The Stand and Zombies?

[theharvardian]

Context: General plot of The Stand, only with zombies. Majority of the world's population gets sick and dies. The virus mutates in some and reanimates the dead, their goal to spread the virus.
People who aren't zombies or dead are immune. They can get the mutated version of the virus by being bitten, but might only get the normal version.

OCs only, please. Start wherever you want. As soon as I conclude my discussion with my dear friend, I'll post something with my character. xD

[lararaith]

OOC: I'm in. I'll have to reread The Stand probably. I'll get something up for my character soon. xD

[theharvardian]

(Go go gadget introduction, since I'm pretty sure you guys are waiting on me. Sorry it took so long, the guy downstairs was being a bitch.)

It was an absolutely gorgeous fall day, and Alyssa McClellan intended to enjoy it to the fullest. Sort of. That is to say that she was going to enjoy it as much as she could, considering the circumstances. With her mother, father and younger sister all sick with a mysterious bug that had been going around New York City lately, there was a limited amount of enjoyment that she would actually be able to get out of it.

That particular Saturday morning found the girl laying in bed, bored, listlessly flipping through the pages of a book. Coughs echoed through out the large house. Vaguely she wondered if she should get up and check on them, but they would yell if they needed something. It didn't seem to serious, but from what the rumors floating around town said a few people had already died from whatever the illness was. In any case, they'd found the only doctor willing to make house calls and made arrangements for him to come by the house later that day.

She sighed and flipped long auburn hair back from her face, green eyes drifting closed as she made a bored sort of sleepy noise. Life was going to get better, it just had to. Or at least more exciting. My god, she was going to die from boredom.

[lararaith]

It really would have been fine if mother hadn't started watching the news with the enthusiasm of a true fanatic. She'd heard of the pandemic and had the entire family going around in surgical masks, washing everything they touched a thousand times a day and barely leaving the house. It seemed to work out well for the man of the house and the other children, who all seemed to be enjoying an extended vacation from work or school, but for 19 year old Marilynn it was hell.

The weather was beautiful, and all she could do was sit and stare out the window at it. She'd been sitting in the window seat with a book open in front of her face, idly glancing at the pages every now and then. She'd lost the ability to focus on anything. A cough echoed from downstairs. It sounded a bit like her father. Gray eyes rolled under a mop of reddish hair. Mother was going to be furious. She probably wouldn't let him out of quarantine until Christmas.

She'd vaguely considered running away, but she was reluctant to go out into the madness of New York city during a crisis. Perhaps soon, if she could get the money together. She just needed a break from her mother. It was going to be a long damn autumn.

[oddthomas]

He had no way to knowing that his 24th year of existence was going to be the one that really defined him as a human being. It wasn't that long after his birthday, and in 24 years he had accomplished next to nothing. He'd gotten through medical school and was working as an intern, but hadn't done much in the way of what he considered useful. The hospital was overcrowded, which honestly wasn't all that unusual, but the symptoms in the emergency room normally varied a little. That morning, it was the mysterious illness that was traveling the city that seemed to be affecting everyone.

He'd been hurrying between curtained off sections of the emergency room, taking vital signs and scribbling in charts for hours with no sign of a break. Walking into the next sectioned off room, he sighed and brushed dark brown hair back from his forehead. "Good afternoon," he muttered, trying to sound upbeat.

There were two people in the room, an older man laying on the bed, looking unconscious, and a young woman with blonde hair staring at him anxiously. The young woman flung herself out of the chair and launched herself at him. "You have to help us, I think he's going to die, you have to do something, I'm freaking out, oh my god!" she yelled all in one breath as she tackled him to the floor.

He got to his feet and impatiently helped her up. "I'm Dr. Devin Parker, and I'll do what I can to help," he said. "Can you give me any information?"

"I'm Celene," she said. "Celene Harper. This is my grandfather, he's sick, he's going to die, he has the flu or something, I don't know....."

Devin scribbled on the chart as fast as he could, trying to keep up with the young woman. It was going to be a long ass day, he could already tell.


(OOC: Oh snap. Yeah, I brought in two characters. Muawahahahahahahahahaha!)

[theharvardian]

With a sigh, she slammed the book closed and threw it down on the bed. There had to be something to do. There just had to. She slid out of bed and let the room, padding down the stairs in stocking feet. "Mom?" she called. A cough came from downstairs. "Guys?" She stepped from the last stair and went around the corner.

"....nationwide pandemic," a calm and collected voice was saying from the living room. The news was on, apparently. Ever since the pandemic had started, the news had been on almost constantly. "Hundreds are dead in the city alone with the death toll rising and the hospitals overcrowded."

"This is depressing," he mother's voice muttered from the room, and the tv was abruptly silenced.

She came around the corner into the room and blinked at her mother. The only occupant of the room, she was sprawled across the couch with a stack of old tissues and a bottle of water on the floor in front of her. "Hello, Alyssa," she mumbled. She sounded terrible. "Come sit. We need to talk.....its about your father."

[oddthomas]

He sighed softly at her. "I'm going to do whatever I can to help," he was saying for what seemed like the millionth time. Celene had followed him through his rounds, waiting outside of each area while he checked up on his patients, babbling at him nervously when he was in the hallways.

"I just don't understand," she whined. "He's going to die unless you can save him. Everyone is sick and dying, and I don't even feel sniffly!"

"I haven't been sick either," he muttered. "And I'm not sure why you should be so concerned about this. Its a good thing that you aren't sick in this clusterfuck. Forgive my language, Ms. Harper." He looked down at his clipboard and rolled his eyes. "Look, I really will do everything that I can do for your father. But I'm terribly busy and I really don't have time for all of this."

"I'll wait," she said stubbornly. "I get the feeling that you need me as much as I need you."

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Just go sit in the waiting room, or wait with your father. Just leave me alone. " He impatiently waved his hand at her. "Please. Go away. I need to work."

She sighed and stomped off down the hallway wordless. She disappeared around the curtain to her father's room. For a moment everything was blessedly silent. And then her shrill screams echoed through the halls.

[lararaith]

Eventually, there was nothing left to do but abandon her pursuit of the literary and go to the kitchen for a snack. Something warned her that it was going to be a stunningly bad idea, because if she was correct about her father having been coughing earlier, her mother would be flipping her shit.

The kitchen door was closed, which was rare. She nudged the door open and peered inside. "Noooo!" her mother howled. "Don't you dare touch anything! Go lie down for god's sake!" The hiss of a sprayed disinfectant came from the room.

She stepped into the kitchen and looked around. Her mother was on one side of the room, behind the marble island, wearing a surgical mask and latex gloves. Her blonde hair was askew and she looked frazzled. "No! Peter you have to listen to me, you're going to get us all sick!" the middle-aged woman wailed.

Standing in front of the refrigerator was her father, looking pale and tired, dark hair standing up at odd angles. He was wearing as surgical mask and latex gloves, holding his hand up to keep the disinfectant that his wife was spraying at him out of his eyes. "Mara, you're killing me slowly. It isn't the illness, its you." He glared.

His daughter rolled her eyes, slipped past her father and took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and left the room. It was going to be such a spectacularly long summer that she didn't think she could handle it.

[oddthomas]

He sighed. A scream like that either meant that someone was dead or dying. He looked down the hallway. No one had moved. The other doctors didn't seem overtly concerned. People had been dying all day, and there was very little that they could do about it. He turned on his heel and swept down the hallway and into the room. "Are you alright?" he asked. "Miss Harper?"

He stepped into the room and immediately wished that he hadn't. Though the medical profession had prepared him for gore, he wasn't exactly prepared for the shock of what he saw. It wasn't the messiest death he'd ever seen, but it was ridiculous in its own right. The old man was sitting straight up in bed, eyes bright with fever clawing at his right wrist, where apparently someone had decided it was a good idea to tie him to his bed to keep him still. There was blood everywhere, including all over his face and Celene's hands. "What the fuck !?" he cried.

"He b-bit me!" Celene stammered. "I swear he was dead, and I got close and he bit me!" She was on the other side of the room, flailing her hands wildly, back to the open window.

"Careful, you're going to fall," he warned, pulling his stethoscope from around his neck and advancing on the old man. "Mr. Harper, I just need to get your vitals...."

He drew closer and the old man lunged, snapping his teeth at him wildly. "I'll kill you, you bastard Johnson!" the old man raved. "You've ruined my life! You've hurt Marissa and I'll kill you!!!"

He stepped back. "He's going to need to be sedated," he murmured. "He's hallucinating."

"He's never had any history of anything like this," Celene babbled. "No history of memory loss or Alzheimer's." She was shaking violently. "He was yelling at me in this language that I don't understand and...."

"He's hallucinating," he said. "Its the fever. Come with me and I'll bandage your hand, alright?" He held his hand out to her calmly. "You have to keep calm, Miss Harper. Let me take a look..."

With a howl of triumph, the old man pulled his hand free of the restraints and lunged half off of the bed, raving in a language that Devin vaugely recognized from a song his sister had liked as Gaelic.

"What the hell?" he mumbled. He crossed the room and grabbed Celene firmly by the wrist. "You're coming with me. You don't need to see this."

"No! He's the only family I have!" she yelled, jerking her uninjured hand away and slapping Devin soundly on the face. "You've got to make him better, Doctor! Please!"

The old man had succeeded in lunging half off the bed before he gave a strangled gasp and fell to the floor in a heap, unmoving. "Don't. Move," Devin warned her. He crossed the room and knelt next to his patient, checking for a pulse. "I'm sorry, Miss Harper, but he's dead."

Celene gave a howl of anguish and fell to her knees sobbing hysterically. "Nonononononononono," she kept mumbling. "This can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening."

In a haze of unreal calm, Devin crossed the room again and picked up the phone hanging on the wall and dialed the extension for the morgue. "Dr. Parker, reporting a code black in 389. Repeat, there is a death....."

A loud hysterical laugh erupted from the phone. The voice of the morgue technician was loud, hysterical and shaking. "What the hell else is new, Dr. Parker? What the hell else is new?"

[theharvardian]

She sat down on the floor next to the couch that her mother was sprawled across. "Yes, Mama?" Alyssa asked obediently, eying her mother carefully. Her face was flushed, her hair askew and her eyes glazed. She seemed to be in her right mind, at least. She'd heard on the news that some hallucinated in the final stages of the disease. She'd also heard, on the news, that the majority of people who'd gotten sick were recovering. She would later learn that the news could be a terribly misleading thing.

"As I said, its about," her mother began, words punctuated by a harsh cough, "your father. I think that he might be losing his mind." She seemed eerily calm. "He told me that the doctor wouldn't be coming and that things are going to get worse before they get better. He says thing might never get better. He was talking about your sister, but I haven't the energy to get up and check on her. He's in the back yard. Will you go and have a word with him?" She went into a coughing fit again, covering her mouth with a tissue. "You shouldn't sit too close, Alyssa. I don't want you sick too. Someone needs to be able to run things around here."

"I'll talk to him, Mama," she promised. "Are you feeling any better?" She reached out and brushed her mother's hair back from her forehead, trying to determine if her temperature had gone down any.

Her mother coughed and pushed her hand away. "Not really, but I'm sure that I will," she said. "Don't worry, Alyssa. Go and talk to your father, would you? He's lost his damn mind...."

Alyssa sighed. She wondered if there was actually something going on with her father, or if he mother really was starting to hallucinate. She got up and walked outside. It was sunny and warm, and she paused on the wooden steps down from the porch, letting the sunlight shine on her face. "Daddy?" she looked around the large back yard. A wooden fence surrounded the yard, and a large above ground pool took up most of the room. A shed sat to the left of the pool and the door was slightly open. "Hello? Dad?"

"Behind the shed, Alyssa," a tired voice called. "If you're coming back here, do so alone, please." He coughed wetly.

"Ooookay," Alyssa said. She walked around behind the shed and gasped, hand over her mouth, staring aghast at her father. "What are you doing ?" she gasped. He'd dug what appeared to be three graves, side by side in the grass and was sitting on a pile of dirt, pale, sweating and wheezing.

"Dr. Fletcher's office called to cancel," he said with a breathy, hysterical laugh. "Turns out he's dead." He coughed again, doubling over in pain. "You know what his secretary told me when she called? She was coughing so hard she couldn't breathe, and she sounded like she already had one foot in the grave, but said it was her duty to call. She said that Dr. Fletcher is dead Alyssa. Dropped dead in his office, in the middle of an exam. Apparently the patient was already dead and he died with the phone in his hand trying to call for a coroner."

Alyssa sighed and sat down on the dirt pile next to her father. He reached out with one dirt covered hand and took her hand. "Alyssa, you're old enough to understand. You're 17, hell you're going to be 18 soon enough. And you understand death. Marion, she's only 8. She doesn't really understand, and she's already so sick, and your mother is getting really sick too.... Hell, Alyssa, I'm sick as hell too, and I know that we're all going to die. Except for you. I have faith that you won't. You're not sick, and you're strong enough...."

"Daddy, you're not going to die," Alyssa said, squeezing his fingers gently. "You can't. I need you. Marion needs you. So does Mama, even though she won't admit it. You can't die. You're going to get better. I promise." She kissed him on the cheek, frowning at how hot his face felt. "I love you, Daddy." She leaned her head against his shoulder gently.

"Alyssa. You have to be strong. You have to do what is necessary. Soon, we'll be gone. And I've tried to make this easy for you, with the graves....," with a cough, he gestured to the holes he'd painstakingly dug. "Your mother will want to be dressed in her best dress, of course." He sniffled vaguely. "I can't get the hospital, the funeral home or anyone on the phone. Its the end of the world, my darling dear. I love you."

Alyssa bit down on her lip hard to keep from crying. "Don't talk like that, Daddy, you're going to be fine."

"I need you to do this for me, when I'm gone," he said sternly. He turned to her and took both of her hands in his and looked into her eyes. "Alyssa. My darling daughter. Promise me. Please."

Alyssa blinked away tears. Agreeing would make him happy at least. "I promise, Daddy."

"Now, Alyssa, help an old man up and we'll go and get your sister and mother together and have one last tea as a family, alright?"

Perturbed at how calmly her father was taking all of it, Alyssa simply nodded, standing and holding out her hand to help her father up. Hopefully it was her father that was delirious and her family would recover. Hopefully. The news wouldn't lie about people actually recovering, would they?

[lararaith]

A few hours later found her laying on the back deck, book open in front of her, headphones firmly in place. She'd given up on staying inside the house. Her mother was insane. Her parents had been shouting at each other for hours, her father sounding increasingly hoarse and tired. She'd snuck out of the house shortly after her mother had fainted onto the living room couch. She wouldn't have been able to sneak out otherwise. Her mother had been shrieking that there was death outside and that no daughter of hers was going to be exposed to more than her husband had already exposed her to.

Years later, she would find it exceedingly ironic that her anal retentive, obsessive compulsive, germaphobic, clean freak mother would die first, her public high school teacher husband, who was exposed to everything under the sun living for three more days, almost seeming better in the end.

Not that she was expecting anyone to die as she lay on the deck reading that day. She believed every word of what the news had been saying. Everyone who was sick would get better. Anyone who didn't recover on their own should be fine after a visit to the doctor. Anyone who hadn't already should get a flu shot. The crisis was well in hand.

"Marilynn!" the frantic word was followed with a harsh cough. Her father's voice. "Marilyyyyynnn!"

She took off her headphones, blinking. Had someone said something?

"Marilynn!" her father's voice cried, coughing, practically sobbing. "I need your help! Your mother....."