(FIC) Eight Fics for zombi_fic_ation's Amnesty Round (Various Fandoms) (PG-13/R)
Title: Expertise
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Characters/Pairings: Canon pairings, with the main cast featured
Length: 585
Rating: PG
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers
Warnings: mild violence
Prompt: Big Bang Theory -- any characters -- The guys think they're prepared for the zombie apocalypse. They're not. (REPOST round 2013, 058.)
Sheldon Cooper was not afraid.
Only people too stupid to plan ahead for any disaster - natural or otherwise - gave in to terror, and Sheldon Cooper had…a contingency plan. He had it memorized by heart. In case of zombie plagues or uprisings of any kind, the entire group was to meet in the back room of the comics shop as quickly as possible. Howard would bring his mother if need be. Meanwhile, Leonard would proof the back room to keep their lair safe, and it was Penny’s job to drag in whatever supplies she could from the Cheesecake Factory.
Sheldon should have recalled what he’d learned years ago - theory doesn’t equal fact.
During a late-night session in his beloved lab, when he learned that an outbreak of weaponized monkey pox down in engineering had turned half the building into a ravenous zombielike horde, he manfully stood up from his spot at the lunch table. He thought about what Darth Vader would do, what Jim Kirk would say, how The Flash would deal with the situation.
And then he reached for the paper sack that had carried his lunch and subtly moved toward the emergency exit before panic could set in further.
He hyperventilated his way out the back door and through a fire escape. Pure instinct diverted him away from the comic book shop and the designated, plotted, drilled for and logically created plan.
He ran like a majestic giraffe toward the apartment building.
Apparently the entire gang had duplicated his frightful reaction and rushed toward the building too; the front door sported more padlocks than Penny’s on a good day. Fortunately he’d learned how to pick locks - he was an engineer, not a monkey.
They had gathered in the apartment and were presently all counted for - locking the door behind him, he wondered, “Are they still simulcasting the season premiere of Doctor Who?”
Penny - from her perch with the rest of the girls - seemed to be fortifying the cabinets with hundreds of cans of creamed corn. “Sheldon, we’re in the middle of an apocalypse.”
Sheldon sighed. “Well, that’s no excuse!”
Leonard sat upon the couch with a bat clenched in his fists, nervously jabbing it in the direction of any odd noise. Sheldon let out a disdainful sigh and sat upon his chair. “I suppose we could watch some Time Machine DVDs…”
“NO!” came his friends’ simultaneous shouts.
“All right - besides what Penny stole from the Cheesecake Factory we have three jars of mayonnaise, four TV dinners and a bucket of sauerkraut!” Bernadette emerged from the fridge, sounding as confused as Sheldon felt. “Did Howard’s mother do the shopping this weekend?”
“I don’t think my mother could walk that far! I mean, how could she possibly…” Howard laughed, trailing off. “Yeahhh. She got her hand on my credit cards during the rush here.”
“Do you mean that unpleasant woman’s in my apartment?” Sheldon asked Leonard, and received no response.
“And on your bed,” Raj said from his perch by the window.
Sheldon hunkered down with a paper bag at the woman’s scream. “HOWIE! I need you to turn on my stories!” came her shout. While Howard vacated his spot on the couch, Amy usurped it - and rested her hand on his knee. “Sheldon, since the end of the world’s rather…nigh…perhaps we could consider giving into our primal urges and saving the species. For the good of humanity, of course.”
She patted his knee. Sheldon cringed.
They had a very long apocalypse ahead of them.
Title: Ride or Die
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Burn Notice
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Jesse if you squint; Sam Axe, Jesse Porter
Length: 610
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For the series finale; takes place post-canon
Warnings: violence, language
Prompt: 058. Burn Notice -- Sam+Any (or ensemble) -- Sam knows an amazing amount of zombie lore - which comes in handy when they rise in Miami. (Repost 2013 090.)
Jesse didn’t even bother to ask questions when the streets filled with angry, ravenous bundles of human beings. The general attitude they projected and the spirit of the populace lay two degrees away from that of an average spring break weekend - he could deal with it. What he couldn’t deal with were the dwindling supplies and the constant vigilance required of him at every waking moment of his life.
Which was why Sam was so useful in crises situations like these.
He seemed to know everything procedure wise, and for the first time in his life Jesse wasn’t irritated by that fact. He didn’t even pretend to be pissed when Sam showed him how to weave nets and didn’t complain when he showed him how zombie traps work. He even showed Jesse how to create makeshift bullets out of household supplies, and taught him how and where to shoot the creatures.
Even with the lights out and the water running in a brown sludge, Sam had a plan. Water could be purified through a triple boil in a triumvirate of copper pots; electricity could be generated through use of crude vegetable-based batteries. Jesse shrugged and followed Sam’s wisdom; if it worked, it worked, and if it was keeping him alive he wasn’t predisposed to complain about it.
He had only question Sam’s logic once, and that was over his economizing their store of bullets. He absolutely and utterly believed in only shooting once, and that that shot had to land square between the zombie’s brows.
“Why does it have to be twice in the head?” he wondered. “These’re cop killers, man. One should do just fine.”
“No, that’s the key.” He loaded the chamber with another four bullets and then locked it back into place. “One headshot, deadshot. Two headshots, reshot.” Jesse raised an eyebrow.
“That makes no sense, man.” Jesse wasn’t in the mood to decode Sam’s mumbo jumbo. He wanted out of this shed they’d snagged for cover pronto, and would gladly ride with Satan if that meant freedom at this point.
“Just trust me,” Sam said. “I’ve seen shit you wouldn’t believe.”
Sam’s theory proved true when they were confronted with a fresh wave of the bastards. All of Jesse’s various misses - a bullet in the ankle or in the shoulder - only seemed to upset the zombies more. But Sam’s quick, simple headshots caused them to fall screaming and spouting, dissolving into nothingness with minimal fuss.
He thanked the man over a meal of home-farmed bacon, yogurt and salad.
“Just how the hell’d you learn all of this stuff, Sam?” Jesse wondered.
Sam shrugged. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
The glimmer in the older man’s eyes made Jesse roll his. Sam was a flirt, even in the apocalypse. “What are you planning, Sammy?”
Sam launched instantly into his pitch without a hint of coquetry. “There’s this orphanage on the north side,” Sam said. “Bunch of nuns ran it. Best case scenario, they booked themselves up with a bunch of craft scissors and they need a rescue. Worst case scenario, we end up with a stockpile of Elmer’s Glue and a bunch of blocks to use for firewood. Either way, we’ve got supplies enough to get us down there and back before the sun comes up. You in, brother?”
Jesse shook his head. Sam had no fear -he probably considered a death in the name of a bunch of anonymous children a glorious exit. But he had no other option - and the world was ending. He’d want his aunt to do the same for him when he was in foster care after his mother died.
“For life, brother.”
Title: Just Around the Corner
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Calvin and Hobbes
Characters/Pairings: Susie, Calvin, her parents
Length: 778
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers
Warnings: violence
Prompt: 061. Calvin and Hobbes -- Susie, Calvin, Hobbes -- Living near to Calvin turns out to have left Susie prepared for *anything* (Repost 2013 094.)
Zombies were pretty easy to fool, Susie decided. Most of them were pretty shy and liked hiding until it was dark; the ones that dared to come out during the daylight hours were often easily picked off because they were so completely desperate for meat.
This one had made the mistake of shambling up the driveway while she and her dad were out buying groceries. Her father responded with a surprisingly quick twist of the steering wheel, eliminating the threat by quickly running the offending zombie into the concrete garage wall, spattering it in a wave of gore across the concrete.
Susie had grown accustomed to the mess involved in re-killing the living dead, but it still made her turn up her nose. Why must it always involve such messy work? And why did zombies always insist upon dying in places that forced you to step over their mottled guts and putrid chunks of brain mater? Susie stuck out her tongue as she climbed out of the car and watched as a melting glop of tissue that had once been adhered to the side of the car thickly dripped onto the concrete. “That is disgusting.”
Her father nodded his head. “But that disgusting mess means we’ll live one day longer.” Susie groaned and reached for her safety belt. “Don’t complain so much,” her father said. “Being grossed out builds character.”
She rolled her eyes and unlatched Mr. Buns’ belt, too. “Calvin’s dad says that all the time, but I don’t believe him.”
“According to that windbag, EVERYTHING builds character.” He coughed. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to him when you go over to visit Calvin! Now be a sweetheart and help daddy unload the car, will you?”
Susie jumped to the task, taking a single paper sack while her farther took the majority of the bags into his arms. They stumbled through the garage door into the kitchen, where her mother waited.
“There’s my darling!” Susie received a kiss to the forehead as her mother grabbed the sack. “How were…things?” she asked, with a ludicrous amount of emphasis on the final word.
“One in the drive - don’t worry about it, he’s dead,” her father shrugged.
“Did you manage not to get this one all over the car?”
He smiled. “I’ll wash the tires after we put these away.”
Susie helped as much as she could, Mr. Bun tucked under her arm as she passed boxes of cereal and packages of meat from her father’s hands to her mother’s, forming a human chain. She could almost pretend that everything was normal outside when they gathered together this way - until she heard the occasional distant rumble of gunfire. Then she had to force herself to be brave.
When it was said and done, her father gave her a playful nudge. “Wanna cover me while I wash the car?”
“On the double!” Susie said. She grabbed Mr. Bun and raced for the safety of her room, then opened a window.
Reaching under the bed, Susie dragged out an array of squirt guns. She double-checked to make sure they were all loaded before running toward the window with Mr. Bun by her side.
She waved to her dad as he left the house with a bucket of soapy water, but her attention was soon quickly divided by another presence.
“Hey Susie!” Calvin yelled from his upstairs window. She rolled her eyes as he rolled his eyes, a wave of foam bubbling forth from his mouth. “They got me, Susie! Soon I’m going to be a super-powerful zombie!!”
Her nose wrinkled. “Eew! Did you stuff a bunch of Alka-Seltzer in your mouth?”
“No,” he said, as if he were speaking to somebody who was particularly ignorant, “I told you, they bit me!” He waved his right arm, which had been clearly covered with globs of strawberry jelly
Susie knew exactly how to react to Calvin’s silliness though - and that was by squirting a stream of water in the face. Her parents told her it was holy water, and that they got it by the bucketful from the nearest church. It seemed to do the trick on zombies, and it didn’t have a corrosive effect t on humans.
Calvin fell, sputtering, below the window frame, and she rolled her eyes before turning them toward the sidewalk. As she watched her dad trundle back into the house and realized she hadn’t worried as much about his trip outside as she normally did.
Hmmmm. Maybe she might have to thank Calvin for that.
She decided she’d think it over while having tea with Mr. Bun, and then shut the door on the outside world.
Title: The Policy
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Progressive Insurance/Allstate Insurance
Characters/Pairings: Flo the Progressive Insurance Girl; Mayhem; original characters
Length: 564
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Violence
Prompt: 068. Commercials: Progressive/Allstate -- Flo and Mayhem -- Insurance for Zombie Encounters.
Flo had been trained to handle any and every possible emergency, and to handle it with a wide smile. If it had a human risk attached to it, she had a remedy that involved reasonably-priced insurance and a perky quip. She was well-trained, but not a helpless automaton.
But nobody at her store had prepared her for Him. A shaggy-haired, green-faced stranger with a disheveled and stained suit with a devil may care look on his face.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m a zombie bite victim. My skin’s turning green, and I’m starting to crave the taste of human flesh.” He lurched toward the customer she’d been gleefully chatting up. “I might eat this lady, or that guy. Or maybe I’ll cough on a couple of menus and spread the disease around, who knows?
“Oh no, Flo!” the customer cried, dodging the man’s foaming mouth. “What will we do?”
Flo had already ducked behind the counter. Her bright red fingertips immediately found the place’s salvation - a sawed-off shotgun. “There’s a forty caliber solution for that, Pam!” Her finger hooked around the trigger and quickly pulled it, sending the bullet ricocheting off of one of the tin buttons on the zombie’s jacket. He flinched, releasing the customer and turning toward Flo.
“Maybe I’ll eat your juicy brains and use your extended coverage policy as a napkin,” the zombie said, his blood-soaked teeth flashing in the dim halogen lighting.
“Or,” Flo said, “maybe you’ll eat a little hot lead!”
A volley of bullets that sallied through the air sent the rest of the customers scrambling for cover. The first shot sank into his shoulder, sending up an arterial spray of blue-black liquid. The third hit him in the knee and caused him to sink, howling, to the ground before her.
Flo took her eyes off the action to reload, her customer shaking her sleeve when the zombie tried to crawl toward them. Helpfully, she said, “Flo, he’s still coming!”
“That’s all right,” she said. “With Progressive there’s always room for second chances!” BANG. This one managed to sever the knee completely from the thigh. “And if you upgrade your policy,” Flo said breathlessly, brushing her perfect side-bangs back and behind her ear, “we’ll give you two rifles at half price and twice the insurance in the case of sudden zombie attacks, whether they happen in groups or individually. If you upgrade within the next week, we’ll even give you a really nifty little sand bucket to take to the beach.”
“Wow, it sounds like you’ll get a lot of little nifty extras if you sign up with Progressive,” chirped her customer.
“You will!” The insurance provider crowed. “And unlike Mr. Zombie here,” she said, shooting at and aiming for his neck, “we won’t live in the past. Any debts you have with our competitors won’t be taken into consideration when you try for a policy with us!”
The zombie’s now-severed head made a last ditch attempt at an attack, rolling away from the collapsing, twitching body. “I’m your rising insurance rates, and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now,” it said.
Flo finished him off with a headshot. “And now you can’t feel anything.”
“Wow, that’s a terrific deal!” the patron said, brushing stray chunks of brain matter from her cheeks.
“And,” said Flo, grinning brilliantly, “You can always expect the best deal when you have Progressive!”
Title: all the balm in olympus
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Greek and Roman Mythology
Characters/Pairings: Orpheus/Eurydice
Length: 517
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers
Warnings: psychological horror
Prompt: 116. Greek Mythology -- Orpheus/Eurydice -- Eurydice didn't want to return from the underworld...and Orpheus unknowingly paid a high price for her return.
Her voice.
He had walked many a mile to hear it again. He’d defied the gods and given his gift, his golden voice, to be given the chance to simply see her.
He had lusted after the sight of her - had prayed and worked and cursed and toiled to have the privilege of seeing her one more time.
And now he had her.
He also had a boat filled with the scent of dead flesh and the guilty weight of his disobedient actions weighing him down like led, but he was willing to pay that small price for having his beloved back in his life.
Sweet Eurydice. He could still taste the snake’s poison on his lips from her wedding day’s death.
Orpheus knew he owed a debt to the gods. His pride in his own actions was overweening, for how many had managed to fool Hades? He would have to make a sacrifice to Aphrodite, and to Athena. A war had been waged for her, and a war had been won.
Only when they reached the safety of their home did he notice it.
His first look at her face had shown little change. Her eyes were still steady and her expressions governed by the romanticism buried like a thorn in her heart. She was still sweet of look and of temperament. Orpheus thought himself lucky and well-ridden of the evil mischief of the Gods and raced on, until they were both in the safety of his home.
That was when he heard it for the first time. That low, penetrating hum. That moaning chant that only the dead should make, that only the dead should hear.
He tried to shut it out as the years stretched on. He tried to ignore he vacant eyes and the absence of her kind warmth. When she asked for warm meat, fresh from the hinds of antelopes and deer, he did nothing but hunt to feed her instead of questioning her odd desires. She was otherwise herself, maddeningly so. Sweet to the forest creatures and the sweet animals around her - until she was out of his sight. He learned to mop the blood trails and not to ask her questions.
But it would enter his mind and again, he’d be reminded that her normalcy was just a trick of light and shadow. He knew full well that Hades had given him back his bride in body - though not in mind nor in soul. And so the low, sweet cry of Eurydice’s voice went on haunting him no matter what he did. He was doomed for all eternity to endure it; to feel a sip of ambrosia roll across his tongue without knowing again the sweet soul of her core. She seemed to eternally sing a song that could not or would not catch upon his mind. The low, sweet drone dug under his skin like a weevil, blotting out any other sound but the one she made subaurally.
This would be his hell. A life of perfect health - and of perfect companionship - with the shadow on the wall.
Title: Castaway
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Gilligan's Island
Characters/Pairings: Canon Pairings; Main Cast
Length: 503
Rating: R
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers
Warnings: Character Death, violence
Prompt: 112. Gilligan's Island -- They finally get off the island, only to find the rest of the world infected with a zombie plague. (REPOST round 2013, 156.)
It took him five years, but the Professor finally figured it out. He converted coconut water into gasoline, then chopped down a tree to patch the hole dug out in the S.S. Minnow’s hull. Within hours they were back on course for California.
The storm had, in the end, blown them several hours off of their designated pathway. It only took a bit of ingenious chartmaking to chug their way across the ocean and back toward the California coastline.
But what greeted them was no longer an idyllic paradise. The coastline ran red with blood and happy beachgoers were now desiccated former beings, cut into pieces and left to molder on the sandy shore.
They spotted the problem and the source in a single instant - a green-faced man chewing the arm of a long-dead woman.
Gilligan didn’t remember anything they did after that - beyond burying the body of the dead man and washing their fingers stringently. It was The Professor who said they ought to not befoul their hands; if the contagion was spreading, it was more than likely the path of contagion was through bodily fluids. To Gilligan it was all a blur - Skipper had washed his hands for him, not trusting Gilligan’s mind in times of stress.
All of their plans to separate had been disrupted by the discovery of the newly dying world around them. Instead they stuck together, using their well-honed survival instincts to forage for food and weapons. With The Professor’s tracking skills they soon learned to heed the scent and destruction zombies waged as they crossed the border into Mexico.
There they found an abandoned farm with animals that needed tending and land that needed to be tilled. Mary Ann was at home here, and she was the one who took charge of the lot of them. They pitched in, in their own way, trying to make things seem as normal as possible. At least they had more elbow room out there.
Their paradise was not a permanent one. Soon, a zombie found them.
The Skipper knew just what to do, and the Professor had a fertilizer bomb that worked wonders. They’d dug a ditch out by the main road, but it all felt too close for comfort to Gilligan. They would survive, wouldn’t they? All they’d done wouldn’t be for naught, and they’d manage to keep the farm and all the food they’d figured out - even the transistor radio the Professor had made out of moonshine? He had to wonder out loud his concerns to the Skipper as they gathered together by the front door, peering through the parlor windows and peepholes.
“Skipper - golly, do you think we’re ever going to get home?” Gilligan wondered. The mass of grey-faced people grew closer, their fetid breath turning his stomach.
“Well, little Buddy,” said Jonas, shouldering the gun and locking eyes with Howell. “I can’t really say that we will. But if we don’t, we’ll go down fighting.”
Mrs. Howell’s gloved fingers shook as they lit the fuse.
Title: Under Ground
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Les Miserables
Characters/Pairings: None; Eponine, Cosette and Gavroche
Length: 685
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers; takes place mid-canon
Warnings: violence; gore
Prompt: 147. Les Miserables -- Eponine -- Eponine must survive the night and protect Gavroche when the gutters of France endure a calamity more dangerous than revolution - a rat-spread plague of the undead.
Eponine was a mistress of self-deception. She could convince herself of almost anything - which was why she didn’t trust her eyes when she spied the event occurring before her bewildered eyes.
She saw them, though they couldn’t see her.
They rose in the depth of night, between the gendarmes shifts, shambling down the street with their heads bowed, long, perfumed hair trailing over their eyes, bloody-red talon trails dug into the loose material at their hipbones. No one knew but Eponine, she who clung to the shadows like an alley cat, knowing all, until she felt bold enough to speak out. She was the one who played unblinking witness as they fell upon a hapless john and ripped him apart, inch by bloody inch, red mouths an o of outrage as they scrapped for every last ounce of meat.
No words could save Eponine’s skin now. Whatever disease that had warped the girls of the docks would likely corrupt all of France before the soldiers ended their lives. Eponine well knew the cost of ravenous desire. She simply prayed that she’d survive the evening.
She had one goal now, and it drove her to the town square at top speed, to the place where her brother slept within the belly of the Bastille Day elephant. She battled crowds of peddlers and happy couples as she fought her way there. What she noticed most of all were the children - so many children - and all of them so oblivious to the future sprawling menacingly before them.
Gavroche was still unaffected when she found him, though he seemed tired, hot and dusty when she shook him awake. She pulled her brother close, carefully tucking down his threadbare cap. “Close your eyes. Don’t open them ‘til I tell you.”
“What for?” He tried to struggle in his sister’s arms, but Eponine had a will as steely as his and it was hard for him to move. “You’re hurtin’ me, Ep! What’s gone wrong?”
“Long story,” she muttered, pulling him along the thick construction of the elephant’s inner workings until she found the exit at its foot. “Just don’t let go of me and don’t look.”
He tucked his greasy face in the curve of her shoulder, and Eponine squared her jaw and charged for the open door.
The scene outside was calamity already. The ravenous woman took hold of the easiest prey, feasting on weak beggars, on the surprised, on the foolish. Eponine tucked Gavorche closer and made a dash down the street and up a back alley.
She’d found a drooling monster that had once been the neighborhood druggist eating a rat.
It dropped the flailing mammal when it saw a larger quarry. “Brains!” he shouted, but she dodged his hands and ran on. From the corner of her eye she saw a pack of sailors devouring an elderly women. She felt Gavroche gasp in her arms.
“Don’t look!” she demanded, cutting left through another series of alleys. These should take her to the center of town, to the safest place she knew - to the rich ones and the Rue Plumier.
It was just beyond Dawn when she started slamming her fist into the iron gate. To her surprise it was Cossette, trusting Cossette, who opened the door with a butcher’s knife in her hand. “Are you hurt?” she dithered, pulling Gavroche out of her arms. “Is he whole and unafraid?”
“I ain’t afraid!” he shouted.
Cossette gave a sigh of relief, dropping the knife in the dirt before Eponine. “Please come in,” she said. “Papa said the town’s gone mad, we’re to leave as soon as we can. I’ve made an excuse,” her cheeks flushed. “We’re delayed. We’ll go look for Marius in the morning. Please, stay here, take a bed, have a meal where it’s warm.”
“Might as well. Ain’t got anything else to do.” Eponine felt a crystal-bright pain pierce her breast as she imagined him being torn apart, but she ignored it, plucking up the knife. She followed the fortunate girl into the kitchen, to safety, as dawn broke out over a bloodstained France.
Title: Sepulcher
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Romeo and Juliet
Characters/Pairings: Canon Pairings; Benvolio is the main character
Length: 527
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Spoilers for the full play
Warnings: mild violence, adult content
Prompt: 198. Romeo and Juliet -- Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Tybalt, Paris -- The families are reconciling in the wake of Romeo and Juliet's deaths. Then Romeo, Juliet, and others who died during the events of the play, come back.
The anniversaries passed by, year by year, day by day. Montague and Capulet both alike grieved, and both alike tried to mend their ways. Benvolio witnessed it all, too close at hand to believe the scope of pain that consumed them. He was married off to a Capulet sister, ensconced in a palazzo by the water and set to produce a wave of heirs.
Yearly, he traveled back to Verona to pay tribute to his fallen cousin and his lady fair. And while there, once in his thirtieth year, he heard this spoken in a harsh whisper.
“Beloved?” It was Juliet’s voice, though corrupted by years of disuse.
“My sweet,” came the mutter. “Rest thy tongue. Tis early, and we shall awaken the others from their eternal slumbers.”
“But I hunger! I burn and twist within! I crave only more - more meat, more carnage! More blood!.”
“Thou may wish in petulance for more, but ye are sated as a cow.”
“I know I am not. I know that there be more for me in the sweet giving of sanguinities.”
“Hush. Sleep.”
“Ah me, the hunger,” she said. “I need to sup, dear husband! I desire the hot pour of wine…of…of…something I cannot explain.”
“Romeo.” And then the disused voice of Mercutio. “Settle thy wife’s dust.”
“Thou knowst well she is not satiable, cuz. We may have to hunt again.”
“Bah. Catch a rat, give her the flesh of a pear - I am not apt to move from this bier. Let me rest my eternal slumber.”
“Is this the Mercutio I hath sworn an oath to? Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood.”
“We lack blood,” said Mercutio. “And our flesh runs near to nothing. Soon she shall be forced to sup on air and dust. It tires me.”
“If you do not feed me,” Juliet said petulantly, “I shall feast myself. Tis not only men who are born to hunt!”
“Ahh,” remarked that villain, that self-named rat catcher Paris, whose fire had not been enough to melt Romeo’s steel. “Now I am glad I did not marry to this wench. Silence her, Montague, or I shall find a way to make her quiet!”
•
“You shall taste my steel before you see the day!”
“Are we finally to fight?” Benvolio could hear the sudden interest in Mercuito’s voice.
“No war,” Juliet said. “I wish not for a fight but for a feast, and so my clever hands shall go to the hunt.”
“Cease thy egress,” Romeo said. “Mayhap this shall satisfy thee?”
There was a breath, a pause, the slightest hesitancy. “Would such a flavor sustain me?” Juliet wondered.
“Tush, dearest; twould be the sweetest flavor to besiege thy sweet tongue.”
“La, then…maybe the smallest of bites shall please my fussy belly.”
“Good! Then if he does not jest about feeding thee we shall be able to once more return to our slumber,” Mercutio said.
“He jests, nothing more,” offered Paris.
“Nay, I offer to thee the snowfield of my body, dearest Juliet; please sup, I shall not turn thee away.”
Benvolio fled from the scene before any horrible munching sounds could confirm his cannibalistic fears.
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Characters/Pairings: Canon pairings, with the main cast featured
Length: 585
Rating: PG
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers
Warnings: mild violence
Prompt: Big Bang Theory -- any characters -- The guys think they're prepared for the zombie apocalypse. They're not. (REPOST round 2013, 058.)
Sheldon Cooper was not afraid.
Only people too stupid to plan ahead for any disaster - natural or otherwise - gave in to terror, and Sheldon Cooper had…a contingency plan. He had it memorized by heart. In case of zombie plagues or uprisings of any kind, the entire group was to meet in the back room of the comics shop as quickly as possible. Howard would bring his mother if need be. Meanwhile, Leonard would proof the back room to keep their lair safe, and it was Penny’s job to drag in whatever supplies she could from the Cheesecake Factory.
Sheldon should have recalled what he’d learned years ago - theory doesn’t equal fact.
During a late-night session in his beloved lab, when he learned that an outbreak of weaponized monkey pox down in engineering had turned half the building into a ravenous zombielike horde, he manfully stood up from his spot at the lunch table. He thought about what Darth Vader would do, what Jim Kirk would say, how The Flash would deal with the situation.
And then he reached for the paper sack that had carried his lunch and subtly moved toward the emergency exit before panic could set in further.
He hyperventilated his way out the back door and through a fire escape. Pure instinct diverted him away from the comic book shop and the designated, plotted, drilled for and logically created plan.
He ran like a majestic giraffe toward the apartment building.
Apparently the entire gang had duplicated his frightful reaction and rushed toward the building too; the front door sported more padlocks than Penny’s on a good day. Fortunately he’d learned how to pick locks - he was an engineer, not a monkey.
They had gathered in the apartment and were presently all counted for - locking the door behind him, he wondered, “Are they still simulcasting the season premiere of Doctor Who?”
Penny - from her perch with the rest of the girls - seemed to be fortifying the cabinets with hundreds of cans of creamed corn. “Sheldon, we’re in the middle of an apocalypse.”
Sheldon sighed. “Well, that’s no excuse!”
Leonard sat upon the couch with a bat clenched in his fists, nervously jabbing it in the direction of any odd noise. Sheldon let out a disdainful sigh and sat upon his chair. “I suppose we could watch some Time Machine DVDs…”
“NO!” came his friends’ simultaneous shouts.
“All right - besides what Penny stole from the Cheesecake Factory we have three jars of mayonnaise, four TV dinners and a bucket of sauerkraut!” Bernadette emerged from the fridge, sounding as confused as Sheldon felt. “Did Howard’s mother do the shopping this weekend?”
“I don’t think my mother could walk that far! I mean, how could she possibly…” Howard laughed, trailing off. “Yeahhh. She got her hand on my credit cards during the rush here.”
“Do you mean that unpleasant woman’s in my apartment?” Sheldon asked Leonard, and received no response.
“And on your bed,” Raj said from his perch by the window.
Sheldon hunkered down with a paper bag at the woman’s scream. “HOWIE! I need you to turn on my stories!” came her shout. While Howard vacated his spot on the couch, Amy usurped it - and rested her hand on his knee. “Sheldon, since the end of the world’s rather…nigh…perhaps we could consider giving into our primal urges and saving the species. For the good of humanity, of course.”
She patted his knee. Sheldon cringed.
They had a very long apocalypse ahead of them.
Title: Ride or Die
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Burn Notice
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Jesse if you squint; Sam Axe, Jesse Porter
Length: 610
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For the series finale; takes place post-canon
Warnings: violence, language
Prompt: 058. Burn Notice -- Sam+Any (or ensemble) -- Sam knows an amazing amount of zombie lore - which comes in handy when they rise in Miami. (Repost 2013 090.)
Jesse didn’t even bother to ask questions when the streets filled with angry, ravenous bundles of human beings. The general attitude they projected and the spirit of the populace lay two degrees away from that of an average spring break weekend - he could deal with it. What he couldn’t deal with were the dwindling supplies and the constant vigilance required of him at every waking moment of his life.
Which was why Sam was so useful in crises situations like these.
He seemed to know everything procedure wise, and for the first time in his life Jesse wasn’t irritated by that fact. He didn’t even pretend to be pissed when Sam showed him how to weave nets and didn’t complain when he showed him how zombie traps work. He even showed Jesse how to create makeshift bullets out of household supplies, and taught him how and where to shoot the creatures.
Even with the lights out and the water running in a brown sludge, Sam had a plan. Water could be purified through a triple boil in a triumvirate of copper pots; electricity could be generated through use of crude vegetable-based batteries. Jesse shrugged and followed Sam’s wisdom; if it worked, it worked, and if it was keeping him alive he wasn’t predisposed to complain about it.
He had only question Sam’s logic once, and that was over his economizing their store of bullets. He absolutely and utterly believed in only shooting once, and that that shot had to land square between the zombie’s brows.
“Why does it have to be twice in the head?” he wondered. “These’re cop killers, man. One should do just fine.”
“No, that’s the key.” He loaded the chamber with another four bullets and then locked it back into place. “One headshot, deadshot. Two headshots, reshot.” Jesse raised an eyebrow.
“That makes no sense, man.” Jesse wasn’t in the mood to decode Sam’s mumbo jumbo. He wanted out of this shed they’d snagged for cover pronto, and would gladly ride with Satan if that meant freedom at this point.
“Just trust me,” Sam said. “I’ve seen shit you wouldn’t believe.”
Sam’s theory proved true when they were confronted with a fresh wave of the bastards. All of Jesse’s various misses - a bullet in the ankle or in the shoulder - only seemed to upset the zombies more. But Sam’s quick, simple headshots caused them to fall screaming and spouting, dissolving into nothingness with minimal fuss.
He thanked the man over a meal of home-farmed bacon, yogurt and salad.
“Just how the hell’d you learn all of this stuff, Sam?” Jesse wondered.
Sam shrugged. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
The glimmer in the older man’s eyes made Jesse roll his. Sam was a flirt, even in the apocalypse. “What are you planning, Sammy?”
Sam launched instantly into his pitch without a hint of coquetry. “There’s this orphanage on the north side,” Sam said. “Bunch of nuns ran it. Best case scenario, they booked themselves up with a bunch of craft scissors and they need a rescue. Worst case scenario, we end up with a stockpile of Elmer’s Glue and a bunch of blocks to use for firewood. Either way, we’ve got supplies enough to get us down there and back before the sun comes up. You in, brother?”
Jesse shook his head. Sam had no fear -he probably considered a death in the name of a bunch of anonymous children a glorious exit. But he had no other option - and the world was ending. He’d want his aunt to do the same for him when he was in foster care after his mother died.
“For life, brother.”
Title: Just Around the Corner
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Calvin and Hobbes
Characters/Pairings: Susie, Calvin, her parents
Length: 778
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers
Warnings: violence
Prompt: 061. Calvin and Hobbes -- Susie, Calvin, Hobbes -- Living near to Calvin turns out to have left Susie prepared for *anything* (Repost 2013 094.)
Zombies were pretty easy to fool, Susie decided. Most of them were pretty shy and liked hiding until it was dark; the ones that dared to come out during the daylight hours were often easily picked off because they were so completely desperate for meat.
This one had made the mistake of shambling up the driveway while she and her dad were out buying groceries. Her father responded with a surprisingly quick twist of the steering wheel, eliminating the threat by quickly running the offending zombie into the concrete garage wall, spattering it in a wave of gore across the concrete.
Susie had grown accustomed to the mess involved in re-killing the living dead, but it still made her turn up her nose. Why must it always involve such messy work? And why did zombies always insist upon dying in places that forced you to step over their mottled guts and putrid chunks of brain mater? Susie stuck out her tongue as she climbed out of the car and watched as a melting glop of tissue that had once been adhered to the side of the car thickly dripped onto the concrete. “That is disgusting.”
Her father nodded his head. “But that disgusting mess means we’ll live one day longer.” Susie groaned and reached for her safety belt. “Don’t complain so much,” her father said. “Being grossed out builds character.”
She rolled her eyes and unlatched Mr. Buns’ belt, too. “Calvin’s dad says that all the time, but I don’t believe him.”
“According to that windbag, EVERYTHING builds character.” He coughed. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to him when you go over to visit Calvin! Now be a sweetheart and help daddy unload the car, will you?”
Susie jumped to the task, taking a single paper sack while her farther took the majority of the bags into his arms. They stumbled through the garage door into the kitchen, where her mother waited.
“There’s my darling!” Susie received a kiss to the forehead as her mother grabbed the sack. “How were…things?” she asked, with a ludicrous amount of emphasis on the final word.
“One in the drive - don’t worry about it, he’s dead,” her father shrugged.
“Did you manage not to get this one all over the car?”
He smiled. “I’ll wash the tires after we put these away.”
Susie helped as much as she could, Mr. Bun tucked under her arm as she passed boxes of cereal and packages of meat from her father’s hands to her mother’s, forming a human chain. She could almost pretend that everything was normal outside when they gathered together this way - until she heard the occasional distant rumble of gunfire. Then she had to force herself to be brave.
When it was said and done, her father gave her a playful nudge. “Wanna cover me while I wash the car?”
“On the double!” Susie said. She grabbed Mr. Bun and raced for the safety of her room, then opened a window.
Reaching under the bed, Susie dragged out an array of squirt guns. She double-checked to make sure they were all loaded before running toward the window with Mr. Bun by her side.
She waved to her dad as he left the house with a bucket of soapy water, but her attention was soon quickly divided by another presence.
“Hey Susie!” Calvin yelled from his upstairs window. She rolled her eyes as he rolled his eyes, a wave of foam bubbling forth from his mouth. “They got me, Susie! Soon I’m going to be a super-powerful zombie!!”
Her nose wrinkled. “Eew! Did you stuff a bunch of Alka-Seltzer in your mouth?”
“No,” he said, as if he were speaking to somebody who was particularly ignorant, “I told you, they bit me!” He waved his right arm, which had been clearly covered with globs of strawberry jelly
Susie knew exactly how to react to Calvin’s silliness though - and that was by squirting a stream of water in the face. Her parents told her it was holy water, and that they got it by the bucketful from the nearest church. It seemed to do the trick on zombies, and it didn’t have a corrosive effect t on humans.
Calvin fell, sputtering, below the window frame, and she rolled her eyes before turning them toward the sidewalk. As she watched her dad trundle back into the house and realized she hadn’t worried as much about his trip outside as she normally did.
Hmmmm. Maybe she might have to thank Calvin for that.
She decided she’d think it over while having tea with Mr. Bun, and then shut the door on the outside world.
Title: The Policy
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Progressive Insurance/Allstate Insurance
Characters/Pairings: Flo the Progressive Insurance Girl; Mayhem; original characters
Length: 564
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Violence
Prompt: 068. Commercials: Progressive/Allstate -- Flo and Mayhem -- Insurance for Zombie Encounters.
Flo had been trained to handle any and every possible emergency, and to handle it with a wide smile. If it had a human risk attached to it, she had a remedy that involved reasonably-priced insurance and a perky quip. She was well-trained, but not a helpless automaton.
But nobody at her store had prepared her for Him. A shaggy-haired, green-faced stranger with a disheveled and stained suit with a devil may care look on his face.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m a zombie bite victim. My skin’s turning green, and I’m starting to crave the taste of human flesh.” He lurched toward the customer she’d been gleefully chatting up. “I might eat this lady, or that guy. Or maybe I’ll cough on a couple of menus and spread the disease around, who knows?
“Oh no, Flo!” the customer cried, dodging the man’s foaming mouth. “What will we do?”
Flo had already ducked behind the counter. Her bright red fingertips immediately found the place’s salvation - a sawed-off shotgun. “There’s a forty caliber solution for that, Pam!” Her finger hooked around the trigger and quickly pulled it, sending the bullet ricocheting off of one of the tin buttons on the zombie’s jacket. He flinched, releasing the customer and turning toward Flo.
“Maybe I’ll eat your juicy brains and use your extended coverage policy as a napkin,” the zombie said, his blood-soaked teeth flashing in the dim halogen lighting.
“Or,” Flo said, “maybe you’ll eat a little hot lead!”
A volley of bullets that sallied through the air sent the rest of the customers scrambling for cover. The first shot sank into his shoulder, sending up an arterial spray of blue-black liquid. The third hit him in the knee and caused him to sink, howling, to the ground before her.
Flo took her eyes off the action to reload, her customer shaking her sleeve when the zombie tried to crawl toward them. Helpfully, she said, “Flo, he’s still coming!”
“That’s all right,” she said. “With Progressive there’s always room for second chances!” BANG. This one managed to sever the knee completely from the thigh. “And if you upgrade your policy,” Flo said breathlessly, brushing her perfect side-bangs back and behind her ear, “we’ll give you two rifles at half price and twice the insurance in the case of sudden zombie attacks, whether they happen in groups or individually. If you upgrade within the next week, we’ll even give you a really nifty little sand bucket to take to the beach.”
“Wow, it sounds like you’ll get a lot of little nifty extras if you sign up with Progressive,” chirped her customer.
“You will!” The insurance provider crowed. “And unlike Mr. Zombie here,” she said, shooting at and aiming for his neck, “we won’t live in the past. Any debts you have with our competitors won’t be taken into consideration when you try for a policy with us!”
The zombie’s now-severed head made a last ditch attempt at an attack, rolling away from the collapsing, twitching body. “I’m your rising insurance rates, and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now,” it said.
Flo finished him off with a headshot. “And now you can’t feel anything.”
“Wow, that’s a terrific deal!” the patron said, brushing stray chunks of brain matter from her cheeks.
“And,” said Flo, grinning brilliantly, “You can always expect the best deal when you have Progressive!”
Title: all the balm in olympus
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Greek and Roman Mythology
Characters/Pairings: Orpheus/Eurydice
Length: 517
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers
Warnings: psychological horror
Prompt: 116. Greek Mythology -- Orpheus/Eurydice -- Eurydice didn't want to return from the underworld...and Orpheus unknowingly paid a high price for her return.
Her voice.
He had walked many a mile to hear it again. He’d defied the gods and given his gift, his golden voice, to be given the chance to simply see her.
He had lusted after the sight of her - had prayed and worked and cursed and toiled to have the privilege of seeing her one more time.
And now he had her.
He also had a boat filled with the scent of dead flesh and the guilty weight of his disobedient actions weighing him down like led, but he was willing to pay that small price for having his beloved back in his life.
Sweet Eurydice. He could still taste the snake’s poison on his lips from her wedding day’s death.
Orpheus knew he owed a debt to the gods. His pride in his own actions was overweening, for how many had managed to fool Hades? He would have to make a sacrifice to Aphrodite, and to Athena. A war had been waged for her, and a war had been won.
Only when they reached the safety of their home did he notice it.
His first look at her face had shown little change. Her eyes were still steady and her expressions governed by the romanticism buried like a thorn in her heart. She was still sweet of look and of temperament. Orpheus thought himself lucky and well-ridden of the evil mischief of the Gods and raced on, until they were both in the safety of his home.
That was when he heard it for the first time. That low, penetrating hum. That moaning chant that only the dead should make, that only the dead should hear.
He tried to shut it out as the years stretched on. He tried to ignore he vacant eyes and the absence of her kind warmth. When she asked for warm meat, fresh from the hinds of antelopes and deer, he did nothing but hunt to feed her instead of questioning her odd desires. She was otherwise herself, maddeningly so. Sweet to the forest creatures and the sweet animals around her - until she was out of his sight. He learned to mop the blood trails and not to ask her questions.
But it would enter his mind and again, he’d be reminded that her normalcy was just a trick of light and shadow. He knew full well that Hades had given him back his bride in body - though not in mind nor in soul. And so the low, sweet cry of Eurydice’s voice went on haunting him no matter what he did. He was doomed for all eternity to endure it; to feel a sip of ambrosia roll across his tongue without knowing again the sweet soul of her core. She seemed to eternally sing a song that could not or would not catch upon his mind. The low, sweet drone dug under his skin like a weevil, blotting out any other sound but the one she made subaurally.
This would be his hell. A life of perfect health - and of perfect companionship - with the shadow on the wall.
Title: Castaway
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Gilligan's Island
Characters/Pairings: Canon Pairings; Main Cast
Length: 503
Rating: R
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers
Warnings: Character Death, violence
Prompt: 112. Gilligan's Island -- They finally get off the island, only to find the rest of the world infected with a zombie plague. (REPOST round 2013, 156.)
It took him five years, but the Professor finally figured it out. He converted coconut water into gasoline, then chopped down a tree to patch the hole dug out in the S.S. Minnow’s hull. Within hours they were back on course for California.
The storm had, in the end, blown them several hours off of their designated pathway. It only took a bit of ingenious chartmaking to chug their way across the ocean and back toward the California coastline.
But what greeted them was no longer an idyllic paradise. The coastline ran red with blood and happy beachgoers were now desiccated former beings, cut into pieces and left to molder on the sandy shore.
They spotted the problem and the source in a single instant - a green-faced man chewing the arm of a long-dead woman.
Gilligan didn’t remember anything they did after that - beyond burying the body of the dead man and washing their fingers stringently. It was The Professor who said they ought to not befoul their hands; if the contagion was spreading, it was more than likely the path of contagion was through bodily fluids. To Gilligan it was all a blur - Skipper had washed his hands for him, not trusting Gilligan’s mind in times of stress.
All of their plans to separate had been disrupted by the discovery of the newly dying world around them. Instead they stuck together, using their well-honed survival instincts to forage for food and weapons. With The Professor’s tracking skills they soon learned to heed the scent and destruction zombies waged as they crossed the border into Mexico.
There they found an abandoned farm with animals that needed tending and land that needed to be tilled. Mary Ann was at home here, and she was the one who took charge of the lot of them. They pitched in, in their own way, trying to make things seem as normal as possible. At least they had more elbow room out there.
Their paradise was not a permanent one. Soon, a zombie found them.
The Skipper knew just what to do, and the Professor had a fertilizer bomb that worked wonders. They’d dug a ditch out by the main road, but it all felt too close for comfort to Gilligan. They would survive, wouldn’t they? All they’d done wouldn’t be for naught, and they’d manage to keep the farm and all the food they’d figured out - even the transistor radio the Professor had made out of moonshine? He had to wonder out loud his concerns to the Skipper as they gathered together by the front door, peering through the parlor windows and peepholes.
“Skipper - golly, do you think we’re ever going to get home?” Gilligan wondered. The mass of grey-faced people grew closer, their fetid breath turning his stomach.
“Well, little Buddy,” said Jonas, shouldering the gun and locking eyes with Howell. “I can’t really say that we will. But if we don’t, we’ll go down fighting.”
Mrs. Howell’s gloved fingers shook as they lit the fuse.
Title: Under Ground
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Les Miserables
Characters/Pairings: None; Eponine, Cosette and Gavroche
Length: 685
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: General Canon Spoilers; takes place mid-canon
Warnings: violence; gore
Prompt: 147. Les Miserables -- Eponine -- Eponine must survive the night and protect Gavroche when the gutters of France endure a calamity more dangerous than revolution - a rat-spread plague of the undead.
Eponine was a mistress of self-deception. She could convince herself of almost anything - which was why she didn’t trust her eyes when she spied the event occurring before her bewildered eyes.
She saw them, though they couldn’t see her.
They rose in the depth of night, between the gendarmes shifts, shambling down the street with their heads bowed, long, perfumed hair trailing over their eyes, bloody-red talon trails dug into the loose material at their hipbones. No one knew but Eponine, she who clung to the shadows like an alley cat, knowing all, until she felt bold enough to speak out. She was the one who played unblinking witness as they fell upon a hapless john and ripped him apart, inch by bloody inch, red mouths an o of outrage as they scrapped for every last ounce of meat.
No words could save Eponine’s skin now. Whatever disease that had warped the girls of the docks would likely corrupt all of France before the soldiers ended their lives. Eponine well knew the cost of ravenous desire. She simply prayed that she’d survive the evening.
She had one goal now, and it drove her to the town square at top speed, to the place where her brother slept within the belly of the Bastille Day elephant. She battled crowds of peddlers and happy couples as she fought her way there. What she noticed most of all were the children - so many children - and all of them so oblivious to the future sprawling menacingly before them.
Gavroche was still unaffected when she found him, though he seemed tired, hot and dusty when she shook him awake. She pulled her brother close, carefully tucking down his threadbare cap. “Close your eyes. Don’t open them ‘til I tell you.”
“What for?” He tried to struggle in his sister’s arms, but Eponine had a will as steely as his and it was hard for him to move. “You’re hurtin’ me, Ep! What’s gone wrong?”
“Long story,” she muttered, pulling him along the thick construction of the elephant’s inner workings until she found the exit at its foot. “Just don’t let go of me and don’t look.”
He tucked his greasy face in the curve of her shoulder, and Eponine squared her jaw and charged for the open door.
The scene outside was calamity already. The ravenous woman took hold of the easiest prey, feasting on weak beggars, on the surprised, on the foolish. Eponine tucked Gavorche closer and made a dash down the street and up a back alley.
She’d found a drooling monster that had once been the neighborhood druggist eating a rat.
It dropped the flailing mammal when it saw a larger quarry. “Brains!” he shouted, but she dodged his hands and ran on. From the corner of her eye she saw a pack of sailors devouring an elderly women. She felt Gavroche gasp in her arms.
“Don’t look!” she demanded, cutting left through another series of alleys. These should take her to the center of town, to the safest place she knew - to the rich ones and the Rue Plumier.
It was just beyond Dawn when she started slamming her fist into the iron gate. To her surprise it was Cossette, trusting Cossette, who opened the door with a butcher’s knife in her hand. “Are you hurt?” she dithered, pulling Gavroche out of her arms. “Is he whole and unafraid?”
“I ain’t afraid!” he shouted.
Cossette gave a sigh of relief, dropping the knife in the dirt before Eponine. “Please come in,” she said. “Papa said the town’s gone mad, we’re to leave as soon as we can. I’ve made an excuse,” her cheeks flushed. “We’re delayed. We’ll go look for Marius in the morning. Please, stay here, take a bed, have a meal where it’s warm.”
“Might as well. Ain’t got anything else to do.” Eponine felt a crystal-bright pain pierce her breast as she imagined him being torn apart, but she ignored it, plucking up the knife. She followed the fortunate girl into the kitchen, to safety, as dawn broke out over a bloodstained France.
Title: Sepulcher
Author: rise_your_dead
Fandom: Romeo and Juliet
Characters/Pairings: Canon Pairings; Benvolio is the main character
Length: 527
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Spoilers for the full play
Warnings: mild violence, adult content
Prompt: 198. Romeo and Juliet -- Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Tybalt, Paris -- The families are reconciling in the wake of Romeo and Juliet's deaths. Then Romeo, Juliet, and others who died during the events of the play, come back.
The anniversaries passed by, year by year, day by day. Montague and Capulet both alike grieved, and both alike tried to mend their ways. Benvolio witnessed it all, too close at hand to believe the scope of pain that consumed them. He was married off to a Capulet sister, ensconced in a palazzo by the water and set to produce a wave of heirs.
Yearly, he traveled back to Verona to pay tribute to his fallen cousin and his lady fair. And while there, once in his thirtieth year, he heard this spoken in a harsh whisper.
“Beloved?” It was Juliet’s voice, though corrupted by years of disuse.
“My sweet,” came the mutter. “Rest thy tongue. Tis early, and we shall awaken the others from their eternal slumbers.”
“But I hunger! I burn and twist within! I crave only more - more meat, more carnage! More blood!.”
“Thou may wish in petulance for more, but ye are sated as a cow.”
“I know I am not. I know that there be more for me in the sweet giving of sanguinities.”
“Hush. Sleep.”
“Ah me, the hunger,” she said. “I need to sup, dear husband! I desire the hot pour of wine…of…of…something I cannot explain.”
“Romeo.” And then the disused voice of Mercutio. “Settle thy wife’s dust.”
“Thou knowst well she is not satiable, cuz. We may have to hunt again.”
“Bah. Catch a rat, give her the flesh of a pear - I am not apt to move from this bier. Let me rest my eternal slumber.”
“Is this the Mercutio I hath sworn an oath to? Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood.”
“We lack blood,” said Mercutio. “And our flesh runs near to nothing. Soon she shall be forced to sup on air and dust. It tires me.”
“If you do not feed me,” Juliet said petulantly, “I shall feast myself. Tis not only men who are born to hunt!”
“Ahh,” remarked that villain, that self-named rat catcher Paris, whose fire had not been enough to melt Romeo’s steel. “Now I am glad I did not marry to this wench. Silence her, Montague, or I shall find a way to make her quiet!”
•
“You shall taste my steel before you see the day!”
“Are we finally to fight?” Benvolio could hear the sudden interest in Mercuito’s voice.
“No war,” Juliet said. “I wish not for a fight but for a feast, and so my clever hands shall go to the hunt.”
“Cease thy egress,” Romeo said. “Mayhap this shall satisfy thee?”
There was a breath, a pause, the slightest hesitancy. “Would such a flavor sustain me?” Juliet wondered.
“Tush, dearest; twould be the sweetest flavor to besiege thy sweet tongue.”
“La, then…maybe the smallest of bites shall please my fussy belly.”
“Good! Then if he does not jest about feeding thee we shall be able to once more return to our slumber,” Mercutio said.
“He jests, nothing more,” offered Paris.
“Nay, I offer to thee the snowfield of my body, dearest Juliet; please sup, I shall not turn thee away.”
Benvolio fled from the scene before any horrible munching sounds could confirm his cannibalistic fears.