Chapter Text
Jody Shelley punching the face right off a zombie was probably the most badass thing Danny Briere had ever seen. Of course he’d seen plenty of badass things in his life, mostly on the ice, but seeing a Jody punch a zombie’s face clean off his head and onto the sidewalk after he tried to attack Bob while his back was turned had to top the list.
Everyone was taking their badassery up a notch since the zombies attacked. Sean Couturier looked like a sweet kid off the ice, but when the zombies struck he turned into a vicious zombie slaying machine taking zombies out left and right. Bryz made jokes that only made sense if you thought about them for a while about the situation, but if a zombie got too close he didn’t hesitate to take one out with the stick he still had from practice.
That was one convenient thing about the zombies attacking right after practice; They at least had something they could fight with. They also had numbers, but they couldn’t all stick together for long. Lots of the guys drove off to go find their families and make sure they were okay. Nobody could blame them. Braydon had a baby after all, and everyone knew he’d defend Nadine and Rory until the end of time. The others were the same.
Danny stayed to help fight them off. His kids were on vacation with his wife, they wouldn’t be anywhere near the zombies. Bob had his wife at home, but didn’t want to leave everyone behind, so he stuck with them. Claude, Scott, Andrej, Wayne and the rookies stuck behind too. When there was finally a lull in the action, Scott, Andrej and Wayne and most of the rookies took off, after exchanging well wishes with the guys still behind.
“Do you guys think they’re all gone?” Sean asked after Scott’s car disappeared as he drove away. He was covered in zombie blood, holding one of Jaromir’s sticks tightly since he broke all his own on zombie skulls. There weren’t any more zombies in sight at the moment, so he could take a break.
Claude took his keys out of his pocket and glanced around. “Uhh…looks like it.” He replied a little too soon.
Mere seconds after he spoke, more zombies appeared in droves. They crawled over buildings, crawled out of where they’d be hiding in trees, climbed out of sewer drains. It was as if they were just waiting for their numbers to get low so they could attack.
Bob muttered something in Russian, taking a step back and accidentally bumping into Claude. Claude just stared at the zombies for a moment before shakily asking, “What do we do, Danny?”
Unfortunately, Danny had no idea what to do. They needed to get out of there, but there was a zombie licking the windshield of his own car, and the other cars had zombies on them too. There was no way they could escape this. “I don’t know.” He responded, tightening his grip on the stick he held.
Before the panic could set it, a shiny black sedan zoomed into the parking lot, running over half a dozen zombies along the way. The windshield wipers smeared the blood off to the sides of the car, and a woman stepped out of the driver’s side door, with curly, dark brown hair, a stylish outfit, and a rifle in her hands.
“Cядь в маши́ну!”* Olga Bobrovsky shouted at the four of them, using her shotgun to put bullets through the heads of some zombies that were getting too close.
Nobody asked questions. Nobody thought twice. Neither Sean, Claude nor Danny even tried to figure out what she said. All of them rushed to the car, jumping inside. Bob got the passengers seat, and Claude, Sean and Danny all shared the back row, not made for three people their size. Danny somehow ended up in the middle, so squished between his current and former housemates that he couldn’t even attempt to find the seatbelt.
After Olga took out another zombie and got back in the car, she and Bob had a brief exchange in Russian, before she sped off, mowing down even more zombies as she drove. “You okay?” she asked the three in the back row, too focused on where she was going to look back at them.
“Yeah,we’re uhh…we’re okay.” Claude answered. He seemed shaken up by everything, and Danny wanted to place a comforting hand on his shoulder but he was too squished to move his arms.
“Where do you live?” Bob asked, turning around in his seat to look at them as Olga ran a red light and smashed some zombies at the same time, “We can drop you off at home.” He knew Danny and Sean lived together, but didn’t know where exactly that was.
Danny gave his address. “Claude can stay with us too,” He added, glancing over at Claude the best he could. “Safety in numbers.” They would be safer as a group, but Danny knew he’d worry himself sick about Claude if he didn’t know he was safe too. That was just better left unsaid. Claude didn’t protest, so it was settled. The three of them would be staying at Danny’s house.
The drive wasn’t a long one, since Olga ignored speed limits and stop signs. Nobody else was on the road anyway besides the zombies, so it didn’t matter. Getting everyone home safe seemed to be her top concern, not the law. It was eerie though, driving through normally busy streets when there was nobody on them. It was extra eerie viewing it through windows half covered in blood.
Danny’s neighborhood seemed completely normal when they got there. There weren’t any zombies milling around. No blood splatters in the street. No broken windows on houses, or people screaming. It looked almost unsettlingly normal.
Olga smiled sweetly at Claude, Danny and Sean as they stepped out of the car, looking more like a model than an incredible zombie slayer. “Bye!” she called out to them
“Be safe.” Bob added, giving them a worried smile.
“We will be, don’t worry. You guys stay safe too.” Danny told them before they drove off to get home themselves. Claude and Sean followed Danny as he went up to the front door, unlocked it and stepped inside.
As the three of them cautiously looked around, everything looked just how it had before they left that morning. No zombies in sight. Sean let out a sigh of relief. “Good thing—“ Sean tried to speak, but a crashing sound coming from upstairs made him stop and hold his breath again.
Claude froze, and gave Danny a nervous look. “Think we should check it out?”
Danny nodded and began walking toward the stairs. Whatever it was that made that noise, they couldn’t just ignore it. Zombie or no, they needed to take care of whatever it was going on up there right away. It just would’ve been nice if Danny had a moment to take a breather and fully comprehend that the zombie apocalypse was under way.