Chapter Text
Pip liked zombie movies and tv shows. The apocalyptic vibes were cool, especially the way you had survive using your wits and guts.
But she never would ever want to be in one. Besides, it was scientifically impossible for zombies to exist despite all the bullshit science the shows tried to use.
If people really did become zombies, it would probably be because of a parasite, like that snail parasite. But, she guessed viruses were a parasite, piggybacking off bacteria to make more of themselves
A thing can’t be both dead and alive. It went against every laws of nature. That weird zombie deer disease was an exception.
Anyways, back to the point, zombie shows were awesome. She always liked that survival aspect of them. Looking for food, making shelters, trying to make a cure; it was all so cool to her.
Especially because she was the exact opposite. She didn’t have courage or bravery or any of the qualities you needed to survive a zombie apocalypse. Her friends used to joke that if a zombie apocalypse actually happened, she would be the first go and they were right.
She wasn’t made for that kind of life. Her biggest pleasures in life were her bed and her phone. The first thing she’ll probably do in an apocalypse would be to kill herself before the zombies could. It might be a sin and all, but between an instant death and a gorey and gruesome one, she knew which one she was picking.
She wasn’t ashamed to admit it; she was a coward, plain and simple. She was weak and lazy. She had no guts whatsoever and especially none of that determination to survive.
She liked living but there was a difference between living and surviving.
Yeah.
Her being a coward had no effect on her enjoying her zombie shows and movies. At least it didn’t until she woke up face to face with a bloody groaning zombie.
So in conclusion, Pip was royally fucked.
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“What the fuck—what the fuck—what the absolute fuck is this?” Pip hissed in disbelief.
She might have been exaggerating earlier, but waking up in an unfamiliar place with a decaying human craving for your guts in your face was not a pleasant feeling. Forgive her if she panicked a bit. She wasn’t completely face to face with the zombie, there was a layer of glass separating them. However, it couldn’t separate the hideousness of the undead.
She had figured out early on that she was stuck in a Wendy’s. Now she didn’t dislike or like Wendy’s particularly, however, she was quickly changing her mind.
Woke up to zombie trying to eat my brains. Horrible service. Zero out of five stars.
“This is it. The end of the world,” she muttered to herself. “I’m going to fucking die in a Wendy’s.”
Not that she was going to survive anyhow but she didn’t want to die in a Wendy’s. It was kinda lame.
“A freaking Wendy’s.” She held her face in her hands. “The end of the world is happening and I’m stuck in a freaking Wendy’s. This has got to be a joke.”
The restaurant was empty—it was one of the first things she checked upon waking up—so she could probably survive for a couple more days using the kitchen. But it wasn’t like she had any willpower. She liked her easy life, and surviving wasn’t easy. It was a desperate constant fight for life. No way José was she going to live like that.
At first, she thought it was a weird dream, like one of those where you know you’re dreaming, but as night came and the zombies remained, she found herself doubting that. And then came the unsettling realization that this may be reality.
She didn’t know how long she spent just staring at the ceiling, thinking about her life. Minutes, hours maybe? She thought about her family, her parents and her two siblings. If she was braver, more determined, maybe she would be able to find a way back home. Engineer a whole trans-dimensional device. But she wasn’t, she was just a coward.
So she submitted to her fate.
Oh no, the zombie apocalypse is happening, oh well, it was a good life, hasta la vista. See you never. It was time to die.
She needed a gun.
She had never used one before, but it couldn’t be that difficult to learn. A toddler could use it so she, a sixteen year old teenager, was most certainly capable of handling one. There was a real possibility of accidentally shooting herself, but that was kinda the goal. A shot to the head was quick and painless.
There were other methods she had considered like drowning which was vetoed because there was no way she could find a large enough body of water to drown herself in a Wendy’s. And she had bad experiences with water before.
She thought about going to the roof and jumping. But that was also ruled out because the ladder was outside where it was crawling with zombies and the restaurant was only a story tall so not high enough to kill her. Just high enough to get serious injuries.
Slitting her wrists was probably the easiest and it was pretty efficient if she got it right. There were a couple of kitchen knives in the kitchen. But it felt too personal using a knife to physically cut herself; it was just too hands on for her.
Maybe she was being a bit picky. After all beggars couldn’t be choosers. But if she was—and she was going to—to die, she wanted to go out easy and painlessly.
“Where am I going to find a gun in a Wendy’s?” she grumbled.
It all came back to the freaking Wendy’s.
Why on Earth had she been dumped here? What god had decided that a stupid fast food restaurant with a ginger mascot was the best place for her in the middle of the zombie apocalypse? Maybe it was just a big fuck you from the lord above for all those times she fell asleep in church. If her life was going to shit anyways, she would have never woken that early for church.
Anyways, back to dying.
She had done a cursory sweep of the restaurant which was really just poking her head in all the rooms for a couple seconds before dipping and heading back to the eating area. From what she saw, this Wendy’s had no secret stash of guns.
Bummer.
“Guns. Guns. Guns,” she sing-songed to herself hysterically, “I need a gun. I need a gun. Where’s the guns? I need a gun.”
She wasn’t expecting any reply so it was a shock to hear a sudden wailing voice coming from the restrooms. Her heart literally jumped from her chest. In her peripheral vision, she could see a couple of zombies turn their heads towards the restaurant.
“Shit,” she whispered in a shaky voice. “What the hell is that?”
Pip scrambled to the bathroom, hoping to find a way to silence the noise. It was probably someone’s phone alarm or ring tone going off.
The closer she got to the women’s restroom, the more she doubted her assumption. The wailing had changed to a quieter hiccuping noise that had inclinations that Pip wasn’t too fond of.
It couldn’t be because ho would be cruel enough to leave a baby in a Wendy’s bathroom?
Carefully opening the stall door, Pip found herself cursing at the sight of a baby.
“What the fuck is this.”
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After a couple minutes of stunned silence, Pip found herself pacing the grimy restroom. Who was the asshole that left a freaking infant in a Wendy’s alone? At least take it to a daycare, a hospital, or somewhere that actually dealt with children, not a Wendy’s. Especially in the middle of the apocalypse.
“What on earth am I going to do?” She groaned frustratedly.
Pip wasn’t a strong person; she was weak-willed and lacked any real heroic qualities. But she liked to believe herself to to be a good person. Not a hero or anything but just someone to help out with little things like unloading an old lady’s groceries or giving a homeless guy some money. Small everyday things. Easy things.
If she was in the position to help, she did. But this was different, this was a baby. A baby who needed someone to survive. It was completely helpless especially in the middle of the apocalypse.
And she hated taking care of babies. In health class, there was this stupid baby project which basically consisted of her taking care of an electronic baby for two days.
Those two days were the most miserable days of her life.
The baby would wake up in the middle of night, crying it’s electronic heart out and she would be forced to nurse it, rock it, or change its diaper until it stopped.
Taking care of that baby made her want to kill herself. It was already hard enough in the middle of her normal easy life but in the apocalypse, it would be suicide.
Well, she was trying to kill herself, but it was going to be in an easy painless way. If she took the baby, it would scream which would bring a horde of zombies their way which would lead to a bloody and gruesome death that would be decidedly not painless.
She could just leave. Find a gun to kill herself and be done with it. It wasn’t like she had any obligation to help it. She wasn’t the one the dump it in a shitty restaurant. She was just the one to find it.
And it might be a mercy too. The world was hell right now and it would be kinder for the baby to die before it grew up in this awful environment.
It was every man for himself and Pip had to do what was best for her. And what was not best for her was taking care of a fragile ticking time bomb.
“Sorry, baby,” she said sadly, glancing at the it.
With those words, she left the restroom and continued looking for a gun.
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Pip came back to the baby.
Who was she kidding? The moment she left the restroom, she turned tail and ran back inside to grab it.
“What am I doing? This is so stupid,” Pip said, arms tight around the swaddled baby. “I’m going to get us both killed.”
The baby didn’t respond, brown eyes just blinking slowly.
“Talking to a baby, I’m going insane,” she sighed.
Her goal had changed in that short time span.
She couldn’t kill herself anymore when someone depended on her. Pip had always prided herself on being someone who people depended on; she couldn’t let other people down.
But she still needed a gun or a knife or any weapon that could brain a zombie easily with a her meager strength. And food, she needed a lot of food that was suitable for babies. She was almost certain that the Wendy’s menu wasn’t appropriate for newborns. And she needed one of those baby backpacks or just a regular backpack so she could put the baby somewhere. Most importantly, she needed diapers.
They couldn’t stay in the Wendy’s. It was too open; the glass walls made her feel both trapped and exposed at the same time. That stupid ginger smiling mascot wasn’t helping either.
She needed a plan.
“Baby, you and I are ride and die,” Pip said solemnly, looking down at it.
In response, the baby coughed in her face, spraying wet salvia all over.
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Pip stayed inside the Wendy’s for another day, planning on how to get out without getting bitten. She had deduced that they were somewhere in the middle of no where, a food desert judging by the lack of groceries store and the abundance of chain restaurants. There was a McDonald’s, a Burger King, a Taco Bell, and two Subways. No Chick-fil-A though.
That wasn’t the big deal; the big deal was that there was no food for the baby. And they were still stuck in a Wendy’s with zombies roaming around. Even if they got out of the restaurant, it still wasn’t enough. She needed a place that had supplies for a baby, something like a suburban city.
To do that, she had to get a car and drive there. Pip wasn’t strong enough to lug a baby around and walk to a city that was probably tens of miles away. Her mile pace was atrocious and that was without the extra baggage.
She regretted not doing any sports; it would have helped her when it came to outrunning zombies. But hindsight was twenty-twenty.
The next thing on the list was a car.
“Where can i get a car?” Pip groaned. It all seemed impossible. Why was she even contemplating all of this? It would just be better to give up.
She ran a hand through her hair, eyes twitching when her hand came into contact with a large knot. She needed to cut it soon; long hair was a liability in the apocalypse. Too many shows featured someone getting yanked by their hair before getting chomped on. It was easier to have short hair too.
“A car. I need a car.” She had to get back on topic. “Why can’t a car fall out of the sky? Oh pretty please with a cherry top?”
Pip already had to plan to get out of the restaurant; she would open the front door slightly and throw out the junky radio she had found in one of the back rooms, before creeping out the back entrance with the baby. There was a large frying pan in the kitchen so she had grabbed that. She felt a little bit like Rapunzel from Tangled. The baby would be tied to her chest using a tightly wrapped hoodie.
There was no plan after that. She had always been a go with the flow kinda person. See what life brings you, ya know? But when life brought you zombies then you sure as hell don’t sit there and wait for them to eat you.
Worst comes to worst, she and the baby would be bitten by zombies and die.
“Hah,” she let out a short laugh. “We’re going to die.”
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There was good news and there was bad news.
The good news was that they didn’t die. The plan had gone off without a hitch. The moment she tossed that broken radio out the door, the zombies were on top of that thing like a bunch of football players. It gave her the opportunity to sneak out back door with the baby. She was still shocked at how well it went.
The bad news was they had no car, no method of transportation, and they were stuck in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
“We’re alive at least, yippee,” Pip cheered tonelessly. “Small mercies, I guess.”
The baby gurgled.
“I can’t keep calling you ‘baby,’” Pip said, frowning at the baby. “You need a name; even dogs have names. Matilda? Nah, you don’t look like a Matilda. You’re too wrinkly for that.” She furrowed her eyebrows, “Hold on a sec, are you a boy or a girl?”
After a quick check, Pip had determined that the baby was decidedly a girl. By that time, she was running out of names. Her list of baby names was painfully small and she was just naming random characters she knew on tv.
“Wanda? Maybe if you were ginger,” she joked, laughing a little bit.
The baby seemed to find it funny, judging by the gummy smile.
“How about Wendy? Since I found you in a Wendy’s?” Pip nodded her head, “Yeah, that sounds good. Wendy,” she stated finally.
The baby—Wendy—waved her little arms in which Pip believed to be a gesture of excitement.
(She wasn’t sure on the development capabilities of a baby. Did they even know their emotions yet beside hunger and thirst?)
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“Sixty-seven bottles of juice on the wall, sixty-seven bottles of juice. You take one down, you pass it around, sixty-six bottles of juice on the wall.”
The walk to the nearest town was mind numbingly boring. Pip, in an effort to relieve themselves from that boredom, had taken upon herself to sing the one song she knew from heart.
All the children knew it. It was an unforgettable cornerstone of childhood. There was no other way to pass the long monotonous hours of a packed car without singing this song, especially when the radio was broken. No easier way to get on your parents’ nerves either.
Wendy let out a small coo, making Pip crack a small grin. “You like this song, huh?”
She censored it for kid-friendly ears. The original one—she was pretty sure—had beer instead of juice.
Lord knows why, considering Wendy didn’t even know what beer or juice were at her age.
Pip resumed singing, adjusting her hold on the backpack. Her shoulders were getting sore but she had to keep walking. “Sixty-six bottles of juice on the wall, sixty-six bottles of juice. You take one down, you pass it around, sixty-five bottles of juice on the wall.”
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Several long hours later, Pip could see the tentative dip of the sun as it descended beyond reach. Dusty purple clouds decorated the sky and Pip would almost stop to admire the beauty of she was any less stupider. But as it was, she possessed a slight modicum of sense that told her it would be a stupid ass idea to sleep in the wide open next to a highway.
So she walked a couple ways off north till she reached a secluded section of the forest and a saw a cave.
“Jackpot, baby!”
She carefully stepped inside, keeping an eye out for any bears or other wild animals. Once she determined it was clear, she laid Wendy on the ground before unpacking the one sleeping bag she had managed to find.
Using the small twigs scattered around the cave, she managed to start a small fire. Her Girl Scouts skills were coming in handy. She placed rocks around the edges and placed her backpack on the dirt.
“I hate changing diapers,” Pip complained to no one. It was several hours since the last time she changed Wendy’s “diaper.” It was in quotations because Pip never found any diapers, instead she found a whole lotta of new t-shirts so she has wrapped those around Wendy’s bottom to act as a makeshift diaper.
It wasn’t exactly the best solution, but it was the only solution Pip had.
“That is nasty,” she sniffed in distaste. “Why do people even have babies?”
After a brief spat in which Wendy started crying which made Pip start panicking, Pip buried the stained shirt in a hole some distance away. She wasn’t sure if the zombies could smell human poop and trace it back to her and Wendy.
They could definitely smell something.
The sky was completely dark by now. In any other circumstances, Pip would be scared to death yet she felt an odd sense of calm as she stared at the fire. She was out camping in the wildness—something she would have never dared to do in her old life.
And there were zombies. Real-life zombies that wanted to eat her and were literally walking corpses.
“What the hell,” Pip muttered to herself. “This is insane.”
When she first woke up, she thought it was all a dream. It had to be, what kind of stupid premise had a person waking up in a Wendy’s during the zombie apocalypse. But then, as the minutes drifted into hours, as the groaning kept
getting louder and louder, as her thoughts kept coming back to that one idea—well she figured, better give up.
She hadn’t given much thought about what kind of zombies they were.
A zombie was a zombie.
This kind was kinda slow when they didn’t noticed anyone living so that was a kudos. If they were the type from that one Brad Pitt movie, Pip would have rolled over and died, no questions asked.
She looked back up at the sky, dark and beautiful in its glory. Stars splattered across the vast expanse like white dots on a black canvas. The death of humanity must be doing wonders for the environment, she thought idly.
“The world’s not ending anytime soon. No more carbon emissions. Guess all those climate change experts were wrong,” she joked. “We hit our goal a lot sooner, go humans, go zombies. We’re saving planet Earth.”
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Most of the times they walked. Walked aimlessly from place to place. Just her and Wendy and the great blue sky.
She felt like Forest Gump in those moments. Walking without a purpose, a way to get to point A from point B.
Her feet had blisters and were all rough and dry. The heavy weight of Wendy on her arms stung and the lack of sleep was getting to her, but she kept on walking.
Staying too long in a place meant that the zombies would come for them. And well, Pip always wanted to see more of the world.
It was better to die doing what you loved, that’s what most people said anyways.
So as her feet ached, as her eyes grew weary, as her arms tired, she walked.
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”What the hell?”
Pip stared at the calendar, big numbers saying 2010. It looked new too, but that was impossible because last time she checked, it was definitely not 2010.
She would still be a toddler if it was true, then again, she was dumped in a fast food restaurant somewhere entirely different.
So who’s to say the date couldn’t change? Maybe the deity in charge of her forces relocation wanted to add a bit of spice to her awful adventure.
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In one of the houses, Pip found a pair of scissors in the bathroom. She stared at it for a minute before grabbing it and thinking, what if?
Then she remembered. She wasn’t the only one who would suffer because of her actions. The weight on her chest was heavy.
“Sorry,” she muttered in apology. It wasn’t like Wendy would even understand the meaning behind it but Pip did and that was enough.
She looked at the girl in the mirror, similar yet so different to the girl that woke up in that Wendy’s weeks ago. Her brown eyes were more sunken in, her dark circles had dark circles, and she noticed freckles that had never existed before.
Yet the most eye catching thing was her hair. Despite her best efforts, it was matted and clumped together in knots. Disgustingly greasy too.
Pip needed to cut it.
So she took the pair of scissors that she had put down and began snipping locks of hair off. Soon enough, clumps of dirty black hair adorned the tiled floor.
She was never the best at cutting hair. When she was young and still had all her baby teeth, she would grab a pair of scissors and cut off the section of hair that had a knot in it. There was no way she was going through the pain and trouble of brushing it out, she thought, that was too much work.
It was the same theory now. There was no time to deal with messy hair when you had the undead yapping at your heels.
Her haircut was choppy and cut to her chin in a way that would have hairstylists crying. But it kept her hair out of her eyes and out of reach, so she considered it a job done.
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They found a house.
Pip opened the door carefully, holding Wendy close to her chest. They needed diapers and milk. Diaper rash was a real problem, that’s why they had had baby powder.
She was flying by the seat of her pants when it came to taking care of Wendy.There was no one she could talk to, no Google to consult, books were scarce, and zombies were many.
All her life, she was a ‘go with the flow’ kinda girl, well, it wasn’t the best type of person to be especially when you know nothing.
The living room looked empty but appearances could be deceiving. Once she determined the first floor was clear, she headed upstairs. Dust and cobwebs decorated the hardwood floors.
“Guess these people just jumped and left, huh?”
She paused at one of the rooms. It was a nursery, pastel blue walls and a fuzzy circle carpet around a small crib. A sign above a chest caught her eye, “All grownups were once children…but only a few remember it.” Her eyes burned suddenly, the lump in her throat making it hard to swallow.
For a moment, Pip wasn’t in a strange house, she was home, marveling as her mom painted on a canvas She wiped at her eyes, rubbing at them furiously as if she could erase the memories.
“Get over it, they’re gone,” she snapped to herself.
A nursery was good, it meant baby supplies which Pip was in urgent need of. She walked over the carpet, tracking dirt and grime. Her mom—push that thought away, Pip thought, she couldn’t think of that right now. Not now, not ever.
The closet was painted white. She couldn’t hear any zombies so she swung it open, eyes widening at the inside.
“Lucky us,” she whispered, staring at the treasure trove of diapers and baby clothes. There was even baby powder.
Wendy gurgled and spat a glob of salvia on Pip’s cheek.
“You’re lucky you’re so cute,” she said, poking the baby’s cheek. “Pretty privilege is real.”
She went back down to the first floor, looking through the kitchen. Weeks on the road had taught her that the kitchen was the most useful room in a house. The pantry, devoid of zombies, didn’t have a lot of non-perishables, but there was enough. Even luckier was the three cans of formula and the unopened package of water bottles.
“Think we can stay here a lil bit? Rest our legs maybe?” Pip asked Wendy, looking down at her.
Wendy wiggled and gave a little wave which Pip took to mean yes.
“Home sweet home it is.”