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Death Among Us

Prologue

Prologue

It all seemed to happen in slow motion, the sudden jerk of the wheel and the screeching of the green sedans breaks. Although Jess was certain that she was going to die, a feeling of calm swept through her body. It must’ve been that life flashing before your eyes moment that they do in movies, or maybe it was just that surge of adrenalin that stopped her body from going into complete shock. The slender blonde relaxed her body and welcomed death, just as the car flipped and everything went dark.

Several loud sirens was the first thing Jess heard when she regained consciousness, though her vision was blurry she managed to make out two paramedics with their bodies hunched over hers.
“Can you tell me your name?” the first one asked, from what Jess could tell, he was older and perhaps in his forties.
She stammered, trying to make words form but only managed to choke due to blood clotting in her throat and lungs.
“Brian, we’ve got internal damage. We have to move her now!” the second paramedic bellowed, a slightly younger man with a beard.
“The dash is collapsed on her, we have to wait for the crash unit.” Brian reasoned.
“She’s not going to make it that long, the kids gonna die if we don’t get her out now.”
Brian shushed his colleague and grabbed a hold of Jess’s hand, his thumb lightly stroking over her bruised knuckles.
“We have to wait for a team to cut you from your car, I’ll stay with you till then.” Brian smiled, veiling his doubt that she would even be alive by the time they had removed her from the vehicle.
As everything started to dim again, Jess suddenly didn’t feel so welcome about death. The agonising pain subsided but the overwhelming emptiness was too horrifying to imagine. She struggled to keep breathing, to keep holding onto her body but it was no use.
Death wasn’t anything like she imagined it to be, there was no heaven, no hell, just black.

&

Jess awoke with a start, drenched in sweat and shaking uncontrollably. She fumbled around the bed as she tried to rip the white cotton sheets off of her body, they clung to her legs and she panicked further.
“Shh baby, baby, its ok I’ll get it.” A middle aged woman soothed as she hurried into the bland hospital room.
“Mum” jess smiled weakly at the woman, her curly red hair framing her soft, loving face.
“I’m sorry, I went to talk with David about your next surgery.” The red head apologised, bright green eyes staring into Jess’
“David?” Jess questioned, sitting herself up on the bed. She relaxed herself and brushed the sweat from her forehead.
“Doctor Hansen” her mother corrected.

Jess squinted her eyes, she could always tell when her mum was keeping something from her. She tilted her head to the side and waited for her mother to crack, it was a skill she had acquired many years ago, and it had been of great use for her and her younger twin brothers.

“He’s a very bright man.” Her mother started, pleading her case.
“He’s also a very young man.” Jess countered, raising her eyebrows.
“He’s only ten years younger, besides, we’ve only gone to lunch in the hospital break room. It’s hardly anything serious.”
“Hardly” jess smirked, she was secretly happy her mum had finally decided to move on. “So do you think I’ll get better food now that you’re shacking up with their prodigy surgeon?”
“Jess” her mother rolled her eyes, “we aren’t shacking up.”
“Ok fine, I’ll put up with the shitty hospital food.” The blonde smiled, “did Doctor Hansen say any more about the side effects?”
Her mother shook her head sadly, “there’s only a handful of people who’ve had the procedure. They’re learning from your experiences so that they can correct it for others who are eligible for the surgery.”
“Well as long as they’ve stopped that annoying nurse who was constantly asking me what it was like on the ‘other side’.” Jess used air quotation marks and rolled her eyes as the notion.
“I don’t think he wants to come back after you told him it was just white noise and burning pits of fire that smelled like dog shit.” The red head replied seriously.
“Did I say that?” jess shrugged. “Whoops.”
“Mm whoops.” The older woman replied, shaking her head. “Baby, I got a phone call from your Nan this morning. Pop’s had a minor stroke, he’s in the hospital.”
“What? Is he going to be ok?” the blonde questioned seriously, her face filled with worry.
“they think so, but it means that Nan is going to have her hands full with him and running your brothers back and forth from school and karate.” her green eyes looked thoughtfully to Jess’.
“So you’re going back home.” Jess looked down, she tried not to look disappointed.
“They said that in three weeks you’ll be right to come back too.” Her mother reasoned.
“You’re gonna leave me alone for three weeks, in some strange country?”
“America is hardly a strange country, Jess.” The woman shook her head, “we’ve been here for over six months, your brothers are only ten, and they miss their mum.”
“Right, I’m being selfish.” Jess furrowed her brow, “it’s not like I died or anything.”
“Jess” her mother warned.
“So when do you fly back?” the blonde turned from her mother and stared blankly out the window.
“First flight to Brisbane leaves in the morning.” Her mother sighed, rubbing her temples.
“Tell everyone I miss them then.” Jess replied, still staring out the window.

&

“I know this is a bad time, but we just need you to answer a few questions for a medical journal.” A man in his mid-thirties asked, his brown hair was messy but his clothing was perfectly ironed out.
“Sure doc.” Jess replied, easing herself off the hospital bed and into the wheelchair the man was holding.
“I’m sorry about your mum” he smiled weakly, “she was really torn up about going, but I don’t think your grandmother was coping with everything.”
Jess chose not to reply, she simply looked forward as the doctor pushed her through the bustling hospital floor. Up until a week ago, her floor had been fairly unused, with only five of the twenty bed being occupied and only a couple nursing staff present at any one time. Now there seemed to be two people to a room and a nurse for every patient. The staff looked tired, their eyes shallow and their posture stooped.
“It’s some kind of flu.” The doctor spoke up, as if he was aware of what jess was thinking.
“The nurses look overworked.” She replied nonchalantly.
“They are.” He sighed, wheeling jess into an office at the end of the corridor.
“Ah, here she is.” A tall woman stood from a chair at the desk in the centre of the room, she held her and out to shake jess’. “Thank you, Doctor Hansen.” She motioned to the man.
“I’ll leave you to it.” He replied, “Unless you have more questions for me?”
“No, no, I’ve got all I need from you.” She smiled, guiding jess over by the desk.
Doctor Hansen smiled warmly at jess before giving the woman a curt nod and exiting the room.
“Angela Massey.” The woman spoke, not to jess but to a tape recorder by the desk.
“Uh, Jess, Jess Cryer.” Jess leaned over to the tape recorder and spoke loudly.
“No need for that.” Angela grimaced, moving the recorder further from jess. “It can hear you perfectly fine.”
“right.” Jess replied, embarrassed. “I’ve never done this kinda thing before.”
“That’s ok, just talk to me like it’s a normal conversation.” Angela soothed, to which jess nodded in reply and signalled her to begin. “How old were you when the incident occurred?”
“Twenty two, I’ll be twenty three in a month.” Jess replied.
“And it was a collision between you and a truck?”
“That’s correct, the driver of the truck had apparently been driving for over twelve hours and he fell asleep at the wheel.”
“Do you remember much about the accident?” Angela poked, twirling dark ebony hair with her fingers as she looked to her notes.
“I remember it hurt like a bitch.” Jess laughed, stopping when she noticed Angela’s disapproving glare.
“We can’t have inappropriate language in the article, you understand.” She scolded.
“Right, of course.” Jess shook her head.
“Why didn’t the doctors back in Australia treat you?”
“They tried, but I was already dead. Then some head surgeon or whatever approached mum and said I was eligible for an experimental procedure.”
“To bring the dead back to life.” Angela smiled oddly
“Exactly. So they froze my body, flew me to Atlanta and from there it gets a little confusing.” Jess shrugged, unsure of what exactly they had done to her.
“That’s ok, Doctor Hansen explained what he could in layman’s terms.”
“So I get five separate doses of different drugs a day to ensure my heart keeps going. They’re slowly weaning me off now.” Jess continued.
“You’re able to fly back home in three weeks I hear.”
“I miss home.” Jess smiled, looking down at her feet. “First thing I’m going to do when I get back is cover this ugly scar with a tattoo.” She motioned to her leg and lifted the hospital gown to her thigh so that the interviewer could see the large scar that ran up her leg. "a piece of the car snapped and logged itself in my leg." Jess explained
“You have quite a few tattoos already I see.” Angela motioned to Jess’ left arm and the many colourful designs it canvassed.
“Just the one sleeve, I was going to get another one the day I died.” Jess spoke as if dying was a normal occurrence.
Angela shuffled through her notes, “just a couple more questions and then I’ll let you get back to your room.”

&


Jess waited patiently for her mother to answer her skype call, but for the seventh time that morning, it rang out.
She sighed loudly and sullenly walked back to her bed, her mother had told her the flight landed at eight and she waited until eleven to call. But she was still to receive any messages and had nothing but unanswered skype calls.
The familiar sound of an incoming call suddenly flooded the room and jess leapt off the bed and ran towards the laptop, hurriedly selecting the answer button.
“Hi baby” her mother’s face came onto the screen, pixelated at first but slowly become more defined.
“Where were you?” Jess questioned
“It was chaotic at the airport, security everywhere. Took two hours just to go through check out.” The woman sighed, rubbing her tired eyes.
“Hi Jessie!” two voices bellowed off camera.
“Hey boys” Jess yelled back, smiling.
“Jess, I’m gonna have to call you back in the morning.” Her mother spoke up, “I’m exhausted.”
“It’s ok, I’ll call you tomorrow.” Jess half smiled, “I just wanted to know you got home safe.”
“Love you, baby.” The red head yawned.
“Love you too, mum.”


Australia was the third country to fall, they had no contingency plan, much like anywhere else. They were consumed by the incurable virus that spread quickly, attacking each host and causing their brain to shut down before reanimating it with two primal instincts, to feed and infect.

Jess had no idea but as she closed down her laptop and went back to her bed, as she adjusted her sheets and stared blankly out the window to a sea of grey buildings. Thousands of people had already been infected and life as she had known it to be was dramatically changing, it was the beginning of the end.

Notes

So if you think you're having a little deja vu, don't worry.
I have finished this story already and already have just about finished the sequel but I really wasn't happy with my writing. This was my first ever fanfiction and so I am rewriting the chapters and reposting the story.
I have left the sequel up still, but will be taking it down and rewriting it once I have finished this story.
I hope you enjoy if you are a new reader and if you've already read this story, I encourage you to read again and hopefully you like some of the changes I have made :)


sincerly, Walkerbait.

Comments

@adellord

thank you! I'm glad you like it.
I used an Australian actress called Samara Weaving for Jess :)

walkerbait walkerbait
5/27/14

Wow~the story is awesome! I like it!
And Jess is so beautiful,she is from which movie?

adellord adellord
5/8/14

@sowhat730
Well thank you for reading :) I shall have to check your story out too

walkerbait walkerbait
3/2/14

I haven't even started reading it ... but first off I love your character choices! How come you are the only one (that I have found) that includes Clementine/Lee story?? I am about to start uploading my own fanfiction that I have been working on for nearly a year and it involves Clementine...

sowhat730 sowhat730
2/27/14

@moonlite987
Thank you so much for reading! I'm glad you liked it :) xo

walkerbait walkerbait
2/3/14