Hello all you beautiful people! Rare Joe Star here, formally JC785, back with more stories of fanfiction. Since we're all trapped inside due to COVID-19, I figured I'd use the time to do something I've been wanting to do for a while. And thats to make a kinda spinoff to Apocalypse: Dawn of the Dead. I got permission from FlygonNick to do this, so no worries on that end as long as I credit him. Make sure you go read his story first, otherwise a lot of stuff here isn't going to make sense.

Anyways, this is just a work in progress kinda thing, so bear with me for any kind of gaps. Its been awhile since I've done this.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Reawakening

Darkness is all he saw when his eyes opened unexpectedly. Breathing heavily, he sat up and looked to his side and saw the clock on his bedside, reading around half past 3 in the morning. He used his hand to wipe away the beads of sweat forming on his forehead, but got confused when he didn't feel anything.

"What the…" He leaned over to his left and turned on the lamp next to the bed. With light casting away the darkness, he looked down to his right. "Oh...right."

It's been 2 weeks since The Battle of The MPD, as some people had taken to calling it. But most major news agencies had dubbed it The Final Exodus. The world had started picking up the pieces of a broken society, but it'll be a long time before anything is considered normal again. What's left of the police are trying to maintain a sense or order, hospitals are filled with injured, and mass graves are being made for the corpses that litter the world.

Yet through all of that, the world still stood. People were still alive and able to pitch into the reconstruction efforts, whether it be clearing out the rubble from the streets or working on the logistical side of the rebuilding.

Just as well as things were going at the moment, they almost lost everything. The world almost was torn into nothing, all due to the grief of a german scientist, Dr. Edward Richtofen. The man who lost his ability to see the good in the world attempted to completely destroy all life, in an attempt to make a perfect world from nothing. His efforts were stopped in part by his old experiments, Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, and Takeo Masaki. But also in large part due to the new generation.

Samantha Maxis and Richtofen's son, Victor, along with a rag tag group of teens, traveled across the country, destroying Richtofen's machines and killing scores upon scores of zombies, as well as defeating key members of Group 935. They lost friends along the way, had to make great sacrifices, and had the limit of each of them pushed well beyond what any normal person could handle. Yet in the end, they helped to save the world.

Joseph, or Joe to most of his friends, was one of those teens that went and did things no one ever expected to do. He launched a missile from an air force base, built a high tech RV to travel across the country, recreated one of the most iconic wonder weapons, and got a train to take him and his friends all the way to California in just a few days.

He was there at the Final Exodus, fighting Richtofen along with Samantha, Victor, and Nicholas, his best friend. The battle was long and hard, and while they emerged victorious, there was no victory without sacrifice.

That's how Joe found himself currently, laying in a hospital recovery bed looking down to his right. Only instead of seeing his arm, there was an empty space there. All that remained of his arm was half of the upper arm, ending at a bandaged nub.

Joe had been taken to one of the nearest still functional hospitals after going to the Pentagon for recovery, but there was little that could be done. All the doctors could do was repair the nerve endings and try to minimize the scarring. That was last week, yet he still had to be kept for observation due to the unnatural reason for his injury. Luckly, he was getting out in the morning.

"Can't wait to wear real clothes again." Joe spoke to himself. He was in a room with another person separated by a curtain, so he was trying to be quiet for their sake.

The bed next to Joe's creaked as the person shifted in their sleep. While Joe wasn't normally a paranoid person, there was that small voice in his head telling him to reach for his gun and check out the threat. Being under constant threat from the undead for about a month did terrible things to his suspicions.

The door to his room opened quietly and a nurse walked in, checking the vitals and fluids on the other patient before she walked over to Joe.

"You feeling alright?" The nurse asked while checking his vitals and writing down some info on a clipboard.

Joe shrugged his shoulders. "As well as I can be. How are you doing?"

The nurse sighed and gave Joe a small smile. "Well working 16 hour shifts for the foreseeable future isn't exactly ideal, but we're all doing things we didn't expect to do."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Joe sighed, his body tensing up for a moment before he willed himself to relax.

"Well try and get some rest, you'll be out of here in the morning." The nurse walked out of the room and quietly closed the door behind her.

Joe turned his bedside light off and rolled over, facing away from the other bed. He closed his eyes, trying to distract himself from the fears that plague his dreams.

The outside of the hospital was a madhouse, with medical tents lining around the building and field medics running from one to the next. Injured people were still coming in droves, some of them simple and able to be fixed rather quickly, yet some required complex surgeries. Those they couldn't save were loaded into trucks and taken to one of the mass graves. Many had bitter feelings towards the idea of just dumping all the dead into large holes, but in the end, they didn't want to risk another outbreak. So names were taken of who they could identify, and the bodies were sent off.

Joe was in a wheelchair being wheeled out of the hospital by an orderly. While his injury was far from minor, he was stable enough to be sent home so there could be room for more serious cases. He was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a RvB shirt, with a black jacket over that. The weather outside was getting cooler by the day, the winter season getting closer.

Outside the hospital perimeter were dozens of reporters, with their cameras flashing and mics held out asking questions to anyone that came from the hospital. They were being held back by barricades and security guards that lined the borders, who also were highly armed. The fear of there being a second wave of the undead was still high, so people weren't as phased at seeing a guard with an LMG.

Upon seeing Joe, the reporters started flashing their cameras in his direction, screaming out questions.

"Joseph! Joseph! What was it like fighting zombies?!"

"Do you have any remorse for the families of the turned?!

"Will you share the knowledge of what you learned with the government?!"

The questions and volume kept increasing as Joe was wheeled closer to the crowd. Thankfully there was a car waiting for him, so once he was close enough, the orderly helped him up and opened the car door. Joe got in quickly and the door was shut, turning the loud screaming into muffled screaming. Still, it helped.

"So you seem pretty popular with the press." A voice spoke beside him. Joe turned to look and saw his dad in the driver's seat. Joe smiled and threw his arm around his dad's neck to give him a side hug.

"Well they're trying to get as much news as they can from whoever. Doesn't help my picture made the rounds." Joe leaned back with a sigh.

After the final battle, someone had taken a picture of Joe and his friends with the original zombie warriors. That photo was used in media outlets like the Iwo Jima photo was used. They became symbols, almost celebrities. If it weren't for the fact the world was still recovering, they'd be swarmed constantly by reporters.

"It's not exactly a bad thing. Gives people hope that a group of teens actually saved the world." Joe's dad said as he started driving towards the airport.

"Yeah, I guess. Just would like to deal with less screaming questions is all." Joe leaned against the window and looked at the surroundings as they drove past.

"Don't worry. When we get home they'll be less reporters there."

Joe's eyes widened and he sat up. "Oh my god! Mom and Allyson! Are they ok?!"

At the beginning of the outbreak Joe was concerned for his family, not knowing what happened to them or the rest of his friends. When his dad reappeared in New York, the thought of his family came up again, but at the time he had to focus on the task at hand.

Joe's dad stayed silent for a minute before he spoke again. "Your mom's fine, she managed to get with a large group of survivors and they holed up. I got in contact with her a few days ago. The situation there is bad, but it's not the worst in the country right now."

"And Allyson?"

Joe's dad was silent for another minute.

"Dad?..."

"...They don't know where she is."

As his dad said those words, Joe's breath caught for a moment. A dull ringing sound started as his dad spoke more.

"She was with her friends at the game, but no ones sure what happened to everyone. Your mom said there were some people from the band that saw her run off from the zombies, but no one's seen her since." As he spoke, the ringing got louder until his voice was muffled. Eventually all Joe could hear was ringing. It only lessened once they both got out of the car at the airport.

The flight back to Florida was a long one, made all the longer by the thoughts running through Joe's head. He always had a bad tendency to picture the worst case scenario in situations, and this was no exception. His dad tried to talk to him, but the voices around him were still muffled.

Only when they finally landed back in Florida did the ringing stop. The private plane they flew on landed at an airstrip close to the downtown area. All commercial flights had been grounded, and few military aircraft were flying as well. Joe and his dad got a special exception based on who he was.

When the cabin door opened and the ramp extended down, Joe's dad was the first one off, Joe following close behind. Luckily there weren't any reporters here, just some aircraft personnel. And Joe's mom.

While she had survived the zombie apocalypse, she had her fair share of left arm was in a sling, various cuts and bruises were on her arms and legs, and there was a bandage wrapped over her head and right eye. Upon seeing her husband and son, she started crying and raced forward, enveloping them both with her good arm.

For a moment, Joe was happy, part of his family being reunited. But then the thought returned of his missing sister. The ringing started again.

The sun was beating down on the swamplands in Florida. While the winter season was fast approaching, Florida was always a hot landscape no matter what. This didn't help with the decaying corpses littering the state, causing a foul stench to cover large areas.

A lone figure walked through the swamp on an old wood walkway. Gators would poke their snouts and eyes above the water, but once they saw the figure, they dove and swam away quickly. Flies avoided the figure, birds flew away when it approached. All life avoided the figure as it approached its destination. A lone shack stood at the end of the walkway, part of the roof caving in on the building. Once the figure reached the shack, it entered and walked to one corner. Standing there was a large containment jar, green fluid filling the tank.

The figure removed the brim hat it was wearing and placed a hand on the jar, looking at its newest experiment.

"Soon. It will be time soon." The figure spoke softly. In the reflection, piercing red eyes shined back, with a look of desire.