The Final Destination for maggiebloome (The Daily Show/Colbert Report, R)
Title: The Final Destination
Author: slash4femme
Recipient: maggiebloome
Fandom: The Daily Show/Colbert Report
Rating: R
Spoilers: None
Warnings: hurt and possible death of major characters, rodents, religion and other disturbing images
Summary: life changes greatly when most of NY is destroyed and Stephen ends up being the most prepared man around
Pairing: Sam/Jason, and some shades of of Anderson/John O. and Stephen/ Jon but only if you want to see them.
Author Notes: beta read by the totally cool and awesome trishalynn
666.
In what might have at one point been a Brooklyn diner, a radio whines and stops emitting an endless stream of static. For a moment, there is nothing but silence and then a voice pipes out across the empty room full of twisted metal, broken glass and rubble into the equally empty, twisted metal and rubble-strewn street.
“This is John Oliver.” The radio states, in a well-groomed English accent. “And this is your daily addition of ‘Is There Anyone Out There?’ bringing you the latest news from the end of the world.”
An incredibly hot, dry wind blows across the street through the blown-out windows of the diner making the metal struts creak.
666.
No one ever thought it would actually happen.
Global warming, economic collapse, political collapse, hurricanes, and tsunami-all these things could happen, but no one ever really thought the human race would actually end it all through massive nuclear melt-down. That was a little too Cold War, for the twenty-first century. That at least was what everyone said.
Turns out though, the joke was on them.
666.
If Stephen hadn’t been the brilliant, paranoid, egotistical, stark-raving maniac he is they’d all be dead right now.
Jon knows that. He never thought he’d be grateful that in Stephen’s head the Cold War never really ended, but if Stephen hadn’t built the Colbert Bunker, it would have been very likely that they’d never have survived. If the initial blast had somehow managed not to kill them then the aftermath would have, especially since fresh water was fast becoming a rare commodity, and the Colbert Bunker was completely stocked.
Stephen had forced them all to ration from day one, and several weeks in, they’re all glad of it; the food and water lasts a lot longer that way. The kids get first priority of course, and the adults have all gotten used to not eating unless they have to but even so they’re going to have to start foraging for food soon.
As it is they’ve only left the bunker to go search for survivors, all of them a little afraid about what they might find if they stay out there for too long. Jon never really took end-of-the-world-nuclear-mutation-monster movies that seriously before.
He’s beginning to think that might have been a mistake.
666.
Anderson Cooper is the one who finds them initially. They were all in the Colbert Bunker. As many as Stephen could find when the world went to hell, all crammed down there for what felt like days, with Stephen guarding the inside of the hatch with his shotgun, despite the fact that Jon and Paul keep telling him it’s overkill
When the knock comes on the hatch they all freeze where they are, until Stephen finally cautiously opens the hatch, his shotgun at the ready. Anderson tumbles in wearing dirt-smudged jeans, a polo shirt, and a gas mask, hair slightly mussed but still managing to look great nonetheless.
“Just wanted to see if there was anyone alive down here.” He says pulling off the gas mask as he stands and brushes himself off.
“What’s going on, out there?” Amy asks and Anderson pauses.
“You don’t know?”
They all look at each other.
“We haven’t been outside yet.” Jon tells him. Anderson stares at them then purses his lips, before blowing air out in a sigh.
666.
Stephen will never forgive the world for ending during one of those points in their marriage when either Evie leaves him, or makes him leave her and the kids in Jersey and move to his apartment in New York. Deep down he always knew it was his fault, although he usually tells anyone who’ll listen that he doesn’t understand it. After all he is the perfect husband . . .was.
Sometimes she keeps him from seeing the kids, saying he’s a bad influence, sometimes . . . the last time . . . she had let them go over to be with him for a while.
He grips the shotgun more tightly and knows there are parts of him that will never forgive himself for not being prepared enough for this.
666.
There are a few places in the city untouched, a few hospitals, churches and schools that have been made into make-shift shelters. They find Rachel and Keith working in what used to be a bank and is now a hospital.
“Thank God, you’re alive.” Jon hugs Rachel.
“Alive and working,” Anderson hugs both of them too.
“Be careful.” Keith throws his companion a dark look. “Or she’ll have conscripted you into shredding sheets for bandages.”
“Hey,” Rachel points at him “you conscripted me, so don’t pretend you don’t care. I think you pretty much single-handedly put this place together.”
They leave the two ex-news anchors to their arguing and rejoin the search for survivors. They find Sam, Jason and their kids in the closet of what used to be their apartment, miraculously still alive, although Jason is beyond frantic because he can’t see, due to the flash. Weeks later, he still wouldn’t be able to.
They dig Aasif out of the rubble of what used to be his apartment; the dislocated shoulder and broken wrist both heal eventually.
They finally find and dig John Oliver out, too, but not until after he’s been stuck under an iron strut for four days, dehydrated and one arm crushed. They bring him to the bank where Rachel and Keith are working. The dehydration he recovers from, with the arm he's not so lucky.
They make a list, missing in action. Everyone tries hard not to look at it.
666.
It turns out the whole world going to hell in a hand basket via nuclear disaster is what it takes to kill every last rat in New York City. Not to mention the pigeons, and really everything else as well.
Not the squirrels though. The squirrels survive. Survive and mutate.
They all thought it took generations to mutate something from radiation. Technically it still might but squirrels breed fast and don’t live long.
Giant killer squirrels sound like a really bad B-horror movie from the eighties, but they did go nicely with the mutant zombies.
The first time they’d seen one had been when a group of them had been out of the bunker scavenging. The squirrel had lumbered into what had once been a grocery store. Its totally unexpected appearance had caused Jon to shriek in a particularly girly way and jump onto the counter while Stephen stared dumbly at the thing, before Amy grabbed the shotgun away from him and shot it. They all stared at the dead body on the floor looking a lot like it had just wandered off the set of the Princess Bride, its teeth easily large enough to take off a man’s arm, its bushy tail stretching out a good four feet behind it.
Despite his original unmanly reaction and the fact that he still hadn’t gotten off the counter, Jon was the first to speak. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
666.
The first mutant-zombie attack happens later that week. Most of the little group was down in the bunker when someone pounds on the hatch. Stephen opens it only to have Rachel, Keith, and Anderson, plus John fall into the bunker.
“Shut the hatch, shut the hatch!” John yells, and Rachel scrambles to her feet.
“You have weapons, right?” She asks looking around the large and tastefully furnished bunker.
“Of course.” Stephen pushes his glasses further up his nose. “I’m not one of you gun-hating liberals after all, I’ll show you the weapons locker.”
“What the hell is going on out there?” Jon asks, watching the three ex-new pundits arm themselves from Stephen’s extensive gun supply.
“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you.” Rachel informs while him loading a semi-automatic. Jon thinks back to the squirrel-of-unusual-size. “Try me.”
666.
Lucky for New York’s survivors, the mutant-zombies seem to only come out at night. Someone somewhere installs an air-raid siren that goes off every day at sundown, and more people move into the bunker.
666.
Shooting is a real problem.
“For someone who loves guns as much as you do, you’re a very poor shot.” Rachel points out to Stephen in the bunker’s firing range, which is slowly turning into a storage space with targets.
“Oh, and you think you know everything about guns.” Stephen draws the weapon in question closer to his chest protectively.
“Well maybe if you didn’t scream while you were shooting you’d be better at hitting things.” Rachel points out.
“It’s a manly scream of rage.” Stephen informs her and she raises her eyebrows at him. “Besides I’m expecting the Rapture to happen before me or my family are eaten by mutant-zombies.” Stephen’s voice is full of confidence, but his hands shake and Rachel pats his shoulder gently.
“Hitting anything will require you to be actually looking at the target while you shoot.” Keith informs Jon. “You can’t just look in the opposite direction and shoot randomly. It doesn’t work.”
“I’m getting this from the man who couldn’t hit the side of the barn if he had money on it,” Jon mutters almost under his breath, and Keith puts his hands on his hips. “I know I’m a lousy shot but the squirrels are bigger than a target and least I try. Which is more then can be said for a lot of the people here.”
“What I am supposed to do? I only have one arm.” John points out testily.
“Not that it would make much difference.” Keith grumbles, and John glares.
“And God, Andy where did you learn to shoot?” Jon leaps at the opportunity for a distraction from his own lousy performance, and all three men watch mouths slightly open.
“I think I’m a little afraid of you now.” Keith admits studying the cluster of holes in the middle Anderson’s target.
“Are you sure you haven’t secretly been working as an assassin for Cheney all these years?” Jon also stares at the target. John whistles admiringly.
Anderson pauses before reloading and smiles slightly “Jon, do you really think I’d tell you if I had?”
666.
One of the things Sam secretly worries about is how easy it is to parent in the bunker. Pretty much everyone looks out for the kids whether or not the child in question belongs to them. At first she was a little-okay maybe a lot-concerned with leaving her kids with anyone else, but she trusts Jon and everyone there really, and they need every able-bodied person to help out in other ways. It becomes easier and easier to rely on John, or Stephen, or Paul or Amy to watch the kids while she helps Jason learn where everything in the bunker is by touch. Sometimes she’ll come back from searching for food to find Rachel or even Keith reading a book to her daughter, or walking her son around the tiny kitchen. Jon and Stephen both agree it’s easier when everyone looks after the kids.
It’s easy and that’s what scares Sam, because this was never what she wanted for her children. Just thinking about the world they are now going to have to grow up in makes her feel sick inside.
666.
There are no cars, no buses, no trains, and no one in their right mind is willing to go into the subways. They can go as far as they can walk, before the sun sets, no further. There might be other survivors, maybe whole cities and towns are safe, maybe only the major cities were destroyed, maybe the rest of the world is safe. They don’t know. The cellphones don’t work. The landline telephones don’t work. The internet doesn’t work.
Sometimes Jon thinks the inability to reach out, to anyone, is the worst part of the whole thing.
666.
It’s Stephen who thinks of it.
“Radio.” Jon, Paul, and Amy, look at him blankly, Jason is also there sitting on the couch listening although he still can’t see anything. “You know good old-fashioned American entertainment, before the perverting affects of the moving picture.”
“Yes Stephen, we know what a radio is.” Jon points out.
“We haven’t tried using a radio to contact the outside world.”
“And you have one?”
Stephen smiles, his glasses glinting in the florescent lights of the bunker “Of course.”
"so why didn't you bring this up before?" Jason asks from the couch. "what exactly were you waiting for God?"
Stephen purses his lips "well. . .yes actually."
Everyone stares at him before Paul groans and lets his head fall forward against the table. Jon pushes back his chair and leaves the room without saying a word.
Stephen gets up to follow and Amy grabs his arm. "don't Stephen, just let him go."
666.
The radio works.
It takes them a couple days to set up a radio station in the bunker, a week to cobble together enough electronics to boost their input and output. They all work on it, taking turns trying things sometimes completely at random just to see what might happen. The toaster-oven is probably the most far fetched scheme but John, Aasif, Paul and Anderson have fun trying.
Besides they did manage to get the fire put out before it did any real damage.
Really.
So despite everyone’s best efforts, in the end it works.
666.
A few months after the end of the world, they go back on the air.
666.
After the divorce, Tracy had moved out of New York City. Jon got the kids every other weekend. Which is why he knows they are still alive, and he tries hard not to think like that; the mere idea that if things had been different he might not know paralyzes him with terror. Jon’s never been a religious man--and less as he gets older--but now he prays everyday that she’s alright, that Westchester somehow survived, that somehow she survived.
He knows that Stephen prays too.
666.
It never rains anymore. They wait for it, every day, watch the clouds that sometimes boil green across the sky but it never rains on the city. They take bets on whether or not it’ll actually rain water or something much more nasty when it finally does. They poll everyone they can find about what they think it’ll rain, when it rains, and then they poll everyone again about when people think it will actually rain, if it rains. They read the results of both polls on the radio and do a weather report everyday.
“It’s dry folks.” Aasif informs anyone who may or may not be listening across the radio waves. “There’s a dry wind blowing across what’s left of New York City today. It’s bringing with it dust, which makes it completely indistinguishable from every other day. It’ll probably get hot again too, so stay out of wide open spaces and keep to the shade cast by the nearest pile of rubble.”
The dust is a problem. It’s red and no one quite knows what it’s made out of. It also gets into everything, including the food, and people’s eyes and mouths. Also if you stay out in it for more then a couple hours, it shreds through your clothes. After everyone in the bunker went through every coat they owned, Sam, Amy, Rachel and Anderson, put together, water, food, gas masks, and guns and go out on an expedition.
They come back two days later. Sam has a sprained ankle, and they are all covered in cuts and bruises, but still alive. They also come bearing epic tales of being chased by giant squirrels, fighting their way out of abandon buildings surrounded by zombies and doing a whole lot of running and screaming in the process.
More importantly perhaps they also have with them several crates of heavy workmen’s coats made out of some kind of tarp-like material, that they had scavenged from a warehouse. The coats are heavy, and an incredibly unflattering shade of brown but the dust doesn’t cut them up or even get through them so everyone gets one and gets used to wearing them. On most of the bunker-mates the coats go down to their knees, while Keith’s hits him at a weird angle mid-thigh, and the kids could easily completely wrap themselves in theirs, but everyone agrees it’s better then nothing.
666.
Anderson doesn’t know what to do about the fact that John cries in his sleep at night most nights. There are bedrooms in the bunker but too many people now live there to make that really worthwhile, mostly people sleep wherever there’s space. Some nights Anderson sleeps close enough to John to be able to hear him cry. He isn’t sure if John cries from memories of being trapped, slowly crushed to death and alone, or if it’s over the loss of someone dear. Either way he wishes there was some way to reach out and comfort the other man somehow.
Stephen cries too, almost every night. In the beginning Jon didn’t know what to do about it, how to comfort the other man, if he even should. Stephen can be so unpredictable about these things, and Jon knows Stephen was raised to believe that only weak men cry. There was only so long he could lie there and ignore it though, so one night he’d reached out for Stephen in the dark.
Now when Stephen cries Jon doesn’t hesitate to take him in his arms, hold him close, gently stroking his hair, just has Jon would do if Stephen were one of the children.
There are nights when Jon wants to cry too, but he usually doesn’t.
666.
“We can not play like this.” Aasif informs everyone who might be listening. “You can not play cricket without wickets and rocks are not the same thing.”
“Says the man from India,” John taunts from across the roof of the bunker.
“I always thought imperialist slander was below you, Oliver.” Aasif nudges one of the rocks in question with the toe of his shoe. “Apparently not.”
“Or are you just afraid that I’ll beat you, literally one handed,” John grins.
“Are we playing, or aren’t we?” Keith asks arms crossed across his chest squinting against the sun.
666.
“The zombies seem to have been in full force last night,” Jon tells anyone who’s still alive to listen over the air. “We’re still not sure where they are coming from or why, so if anyone out there knows, give us a call would you? My good friend Stephen Colbert thinks we should be shooting them from the roof, but I don’t know. . .I don’t think I’m cool with that. I mean if they’re trying to chew your leg off sure, that’s only fair, but when they’re just walking around doing, whatever zombies do when they’re not, you know, eating people. . .I don’t think I’m okay with that. It seems like a lack of sportsmanship on our part. I mean sure, they’re undead killing machines but my mother taught me never to shoot at random stranger,” Jon lets his voice go high and squeaky. “Even if they are trying to eat me.”
They leave a receiver on all the time, everyday, in the hope that someone, somewhere will answer. Jon can’t help spending the whole time he does his daily segment staring at it.
“And now, I’m going to switch you over to Jason Jones, for our ‘good housekeeping in a bunker’ segment. I think Jason’s going to tell you the ins-and-outs of heating up a can of soup post-apocalypse style. Stay tuned.”
They always wait for an answer but all they ever get is static.
666.
Sometimes Jon likes to tell himself this isn’t the end of the world, just a road bump in life. On the other hand it’s a road bump that’s taken out most the city he loves, killing more people then he can wrap his mind around, stranding them all in the middle of a bombed-out zombie infested wasteland. On those days he doesn’t think anyone could really blame him for getting a little down.
The sun's going to set soon, they’ll have to go in or risk being eaten, but Jon knows it’ll be safe still for a little while yet. From the top of the bunker he can see rubble and twisted metal stretching out into the distance, and above it a beautiful sunset, turning the sky orange, purple, and red. A little ways away John and Anderson are also watching the sunset. A dry wind blows through the city, bring with it the red dust that Jon hardly notices anymore. Across the top of the bunker John’s coat half blows off the shoulder with his missing arm and Anderson catches it and drapes it back around the other man.
Jon hears footsteps crunch across the layers of dust behind him and feels Stephen’s hand rest lightly on his shoulder.
“Jon?”
“We’re not going to make it.” Jon says feeling the dust dry coating his hands and tongue, making his eyes sting.
Stephen’s arms go around his waist, pulling him hard against Stephen’s chest
“Yes.” Stephen says, “Yes, we will.”
Jon only sighs and leans back against Stephen’s solid warmth. Across the bunker roof Anderson helps John down the makeshift ladder and through the hatch.
“Jon,” Stephen says against Jon's hair “We need to get inside, I don’t fancy being someone's lunch any time soon.”
“Yeah,” Jon presses against Stephen’s comforting form one more time before stepping back. “And Stephen? Thank you.”
Stephen smiles and holds out his hand to help Jon down the ladder.
Author: slash4femme
Recipient: maggiebloome
Fandom: The Daily Show/Colbert Report
Rating: R
Spoilers: None
Warnings: hurt and possible death of major characters, rodents, religion and other disturbing images
Summary: life changes greatly when most of NY is destroyed and Stephen ends up being the most prepared man around
Pairing: Sam/Jason, and some shades of of Anderson/John O. and Stephen/ Jon but only if you want to see them.
Author Notes: beta read by the totally cool and awesome trishalynn
666.
In what might have at one point been a Brooklyn diner, a radio whines and stops emitting an endless stream of static. For a moment, there is nothing but silence and then a voice pipes out across the empty room full of twisted metal, broken glass and rubble into the equally empty, twisted metal and rubble-strewn street.
“This is John Oliver.” The radio states, in a well-groomed English accent. “And this is your daily addition of ‘Is There Anyone Out There?’ bringing you the latest news from the end of the world.”
An incredibly hot, dry wind blows across the street through the blown-out windows of the diner making the metal struts creak.
666.
No one ever thought it would actually happen.
Global warming, economic collapse, political collapse, hurricanes, and tsunami-all these things could happen, but no one ever really thought the human race would actually end it all through massive nuclear melt-down. That was a little too Cold War, for the twenty-first century. That at least was what everyone said.
Turns out though, the joke was on them.
666.
If Stephen hadn’t been the brilliant, paranoid, egotistical, stark-raving maniac he is they’d all be dead right now.
Jon knows that. He never thought he’d be grateful that in Stephen’s head the Cold War never really ended, but if Stephen hadn’t built the Colbert Bunker, it would have been very likely that they’d never have survived. If the initial blast had somehow managed not to kill them then the aftermath would have, especially since fresh water was fast becoming a rare commodity, and the Colbert Bunker was completely stocked.
Stephen had forced them all to ration from day one, and several weeks in, they’re all glad of it; the food and water lasts a lot longer that way. The kids get first priority of course, and the adults have all gotten used to not eating unless they have to but even so they’re going to have to start foraging for food soon.
As it is they’ve only left the bunker to go search for survivors, all of them a little afraid about what they might find if they stay out there for too long. Jon never really took end-of-the-world-nuclear-mutation-monster movies that seriously before.
He’s beginning to think that might have been a mistake.
666.
Anderson Cooper is the one who finds them initially. They were all in the Colbert Bunker. As many as Stephen could find when the world went to hell, all crammed down there for what felt like days, with Stephen guarding the inside of the hatch with his shotgun, despite the fact that Jon and Paul keep telling him it’s overkill
When the knock comes on the hatch they all freeze where they are, until Stephen finally cautiously opens the hatch, his shotgun at the ready. Anderson tumbles in wearing dirt-smudged jeans, a polo shirt, and a gas mask, hair slightly mussed but still managing to look great nonetheless.
“Just wanted to see if there was anyone alive down here.” He says pulling off the gas mask as he stands and brushes himself off.
“What’s going on, out there?” Amy asks and Anderson pauses.
“You don’t know?”
They all look at each other.
“We haven’t been outside yet.” Jon tells him. Anderson stares at them then purses his lips, before blowing air out in a sigh.
666.
Stephen will never forgive the world for ending during one of those points in their marriage when either Evie leaves him, or makes him leave her and the kids in Jersey and move to his apartment in New York. Deep down he always knew it was his fault, although he usually tells anyone who’ll listen that he doesn’t understand it. After all he is the perfect husband . . .was.
Sometimes she keeps him from seeing the kids, saying he’s a bad influence, sometimes . . . the last time . . . she had let them go over to be with him for a while.
He grips the shotgun more tightly and knows there are parts of him that will never forgive himself for not being prepared enough for this.
666.
There are a few places in the city untouched, a few hospitals, churches and schools that have been made into make-shift shelters. They find Rachel and Keith working in what used to be a bank and is now a hospital.
“Thank God, you’re alive.” Jon hugs Rachel.
“Alive and working,” Anderson hugs both of them too.
“Be careful.” Keith throws his companion a dark look. “Or she’ll have conscripted you into shredding sheets for bandages.”
“Hey,” Rachel points at him “you conscripted me, so don’t pretend you don’t care. I think you pretty much single-handedly put this place together.”
They leave the two ex-news anchors to their arguing and rejoin the search for survivors. They find Sam, Jason and their kids in the closet of what used to be their apartment, miraculously still alive, although Jason is beyond frantic because he can’t see, due to the flash. Weeks later, he still wouldn’t be able to.
They dig Aasif out of the rubble of what used to be his apartment; the dislocated shoulder and broken wrist both heal eventually.
They finally find and dig John Oliver out, too, but not until after he’s been stuck under an iron strut for four days, dehydrated and one arm crushed. They bring him to the bank where Rachel and Keith are working. The dehydration he recovers from, with the arm he's not so lucky.
They make a list, missing in action. Everyone tries hard not to look at it.
666.
It turns out the whole world going to hell in a hand basket via nuclear disaster is what it takes to kill every last rat in New York City. Not to mention the pigeons, and really everything else as well.
Not the squirrels though. The squirrels survive. Survive and mutate.
They all thought it took generations to mutate something from radiation. Technically it still might but squirrels breed fast and don’t live long.
Giant killer squirrels sound like a really bad B-horror movie from the eighties, but they did go nicely with the mutant zombies.
The first time they’d seen one had been when a group of them had been out of the bunker scavenging. The squirrel had lumbered into what had once been a grocery store. Its totally unexpected appearance had caused Jon to shriek in a particularly girly way and jump onto the counter while Stephen stared dumbly at the thing, before Amy grabbed the shotgun away from him and shot it. They all stared at the dead body on the floor looking a lot like it had just wandered off the set of the Princess Bride, its teeth easily large enough to take off a man’s arm, its bushy tail stretching out a good four feet behind it.
Despite his original unmanly reaction and the fact that he still hadn’t gotten off the counter, Jon was the first to speak. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
666.
The first mutant-zombie attack happens later that week. Most of the little group was down in the bunker when someone pounds on the hatch. Stephen opens it only to have Rachel, Keith, and Anderson, plus John fall into the bunker.
“Shut the hatch, shut the hatch!” John yells, and Rachel scrambles to her feet.
“You have weapons, right?” She asks looking around the large and tastefully furnished bunker.
“Of course.” Stephen pushes his glasses further up his nose. “I’m not one of you gun-hating liberals after all, I’ll show you the weapons locker.”
“What the hell is going on out there?” Jon asks, watching the three ex-new pundits arm themselves from Stephen’s extensive gun supply.
“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you.” Rachel informs while him loading a semi-automatic. Jon thinks back to the squirrel-of-unusual-size. “Try me.”
666.
Lucky for New York’s survivors, the mutant-zombies seem to only come out at night. Someone somewhere installs an air-raid siren that goes off every day at sundown, and more people move into the bunker.
666.
Shooting is a real problem.
“For someone who loves guns as much as you do, you’re a very poor shot.” Rachel points out to Stephen in the bunker’s firing range, which is slowly turning into a storage space with targets.
“Oh, and you think you know everything about guns.” Stephen draws the weapon in question closer to his chest protectively.
“Well maybe if you didn’t scream while you were shooting you’d be better at hitting things.” Rachel points out.
“It’s a manly scream of rage.” Stephen informs her and she raises her eyebrows at him. “Besides I’m expecting the Rapture to happen before me or my family are eaten by mutant-zombies.” Stephen’s voice is full of confidence, but his hands shake and Rachel pats his shoulder gently.
“Hitting anything will require you to be actually looking at the target while you shoot.” Keith informs Jon. “You can’t just look in the opposite direction and shoot randomly. It doesn’t work.”
“I’m getting this from the man who couldn’t hit the side of the barn if he had money on it,” Jon mutters almost under his breath, and Keith puts his hands on his hips. “I know I’m a lousy shot but the squirrels are bigger than a target and least I try. Which is more then can be said for a lot of the people here.”
“What I am supposed to do? I only have one arm.” John points out testily.
“Not that it would make much difference.” Keith grumbles, and John glares.
“And God, Andy where did you learn to shoot?” Jon leaps at the opportunity for a distraction from his own lousy performance, and all three men watch mouths slightly open.
“I think I’m a little afraid of you now.” Keith admits studying the cluster of holes in the middle Anderson’s target.
“Are you sure you haven’t secretly been working as an assassin for Cheney all these years?” Jon also stares at the target. John whistles admiringly.
Anderson pauses before reloading and smiles slightly “Jon, do you really think I’d tell you if I had?”
666.
One of the things Sam secretly worries about is how easy it is to parent in the bunker. Pretty much everyone looks out for the kids whether or not the child in question belongs to them. At first she was a little-okay maybe a lot-concerned with leaving her kids with anyone else, but she trusts Jon and everyone there really, and they need every able-bodied person to help out in other ways. It becomes easier and easier to rely on John, or Stephen, or Paul or Amy to watch the kids while she helps Jason learn where everything in the bunker is by touch. Sometimes she’ll come back from searching for food to find Rachel or even Keith reading a book to her daughter, or walking her son around the tiny kitchen. Jon and Stephen both agree it’s easier when everyone looks after the kids.
It’s easy and that’s what scares Sam, because this was never what she wanted for her children. Just thinking about the world they are now going to have to grow up in makes her feel sick inside.
666.
There are no cars, no buses, no trains, and no one in their right mind is willing to go into the subways. They can go as far as they can walk, before the sun sets, no further. There might be other survivors, maybe whole cities and towns are safe, maybe only the major cities were destroyed, maybe the rest of the world is safe. They don’t know. The cellphones don’t work. The landline telephones don’t work. The internet doesn’t work.
Sometimes Jon thinks the inability to reach out, to anyone, is the worst part of the whole thing.
666.
It’s Stephen who thinks of it.
“Radio.” Jon, Paul, and Amy, look at him blankly, Jason is also there sitting on the couch listening although he still can’t see anything. “You know good old-fashioned American entertainment, before the perverting affects of the moving picture.”
“Yes Stephen, we know what a radio is.” Jon points out.
“We haven’t tried using a radio to contact the outside world.”
“And you have one?”
Stephen smiles, his glasses glinting in the florescent lights of the bunker “Of course.”
"so why didn't you bring this up before?" Jason asks from the couch. "what exactly were you waiting for God?"
Stephen purses his lips "well. . .yes actually."
Everyone stares at him before Paul groans and lets his head fall forward against the table. Jon pushes back his chair and leaves the room without saying a word.
Stephen gets up to follow and Amy grabs his arm. "don't Stephen, just let him go."
666.
The radio works.
It takes them a couple days to set up a radio station in the bunker, a week to cobble together enough electronics to boost their input and output. They all work on it, taking turns trying things sometimes completely at random just to see what might happen. The toaster-oven is probably the most far fetched scheme but John, Aasif, Paul and Anderson have fun trying.
Besides they did manage to get the fire put out before it did any real damage.
Really.
So despite everyone’s best efforts, in the end it works.
666.
A few months after the end of the world, they go back on the air.
666.
After the divorce, Tracy had moved out of New York City. Jon got the kids every other weekend. Which is why he knows they are still alive, and he tries hard not to think like that; the mere idea that if things had been different he might not know paralyzes him with terror. Jon’s never been a religious man--and less as he gets older--but now he prays everyday that she’s alright, that Westchester somehow survived, that somehow she survived.
He knows that Stephen prays too.
666.
It never rains anymore. They wait for it, every day, watch the clouds that sometimes boil green across the sky but it never rains on the city. They take bets on whether or not it’ll actually rain water or something much more nasty when it finally does. They poll everyone they can find about what they think it’ll rain, when it rains, and then they poll everyone again about when people think it will actually rain, if it rains. They read the results of both polls on the radio and do a weather report everyday.
“It’s dry folks.” Aasif informs anyone who may or may not be listening across the radio waves. “There’s a dry wind blowing across what’s left of New York City today. It’s bringing with it dust, which makes it completely indistinguishable from every other day. It’ll probably get hot again too, so stay out of wide open spaces and keep to the shade cast by the nearest pile of rubble.”
The dust is a problem. It’s red and no one quite knows what it’s made out of. It also gets into everything, including the food, and people’s eyes and mouths. Also if you stay out in it for more then a couple hours, it shreds through your clothes. After everyone in the bunker went through every coat they owned, Sam, Amy, Rachel and Anderson, put together, water, food, gas masks, and guns and go out on an expedition.
They come back two days later. Sam has a sprained ankle, and they are all covered in cuts and bruises, but still alive. They also come bearing epic tales of being chased by giant squirrels, fighting their way out of abandon buildings surrounded by zombies and doing a whole lot of running and screaming in the process.
More importantly perhaps they also have with them several crates of heavy workmen’s coats made out of some kind of tarp-like material, that they had scavenged from a warehouse. The coats are heavy, and an incredibly unflattering shade of brown but the dust doesn’t cut them up or even get through them so everyone gets one and gets used to wearing them. On most of the bunker-mates the coats go down to their knees, while Keith’s hits him at a weird angle mid-thigh, and the kids could easily completely wrap themselves in theirs, but everyone agrees it’s better then nothing.
666.
Anderson doesn’t know what to do about the fact that John cries in his sleep at night most nights. There are bedrooms in the bunker but too many people now live there to make that really worthwhile, mostly people sleep wherever there’s space. Some nights Anderson sleeps close enough to John to be able to hear him cry. He isn’t sure if John cries from memories of being trapped, slowly crushed to death and alone, or if it’s over the loss of someone dear. Either way he wishes there was some way to reach out and comfort the other man somehow.
Stephen cries too, almost every night. In the beginning Jon didn’t know what to do about it, how to comfort the other man, if he even should. Stephen can be so unpredictable about these things, and Jon knows Stephen was raised to believe that only weak men cry. There was only so long he could lie there and ignore it though, so one night he’d reached out for Stephen in the dark.
Now when Stephen cries Jon doesn’t hesitate to take him in his arms, hold him close, gently stroking his hair, just has Jon would do if Stephen were one of the children.
There are nights when Jon wants to cry too, but he usually doesn’t.
666.
“We can not play like this.” Aasif informs everyone who might be listening. “You can not play cricket without wickets and rocks are not the same thing.”
“Says the man from India,” John taunts from across the roof of the bunker.
“I always thought imperialist slander was below you, Oliver.” Aasif nudges one of the rocks in question with the toe of his shoe. “Apparently not.”
“Or are you just afraid that I’ll beat you, literally one handed,” John grins.
“Are we playing, or aren’t we?” Keith asks arms crossed across his chest squinting against the sun.
666.
“The zombies seem to have been in full force last night,” Jon tells anyone who’s still alive to listen over the air. “We’re still not sure where they are coming from or why, so if anyone out there knows, give us a call would you? My good friend Stephen Colbert thinks we should be shooting them from the roof, but I don’t know. . .I don’t think I’m cool with that. I mean if they’re trying to chew your leg off sure, that’s only fair, but when they’re just walking around doing, whatever zombies do when they’re not, you know, eating people. . .I don’t think I’m okay with that. It seems like a lack of sportsmanship on our part. I mean sure, they’re undead killing machines but my mother taught me never to shoot at random stranger,” Jon lets his voice go high and squeaky. “Even if they are trying to eat me.”
They leave a receiver on all the time, everyday, in the hope that someone, somewhere will answer. Jon can’t help spending the whole time he does his daily segment staring at it.
“And now, I’m going to switch you over to Jason Jones, for our ‘good housekeeping in a bunker’ segment. I think Jason’s going to tell you the ins-and-outs of heating up a can of soup post-apocalypse style. Stay tuned.”
They always wait for an answer but all they ever get is static.
666.
Sometimes Jon likes to tell himself this isn’t the end of the world, just a road bump in life. On the other hand it’s a road bump that’s taken out most the city he loves, killing more people then he can wrap his mind around, stranding them all in the middle of a bombed-out zombie infested wasteland. On those days he doesn’t think anyone could really blame him for getting a little down.
The sun's going to set soon, they’ll have to go in or risk being eaten, but Jon knows it’ll be safe still for a little while yet. From the top of the bunker he can see rubble and twisted metal stretching out into the distance, and above it a beautiful sunset, turning the sky orange, purple, and red. A little ways away John and Anderson are also watching the sunset. A dry wind blows through the city, bring with it the red dust that Jon hardly notices anymore. Across the top of the bunker John’s coat half blows off the shoulder with his missing arm and Anderson catches it and drapes it back around the other man.
Jon hears footsteps crunch across the layers of dust behind him and feels Stephen’s hand rest lightly on his shoulder.
“Jon?”
“We’re not going to make it.” Jon says feeling the dust dry coating his hands and tongue, making his eyes sting.
Stephen’s arms go around his waist, pulling him hard against Stephen’s chest
“Yes.” Stephen says, “Yes, we will.”
Jon only sighs and leans back against Stephen’s solid warmth. Across the bunker roof Anderson helps John down the makeshift ladder and through the hatch.
“Jon,” Stephen says against Jon's hair “We need to get inside, I don’t fancy being someone's lunch any time soon.”
“Yeah,” Jon presses against Stephen’s comforting form one more time before stepping back. “And Stephen? Thank you.”
Stephen smiles and holds out his hand to help Jon down the ladder.