Zombies of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Complete

Jemma Simmons was alone again.

It was the third night in a row that she had been the only one left on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Globemaster, their humungous plane that they had been conducting missions and living in for the past few years. By now, she knew every square inch of the vessel, and being alone in such a huge space made her feel like the only human left alive; which, of course, could one day be a possibility that she feared to imagine.

Her fellow agents have been struggling to contain the infection since it started three months ago. Every day, they flew to a new location in an attempt to relocate civilians to one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s safe zones, or attempt to heal the injured. Of course, it never worked. Jemma had seen too many innocent people be killed due to this abnormal infection than she would have ever cared to.

Of course, Jemma had seen people die on the job before. Civilian casualties were a tragedy that everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D has tried their hardest to avoid. But these are not your ordinary casualties. It is a new day now, and survival is top priority.

Jemma leaned against the clear experiment table and sighed. She did not like this new world. She had to watch as the great but crazy world she once loved become...well, just crazy. She had to watch people who used to live ordinary lives turn into cannibalistic maniacs right in front of her eyes. Humans have devolved back into barbarians, killing each other without so much as a glance. A feeling of relief washed over her; no one she knew had been infected yet. Her fellow agents had taken every precaution necessary, using their latest technology to protect their bodies in suits similarly used when treating the infected. They were bringing in all the toys; now was the world’s darkest hour, and people needed S.H.I.E.L.D. more than ever.

Jemma reminded herself that the world also needed her. She tucked her wispy hair back into a ponytail and headed over to the rats. Her job, other than to guard the plane, was to stay in the lab and conjure up a vaccine, a cure, anything to stop or reverse this...virus? Bacteria? Drug? Jemma still wasn’t sure what was causing the bodily transformation, but she was determined to figure it out.

She crouched down to observe the five rats, each contained in their own individual cages. The first four seemed normal, all of their regular habits maintained constantly. As her eyes traveled to the fifth one, she flinched again at what she would have to see. A scraggly, decomposed rat pressed itself against the glass, snarling and baring its teeth. Patches of its fur were falling off, exposing a purple, infected-looking skin and flesh underneath. Its eyes were red and sunken; its teeth rotten and yellow. Everything about it looked positively evil.

Jemma reflected back on when she injected it with the...oh, she hated to say the word zombie. It sounded like science fiction, or something from a bad 1950s horror movie. But Jemma couldn’t deny what was happening; the stories of Haitian folklore and Romero’s fiction were, impossibly, coming to life. Of course, Jemma shouldn’t have been surprised. With S.H.I.E.L.D., she had spent most of her time studying alien technology and biology with Fitz. Her own superior, Agent Phil Coulson, had been brought back to life using alien biology and science, and she had used the same technique to heal her friend, and fellow agent, Skye. Seeing people be brought back to life was basically normal around here. But this was different. Not only were people being brought back to life, but they were being completely changed. They were alive, but dead. She struggled to understand how both could happen at once. From her years of expertise and training, none of it could have prepared her for this. Aliens were nothing compared to the apocalypse around her.

She focused her attention back on the rat. Since injecting it, she had been studying its behaviors for signs of weakness, or patterns. So far she had noticed that it did not show any of the normal biological behavior. It didn’t eat, sleep, defecate, or try to amuse itself. Just like with the newly infected humans, all he seemed to care about was taking a bite of Jemma’s fresh flesh. She cringed at the idea.