Chapter 6: The Family Meeting
Friday Night - 11:47 PM
I couldn't sleep. The adrenaline from the evening's conversation was still coursing through my veins, mixing with the constant awareness of the timer counting down in my peripheral vision. 52:04:17.
My apartment felt too small. The walls too close. I paced between the kitchen and living room, mind churning through scenarios, preparing for what came next.
The Clark family was on board. Mostly. Madison was pragmatic enough to prepare while hoping she was wrong. Travis was skeptical but willing to check on his family. Nick was traumatized but functional. And Alicia...
Alicia was a problem. The smart kind of problem. The kind that noticed details and asked questions and wouldn't let things go.
My phone buzzed. Text from Nick: Can't sleep. Keep seeing Calvin's face.
I typed back: Normal. First body's always the hardest.
How many have you seen?
Too many. Goes with the job.
Does it get easier?
I stared at that question for a long moment. No. You just get better at functioning anyway.
Great. Super comforting.
You want comfort or truth?
You keep asking me that. Always truth.
Then here it is: you're going to see a lot more bodies. A lot more death. You can either fall apart or adapt. Your choice.
Long pause. Then: I don't want to fall apart.
Then don't. Get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be long.
I set the phone down and went back to pacing. The storage unit had enough supplies for maybe a week, two if rationed carefully. Not enough for the long term. But I couldn't exactly load up a truck with everything—too obvious, too suspicious.
The System text flickered: [ INVENTORY SPACE AVAILABLE ]
I blinked. That was new. I pulled up the interface with a thought, focusing on the notification.
[ DIMENSIONAL STORAGE: LOCKED ]
[ UNLOCK REQUIREMENT: SURVIVE INITIAL OUTBREAK ]
[ CURRENT STATUS: PENDING ]
Of course. The good stuff's locked behind progression gates.
Made sense from a game design perspective. Made my life harder from a survival perspective.
I checked the news on my laptop. The attacks were increasing. Reports coming in from all over the city—hospitals, shopping centers, residential neighborhoods. The comments sections were chaos, people arguing about gangs, terrorism, government conspiracies. Nobody was saying zombies. Not yet.
But they would. Soon.
At 1 AM, I gave up on sleep and went to the storage unit. The night air was warm, carrying the smell of smog and ocean salt. LA at night—beautiful and poisonous in equal measure.
The storage facility was deserted. Security light flickering in the parking lot. I unlocked unit 237 and stood looking at my supplies. Two handguns. Shotgun. Ammunition. Medical kits. Water. Food. Tools.
Not enough. Never enough.
I spent two hours organizing, creating mental inventories, planning distribution. The Clarks would need weapons, but I couldn't just hand them guns without training. Madison seemed competent, but Travis had that liberal teacher vibe that probably meant he'd never held a firearm. Nick was a disaster waiting to happen with anything dangerous. Alicia...
Alicia would probably be a natural. That girl had a spine of steel under the skepticism.
I drove home as the sun was rising, exhaustion finally catching up. Slept for three hours, dreams full of the timer counting down and Calvin's dead eyes snapping open.
Woke to my phone ringing. Madison.
"We have a problem."
I sat up, instantly alert. "What kind of problem?"
"Travis went to check on Liza and Chris this morning. He just called—there's some kind of incident at the hospital where Liza works. Riots. Police. He's trying to get to her but the roads are blocked."
"Which hospital?"
"St. Mary's. Downtown."
I knew St. Mary's. Big facility, always busy, right in the heart of the city. If the outbreak was hitting there...
"Tell Travis to get them out and bring them here. Don't let them stay at the hospital."
"He's trying. But Liza won't leave. She says they need all hands on deck, people are injured."
People are dying and reanimating. But I can't say that.
"How long until he gets back?"
"He doesn't know. Could be hours."
"Alright. I'm coming over. We're moving up the timeline. Whatever you can pack in the next two hours, pack it. We might need to evacuate today."
"Today? You said we had until tomorrow—"
"The situation's accelerating. Better safe than sorry."
I hung up and grabbed my go-bag—already packed with essentials. Glock in my waistband, knife in my boot. Checked the timer: 48:32:19. Still over two days. But the pressure was building, that familiar itch under my skin that said hungry, need to spread, find a host.
Not yet. Not until I had no choice.
The drive to the Clark house took twenty minutes through increasingly chaotic traffic. Police sirens in the distance. A helicopter circling over downtown. People arguing at a gas station, voices raised, one shove away from violence.
It's starting.
Madison met me at the door, face tight with stress. "Nick's packing supplies. Alicia's been on the phone with her boyfriend Matt for an hour. I can't reach Travis—calls keep dropping."
"What about Liza?"
"Still at the hospital. Still refusing to leave."
"She will. Once she sees what's happening."
I followed Madison inside. The living room was organized chaos—camping gear piled on the couch, water jugs lined up by the wall, food boxes stacked in the corner. Madison had been busy.
Nick came down the stairs carrying a duffel bag. "I packed clothes and—" He stopped, seeing my expression. "It's bad, isn't it?"
"Getting there. Where's Alicia?"
"Her room. Still on the phone."
I climbed the stairs, knocked on a closed door. Alicia's voice from inside: "What?"
"It's Jax. Need to talk."
"I'm busy."
"This is important."
Silence. Then the door opened. Alicia stood there, phone still at her ear, expression annoyed. "What?"
"Who's Matt?"
"My boyfriend. Not that it's your business."
"Where is he?"
"His house. With his family. Why?"
"Because if what I think is happening is actually happening, you need to tell him to get to a safe location. Now."
She lowered the phone slightly. "You think the outbreak's starting."
"I think it started three days ago. We're just now seeing the acceleration."
"Matt lives in Santa Monica. That's miles from downtown."
"Distance won't matter. The infection spreads exponentially. Every person who turns creates more infected. Give it twelve hours and the entire city will be a war zone."
She searched my face, looking for... what? A lie? Uncertainty? She wouldn't find either.
"I'll tell him to stay inside." She raised the phone again. "But if you're wrong—"
"I'm not."
She closed the door. I heard her voice through the wood, urgent and low, telling Matt something was wrong, he needed to prepare.
Back downstairs, Madison was checking her phone obsessively. "Still no word from Travis."
"He'll get through. Focus on what you can control." I gestured to the supplies. "This is good. But we need to be more organized. If we have to leave fast, we need to know what's essential and what's expendable."
We spent the next hour reorganizing. Food and water—essential. Clothing—some essential, most expendable. Weapons—I gave Madison the Beretta, showed her the basics. She handled it better than I expected, movements careful and deliberate.
Nick got the shotgun. He looked at it like it might bite him.
"Have you ever fired a gun?" I asked.
"Does a BB gun count?"
"No."
"Then no."
I took him out to the backyard—privacy fence, neighbors not home—and gave him a crash course. How to load. How to aim. How to absorb the recoil so it didn't break his shoulder.
He fired once into the dirt and nearly dropped the gun from the kick.
"Jesus Christ."
"Lean into it. Tighten your grip. Try again."
The second shot was better. Still shaky, but he kept hold of the weapon. Third shot actually hit where he was aiming—a flower pot twenty feet away that exploded in a shower of ceramic.
Madison appeared at the back door. "The entire neighborhood just heard that."
"Sorry. Training."
"Train quieter."
Back inside, Alicia had finished her call and was helping pack. She wouldn't look at me, but her movements were sharp and efficient. Organized rage.
"Matt's not leaving," she said finally. "He thinks I'm overreacting."
"You're not."
"How do you know?" She spun to face me. "How do you know any of this? You're not a virologist. You're not CDC. You're a medical resident who somehow predicted a zombie apocalypse three days before anyone else noticed. How?"
Madison and Nick both stopped, watching. This was the question they'd all been thinking but hadn't asked.
I met Alicia's eyes. "Pattern recognition. Medical training. And maybe a little bit of paranoid overthinking."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer you're getting."
"Not good enough."
"It's going to have to be."
We stared at each other, neither backing down. Madison broke the tension: "Alicia. Let it go."
"Mom—"
"Let it go. We don't have time for this."
Alicia's jaw clenched, but she turned away. Went back to packing with sharp, angry movements.
My phone buzzed. Text from an unknown number: This is Travis. Found Liza and Chris. Hospital's a nightmare. Getting them out now. Meet at Clark house in 30 min.
I showed the text to Madison. She sagged with relief. "Thank God."
"Tell him to drive carefully. Avoid downtown. Take surface streets."
The next thirty minutes crawled by. We finished packing. Loaded Madison's SUV with the essential supplies. Kept the TV on—news reports getting more chaotic by the minute. Hospitals overwhelmed. Police responding to hundreds of calls. Official statements urging calm.
Then Travis's truck pulled into the driveway.
He climbed out looking ten years older than he had yesterday. A woman and teenage boy followed—Liza and Chris. Both shaken, both carrying bags.
Liza's scrubs were bloodstained. She stared at Madison. "It's real. What Nick said. It's real."
"I know."
"I saw a patient die and come back. Right on the table. He just... got up. Started attacking nurses." Her voice cracked. "I ran. I'm a nurse and I ran."
Madison pulled her into a hug. "You survived. That's what matters."
Chris stood awkwardly, teenage discomfort radiating off him. Nick approached, offered a hand. "Hey, man. Glad you made it."
They did some kind of complicated handshake that ended in a brief hug. Brothers, or close enough.
Travis saw me and crossed the yard. "You were right. Everything you said. The hospital was... I've never seen anything like it."
"It's going to get worse."
"How much worse?"
"Imagine every hospital in LA like that. Simultaneously. Then imagine it spreading to neighborhoods, schools, police stations. By tonight, the city will be unmanageable."
"Then we need to leave."
"Where?"
Travis looked at Madison. Some silent communication passed between them. Then Madison said: "We have a cabin. Up in the mountains. Off the grid, isolated. We could go there."
"How far?"
"Three hours drive. Four with traffic."
"Then we leave now. Before the highways lock up."
"What about Matt?" Alicia's voice from the doorway. "We can't just leave him."
"His family made their choice," I said. "We can't force them to listen."
"So we abandon him?"
"We survive. He can do the same."
"That's cold."
"That's realistic."
Travis stepped between us. "Let's... take a moment. Make sure we're all on the same page before we make decisions we can't take back."
We gathered in the living room—all of us. Madison, Travis, Liza, Chris, Nick, Alicia, and me. An unlikely family, about to be tested by fire.
"Show of hands," Travis said. "Who thinks we should leave the city today?"
Madison raised her hand. So did Liza. Nick hesitated, then raised his. I raised mine.
Chris looked at his dad, confused. "Are we really doing this? Running away?"
"We're being smart," Travis said. "That's different."
"It feels the same."
Alicia hadn't raised her hand. She sat on the arm of the couch, arms crossed. "If we leave, Matt's on his own."
"Matt has his family," Madison said gently. "He'll be okay."
"You don't know that."
"No. I don't. But I know my family will be okay. That's what matters."
Alicia looked at me. "You knew this was coming. You prepared. If you'd warned more people—"
"Nobody would have listened. Just like Matt's not listening now."
"You didn't even try."
"I tried with you. I tried with Nick. I tried with your family. That's all I had time for."
"Convenient."
"Alicia." Madison's voice had that teacher edge. "Enough."
"Fine." Alicia stood. "We'll go to the cabin. We'll hide in the mountains. And when this is over—if it's over—I'm going back for Matt."
"If he's still alive," I said quietly.
She flinched. Then: "He will be. He's tougher than you think."
Maybe. But tough didn't matter when you were outnumbered a thousand to one by walking corpses.
We loaded both vehicles—Madison's SUV and Travis's truck. Divided supplies, weapons, people. Liza rode with Madison and the kids. Travis took Chris and some of the heavier equipment. I volunteered to ride with Nick in his beat-up Honda, taking the rear position.
"Why are you coming with us?" Nick asked as we loaded his car. "You've got your own supplies. You could survive alone."
"Surviving alone is just existing. I'd rather have people to survive with."
"Even if we slow you down?"
"You won't. Your family's smart, resourceful. We'll be stronger together."
He considered that. "Alicia thinks you're hiding something."
"Alicia's right. But everyone hides something. The question is whether what I'm hiding matters more than what I'm offering."
"And what are you offering?"
"Knowledge. Skills. A better chance at making it through what's coming."
"In exchange for what?"
Companionship. Purpose. Someone to protect so I don't lose myself completely to the virus.
"Nothing. Just... be good people. That's payment enough."
Nick smiled, small and sad. "You're a terrible liar."
"I'm a great liar. You just pay attention."
We finished loading. Madison gathered everyone for one last check. "We stick together. No matter what. If someone gets separated, we regroup at the cabin. Everyone know how to get there?"
Nods all around. Madison had made everyone memorize the route—surface streets to the 210, then mountain roads to a private access way.
"Good. Let's go."
The convoy pulled out of the driveway at 2 PM. Behind us, Los Angeles continued its last day of normalcy. Ahead, the mountains rose like a promise of safety.
My timer read 46:17:33. Counting down. Always counting down.
I looked at Nick in the driver's seat, hands tight on the wheel, jaw clenched with determination. Looked at the cars ahead—Madison's SUV, Travis's truck, my new family.
I can protect them. I can keep them alive. I just have to stay in control.
The city receded in the rearview mirror. Smoke rising in three different locations. Helicopters circling. Emergency vehicles screaming past in the opposite direction, heading toward the chaos we were fleeing.
"Think we'll ever come back?" Nick asked.
"Maybe. In a few years. When the dead have stopped walking and the world's had time to heal."
"And if it doesn't heal?"
"Then we make a new world."
He laughed, hollow and brittle. "You make it sound simple."
"It's not simple. It's just necessary."
We drove in silence after that, following the convoy through increasingly empty streets. The city was holding its breath, waiting for the hammer to fall.
It wouldn't have to wait long.
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