“Breaking news. Ladies and gentlemen, this will be our last broadcast from NBZ’s New York studio as the viral outbreak has reached epidemic status in New York City. Albert Hoffman of the Center for Disease Control announced over official airwaves this morning that the virus that causes the reanimation of human corpses still has no known cure, and has now reached epidemic status in North America proper. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and other medical headquarters and official agencies around the world have been working tirelessly to find a cure and attempt to contain the virus that some are calling the Apox, after the mythical apocalypse. President Everhardt has ordered an evacuation of major metropolitan areas down the East Coast of the United States in response to the rapidly growing numbers of the undead, and urges immediate quarantine of any infected or suspected infected individuals pending the finding of a cure. Martial law has been declared for New York City, Baltimore, D.C., Atlanta, and New Orleans, with more cities being added to the list by the minute.. If you should have any information on the Apox virus or notice evidence of mutations or further spread, please contact the CDC headquarters at the number on your screen. Ladies and gentlemen, this will be our final broadcast until further notice, as we at NBZ are evacuating the studio immediately in compliance with the President’s orders. Be safe out there. This is Sydney Everett, signing off. Good night, New York City.”
Sydney maintained her stoic stare into the camera until the camera man gave her the cue, then immediately stood, pulling out her earbud and microphone. “Dave! I’m out!” she yelled, stooping to pick up her gym bag. She had arrived at the studio that morning with her bag packed to hit the road, as soon as the broadcast was over. She wasn’t looking forward to the drive out of New York City. The Brooklyn Bridge was sure to be backed up for miles. But anything beat getting ripped apart by whatever these… things… were that the virus had brought back to life. She had only heard and reported on the stories... until this morning. On her way to work, she had seen what looked like a drunk stumbling across her apartment parking lot… but as she had driven closer he had charged her vehicle, throwing himself bodily into the passenger’s side door hard enough to leave a dent. Sydney had screamed, swerving and nearly hitting a neighbor’s BMW before correcting her trajectory. The man had ricocheted off her front bumper, leaving a smear of blood from window to headlight, and she had slammed on the breaks, intending to get out and go check on him. But when he began to lift himself back off the pavement and come staggering after her car again… with one arm ripped off and dangling from a few strands of muscle, and no fresh blood spurting from such a grievous wound, Sydney had screamed again and gunned it out of the parking lot, recognizing immediately what it was that pursued her. She had tried to fumble for her cell phone to call 911 about the incident, but the line came up busy, and Sydney had told an aide to take care of it as soon as she’d made it into the studio.
Despite her perfect highlighted hair and tailored pantsuit, Sydney had not always been a high-living city girl. Though she had moved to New York City as soon as she could get out of her high school graduation ceremony, Sydney had spent the first eighteen miserable years of her life growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia. Her name had been Louellen McKay then, and she’d attended Pendleton County Middle/High School for seven long years before finally escaping those walls and the stifling small-town life that had threatened to grind her grandiose dreams and ambitions to a halt. “I don’t see what you need in a big city like New York, Lou,” Daddy had said, leaning against her old beater as she had thrown her bags in back. “Ain’t nothin’ in the city but crime and illegals and liberals trying to take your guns so y’can’t defend yerself against neither.”
Sydney had sighed loudly, tired of the same argument she’d endured nearly every day of the last two years, ever since applying and being accepted for early admission to Berkeley. At least she could thank her father, Everett McKay, for one thing: her status as a first-generation college-student from Pendleton County had won her a prestigious scholarship to the journalism program. Nobody in the McKay family had ever so much as set foot on a college campus, and they were proud of it. Strong West Virginian down-home mountain stock, Lou and her brothers had been raised with a rifle in their hands, a pledge every morning, and football after church every Sunday. After Mama died in ‘99, when Louellen was only 12, Daddy had only grown more staunch in his conservative tradition, and as she packed to leave, Louellen had known it was pointless to argue with him. So she had shut the car door and turned to say a cold goodbye.
It had been the last time she’d seen her father and two brothers, and though she’d tried to call every Christmas and birthday, eventually her contact with home had petered out. If she was honest, she had wanted to forget that she’d come from such a backwoods background, and as she’d clawed her way to success on a moderately popular television news channel, she had found it easier and easier to forget. She’d changed her name legally shortly after graduating with her masters in journalism from Berkeley, on the advice of a socioeconomics professor who had encouraged her to foster an image that appealed to the typical liberal New Yorker if she wanted to achieve high ratings in broadcast journalism. She’d taken the name Sydney after the capital of Australia, a place she had dreamt of visiting someday when she had “made it” in her career field. She had finally visited it last year, in fact, with her now-ex-boyfriend, and while the relationship had run its course, the vacation had been everything she had dreamed. As for Everett… she had chosen her father’s name as a surname as a way of consoling her own guilty conscience. This way if it ever came up, she could explain her reasoning to Daddy, and maybe he wouldn’t be so mad after all that she’d given up the “proud McKay family name.” Of course, it never had come up… and now it had been at least three years since she’d last spoke to anyone from home. For all they knew, she was still Louellen McKay. And soon, she supposed, she would be again. If there was anything left to go home to. Silently, Sydney prayed that the virus hadn’t made it up into the West Virginia Mountains yet.
Sydney hefted the gym bag and pulled her pistol from her purse, checking the clip and making sure the safety was still on. While Daddy had been right about the gun control sentiments in the city, Sydney had been raised knowing how to shoot, and as a single woman in the city she’d always felt better with a gun in her bag. She had a permit, of course, and had passed the requisite background checks. And while her permit did not include concealed carry, she had a feeling that was the least of the New York police department’s current concerns at the moment. She started for the studio’s back door at a hasty clip.
“Sydney, wait! You can’t just walk out of here!” Dave Harris, the studio producer came puffing after her, his ruddy sweating face betraying the professional cut of his business suit.
“Sure I can, Dave,” Sydney replied coolly. “You heard the bulletin. They’re ordering for evacuation. That means us, too.”
Dave blustered for a moment, trailing after her as Sydney turned and continued toward the heavy studio door and the back lot. “How the hell are you gonna make it on your own out there? Those zombie-things are all over the place out there! Abel just got attacked an hour ago by a group of them. They tore him apart, Sydney, we watched it happen!”
Sydney winced at the mention of the kind old janitor’s demise, wheeling on Dave. The salt-and-pepper studio producer had built a reputation for doing one thing very well: looking out for his own interests. At one point, that had seemed to include a sexual relationship with Sydney, which he had pursued relentlessly despite her disinterest, even making the mistake of harassing her in texts and emails, threatening to make sure she lost her job at the studio if she didn’t return his “kindness” with a little of her own. Sydney, relentlessly ambitious, had not been about to allow some thick-headed poser in a nice suit get between her and her dreams, and she had shrewdly confronted him with evidence of what could become a rather damaging HR-issue if he did not back off and take no for an answer. Used to getting whatever he wanted from more fawning wannabe-reporters who saw an opportunity to hit the fast-track, Dave Harris had been taken aback at Sydney’s boldness and, feigning a grudging respect for her, had agreed to leave off his threats. She’d been promoted to anchor within a year after that confrontation, and while she felt a little dirty that it had taken what amounted to blackmail to get the position of her dreams, at least-- she consoled herself-- she hadn’t had to sleep her way to the top.
“You watched it?! You just watched him get eaten up? Dave, what the hell! I knew you were a selfish prick, but I didn’t think you’d let a guy get killed just because you couldn’t be bothered to open a damn door!”
“They’re all over the place, out there, Sydney. You would’ve done the smart thing, too! And if you don’t stick in here with us, you’re gonna end up just like him. Not like a little lady like you can really defend herself against those things.”
“Oh no, Dave?” Sydney raised the Smith & Wesson Shield 9mm, and smiled in satisfaction as her boss’ eyes went wide at the sight of the gun. “Won best female marksman junior and senior year in the American Legion Junior Shooting Club. I’ve taken down a wild boar at 50 yards. I’ve also been trained in gun safety and shooting since I was six. Now what was it, exactly, that you were so worried about?”
Dave glanced worriedly at the gun, and Sydney rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to shoot you, Dave. And really, I appreciate your concern for my well-being. But really, I’ll be fine. And it looks like you have more to worry about. So why don’t you go do that, since it’s always been what you’re best at.” Dave gaped at her, clearly searching for a response, but none came, and when someone else frantically called his name, he jumped at the opportunity to go be important somewhere else. Sydney watched him go in disgust, then turned and continued toward the stairs to the back lot.
“Sydney! Wait!” Hearing her name, Sydney turned.
Sydney maintained her stoic stare into the camera until the camera man gave her the cue, then immediately stood, pulling out her earbud and microphone. “Dave! I’m out!” she yelled, stooping to pick up her gym bag. She had arrived at the studio that morning with her bag packed to hit the road, as soon as the broadcast was over. She wasn’t looking forward to the drive out of New York City. The Brooklyn Bridge was sure to be backed up for miles. But anything beat getting ripped apart by whatever these… things… were that the virus had brought back to life. She had only heard and reported on the stories... until this morning. On her way to work, she had seen what looked like a drunk stumbling across her apartment parking lot… but as she had driven closer he had charged her vehicle, throwing himself bodily into the passenger’s side door hard enough to leave a dent. Sydney had screamed, swerving and nearly hitting a neighbor’s BMW before correcting her trajectory. The man had ricocheted off her front bumper, leaving a smear of blood from window to headlight, and she had slammed on the breaks, intending to get out and go check on him. But when he began to lift himself back off the pavement and come staggering after her car again… with one arm ripped off and dangling from a few strands of muscle, and no fresh blood spurting from such a grievous wound, Sydney had screamed again and gunned it out of the parking lot, recognizing immediately what it was that pursued her. She had tried to fumble for her cell phone to call 911 about the incident, but the line came up busy, and Sydney had told an aide to take care of it as soon as she’d made it into the studio.
Despite her perfect highlighted hair and tailored pantsuit, Sydney had not always been a high-living city girl. Though she had moved to New York City as soon as she could get out of her high school graduation ceremony, Sydney had spent the first eighteen miserable years of her life growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia. Her name had been Louellen McKay then, and she’d attended Pendleton County Middle/High School for seven long years before finally escaping those walls and the stifling small-town life that had threatened to grind her grandiose dreams and ambitions to a halt. “I don’t see what you need in a big city like New York, Lou,” Daddy had said, leaning against her old beater as she had thrown her bags in back. “Ain’t nothin’ in the city but crime and illegals and liberals trying to take your guns so y’can’t defend yerself against neither.”
Sydney had sighed loudly, tired of the same argument she’d endured nearly every day of the last two years, ever since applying and being accepted for early admission to Berkeley. At least she could thank her father, Everett McKay, for one thing: her status as a first-generation college-student from Pendleton County had won her a prestigious scholarship to the journalism program. Nobody in the McKay family had ever so much as set foot on a college campus, and they were proud of it. Strong West Virginian down-home mountain stock, Lou and her brothers had been raised with a rifle in their hands, a pledge every morning, and football after church every Sunday. After Mama died in ‘99, when Louellen was only 12, Daddy had only grown more staunch in his conservative tradition, and as she packed to leave, Louellen had known it was pointless to argue with him. So she had shut the car door and turned to say a cold goodbye.
It had been the last time she’d seen her father and two brothers, and though she’d tried to call every Christmas and birthday, eventually her contact with home had petered out. If she was honest, she had wanted to forget that she’d come from such a backwoods background, and as she’d clawed her way to success on a moderately popular television news channel, she had found it easier and easier to forget. She’d changed her name legally shortly after graduating with her masters in journalism from Berkeley, on the advice of a socioeconomics professor who had encouraged her to foster an image that appealed to the typical liberal New Yorker if she wanted to achieve high ratings in broadcast journalism. She’d taken the name Sydney after the capital of Australia, a place she had dreamt of visiting someday when she had “made it” in her career field. She had finally visited it last year, in fact, with her now-ex-boyfriend, and while the relationship had run its course, the vacation had been everything she had dreamed. As for Everett… she had chosen her father’s name as a surname as a way of consoling her own guilty conscience. This way if it ever came up, she could explain her reasoning to Daddy, and maybe he wouldn’t be so mad after all that she’d given up the “proud McKay family name.” Of course, it never had come up… and now it had been at least three years since she’d last spoke to anyone from home. For all they knew, she was still Louellen McKay. And soon, she supposed, she would be again. If there was anything left to go home to. Silently, Sydney prayed that the virus hadn’t made it up into the West Virginia Mountains yet.
Sydney hefted the gym bag and pulled her pistol from her purse, checking the clip and making sure the safety was still on. While Daddy had been right about the gun control sentiments in the city, Sydney had been raised knowing how to shoot, and as a single woman in the city she’d always felt better with a gun in her bag. She had a permit, of course, and had passed the requisite background checks. And while her permit did not include concealed carry, she had a feeling that was the least of the New York police department’s current concerns at the moment. She started for the studio’s back door at a hasty clip.
“Sydney, wait! You can’t just walk out of here!” Dave Harris, the studio producer came puffing after her, his ruddy sweating face betraying the professional cut of his business suit.
“Sure I can, Dave,” Sydney replied coolly. “You heard the bulletin. They’re ordering for evacuation. That means us, too.”
Dave blustered for a moment, trailing after her as Sydney turned and continued toward the heavy studio door and the back lot. “How the hell are you gonna make it on your own out there? Those zombie-things are all over the place out there! Abel just got attacked an hour ago by a group of them. They tore him apart, Sydney, we watched it happen!”
Sydney winced at the mention of the kind old janitor’s demise, wheeling on Dave. The salt-and-pepper studio producer had built a reputation for doing one thing very well: looking out for his own interests. At one point, that had seemed to include a sexual relationship with Sydney, which he had pursued relentlessly despite her disinterest, even making the mistake of harassing her in texts and emails, threatening to make sure she lost her job at the studio if she didn’t return his “kindness” with a little of her own. Sydney, relentlessly ambitious, had not been about to allow some thick-headed poser in a nice suit get between her and her dreams, and she had shrewdly confronted him with evidence of what could become a rather damaging HR-issue if he did not back off and take no for an answer. Used to getting whatever he wanted from more fawning wannabe-reporters who saw an opportunity to hit the fast-track, Dave Harris had been taken aback at Sydney’s boldness and, feigning a grudging respect for her, had agreed to leave off his threats. She’d been promoted to anchor within a year after that confrontation, and while she felt a little dirty that it had taken what amounted to blackmail to get the position of her dreams, at least-- she consoled herself-- she hadn’t had to sleep her way to the top.
“You watched it?! You just watched him get eaten up? Dave, what the hell! I knew you were a selfish prick, but I didn’t think you’d let a guy get killed just because you couldn’t be bothered to open a damn door!”
“They’re all over the place, out there, Sydney. You would’ve done the smart thing, too! And if you don’t stick in here with us, you’re gonna end up just like him. Not like a little lady like you can really defend herself against those things.”
“Oh no, Dave?” Sydney raised the Smith & Wesson Shield 9mm, and smiled in satisfaction as her boss’ eyes went wide at the sight of the gun. “Won best female marksman junior and senior year in the American Legion Junior Shooting Club. I’ve taken down a wild boar at 50 yards. I’ve also been trained in gun safety and shooting since I was six. Now what was it, exactly, that you were so worried about?”
Dave glanced worriedly at the gun, and Sydney rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to shoot you, Dave. And really, I appreciate your concern for my well-being. But really, I’ll be fine. And it looks like you have more to worry about. So why don’t you go do that, since it’s always been what you’re best at.” Dave gaped at her, clearly searching for a response, but none came, and when someone else frantically called his name, he jumped at the opportunity to go be important somewhere else. Sydney watched him go in disgust, then turned and continued toward the stairs to the back lot.
“Sydney! Wait!” Hearing her name, Sydney turned.
