Rating: PG (violence, language)
Fandoms: Eureka, House of Dead 2 (nominally)
Genre: gen, action, humor Notes: havocthecat is a very bad influence. VERY BAD. Obviously.
The Day the Zombies Came by ALC Punk!
The day the zombies invaded Eureka started when Jack didn't get his morning coffee. This was bad for the zombies, because Jack Carter needed that morning coffee in order to deal with his daughter, Zoe, and the rest of the town of Eureka. It wasn't that being sheriff of Eureka was hard, per se (not that Jack knew or cared about nomenclature such as 'per se'), it was simply that, to be on his best behavior, he needed not to be cranky.
Luckily for Jack, the zombies wandered by.
Or, in some cases, shuffled.
"No," Jo Lupo snapped, grabbing Zoe's arm after she botched loading the rocket for the third time. "You've got to pay attention!"
"It's a little hard, when there's zombies walking towards me!" The teen snapped back.
Jo let out an exasperated noise and handed her sub-machine gun to the teen, "This is easy, point and pull the trigger. And try not to use up all the ammo before I get this loaded!"
"Yes, sir!"
The approaching zombies discovered that the two humans were more than capable of mowing them down. Especially once Jo got the rocket launcher loaded. After the smoke cleared, the two did a victory dance. Which Jo swore Zoe to secrecy on--no one needed to know she did victory dances.
"We should check on my dad," Zoe suggested, once their glee had died down.
Jo, remembering that Sheriff Carter was trapped in a house with both Dr. Barlowe and Allison Blake, grinned. Given the two women and their tempers, Jo was pretty sure he was safe from the zombies. Being safe from the humans, on the other hand, wasn't something Jo would bet on. A cute little smirk curved her lips, "Nah, let's go check on Fargo and Taggart."
"You just want to have sex again."
"I'm covered in zombie bits, I do not want to have sex."
"Yeah, right," the teen returned, her tone sarcastic. "Like shooting things and blowing up zombies doesn't make you horny."
Jo considered, then her smirk got bigger, "Kid, when you're my age, then you get to make comments like that."
A sigh escaped the teen, "Right. Let's go find Taggart."
While Taggart would probably be grateful for their help, the man who was truly wishing he had Jo and her big guns for backup was Nathan Stark. He'd made the mistake of coming into town for breakfast with Allison, a plan that had been derailed when he'd found zombies there. And then a brunette had shoved a gun in his hands, told him he was at fault and started hauling his ass everywhere.
After escaping two crowds of zombies--and discovering he wasn't a bad shot with the gun she handed him--Stark finally got a moment to demand an answer.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Nightingale," she snapped back, obviously surprised he had to ask. "Is your head fucked, Ellis?"
"Look, I don't know why you think I'm this Ellis--" he broke off to shoot a zombie sneaking up on them.
"You look like him, you shoot like him," she leaned close and sniffed, "Hell, you even use the same damned aftershave, and, GOD, I wish I didn't know that."
"Fine. Look," Stark settled for his most pompous tones, "Pretend I'm not Ellis," and the smallest words he could use, "why are you here? And where did the zombies come from?"
"You were at the briefing."
"Pretend--" He was repeating himself, someone would pay. Maybe he should find Carter and mock his little brain some more.
But she seemed to get the gist. Her eyes rolled, and she snapped. "Fine. AMS sent us, because this is a level one outbreak, and we might be able to find the level zero, given luck."
"Level zero?"
"The zombie that first started the infection," she explained. "If we can find it, the strain of virus it carries will be pure enough to create and anti-virus."
Stark stared at her, then snorted, "What crap have they been feeding new med students? You don't need this 'level zero', you just need a sample from any of them."
"You think we haven't considered that? The virus degrades--like a copy--with each successive victim. We need the original."
Stark sighed, then sighted on another zombie. "So, out of curiosity, how'd the zombies come here? I don't recognize the people we're shooting, and I'm fairly certain Carter wouldn't let us shoot them if they were townspeople." Not that Stark would have a problem, doing so.
"You don't want to know," she replied, her voice sounding disgusted.
Maybe he did. Things that made zombie-hunters sick might be useful, when dealing with a government that didn't want to give you the money you needed for your defense contracts. He filed the thought away for later, though, and concentrated on shooting zombies, and following Nightingale on her pointless quest.
Another man on a quest--though his wasn't so pointless--was Henry. He'd killed a zombie with a blow to the head and then spent an hour dissecting it, and working out how to detect them and kill them without needing guns. It was really rather an elegant solution, he thought. One even Stark would approve of. Putting the gadget together took a little bit longer than he'd thought it would. It was almost lunchtime by the time he'd finished, so he hurried.
He'd been hearing gunfire and explosions since the invasion began--Deputy Jo and Carter, probably. Using conventional means to combat the problem. Most of the residents would be safe in their houses, certain long-ago security measures would keep them from harm. As long as they stayed inside, at least.
With a grin, he hoisted his weapon, slung the strap over his shoulder and headed out.
The tracking device he'd built into the thing led him to a group of zombies. Perfect guinea pigs. And the device did what he'd designed it to do, the energy splashing outwards and disintegrating the control from the cerebral cortex to the body. The zombies simply fell over, twitched once or twice and then were still.
"Nice job." Henry raised an eyebrow as Stark came towards him, dressed in some pseudo-commando garb. The scientist paused to prod a zombie with his boot. "I like seeing them explode more, though."
"We can make them go boom later," Henry suggested, willing to be polite.
"Yeah? Sounds like a plan, to me," with a shrug, Stark pointed at the modified tazer. "Got any more of those?"
"Why, you wanna mass produce 'em for the military?"
"Yeah, actually. There's got to be a company that'd be able to do that for us. Could use 'em, in the field."
Henry frowned, "You're not Stark." He should have figured it, from the man's attitude and attire, but he'd been expecting Stark. Sort of.
"Nah. Name's Ellis." The man grinned, "Who's Stark?"
"A pain in the ass."
"Sounds like my kind of guy." His grin widening, he pointed at Henry's contraption again, "Let's go nail us some zombies."
"I can track 'em, you can stand back and watch me fry 'em," suggested Henry.
"Can I still shoot a few?"
"Sure."
Not that long after, the boys met up with the girls--Jo almost shot Ellis when he patted her ass. He learned fast not to touch her when she didn't let him. Between the four of them, they cleaned up the bulk of the zombies and then started mopping up the last of them. Somewhere along the way, they met up with Taggart, Carter, and Ellis' partner, Nightingale.
By the time dinner rolled around, the last of them were gone, and there was nothing to do but start cleaning up the bodies. Nightingale even had her blood sample. Stark mocked her abilities as a scientist, then told Carter the town was his again and disappeared to clean himself up.
Carter got his coffee, told Zoe she was grounded for not listening to him when he told her to stay put, and commended Jo on her quick action.
Things settled back down to normal. Well, as normal as they got, in Eureka. Stark got his contract, Nightingale even tapped him for a little help in creating her antidote.
Ellis gave Jo his phone number.
So far, he's still alive, though there are rumors that Taggart might be stalking him.
-f-