height of irony that she, a slayer, was placing all her faith in a demon and a pink-haired boy who probably wasn't entirely human either. But she knew that she wasn't going to make it through this alone, and Clem and Oz were the best option that had presented itself.

Make that the only option that had presented itself.

In their defense, they apparently had lots of food of the non-ham variety, internet, barred windows, and for God's sake, a fully functioning gym, so they were way ahead of her.

But if she was going to take advantage of their offer, she was going to have to do it soon. The situation outside was only going to get worse, and so was her mood.

Her bags were packed. She had torn a length of pipe out of the wall in the bathroom that would function as a club when her crossbow bolts ran out. She had stakes. She had light body armor. She had one hell of a bad mood to power her through the initial crowd.

And she had a goal.

The school. The school had more food. More water. More of a chance to see her through this mess alive.

She needed to get there. Needed to talk to another human - or not-so-human- being. Needed to get word to the Council. Needed to get away from the incessant moans.

Needed a fucking Midol.

The zombies outside her door never stood a chance.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


March 17, 2004

New York City

One person can make a difference. That was what Rowen's mother had always told her. And her high school counselor. And the recycling companies. And the old lady at the soup kitchen. And her Peace Corps recruiter. And…

Didn't matter.

They were probably all dead anyway.

The point was, Rowan believed that. She truly did. Even here on the twenty-third floor of high-rise Long Island hell, she believed that.

One person can make a difference.

Well, maybe not this one.

"It's okay," she crooned, inching closer to the woman's body. Nope, this person wasn't doing anybody any good. Not anymore. "You're okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

In the small of the corpse's back sat a cowering Chihuahua, muzzle coated with blood.

Rowan sidled closer.

"You're not in trouble, I understand."

She reached a hand closer, and even though the dog dropped lower, expressive ears folding back, it allowed her to stroke its head. After a moment, Rowan managed to sit down next to the woman's body and coax the tiny animal into her lap.

"You're Pixie, huh?" she asked, finding a faux gold nametag hanging around the dog's neck. The Chihuahua just looked up at her mournfully. "Well, we'll get you back to my place so you can meet the others."

And there were others. Many others. Cats and dogs, a few birds and ferrets, even an iguana and three pot bellied pigs.

Rowan had rescued people alongside the animals at first, but it had been ages since she had seen another living human being. Besides, the last pair, James and Chrissy, hadn't much liked the way she was surviving. That had been too bad, it had been nice to talk to another person instead of… well… you know.

"Okay Pixie," she cooed. "I'm going to collect some supplies and take care of your mistress. That okay with you?"

Pixie just lay down, tiny ribs protruding from her sides, obviously exhausted and hungry.

"Alright then."

Rowan made sure that the door into the apartment was secure before resting her crowbar against the wall and picking up the rest of her gear. Medicines, canned food (human and canine), matches, whatever else caught her eye went into the big hiking backpack. And the rolling cooler?

Rowan knelt next to the dead woman again. After all these months, this was still the awkward part. She leaned forward and stroked the woman's hair gently, almost maternally. "I'm going to take care of Pixie, okay? She's going to be just fine. I promise."

She pulled her Swiss Army knife out of the cooler. It was one of the big ones, too large for a pocket, but pretty good for the job at hand. She had amassed quite a few animals during her rescue missions, and to be blunt, Chrissy and James had been nothing but skin and bones when they had… well… parted ways.

"She'll be just fine," she repeated over and over while she slit the woman's clothes up her back and rolled her over, out of the gauzy blouse and grey skirt. "She'll be fine and you'll help."

With practiced ease, she started cleaning the corpse, dumping unwanted viscera on the carpet and carefully placing strips of meat and carefully removed organs into the rolling cooler. Other than the conspicuous exit wound that had destroyed much of the side of the woman's head, the body was very clean, very fresh. Between the meat and the canned food from the pantry, Rowan and her growing family would be secure until her next expedition.

And there would be more, not only because she needed to scavenge more food and supplies, but because there were others out there. Others like Pixie. Maybe others like James and Chrissy, before they turned on her. Before she turned her crowbar on another living human being for the first time. Before that last little taboo had gone out the window.

Didn't matter.

She would survive, and she would make a difference. Was already making a difference to a slew of trapped and abandoned animals, just like Pixie.

She turned back to the little Chihuahua, reaching out a hand again, but this time it was slick with blood and holding a little strip of tissue. "Here you go Pixie," she said with a sing-songy lilt. "You'll like it. Liver's better for you than skin anyway."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Friday, January 30, 2004

Christie swept her purple tinted blond hair into a messy ponytail and reviewed her notes one more time. It had been two days since they had arrived at Wolfram and Hart and she felt frustrated at the slow progress. Fred and the scientists had sequestered themselves in the lab, desperately searching for some elusive “cure”.

Christie didn’t think they would find one. Seriously, how many zombie movies ever had a cure? The only questions were fast zombies or slow zombies, rotters or runners.

She sighed and reached over to take another file from Andrew. She knew this wasn’t a movie. She knew it was nothing like a movie, but she couldn’t help it. The world was too overwhelming and she was a geek. Movie references were comforting, fun to analyze and kept her mind focused on fiction instead of this fucked up reality.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that the other Slayers were getting tired of her movie babble. It was easy to see in the way they rolled their eyes when she brought up another similarity or the way they smirked when she got off on a tangent.

Two days ago she was the hero, saving the world with her movie trivia. Now, she was simply mundane.

Reality sucked.

She honestly expected more from a zombie invasion.

Andrew was the only one who seemed to get her. Of course, he had a litany of movie references as well. They were well matched in movie tastes and zombie plans – although she would never confess to him her deepest, darkest secret…

She really hated Star Wars.

As the file passed between Andrew and Christie their hands touched. Andrew smiled at her. “How goes your list, Christie?

At least he understood her. He didn’t roll his eyes or laugh behind her back. He was nice. Professional.

She wondered if she should invite him over to her quarters to watch Dr. Who on her recently acquired laptop.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Dawn felt useless. Logically, she knew that there wasn't much she could do to help, but still…

Fred and Knox had sequestered themselves in a lab, only coming out for supplies, newly dead or zombified bodies to experiment on, and, strangely enough, tacos.

Spike and Buffy had holed up in the suite that was supposed to be Dawn's. It wasn't that she resented her sister moving into the suite, but why did she automatically get the bed? Dawn suppressed the urge to stamp her foot, since it probably wouldn't help with her 'I'm mature enough to help with the research' argument.

Buffy and Spike did come out of the room occasionally - to spar, to grab another book from the library, to snark at Angel – well, Spike came out for that purpose, at least.

Everyone in the office had heard the rumors that Buffy and Spike were engaged in a 48 hour shag-a-thon, but Dawn knew better. Buffy was little more than a walking zombie herself. She was on auto-pilot - putting up a front when she was forced to interact with people, but barely functioning, barely doing research, barely breathing at times. Spike was once again relegated to being the strong one. He didn't seem to mind, and for once, Buffy didn't seem ashamed to lean on him.

And strangely enough, what was even worse than avoiding the umpteen billion rumors concerning her oh-so-wonderful sister and her bad boy vamp was listening to Angel drone on about Lindsey.

Lindsey was bad, Lindsey was evil, Lindsey was a lawyer ...

Personally, she thought Angel was a bit hypocritical since he now ran the very same evil law firm Lindsey had worked for - but of course no one was asking her. Besides, how many lawyers did he honestly think weren’t evil? Especially in Los Angeles? She was pretty sure it was part of the standard contract ... become successful in LA, sell your soul.

But she digressed.

The point was; she was tired of hearing all about how evil Lindsey was. It was his second - no third - favorite topic. The first being how evil Spike was and the second being how bad Spike was bad for Buffy and how she needed to keep baking.

Whatever.

Frankly, from everything she’d heard, Lindsey sounded a lot like Spike did back in the old days.

Sure he’d been evil... but as Cordelia said once - he had layers.

A truly evil person would have killed those kids Lindsey helped Angel save. And a truly evil person would have stayed with the law firm, even after obtaining the evil hand.

But Lindsey had quit the law firm. He’d left on his own accord. That didn’t sound like the actions of a truly evil man.

Of course she had every negative story about Lindsey at least twice now, courtesy of a still fuming Angel.

That hadn’t stopped her from tracking Lindsey down and asking him to let her in on some embarrassing Angel stories. A girl had to get her gossip and blackmail material from somewhere.

Not surprisingly, he had a ton of great stories that she filed away for future use; including an interesting one about Angel locking a bunch of lawyers in a room with Darla and Dru. And there was also the small matter of a child he’d conceived with the previously dusted and miraculously resurrected blonde vampiress.

Lindsey just might be her new best friend.

On the other hand Lindsey and Eve were revoltingly sweet, with an emphasis on revolting. They did look cute together, even if Eve was slightly creepy and extremely needy. Dawn had only known Eve for about four days, but even she could tell that the woman wasn't going to help Lindsey overcome his evil ways. She was too self-centered, not to mention her connection to the Senior Partners. Lindsey needed someone who was already a white hat, someone who would show him the path to redemption … someone who would be a Buffy to his evil Spike ways.

Or maybe she was just obsessed with the way his butt looked in those jeans. Those were some really nice jeans.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Kevin put his headphones on and started arranging his music list. Who would have thought that Wolfram and Hart would have a complete stock of iPods? Actually, it was a good question, but he didn’t want to delve into it too much. He had enough broken dreams and shattered illusions to last a life time.

Someone once said that each generation was defined by at least one life-altering event. A ‘where were you when…?’ moment. He understood that. Logically, emotionally … hell, even from an academic and psychological perspective, but what he couldn’t understand was his deep-seated resentment towards many of the remaining Council members.

Perhaps it was because they couldn’t remember, didn’t equate it with sacrifice like he did. People talked about where you were when Buffy died, or where you were when the Hellmouth closed? Where were you when all the Potentials were activated? It was a phrase he learned to hate …

‘Where were you when…?”

No one asked ‘where were you when the London office exploded?’ Where were you when you heard that hundreds of Watchers died? Where were you when you heard that your parents were dead? He wanted to scream at them – where were they? Where were they when the Council needed them, when he needed them? How dare they come in, chattering happily, taking over centuries of work and dismissing everything they had ever done?

He would have been the first to admit that the Council needed reform. Needed it badly, but they had been working on it. His parents were at the front lines fighting Quentin Travers and the old guard. They were reforming, creating procedures and policies that would take them into the new millennium. Did anyone stop and ask why, if the Council was so evil, did they allow Faith to live while she was incarcerated? Why they allowed Buffy to quit the Council. It wasn’t that they were scared of her, or that she could control them. It was that the Council was reforming. Those who saw the Slayer as a person and not a tool were winning the fight. They had out-voted Travers on every attempt he made to send the wet works teams after the Slayers. Travers was very close to retiring, and his replacement was a long-term reformer.

Yes, the Council had made mistakes, but did they deserve to die?

Kevin clenched and unclenched his fists. He had to calm down; he had work to do.

TBC …