Fundamental Theorem of Normalcy, for slob_child (gen, R)
Title: Fundamental Theorem of Normalcy
Author: buffyspazz / Dusty Springfield
Recipient: slob_child
Rating: R
Author's Notes: ~4900 words. Much thanks to nativestar and mcfeste for the awesome beta work. Also, no copyright infringement intended.
Summary: The cable is out and the phone lines are down. The radio is silent. He tries 911 on his cell phone but can only get a busy signal. Sam feels like the only person left on earth.
~
It's 2 a.m. on Monday, and Sam has the makings of a Molotov cocktail on his desk. A torn piece of his bed sheet and a tin of lighter fluid obscure the pages of his calculus textbook. He has two finals and a paper due next week. He hasn't slept in thirty-eight hours.
Outside his window, zombies roam the campus, moonlight ghosting over their too-pale skin.
Sam lives in Donner. His dorm room faces north. His roommate, Charlie, had complained about the size of the room on the first day, spartan furniture crammed inside, vaguely prison-like, but Sam had gone out and bought a geranium and a poster of Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. He had hung the poster over his bed.
Sam keeps glancing at the poster, but so far Bogey is mute.
Sam's eyes are scratchy and dry, and he rubs his hand over his face. The zombies started showing up four hours ago. Sam had sent Charlie away for being drunk and horny only an hour before that; his stomach clenches when he thinks about Charlie walking around outside.
The zombies wander relentlessly. Occasionally they'll bump into each other, and Sam can hear them grunting.
The cable is out and the phone lines are down. The radio is silent. He tries 911 on his cell phone but can only get a busy signal. Sam feels like the only person left on earth.
His Outlook pops up a reminder when he tries to log onto his email: Calc II final, Wed. 10am, Poli Sci final Thur. 11, Psych paper due Thur. 2. The neat font is bland, accusatory. The sweat on Sam's brow is cold, not entirely due to what's going on outside. His GPA is currently 3.3. He needs a 3.4 to keep his scholarship, and no time to study with a campus full of zombies.
It's hard to see them, even in the full moon. At first, Sam wasn't sure that was what they were, but they had an implacable, shambling walk that he'd recognized from Dad's journal. They hadn't responded when Sam had lobbed an empty beer bottle at one of them.
The beer bottle was what had given him the idea for the Molotov cocktails, and he had spent almost two hours gathering flammable liquids, wicks, and bottles and assembling the bombs. It had made him feel in control, had killed the jumpiness in his stomach.
He sneaks downstairs around 4 a.m. The dorm is quiet, most of the residents gone. Sam can see the zombies through the windows flanking the main entrance, but so far they're walking aimlessly about, not trying the door. He doesn't want to barricade it in case someone tries to get in. A resident. The police. Charlie.
Sam has one of Charlie's golf clubs, and it feels awkward and useless in his hands. He longs for a rifle and a vial of holy water.
He breaks into the locked dining hall and takes as much food as he can carry in his backpack. Upstairs he spends half an hour making the trip to and from the bathroom to fill every available container with water. He barricades the door with Charlie's desk when he's done and takes stock of his supplies. He has one candle, the lighter Charlie uses for his bong, and a flashlight.
Sam sits in his chair and looks out the window. He wants to go out at dawn to assess the situation, but by 6 a.m. he can't keep his eyes open. He falls asleep at his desk, face squashed uncomfortably on his scientific calculator. He wakes up two hours later, the imprint of the keys stained red into his skin.
In the sunlight the campus looks normal, and Sam lets the tension in his shoulders dissolve, cracks his neck and looks lovingly at his bed. Movement out of the corner of his eye catches his attention, and his gut twists when two zombies walk out of the shadows from the direction of the quad.
The power goes out. There are too many zombies to make a reconnaissance mission feasible. At 9 a.m., he gives up pretending this is going to blow over.
"Pastor Jim? It's me, Sam. Uh, Winchester."
"Sam? What's wrong? Are you okay?" Pastor Jim's voice is calming, a link to a world that knows how to cope with the undead.
"Well, no. Not really. There's...uh, some sort of...zombie invasion, I guess, on campus. I'm trapped in my dorm room, and I don't know what to do. The power's out, so I can't find out what's going on."
"Zombies? Huh." The silence stretches out, and Sam shakes his phone, afraid the call has been dropped.
"Yes, so...can you help me? I've got some Molotov cocktails I made, but I don't think I can fend off a whole campus worth of zombies."
"Where are the rest of the students? Are you the only person there?"
"Yeah, it's Dead Week. I mean, not literally. Well, I guess it is. But, um. It's the last week before finals. Most of the students go home to study. I haven't checked yet to see who else is here."
"Okay, I'm not sure how to get rid of zombies, so I'll have to poke around. I need to call your dad-"
"NO. Jeez, I mean, uh, just...please don't. Don't call him. I can't-" Sam's throat is dry, the words caught. His temples are tight and throbbing.
"Sam. He'll want to know. He'll know what to do. I can't just-"
"Please. Just...he hasn't called me since I left for Stanford. Nothing. I can't."
Another long pause, precious battery time spinning out between them, nowhere to recharge. "Okay. I won't call. Let me see if I can find someone else to help. I'll be in touch. In the meantime, keep a low profile. Don't try to fight this on your own."
"Okay." Sam's voice is small, tiny. The room feels like a tomb when he hangs up.
He's finishing up a bowl of cereal when someone starts beating on the door and yelling. It's Charlie, whole and with a heartbeat. He's got a girl with him who Sam recognizes from down the hall. Maria or Mary or something.
"I think we might be the only ones left in the dorm, Sam. Marian and I went around knocking on doors, and people are either gone or holed up and not answering."
The dorms empty out over Dead Week, and most of the remaining students would have been in the library - or at a party - when the invasion started.
Outside, the zombies continue their restless pacing. Sam's scalp feels twitchy. In the bright light of day, watching the reanimated corpses is surreal.
Sam focuses on what he knows. Charlie and Marian, perched on Charlie's bed. Textbooks on the desk, notes sticking haywire from three-ring binders. Bogey, silent and stoic on the wall.
They eat lunch. Marian isn't a fan of tuna without mayo, and Charlie whines about the white bread Sam stole from the dining hall. Sam's blood pounds in his temples by the time they're done. When his phone rings, he almost drops it in his haste to answer.
"Hello?"
"Sammy, I can't leave you alone at all, can I? Really, zombies?"
"Dean?" Sam's breath is a dry rattle in his throat.
"You thought it would be the pope?"
"No, I, uh...I mean...how are- Where- Uh- Zombies. Yeah, uh, on campus. It's really weird."
"You don't say."
Dean is smart-assed, calm. The tuna feels like a hard knot in Sam's stomach, but his headache fades a little. He just needs a plan.
"Can you help me figure out what's going on?"
"Let me call around, see what I can find out."
"Dean, can you- I mean..."
"We're in North Carolina right now...some Appalachian spirit. It's going to take two or three days for us to get there. You got any weapons?"
"I made some Molotov cocktails. And I'm barricaded in with some friends on the second floor of our dorm. It's...sort of bunker-like. I think we're okay for a little while."
"Okay, sit tight, Sammy. I'll call you back."
Sam naps sporadically, jerking awake before he goes fully under. His eyes feel like glass in their sockets.
Around 3 that afternoon, the zombies begin to exhibit signs of sentience. At first it's subtle; they swerve to avoid one another, run into the trees and buildings less often. Within a few hours the sun is starting to fade into the horizon, and Sam thinks one of them might have spotted him from his place by the window.
"I wonder if we should go down and block the main door." Sam wants to keep the zombies out, but he doesn’t want to cut off sanctuary for someone who needs it.
"I dunno. We'd have to leave the room then," Charlie says. His face is pale, sweat glistening under his eyes.
Sam rubs his temples, trying to think. What would Dean do?
"Let's make a bathroom run," he says finally. "It could be the last one for a while. After that, I'll run downstairs and see about closing off the door."
Sam makes Charlie and Marian each take a water container to refill. Sam has a golf club in one hand, plastic margarita pitcher in the other and a cell phone in his pocket. It's gloomy in the hallway, but he's more worried about getting water than taking a flashlight.
He stands at the urinal for a long time, trying to coax the urine out. It's hard to do when he keeps jerking at every shadow. Charlie's nervous chattering doesn't help.
Marian is safe in the room with the water, and Sam tells Charlie to grab the flashlight. They creep down slowly, feeling their way in the dim light. Sam's halfway down the stairwell when he hears glass breaking.
"Shit. Go." He pushes Charlie back upstairs, makes him wait while he runs to the end of the hall and pokes around in a closet. Sam's back with a broom and a mop that he threads through the handles on the doors. The beam from the flashlight jerks crazily in Charlie's hands. They hear crashing below.
In the room for good, they block the door with Charlie's desk again. Sam opens up a few cans of ravioli. They eat it cold. Marian and Charlie don't complain this time.
Outside, Sam's pretty sure there are a lot more zombies hanging around the dorm. His palms feel greasy when he watches them.
He hears glass breaking downstairs a few more times, but he doesn't say anything. Marian is mostly oblivious, but Charlie's face is the color of old cheese. He jumps when Marian knocks a clock off the nightstand.
Sam's cell phone rings the next morning. He's been sleeping, dreaming of going to the beach, playing in the sand with Dean. Their sandcastle is the tallest one in sight, and John laughs and claps them on the back as a wave sweeps in, washing away its edges. The sun is a glassy coin in a summer-hazy sky.
Sam's tongue is sour and dry, spit dried on the corner of his mouth. Before college he had never been to the beach.
"H'lo?"
"Sammy, good to know you're still alive and kicking. You sound like shit."
"Jesus, Dean. There are zombies attacking my school. I've barely slept in the last three days. What the hell did you expect?"
"Relax, Sam. I'm just screwing with you."
Charlie and Marian are a lump under Charlie's comforter. Sam can see the zombies coming and going outside. One of them shambles to a stop and stares up at their window. Sam's skin is knotted up in hard little goose bumps.
"Whatever, Dean, what did you find out?"
"Well, these aren't your everyday, garden-variety zombies. I talked to a few of Dad's contacts in California. Seems they're imported from a small island in the South Pacific."
"They're- what? Imported?"
"Yeah, the U.S. has been trying to take over this island...Tonga or something, for the military. Apparently, some witch doctor or whatever put a spell on a bunch of corpses and snuck 'em on a container ship exporting coconuts or some shit. One of the containers ended up in Seattle, and one came in through San Francisco and made it up your way. The government thinks it's some sort of disease, and they've banned all imports from the South Pacific."
"Okay, so what does that mean for me?"
"Well, the government knows about the zombies, but the truck driver who transported the container got infected. He infected a bunch of his buddies, and they've got Palo Alto and Menlo Park on lockdown. It's...messy out there right now. They might not make it to you for a while."
"Great," Sam mutters. Trapped in a 12x14 dorm room with two other people for another few days. "Where are you? Are you close?"
"We're in Colorado. We'll be there tomorrow, but the military isn't fucking around with this. I don't how soon we'll be able to get on campus. Caleb is working on getting us some CDC badges." Dean's tone is nonchalant, and Sam has to strain to hear the undercurrent of tension in his voice. It makes him dry-mouthed and nervous. "The good news is you can you can ward them off with hoodoo magic. Benefit of fighting zombies created by a spell."
"Isn't hoodoo African-based?"
"Well, yeah, but the concept is similar. A lot of the same roots are used. Just get a jomo and-"
"Dean, where am I going to get a jomo? I'm trapped in a college dorm room."
"Dude, you went to school without a jomo? Didn't I teach you better? What about graveyard dirt? Black cat bone? Next thing you know you'll tell me you don't have any holy water, either."
Sam drums out a rhythmless beat on his desktop. A loud crash downstairs makes Marian jump. Charlie rubs his hand along her arm.
"Sam? Are you telling me you don't even have any holy water?"
"Yes, okay? I didn't exactly think I'd need that sort of stuff for classes and shit, Dean."
"Jesus, Sam. Just- Lay low, stay away from the windows, and for God's sake, stay in your room. I'll call you later."
Dean's gone before Sam can reply, his tongue a useless, twisted lump in his mouth. The room is hot. Sam presses his fingers to his eyelids, and Marian starts to cry.
Sam decides to study after that, a wary eye on the window while he reviews Pascal's principles and Kepler's laws. The calculus is logical, soothing. Sam gets lost in a rhythm of theorems and derivatives. This world is still normal.
He jerks backward when a hand touches his shoulder. Marian is standing close enough for him to feel the heat from her body. Charlie is behind her, hand cupping her breast. Sam swallows, the integers fading away.
"Sam." Marian's voice is husky. Charlie has his mouth on her neck, sucking a bruise into the pale skin. "We're going to die here. It's not right, but...I need- Don’t you want to?"
"Marian, I-” Sam’s voice is squeaky. He wonders if he's dreaming.
"Just do it, Sam." Charlie is cajoling. He runs a hand along Sam's hot face, palm cool against his cheek.
Sam lets himself be stroked for a minute. He pulls back finally, confusion and desire thrumming under his skin.
"No, I...no. I have to study." He's resolute, brushes off their pleas, and ignores the wet sounds of sex behind him. The numbers blur on the page in front of him, too faint to see in the fading light.
Sam falls into another fitful sleep after dinner. There are no dreams this time, just a steady shaking like the rocking of a boat, and chittering like birds.
"Sam? Sam!” Marian's voice is nervous, cracking. It makes Sam's skin crawl.
"What?" It's hard to think through the film in his head. The chittering sound is Marian, her short little hitches of breath.
"Sam, Charlie's gone."
"What?" Sam jams his fingers in his mouth, digs his nails into the slimy gums. It clears the circuits. "Where the hell is he?"
"He, uh, went to the bathroom. We went together."
Sam can barely see the desk now, halfway into the room, pushed away from the door, a vacuum of light in the dim glow of the moon. His temples pound, adrenaline making his body feel tight and numb.
"So where is he, Marian?"
"He...he decided to see what was going on downstairs. We hadn't heard anything for a while, so he went to see what was happening. I was supposed to wait five minutes and wake you up if he didn't come back. It's been almost ten now..."
Sam tries to think. His head feels rotten and used.
"Okay, stay here. Block the door when I leave, only let me in if I knock three times. If I don't come back, call my brother, Dean. His number's in my cell phone. Tell him...I don't know. Just tell him you're here alone and he'll know what to do."
Marian nods at the orders, face ghost white, mouth drawn into a hard line. Sam takes his golf club and a flashlight, doesn't dare try a Molotov cocktail inside.
The hallway is empty, shadowed. The stairwell throws Sam's footsteps back to him in angry-sounding echoes. The hair on the back of his neck is erect and crawling.
Sam peers cautiously out of the stairwell window, can't see anything moving. He runs through the halls lightly, senses sharpened. He's ready for anything, nervous energy humming through his veins.
Charlie's in the cafeteria, slumped in a chair. He's sprained his ankle. Sweat glistens on his upper lip in the beam of the flashlight.
"Sam, it hurts. Didn't think I could make it back."
He throws Charlie's arm around his neck and takes off, nervous at the lack of zombies. He's halfway to the stairwell when they attack, spilling out of the first-floor common room in a wave of stink and rot.
Sam books it, no time to lose. They make it back to the room, Sam dragging Charlie. He knocks on the door, over and over, bellowing at Marian to let them in. The golf club falls from Charlie's hands, their only weapon besides fire, but the zombies are negotiating the stairs, and Sam can't spare the time to get it.
Inside, the room feels safe enough with the lock thrown and the desk acting as a barricade again. In the courtyard the zombies make noise, an angry hum like a million bees.
Sam and his crew don't go unnoticed after that, constant shuffle and bump outside the door. Sam pees out the window, hits a zombie in the head, and feels a sharp pang of vindication.
He's worried about ladders, climbing, zombies stacked on top of each other like building blocks. It’s twenty feet to the ground, maybe less. The zombies stare at the window, hollow gazes like a pall on Sam's skin.
He itches to send a rain of firebombs down on them, knows it's a fleeting fantasy, only used as a last resort. If the building catches on fire they're dead.
Still, he digs grooves into the soft meat of his palms, fists clenched against the urge to put flint to wick and throw.
By Wednesday afternoon the food situation is bad, not much left. The water situation is worse. Sam flings empty tins of tuna and SpaghettiOs out of the window, mouth curled on a bitter tang of defeat. The room smells. Sam has given up on calculus, on psychology and political science, on normal.
He's tried signaling with a mirror, to no avail. The zombies congregate around a leader, stupid sort of intelligence glittering from his dead eyes. They start trying to climb the walls when the sun is a bloody ball on a course for the horizon.
Sam watches as they fall, ripe plops on the cement. Watches them get better. He lines the Molotov cocktails up on the desk. He'll grab Charlie and Marian, make them run if they have to. If the building catches fire.
Sam hopes that doesn't happen.
Marian peers fretfully over his shoulder, watching the steady progress, the undead pyramid building itself painstakingly below. She flings an alarm clock at one of them in a rage, whacks the zombie off the pyramid.
Sam thinks. What would Dean do? What would Dad do? He picks up his calculus textbook. Pauses for a minute and puts it down, decides to sacrifice poli sci for the cause instead.
The book flies from his hand, soft swoosh of air trailing its descent. It hits the zombie on the bottom right corner of the pyramid square in the chest, knocks him over. The tentative ladder collapses in a pile of rotting flesh and bones.
Victory tastes like bitter, dry ashes in Sam's mouth. He washes it down with stale water.
The next pyramid goes up more quickly. The sky is stained with the faint color of sunrise when Sam readies Charlie and Marian. They brandish homemade torches; old t-shirts soaked in lighter fluid and tied to a broom handle broken in pieces.
"If the building catches fire, we have to make a run for it. Make sure your torch is lit before you open the door. Use it ward them off. Don't let it go out."
At the window, Sam plots his throw. Too close and the building will definitely go up. Too far and the zombies will ignore it.
The first bottle is greasy, and Sam loses his grip as he's releasing it. It flies over the zombies and breaks, but the flame is weak, the wick falling out, away from the accelerant.
Sam wipes his hands, gets a firm grip on the next one. Aims for the courtyard, fifteen feet away. The bottle smashes on impact, wick burning merrily as it contacts the spreading alcohol.
Bingo.
The zombies draw away from the fire with a collective groan. Sam sees the leader's gaze rotating between the flames and the window. Sam lobs another cocktail out to the left of the first. Three more and the grass is ablaze. The zombies abandon their pyramid and retreat to the edge of the courtyard, away from the dorm.
Sam burns his hand after the sixth or seventh bomb. The flesh is blistered, singing an aria of pain. The searing burn stops after a while, but the skin throbs continually. By noon Sam can't use the hand at all.
The fire burns in the courtyard, edging toward the dorm, then away. The winds are erratic.
They drink the last of the water that afternoon. Sam calls Dean.
"Dean? You there?"
"Yeah, Sammy, it's- Jesus, you sound bad. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, 'm fine. Listen, Dean, tell Dad I'm sorry-"
"What? No! Sam, listen to me, you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. You just need to snap out of it. You've got battle fatigue, that's all. Caleb's almost got the IDs ready, we'll be able to get to you tomorrow. Just hang in there!"
Sam shakes his head mutely. Hot tears sting his eyes. He feels dumb, wiping salty tracks onto his cheeks while Charlie and Marian watch cautiously from Charlie's bed.
He concentrates, fumbling around for the resolve that got him here, kept him focused through thirteen years of moving from school to school, being the weird new kid, scheduling A.P. Calculus and extra-curricular activities around hunting to get into a good college.
"I'm okay," he finally manages, voice gasping and weak. "I'm just tired."
"Don't give up on me, Sammy. Don't you ever give up."
His phone battery dies soon after. Sam falls into another doze after the sun sets. Charlie wakes him up this time, breath wheezing in his throat.
"Sam, they're doing that climbing thing again. Do you want to throw down the rest of the bombs?"
Sam surveys the scene, moonlight painting the campus silver. The fire has burned out, swatch of blackened grass in its wake. The zombies are about five feet from the bottom of the window. The Molotov cocktails won't stay lit for long on the burnt grass, and throwing them any closer will put the dorm at risk. They only have five left anyway.
"No...just. I don't know anymore." Sam shakes his head, mute negative. Denial. He's used up.
"Sam. Please." It's Marian this time. Her hands are clenched together. Sam can see the white of her knuckles in the moonlight.
Sam opts for throwing the bombs further away. He and Charlie toss random books and junk at the zombie pyramid until it topples. Sam follows up with the remaining cocktails, setting more grass on fire.
When it's done he sinks to the floor, knees popping loudly. His burned hand aches, protesting the recent activity. He rubs his eyes tiredly, out of ideas. He's not sure if this will hold them off any longer. Doesn't know if he cares.
When the military shows up forty minutes later, it sends a jolt through Sam. Hope starts to flow like water from a long-dry, rusty pipe. He hadn't been sure it was still there.
They roll into campus in tanks and trucks. Charlie lights one of the emergency torches and waves it out the window wildly as soldiers spill out, guns crackling violent and final against the dark sky. The zombie leader takes a hit early on, brains spilling out in a gray mess Sam can just make out in the moonlight.
The first new face he sees in three days is Lieutenant Shane Holmes. Sam cries a little when he sees the men behind Holmes, dull green uniforms shadowy in the dark.
"You kids okay?" Holmes says, voice rough.
"Yes." It's Charlie, calm now, in control. Sam tries to compose himself but can't get his tongue to move in his mouth. "Sam took care of us. We're okay."
"How did you learn how to make Molotov cocktails, son?" Holmes is stern, but his eyes are kind. Sam swallows and pulls it together.
"My...my dad. He's...sort of a survivalist type."
"Well, it was to your benefit. It probably saved your life."
They get ready to go. Sam surveys the room, weirdly reluctant to leave. He shoves some clothes into a backpack, stuffs his books in on top somehow. He tips a salute at Bogey on his way out.
Sam calls Dean from a payphone while they're waiting at the hospital, gets his voicemail.
"Dean, it's me. I'm out, the military showed up. They're putting us up in a hotel until they get things sorted out. I'll let you know which one as soon as I find out. And, um, thanks for coming to get me. Tell Dad- Nothing, just...thanks again. I'll see you soon."
Sam gets his cell phone recharged at the hotel. When he turns it on there's a message from Dean.
"Sam, got your message. No need to call about the hotel...we're already in Nevada. There's a poltergeist in Arizona dad wanted to check out." The silence spins out like a rejection. "Uh, I'll catch you next time I'm in California. Call if you need anything."
Sam grips the phone. It leaves reddened dents in his fingers that ache the next day. He gropes his way into bed and sleeps for eighteen hours.
The media has a field day with the "Zero Hour Holocaust." The body count is sixty-three, not including the original zombies. The toll climbs every time Sam turns on the TV. He sees his dorm one evening, in the background behind a reporter from CNN.
The survivors are quarantined. Sam spends two weeks at the Palomino Inn until the CDC can verify that he's not infected with the "virus." He holes up in his hotel room with his books until they let everyone go. He ignores the faint pang in his stomach when he looks at his cell phone.
Eventually he's back in his dorm, Charlie and a lumpy mattress waiting for him when he enters. The geranium is dead, but Bogey stares placidly at Sam from his place on the wall, face giving away nothing.
Sam swings by the campus post office one day and picks up his mail. The package is wrapped unassumingly in brown paper, addressed to SAMONELLA WINCHESTER in Dean's blocky, authoritative handwriting. Inside Sam finds fifty dollars, a box of Twinkies, and a mini-hunting kit: flask of holy water, jomo charm, pocket knife, copy of the Rituale Romanum.
The note is brief: "Sam - Thought these might come in handy during your next zombie invasion. Dad says it takes a lot of work to fight off the undead. You did good. Dean."
Sam attends to his calculus, pencil in neat graphite strokes on the lined paper. He wears a secret grin, unaware it's there. The pocket knife is a comforting weight in his jeans as he bends over his book, touches the tip of his tongue to his lip and plots out cosines and differentials, logarithms and vectors step by perfect, logical step.
Author: buffyspazz / Dusty Springfield
Recipient: slob_child
Rating: R
Author's Notes: ~4900 words. Much thanks to nativestar and mcfeste for the awesome beta work. Also, no copyright infringement intended.
Summary: The cable is out and the phone lines are down. The radio is silent. He tries 911 on his cell phone but can only get a busy signal. Sam feels like the only person left on earth.
~
It's 2 a.m. on Monday, and Sam has the makings of a Molotov cocktail on his desk. A torn piece of his bed sheet and a tin of lighter fluid obscure the pages of his calculus textbook. He has two finals and a paper due next week. He hasn't slept in thirty-eight hours.
Outside his window, zombies roam the campus, moonlight ghosting over their too-pale skin.
Sam lives in Donner. His dorm room faces north. His roommate, Charlie, had complained about the size of the room on the first day, spartan furniture crammed inside, vaguely prison-like, but Sam had gone out and bought a geranium and a poster of Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. He had hung the poster over his bed.
Sam keeps glancing at the poster, but so far Bogey is mute.
Sam's eyes are scratchy and dry, and he rubs his hand over his face. The zombies started showing up four hours ago. Sam had sent Charlie away for being drunk and horny only an hour before that; his stomach clenches when he thinks about Charlie walking around outside.
The zombies wander relentlessly. Occasionally they'll bump into each other, and Sam can hear them grunting.
The cable is out and the phone lines are down. The radio is silent. He tries 911 on his cell phone but can only get a busy signal. Sam feels like the only person left on earth.
His Outlook pops up a reminder when he tries to log onto his email: Calc II final, Wed. 10am, Poli Sci final Thur. 11, Psych paper due Thur. 2. The neat font is bland, accusatory. The sweat on Sam's brow is cold, not entirely due to what's going on outside. His GPA is currently 3.3. He needs a 3.4 to keep his scholarship, and no time to study with a campus full of zombies.
It's hard to see them, even in the full moon. At first, Sam wasn't sure that was what they were, but they had an implacable, shambling walk that he'd recognized from Dad's journal. They hadn't responded when Sam had lobbed an empty beer bottle at one of them.
The beer bottle was what had given him the idea for the Molotov cocktails, and he had spent almost two hours gathering flammable liquids, wicks, and bottles and assembling the bombs. It had made him feel in control, had killed the jumpiness in his stomach.
He sneaks downstairs around 4 a.m. The dorm is quiet, most of the residents gone. Sam can see the zombies through the windows flanking the main entrance, but so far they're walking aimlessly about, not trying the door. He doesn't want to barricade it in case someone tries to get in. A resident. The police. Charlie.
Sam has one of Charlie's golf clubs, and it feels awkward and useless in his hands. He longs for a rifle and a vial of holy water.
He breaks into the locked dining hall and takes as much food as he can carry in his backpack. Upstairs he spends half an hour making the trip to and from the bathroom to fill every available container with water. He barricades the door with Charlie's desk when he's done and takes stock of his supplies. He has one candle, the lighter Charlie uses for his bong, and a flashlight.
Sam sits in his chair and looks out the window. He wants to go out at dawn to assess the situation, but by 6 a.m. he can't keep his eyes open. He falls asleep at his desk, face squashed uncomfortably on his scientific calculator. He wakes up two hours later, the imprint of the keys stained red into his skin.
In the sunlight the campus looks normal, and Sam lets the tension in his shoulders dissolve, cracks his neck and looks lovingly at his bed. Movement out of the corner of his eye catches his attention, and his gut twists when two zombies walk out of the shadows from the direction of the quad.
The power goes out. There are too many zombies to make a reconnaissance mission feasible. At 9 a.m., he gives up pretending this is going to blow over.
"Pastor Jim? It's me, Sam. Uh, Winchester."
"Sam? What's wrong? Are you okay?" Pastor Jim's voice is calming, a link to a world that knows how to cope with the undead.
"Well, no. Not really. There's...uh, some sort of...zombie invasion, I guess, on campus. I'm trapped in my dorm room, and I don't know what to do. The power's out, so I can't find out what's going on."
"Zombies? Huh." The silence stretches out, and Sam shakes his phone, afraid the call has been dropped.
"Yes, so...can you help me? I've got some Molotov cocktails I made, but I don't think I can fend off a whole campus worth of zombies."
"Where are the rest of the students? Are you the only person there?"
"Yeah, it's Dead Week. I mean, not literally. Well, I guess it is. But, um. It's the last week before finals. Most of the students go home to study. I haven't checked yet to see who else is here."
"Okay, I'm not sure how to get rid of zombies, so I'll have to poke around. I need to call your dad-"
"NO. Jeez, I mean, uh, just...please don't. Don't call him. I can't-" Sam's throat is dry, the words caught. His temples are tight and throbbing.
"Sam. He'll want to know. He'll know what to do. I can't just-"
"Please. Just...he hasn't called me since I left for Stanford. Nothing. I can't."
Another long pause, precious battery time spinning out between them, nowhere to recharge. "Okay. I won't call. Let me see if I can find someone else to help. I'll be in touch. In the meantime, keep a low profile. Don't try to fight this on your own."
"Okay." Sam's voice is small, tiny. The room feels like a tomb when he hangs up.
He's finishing up a bowl of cereal when someone starts beating on the door and yelling. It's Charlie, whole and with a heartbeat. He's got a girl with him who Sam recognizes from down the hall. Maria or Mary or something.
"I think we might be the only ones left in the dorm, Sam. Marian and I went around knocking on doors, and people are either gone or holed up and not answering."
The dorms empty out over Dead Week, and most of the remaining students would have been in the library - or at a party - when the invasion started.
Outside, the zombies continue their restless pacing. Sam's scalp feels twitchy. In the bright light of day, watching the reanimated corpses is surreal.
Sam focuses on what he knows. Charlie and Marian, perched on Charlie's bed. Textbooks on the desk, notes sticking haywire from three-ring binders. Bogey, silent and stoic on the wall.
They eat lunch. Marian isn't a fan of tuna without mayo, and Charlie whines about the white bread Sam stole from the dining hall. Sam's blood pounds in his temples by the time they're done. When his phone rings, he almost drops it in his haste to answer.
"Hello?"
"Sammy, I can't leave you alone at all, can I? Really, zombies?"
"Dean?" Sam's breath is a dry rattle in his throat.
"You thought it would be the pope?"
"No, I, uh...I mean...how are- Where- Uh- Zombies. Yeah, uh, on campus. It's really weird."
"You don't say."
Dean is smart-assed, calm. The tuna feels like a hard knot in Sam's stomach, but his headache fades a little. He just needs a plan.
"Can you help me figure out what's going on?"
"Let me call around, see what I can find out."
"Dean, can you- I mean..."
"We're in North Carolina right now...some Appalachian spirit. It's going to take two or three days for us to get there. You got any weapons?"
"I made some Molotov cocktails. And I'm barricaded in with some friends on the second floor of our dorm. It's...sort of bunker-like. I think we're okay for a little while."
"Okay, sit tight, Sammy. I'll call you back."
Sam naps sporadically, jerking awake before he goes fully under. His eyes feel like glass in their sockets.
Around 3 that afternoon, the zombies begin to exhibit signs of sentience. At first it's subtle; they swerve to avoid one another, run into the trees and buildings less often. Within a few hours the sun is starting to fade into the horizon, and Sam thinks one of them might have spotted him from his place by the window.
"I wonder if we should go down and block the main door." Sam wants to keep the zombies out, but he doesn’t want to cut off sanctuary for someone who needs it.
"I dunno. We'd have to leave the room then," Charlie says. His face is pale, sweat glistening under his eyes.
Sam rubs his temples, trying to think. What would Dean do?
"Let's make a bathroom run," he says finally. "It could be the last one for a while. After that, I'll run downstairs and see about closing off the door."
Sam makes Charlie and Marian each take a water container to refill. Sam has a golf club in one hand, plastic margarita pitcher in the other and a cell phone in his pocket. It's gloomy in the hallway, but he's more worried about getting water than taking a flashlight.
He stands at the urinal for a long time, trying to coax the urine out. It's hard to do when he keeps jerking at every shadow. Charlie's nervous chattering doesn't help.
Marian is safe in the room with the water, and Sam tells Charlie to grab the flashlight. They creep down slowly, feeling their way in the dim light. Sam's halfway down the stairwell when he hears glass breaking.
"Shit. Go." He pushes Charlie back upstairs, makes him wait while he runs to the end of the hall and pokes around in a closet. Sam's back with a broom and a mop that he threads through the handles on the doors. The beam from the flashlight jerks crazily in Charlie's hands. They hear crashing below.
In the room for good, they block the door with Charlie's desk again. Sam opens up a few cans of ravioli. They eat it cold. Marian and Charlie don't complain this time.
Outside, Sam's pretty sure there are a lot more zombies hanging around the dorm. His palms feel greasy when he watches them.
He hears glass breaking downstairs a few more times, but he doesn't say anything. Marian is mostly oblivious, but Charlie's face is the color of old cheese. He jumps when Marian knocks a clock off the nightstand.
Sam's cell phone rings the next morning. He's been sleeping, dreaming of going to the beach, playing in the sand with Dean. Their sandcastle is the tallest one in sight, and John laughs and claps them on the back as a wave sweeps in, washing away its edges. The sun is a glassy coin in a summer-hazy sky.
Sam's tongue is sour and dry, spit dried on the corner of his mouth. Before college he had never been to the beach.
"H'lo?"
"Sammy, good to know you're still alive and kicking. You sound like shit."
"Jesus, Dean. There are zombies attacking my school. I've barely slept in the last three days. What the hell did you expect?"
"Relax, Sam. I'm just screwing with you."
Charlie and Marian are a lump under Charlie's comforter. Sam can see the zombies coming and going outside. One of them shambles to a stop and stares up at their window. Sam's skin is knotted up in hard little goose bumps.
"Whatever, Dean, what did you find out?"
"Well, these aren't your everyday, garden-variety zombies. I talked to a few of Dad's contacts in California. Seems they're imported from a small island in the South Pacific."
"They're- what? Imported?"
"Yeah, the U.S. has been trying to take over this island...Tonga or something, for the military. Apparently, some witch doctor or whatever put a spell on a bunch of corpses and snuck 'em on a container ship exporting coconuts or some shit. One of the containers ended up in Seattle, and one came in through San Francisco and made it up your way. The government thinks it's some sort of disease, and they've banned all imports from the South Pacific."
"Okay, so what does that mean for me?"
"Well, the government knows about the zombies, but the truck driver who transported the container got infected. He infected a bunch of his buddies, and they've got Palo Alto and Menlo Park on lockdown. It's...messy out there right now. They might not make it to you for a while."
"Great," Sam mutters. Trapped in a 12x14 dorm room with two other people for another few days. "Where are you? Are you close?"
"We're in Colorado. We'll be there tomorrow, but the military isn't fucking around with this. I don't how soon we'll be able to get on campus. Caleb is working on getting us some CDC badges." Dean's tone is nonchalant, and Sam has to strain to hear the undercurrent of tension in his voice. It makes him dry-mouthed and nervous. "The good news is you can you can ward them off with hoodoo magic. Benefit of fighting zombies created by a spell."
"Isn't hoodoo African-based?"
"Well, yeah, but the concept is similar. A lot of the same roots are used. Just get a jomo and-"
"Dean, where am I going to get a jomo? I'm trapped in a college dorm room."
"Dude, you went to school without a jomo? Didn't I teach you better? What about graveyard dirt? Black cat bone? Next thing you know you'll tell me you don't have any holy water, either."
Sam drums out a rhythmless beat on his desktop. A loud crash downstairs makes Marian jump. Charlie rubs his hand along her arm.
"Sam? Are you telling me you don't even have any holy water?"
"Yes, okay? I didn't exactly think I'd need that sort of stuff for classes and shit, Dean."
"Jesus, Sam. Just- Lay low, stay away from the windows, and for God's sake, stay in your room. I'll call you later."
Dean's gone before Sam can reply, his tongue a useless, twisted lump in his mouth. The room is hot. Sam presses his fingers to his eyelids, and Marian starts to cry.
Sam decides to study after that, a wary eye on the window while he reviews Pascal's principles and Kepler's laws. The calculus is logical, soothing. Sam gets lost in a rhythm of theorems and derivatives. This world is still normal.
He jerks backward when a hand touches his shoulder. Marian is standing close enough for him to feel the heat from her body. Charlie is behind her, hand cupping her breast. Sam swallows, the integers fading away.
"Sam." Marian's voice is husky. Charlie has his mouth on her neck, sucking a bruise into the pale skin. "We're going to die here. It's not right, but...I need- Don’t you want to?"
"Marian, I-” Sam’s voice is squeaky. He wonders if he's dreaming.
"Just do it, Sam." Charlie is cajoling. He runs a hand along Sam's hot face, palm cool against his cheek.
Sam lets himself be stroked for a minute. He pulls back finally, confusion and desire thrumming under his skin.
"No, I...no. I have to study." He's resolute, brushes off their pleas, and ignores the wet sounds of sex behind him. The numbers blur on the page in front of him, too faint to see in the fading light.
Sam falls into another fitful sleep after dinner. There are no dreams this time, just a steady shaking like the rocking of a boat, and chittering like birds.
"Sam? Sam!” Marian's voice is nervous, cracking. It makes Sam's skin crawl.
"What?" It's hard to think through the film in his head. The chittering sound is Marian, her short little hitches of breath.
"Sam, Charlie's gone."
"What?" Sam jams his fingers in his mouth, digs his nails into the slimy gums. It clears the circuits. "Where the hell is he?"
"He, uh, went to the bathroom. We went together."
Sam can barely see the desk now, halfway into the room, pushed away from the door, a vacuum of light in the dim glow of the moon. His temples pound, adrenaline making his body feel tight and numb.
"So where is he, Marian?"
"He...he decided to see what was going on downstairs. We hadn't heard anything for a while, so he went to see what was happening. I was supposed to wait five minutes and wake you up if he didn't come back. It's been almost ten now..."
Sam tries to think. His head feels rotten and used.
"Okay, stay here. Block the door when I leave, only let me in if I knock three times. If I don't come back, call my brother, Dean. His number's in my cell phone. Tell him...I don't know. Just tell him you're here alone and he'll know what to do."
Marian nods at the orders, face ghost white, mouth drawn into a hard line. Sam takes his golf club and a flashlight, doesn't dare try a Molotov cocktail inside.
The hallway is empty, shadowed. The stairwell throws Sam's footsteps back to him in angry-sounding echoes. The hair on the back of his neck is erect and crawling.
Sam peers cautiously out of the stairwell window, can't see anything moving. He runs through the halls lightly, senses sharpened. He's ready for anything, nervous energy humming through his veins.
Charlie's in the cafeteria, slumped in a chair. He's sprained his ankle. Sweat glistens on his upper lip in the beam of the flashlight.
"Sam, it hurts. Didn't think I could make it back."
He throws Charlie's arm around his neck and takes off, nervous at the lack of zombies. He's halfway to the stairwell when they attack, spilling out of the first-floor common room in a wave of stink and rot.
Sam books it, no time to lose. They make it back to the room, Sam dragging Charlie. He knocks on the door, over and over, bellowing at Marian to let them in. The golf club falls from Charlie's hands, their only weapon besides fire, but the zombies are negotiating the stairs, and Sam can't spare the time to get it.
Inside, the room feels safe enough with the lock thrown and the desk acting as a barricade again. In the courtyard the zombies make noise, an angry hum like a million bees.
Sam and his crew don't go unnoticed after that, constant shuffle and bump outside the door. Sam pees out the window, hits a zombie in the head, and feels a sharp pang of vindication.
He's worried about ladders, climbing, zombies stacked on top of each other like building blocks. It’s twenty feet to the ground, maybe less. The zombies stare at the window, hollow gazes like a pall on Sam's skin.
He itches to send a rain of firebombs down on them, knows it's a fleeting fantasy, only used as a last resort. If the building catches on fire they're dead.
Still, he digs grooves into the soft meat of his palms, fists clenched against the urge to put flint to wick and throw.
By Wednesday afternoon the food situation is bad, not much left. The water situation is worse. Sam flings empty tins of tuna and SpaghettiOs out of the window, mouth curled on a bitter tang of defeat. The room smells. Sam has given up on calculus, on psychology and political science, on normal.
He's tried signaling with a mirror, to no avail. The zombies congregate around a leader, stupid sort of intelligence glittering from his dead eyes. They start trying to climb the walls when the sun is a bloody ball on a course for the horizon.
Sam watches as they fall, ripe plops on the cement. Watches them get better. He lines the Molotov cocktails up on the desk. He'll grab Charlie and Marian, make them run if they have to. If the building catches fire.
Sam hopes that doesn't happen.
Marian peers fretfully over his shoulder, watching the steady progress, the undead pyramid building itself painstakingly below. She flings an alarm clock at one of them in a rage, whacks the zombie off the pyramid.
Sam thinks. What would Dean do? What would Dad do? He picks up his calculus textbook. Pauses for a minute and puts it down, decides to sacrifice poli sci for the cause instead.
The book flies from his hand, soft swoosh of air trailing its descent. It hits the zombie on the bottom right corner of the pyramid square in the chest, knocks him over. The tentative ladder collapses in a pile of rotting flesh and bones.
Victory tastes like bitter, dry ashes in Sam's mouth. He washes it down with stale water.
The next pyramid goes up more quickly. The sky is stained with the faint color of sunrise when Sam readies Charlie and Marian. They brandish homemade torches; old t-shirts soaked in lighter fluid and tied to a broom handle broken in pieces.
"If the building catches fire, we have to make a run for it. Make sure your torch is lit before you open the door. Use it ward them off. Don't let it go out."
At the window, Sam plots his throw. Too close and the building will definitely go up. Too far and the zombies will ignore it.
The first bottle is greasy, and Sam loses his grip as he's releasing it. It flies over the zombies and breaks, but the flame is weak, the wick falling out, away from the accelerant.
Sam wipes his hands, gets a firm grip on the next one. Aims for the courtyard, fifteen feet away. The bottle smashes on impact, wick burning merrily as it contacts the spreading alcohol.
Bingo.
The zombies draw away from the fire with a collective groan. Sam sees the leader's gaze rotating between the flames and the window. Sam lobs another cocktail out to the left of the first. Three more and the grass is ablaze. The zombies abandon their pyramid and retreat to the edge of the courtyard, away from the dorm.
Sam burns his hand after the sixth or seventh bomb. The flesh is blistered, singing an aria of pain. The searing burn stops after a while, but the skin throbs continually. By noon Sam can't use the hand at all.
The fire burns in the courtyard, edging toward the dorm, then away. The winds are erratic.
They drink the last of the water that afternoon. Sam calls Dean.
"Dean? You there?"
"Yeah, Sammy, it's- Jesus, you sound bad. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, 'm fine. Listen, Dean, tell Dad I'm sorry-"
"What? No! Sam, listen to me, you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. You just need to snap out of it. You've got battle fatigue, that's all. Caleb's almost got the IDs ready, we'll be able to get to you tomorrow. Just hang in there!"
Sam shakes his head mutely. Hot tears sting his eyes. He feels dumb, wiping salty tracks onto his cheeks while Charlie and Marian watch cautiously from Charlie's bed.
He concentrates, fumbling around for the resolve that got him here, kept him focused through thirteen years of moving from school to school, being the weird new kid, scheduling A.P. Calculus and extra-curricular activities around hunting to get into a good college.
"I'm okay," he finally manages, voice gasping and weak. "I'm just tired."
"Don't give up on me, Sammy. Don't you ever give up."
His phone battery dies soon after. Sam falls into another doze after the sun sets. Charlie wakes him up this time, breath wheezing in his throat.
"Sam, they're doing that climbing thing again. Do you want to throw down the rest of the bombs?"
Sam surveys the scene, moonlight painting the campus silver. The fire has burned out, swatch of blackened grass in its wake. The zombies are about five feet from the bottom of the window. The Molotov cocktails won't stay lit for long on the burnt grass, and throwing them any closer will put the dorm at risk. They only have five left anyway.
"No...just. I don't know anymore." Sam shakes his head, mute negative. Denial. He's used up.
"Sam. Please." It's Marian this time. Her hands are clenched together. Sam can see the white of her knuckles in the moonlight.
Sam opts for throwing the bombs further away. He and Charlie toss random books and junk at the zombie pyramid until it topples. Sam follows up with the remaining cocktails, setting more grass on fire.
When it's done he sinks to the floor, knees popping loudly. His burned hand aches, protesting the recent activity. He rubs his eyes tiredly, out of ideas. He's not sure if this will hold them off any longer. Doesn't know if he cares.
When the military shows up forty minutes later, it sends a jolt through Sam. Hope starts to flow like water from a long-dry, rusty pipe. He hadn't been sure it was still there.
They roll into campus in tanks and trucks. Charlie lights one of the emergency torches and waves it out the window wildly as soldiers spill out, guns crackling violent and final against the dark sky. The zombie leader takes a hit early on, brains spilling out in a gray mess Sam can just make out in the moonlight.
The first new face he sees in three days is Lieutenant Shane Holmes. Sam cries a little when he sees the men behind Holmes, dull green uniforms shadowy in the dark.
"You kids okay?" Holmes says, voice rough.
"Yes." It's Charlie, calm now, in control. Sam tries to compose himself but can't get his tongue to move in his mouth. "Sam took care of us. We're okay."
"How did you learn how to make Molotov cocktails, son?" Holmes is stern, but his eyes are kind. Sam swallows and pulls it together.
"My...my dad. He's...sort of a survivalist type."
"Well, it was to your benefit. It probably saved your life."
They get ready to go. Sam surveys the room, weirdly reluctant to leave. He shoves some clothes into a backpack, stuffs his books in on top somehow. He tips a salute at Bogey on his way out.
Sam calls Dean from a payphone while they're waiting at the hospital, gets his voicemail.
"Dean, it's me. I'm out, the military showed up. They're putting us up in a hotel until they get things sorted out. I'll let you know which one as soon as I find out. And, um, thanks for coming to get me. Tell Dad- Nothing, just...thanks again. I'll see you soon."
Sam gets his cell phone recharged at the hotel. When he turns it on there's a message from Dean.
"Sam, got your message. No need to call about the hotel...we're already in Nevada. There's a poltergeist in Arizona dad wanted to check out." The silence spins out like a rejection. "Uh, I'll catch you next time I'm in California. Call if you need anything."
Sam grips the phone. It leaves reddened dents in his fingers that ache the next day. He gropes his way into bed and sleeps for eighteen hours.
The media has a field day with the "Zero Hour Holocaust." The body count is sixty-three, not including the original zombies. The toll climbs every time Sam turns on the TV. He sees his dorm one evening, in the background behind a reporter from CNN.
The survivors are quarantined. Sam spends two weeks at the Palomino Inn until the CDC can verify that he's not infected with the "virus." He holes up in his hotel room with his books until they let everyone go. He ignores the faint pang in his stomach when he looks at his cell phone.
Eventually he's back in his dorm, Charlie and a lumpy mattress waiting for him when he enters. The geranium is dead, but Bogey stares placidly at Sam from his place on the wall, face giving away nothing.
Sam swings by the campus post office one day and picks up his mail. The package is wrapped unassumingly in brown paper, addressed to SAMONELLA WINCHESTER in Dean's blocky, authoritative handwriting. Inside Sam finds fifty dollars, a box of Twinkies, and a mini-hunting kit: flask of holy water, jomo charm, pocket knife, copy of the Rituale Romanum.
The note is brief: "Sam - Thought these might come in handy during your next zombie invasion. Dad says it takes a lot of work to fight off the undead. You did good. Dean."
Sam attends to his calculus, pencil in neat graphite strokes on the lined paper. He wears a secret grin, unaware it's there. The pocket knife is a comforting weight in his jeans as he bends over his book, touches the tip of his tongue to his lip and plots out cosines and differentials, logarithms and vectors step by perfect, logical step.