notes: so guess who's writing a modern zombie au while wearing a shirt that says "be kind to zombies, they're people too." if you guessed it was me, you would be correct. guess who also didn't notice until just now? also me.
disclaimer: disclaimed
dedication: to my cousin who watches horror movies even though he's ridiculously superstitious and jumps at every little thing. to this day i'm still unsure if you're brave, or just dumb.
more notes: yes, i wrote this even though i've never seen a zombie movie in my life. what about it. rated g for (probable) graphic violence and gore.

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(a zombie memoir, or how Natsu Dragneel realized that he is the chosen one,
and possibly one of the greatest zombie slayers ever.)
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act i

the beginning of the end, or the dishes will have to wait, there's zombies to kill

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{all those people in the old photographs i've seen are dead}

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—

Natsu is eating Captain Crunch and watching Saturday morning cartoons like any self-respecting high school junior when the world ends. Perhaps it's just another screw up (though not on his part) in his life, because a Saturday, are you freaking kidding? The only get two days between school weeks, it really couldn't have ended on a Thursday or something? He realizes that he's lazy and that's he's just procrastinating that chemistry homework, okay, his friends have told him numerous times, but this is on a whole other level.

Besides, kids these days are so invested in their phones and whatever else they have that's electronic, and he can't just let the weekend morning tradition die out. It'd be like, a disgrace to humanity or something. And somebody has to watch Daffy Duck epically fail at almost everything he tries. He also realizes that getting a job would be "preferable" and it might be on his list of Things to Do, but it's not exactly one of his high priorities—in fact, he thinks that his chem homework comes before that, and even then it's like number fifteen.

He's seventeen, alright, and who hires seventeen-year-old hormonal teenage guys and pays them a fair wage? That's right, nobody. Job experience would be helpful, but the only things available to him are probably either working in fast food or retail, and honestly, he'd rather makeout with Gray before doing either of those.

Anyway.

Back to the world.

Everything goes to hell on a relatively nice Saturday in October, and maybe it is a good thing that it's on a weekend, because who wants to be at school at a time like this? Like really. But the day is seemingly normal from the start—he wakes up early this morning, at nine, pours himself some sugary cereal and falls back onto the couch to watch some tv.

He's about to shovel his tenth spoonful of cereal into his mouth when he hears it.

It's a weird sound—kind of like a muted bang, but also a thud—and he just figures that Mrs. Schmooker's old Ford pickup still has that problem with the exhaust pipe. She seriously needs to get it fixed, because if he's not already awake (and he usually isn't) on Saturdays, it backfires every morning without fail at nine-thirty and rudely jars him from his blissful slumber. He gets that she's like sixty-four and she's widowed, okay, but he would be happy to help fix it if she just let him. He'd do it for free, too—no need to take it in to a shop as long as she purchased the right parts—if it meant that it wouldn't wake him up early on weekends.

So he passes it off as the stupid backfiring problem and returns to watching Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck fight over which hunting season it actually is while Elmer Fudd stands off to the side. He shoves the spoonful of cereal into his mouth and almost chokes when the banging becomes louder. He slams a fist into his chest a few times and coughs because he doesn't really want Cap'n Crunch in his lungs, and the banging continues.

"What the fuck," he mumbles to himself and stands up. Her truck is seriously acting up today, maybe it'd finally bit the dust. Which, praise be, meant that she would probably need a new vehicle, but at least he wouldn't have to put up with the pickup backfiring anymore. At least, as soon as she stopped trying to start it and it quit dying on her almost immediately.

Natsu stalks over to his front door and turns the lock before flinging it open. "Mrs. Schmooker, can you please—for the love of all things holy—" he pauses, and blinks at the sight before him.

His street is literally on fire. Flames are licking hungrily at the foundations of houses up and down Forest Avenue, his seemingly one of the only ones untouched. There are a few people running around screaming in terror, which is, y'know, considerably strange behavior. But most importantly, the banging slash weird thudding noise continues—only louder now—although Mrs. Schmooker's truck is sitting stationary in her drive, on fire.

He slowly turns his head in the direction of the noise, and as it turns out, it's coming from one of his front windows, the ones located behind the shrubs. Or, more specifically, the woman he thinks is his elderly neighbor lady slamming her head into the window. She's still dressed in her bath robe and slippers, her hair still in curlers, and Natsu considers talking to somebody about having her sent to an assisted living facility. He resists the urge to curse loudly, because she's a religious woman who always goes to church every Sunday morning (thankfully after nine) and always brings him cookies on Thursday evenings. He really likes those cookies.

"Mrs. Schmooker, why are you—hey! Stop that! You're drawing blood—and getting it all over my window!"

Natsu is about to rush over and pull her away when she suddenly turns around, and he takes a step back. It's her, alright, he can tell even with the blood running down her face. But she's different—her skin is still sagging from age, but now it's a dull gray color, and she's snarling at him. He sincerely hopes that it's breakfast sausage stuck in her dentures, but he knows it's not. She stares at him, one of her eyeballs barely hanging from a tendon, and he resist the urge to vomit.

Everything really connects when the screaming mailman runs by his house, only to be tackled by who he thinks is Mrs. Cooper, or what's left of her. She then proceeds to rip his intestines out and shove them in her gaping mouth. Natsu would be impressed with the move if they were playing football, but now all he feels a sudden bout of nausea coming on.

At the moment, Mrs. Schmooker decides to lunge for him, teeth snapping and dangling eye bobbing. He swears anyway, this time, even though he's still technically in the presence of his elderly neighbor. Sort of.

"Shit!"

He dodges and ducks back into his open door before slamming it shut and locking it. He also slides the deadbolt in place for good measure, and groans in agitation.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" he cries, and slams his forehead against the red painted wood, though mostly in irritation that no, he's not going over to Gajeel's later and there won't be any Modern Warfare marathon until five in the morning.

Natsu huffs and glowers at the undead Mrs. Schmooker, who has gone back to trying to break his window in with her head. She's smearing her icky blood all over it, and there are other features about her face he doesn't particularly wish to see anymore, so he closes the curtains.

Leave it to all the early risers to get the first brunt of the apocalypse. He shakes his head because really, who gets up and around early on Saturday mornings? Crazy people, that's who. Well, and Lucy, but she's always been weird.

But seriously, he's been preparing for this moment all his life, or at least since he was like, nine. Everyone thought he was just being ridiculous—which, ex-fucking-scuse you, he isn't one of those crazy gun separatists or anything okay—and now look at them. They were out panicking and getting eaten by the minute, while he was safe inside his home, which is full of supplies. He counts this as one of his first victories over humanity.

Natsu: 1.

Everyone else: 0.

Look who's laughing now.

Anyway, he's seen pretty much every zombie movie in existence, from the classics to Zombieland and The Walking Dead and everything in between, and he's played enough Call of Duty Zombies to know what he's up against. Well, sort of. He does have the basic facts though, and they are these:

They're not fast, they look disgusting and smell even worse, they don't just go for the brains, they stagger and sway worse than drunks on a Friday night, and he has to find his friends and family.

He's not sure what their bite does, how people turn, or how any of this got started in the first place, but as he loads his dad's shotgun and stuffs extra shells into his backpack—along with perishable and nonperishable food supplies, knives, and anything else useful he can get his hands on—he knows he's going to find out. One way or another.

The linen closet on the second story is stocked with aluminum baseball bats, an axe, and other various items useful for this type of venture, and he packs as much as he can without it being too much. You don't want to be weighed down by anything when you're running for your life from fleshing-craving mutations of former humans. What a stupid way to die.

Natsu also includes some extra clothes, because who knows how long this thing will last, and he may not be the most hygienic person ever, but wearing the same clothes for months is nasty. After everything seems to be ready to go, he opens the window to his second floor bedroom and steadies the rifle is his hands on the sill. Mrs. Schmooker has apparently given up on trying to use her head as a battering ram and is chasing the UPS guy down the street.

"Sorry Luetta," he says, before peering through the scope and pulling the trigger twice. She goes down in an instant, and smashes onto the pavement. The UPS guy actually manages to make it to his truck, and speeds away, hitting zombies out of the way like bowling pins.

Natsu clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and closes the window. Slinging the rifle over his arm, along with at least two other guns belonging to his late father, he grabs his backpack and heads downstairs.

It's going to be a long Saturday.

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(x)

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Juvia lets out a cry of despair as her former handsome neighbor crashes through a patch of her meticulously planted begonias. He snaps to attention, hearing her cry, and her blood instantly runs cold. He lets out a strange gurgling sound and reaches toward her, feet dragging over the ground.

She lets out a shriek and drops the morning paper in favor of grabbing a nearby shovel. Michael comes closer, and she makes a face at his right arm and the exposed bone, and then at the hole in his chest. He makes grabby hands at her as he attempts to reach up through the white posts on her front porch to get to her ankles. She brings the end of the shovel down on his wrist, hand and fast, and it slices through the gray skin. The hand goes flying—and she promptly brings the metal down on his head.

"I didn't want to go out with you anyway," she mumbles and then cringes at the awful squishing sound.

Zombie Michael sways and collapses, and she grips the handle of the shovel tighter before backing up. Her street is mostly clear, with only a few stragglers still lingering around, but she doesn't know what to do.

"Why do all the worst things happen to me? Why can't I have just one normal day? That's all I ask, really. No zombies on a Saturday. Especially not a Saturday when I was supposed to study with Gray."

She hopes that he's okay, because you know, she's in love with him and all that. But he doesn't know that apparently, even though everyone else seems to, and she can't die without really making it clear to him first. Well, honestly she doesn't want to die at all, but definitely not by zombie. Then people would be right in saying that she's an airhead and a ditz and she's not about to let that happen.

Juvia blows some fringe out of her eyes and adjusts her flower crown—it's her favorite, the one with the small pink roses, because she has to look her best for Gray. She lifts her head a little higher and retreats back inside to grab a few things before leaving.

Her neighborhood might be quiet now, but it didn't mean that it would stay that way. Also, it isn't just Gray she's worried about, because all her friends are still (hopefully) out there too.

She pulls her meticulously curled cornflower hair up into a messy bun and smiles at her reflection in the mirror. Time to get slaying.

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(x)

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Gajeel bashes a zombie's head in with the biggest monkey wrench he could find as Gray torches an elderly man wearing a newsboy cap and one suspender. Their respective mornings had started off relatively normal, with both of them getting up around eight. Gajeel had gone out to work on his jeep before their video game all-nighter, and Gray had come over to help.

Everything had gone to shit about thirty minutes later, when a Girl Scout tried to bite Gray's fingers off, and things hadn't gotten any better.

"Fucking zombies, man," Gajeel intones as Gray swings his blow torch around and slams a welding helmet down over Undead Elderly Newsie.

Gray nods and drops the helmet, instead picking up a bat Gajeel had stored in his garage from his baseball years when he was younger. "All I wanted," he bites out, "was my damn coffee and to learn how to change my oil. I was supposed to study with Juvia later too."

Both zombies finally fall, really dead, this time, and they wipe the sweat off their foreheads. Gray's white t-shirt is stained with grease and other things he doesn't really wish to know about, and Gajeel has what is, quite possibly, brain matter in his hair.

Natsu was probably rejoicing, wherever he was, because he'd been prepping for this day like a girl prepares for prom since he was a kid. That's roughly eight years of planning, imaging worst case scenarios, and a hella ton of summer and weekend nights spent analyzing every zombie movie and franchise ever. Gajeel thinks that if his cousin was half as committed to his education as he is to preparing for the "inevitable dawn of the undead" that he'd be one of smartest people he knew.

It was not the case though, but surely if anyone could survive this, it'd be Natsu.

The moron was probably still sleeping though, to be honest, and either hadn't noticed the shift yet or wouldn't until the undead were already in his house.

"You thinking about Natsu?" Gray questions as he edges around the rotting Girl Scout's headless body and reaches for his jacket.

Gajeel gives a nod and brushes his hands off on his pants. "Yeah. We should probably find him—or anyone else we can, I guess. You said something 'bout Juvia earlier, right? Gotta swing by there and check on her."

Images of his oldest friend's body mangled and bloody make his stomach churn, and he shakes his head in an attempt to make them go away. Juvia was a tough girl, she'd be fine so long as she didn't do anything like putting herself straightway into danger. Not many people live on her street anyway, so it would probably be clear for the most part.

"We should head to Fairy Tail after that," Gray grunts, resting the bat on his shoulder. "I bet that's where everyone will be."

Gajeel steps over Undead Newsie's corpse and starts his Jeep. "Yeah."

Gray swings himself up into the cab and slams the passenger door shut. "Hey, what about Levy? Doesn't she go for a run on Saturday mornings?"

Gajeel puts the Jeep into gear faster than he ever has before.

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(x)

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Lucy thinks this must be the most insane thing that's ever happened to her. Maybe it's punishment because she was a terrible serial killer in her former life, or something. Although she can't really picture herself as a serial killer, or a criminal of any sort, at least until today.

She swings the ax around and cringes as the zombie's head goes flying. It lands on somebody's front porch, and she mentally apologizes even though they're probably already dead or one of them. She's watched movies with Natsu—seriously, he has some kind of obsession or something—but nothing could have prepared her for this. Things like this just don't happen in real life. The whole "Zombie Apocalypse" thing was just a stupid superstition of nerds and gullible people alike, and Natsu, who didn't really qualify as either. Gullible, maybe. Certifiably insane? Also maybe.

Then again, probably not, because here she is, hacking already dead people apart like some kind of demented version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Only she was slaying zombies, not vampires, but honestly she'd rather take her chances with the vampires. At least their brains had cognitive functions and they possessed some form of sense. Even Dracula.

But no, she's stuck with zombies. Which? Sucky.

In the beginning, she thought it was just people dressing up and being a general nuisance to those around them. Come on you guys, she'd called to a group of screaming teenagers as they'd run past her, Halloween isn't two weeks away. Get a grip. That lasted up until she'd realized what was actually happening. She'd been walking to Juvia's house until she witnessed a husband—only, certainly not anymore—trying to eat his wife. She's just so incredibly over her life at this point, it's unreal.

Thankfully she'd seen the ax sticking out of some guy's woodpile outside of his house, or else she'd have been dead forever ago. Even though she's probably only been out here four an hour or so. She's never stolen anything in her life before this, and she's really sorry but she also doesn't have a deathwish. No weapon plus hordes of zombies craving her flesh and brains equals certain disaster, she did the math.

Lucy cautiously glances around, but everything is silent. Except she thinks she hears screaming coming from a couple streets away. Not surprising, really, seeing as how it seems to be the end of the world as they know it and there are zombies staggering around trying to eat everyone who's not already dead.

Her life.

She checks the name on the street sign and is surprised to discover that she's not far from Fairy Tail. If she can just make it there, where all her friends are surely headed to, then she'll be alright. For a little while, at least.

The blonde hitches her axe higher on her shoulder and sets off, thinking about her best friend all the way. He's fine, she repeats in her head like a mantra, he's practically been waiting for this from the moment he was born. He's fine, he's fine, he's fine. Everyone's fine.

Well, not everyone, because she's seen a lot of bodies that weren't up and walking around searching for a meaty snack. Magnolia may be a wreck, but her friends are okay.

Surely.

tbc.

end notes: will feature focus on natsu/lucy, gray/juvia, jellal/erza, gajeel/levy, romeo/wendy, and possible others.