Ep 1

 The Walking Dead: New York – Episode 1 – Pilot

Angelina sat on the living room couch, painting her toenails a light shade of pink as her roommate Audrey flipped through the television stations.

"Why is nothing interesting on on Saturdays?" Audrey asked Angelina in frustration. Angelina shrugged. "I dunno Audrey." She responded, uninterested. Audrey continued channel surfing until she came to the news. "In the third case this week, a man was found eating the bare flesh off of a homeless man dead in the streets." The woman on the news said, as Angelina put down her nail polish and began listening.

"After a panicked pedestrian called the local authorities, the man was subdued after attempting to resist arrest. We'll have more news on this later as we learn more about this truly bizarre case. This is Dana Ambrosini in Brooklyn, back to Amanda and Doug in the studio. "

"What drugs are these people fucking taking?" Audrey stated, in shock. Angelina gave a little chuckle. "Whatever it is, I want some." Audrey rolled her eyes. "You know, you talk so much smack for someone who hasn't even smoked weed." Angelina looked straight into Audrey's eyes. "Well I'm so sorry for having asthma and not wanting my lungs to collapse." She said sarcastically. Both of the girls laughed.

Just then, the girls' third roommate Nellie walked out of the bathroom. "Did I miss anything interesting?" she asked, taking a seat next to the other girls on the couch. "Just another lunatic who thinks he's a zombie," Angelina responded, continuing to paint her nails. "What the fuck? What's that, the fifth this week?" Nellie asked. "Third…there has to be some sort of weird and extremely illegal Eastern European drug circling the city, I don't know what else this could be." Audrey chimed in.

As the room began to fall silent with the exception of the news channel still on in the background, several gunshots and screams are heard. Nellie jumped from her seat, causing Angelina to spill her nail polish all over the leather cushions. "Nellie calm the fuck down, this is New York City not your perfect little New Jersey town! Crimes happen here!" Angelina yelled. Nellie rolled her eyes. "Angelina, this is Greenwich Village, not the Bronx! You never hear stuff like that here! Something bad's happening, I can sense it." she fights back, worrying. "Girls, calm down, I'm sure it was nothing. Let's just go to sleep and we can discuss this in the morning, it's late." Audrey stated, attempting to mediate the situation.

Nellie nodded. "You're right Audrey, I guess I'm just not very used to living off-campus yet." She said, laughing. Audrey gave Nellie a hug. "Good, I'm exhausted so I'll be heading to bed, goodnight to you both and I love you. See you in the morning." She said, kissing each of her best friends on the cheek. "Goodnight love." Angelina said from the couch, still painting her nails.

As Audrey lay in her bed, she began to think. What if something sinister was happening and Nellie was right? It couldn't be. That would make no sense. Tomorrow morning everything will be fine, it'll just be another normal day at college, completely safe. Audrey began to close her eyes and drift to sleep.

When she awoke, she saw Nellie standing at the foot of her bed, facing the wall. "Nellie? What are you doing in here?" she asked, checking her phone at her bedside table, as it became flooded with text messages, much to Audrey's surprise. "It's only six in the morning, classes don't start until nine?" Nellie didn't respond. "Nellie! What's wrong with you?!" Audrey shouted, beginning to get nervous. As Nellie turned around, Audrey noticed her face was deformed. It was bloody, with a lot of her skin peeled off. She was bleeding from an open wound on her chest, with marks all over her body.

Before Audrey could say anything, she sat up in bed, breathing heavily, and looked around. Nellie was nowhere to be seen. It was just a dream. As she got out of bed, she checked her phone. No signal, no messages. "That's weird…" she mumbled to herself, as she walked over to the window and looked out. She could only see two people on the street. Two women, one around her age and one much older, about 60. The younger one had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack and was carrying a butcher's knife in her hand. The older woman…a rifle.

Taken aback, Audrey exited her room startled, and found Angelina and Nellie sitting on the living room couch with tears in their eyes. Before even knowing what was happening, Audrey began tearing up as well. "Guys…what the fuck is happening." She asked, beginning to sob. Angelina got up and walked over to Audrey, hugging her.

Angelina stroked Audrey's pale blonde hair. "We don't know. I couldn't sleep, so I watched some of the news last night. There were 372 reported cases of…whatever that was yesterday, throughout the country. They said it's best to evacuate densely populated areas." She said, beginning to break down. Nellie began to cry on the couch. "What the fuck is happening…" she asked herself, getting up from the couch.

Out of nowhere, their apartment door was broken down, and four SWAT team members entered the living room with assault rifles. "GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR, NOW!!!" one of them screamed at the girls. Now hysterically crying, Angelina and Audrey do what they say, while Nellie stood still, frozen, hysterically crying and breathing heavily. "MA'AM, GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR NOW." The same man screamed at her. However, she still stood there still, seemingly having a panic attack.

"Nellie, get down!" Angelina screamed to her. Nellie's breaths began getting heavier and heavier, until she let out one huge scream. Before anything else could happen, the four men shot her in the heart, killing her instantly. Angelina and Audrey, now completely panicking, both let out a blood-curdling scream amongst their cries. The men checked all over the girls' bodies.

"Can you just tell us-" Audrey choked out between tears before being silenced by one of the SWAT team members. "SILENCE!" he shouted, causing the girls' cries to amplify. "Seymour's Plaza, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, Apartment 218, all clear. Had to shoot a non-cooperative civilian. Edmonds out." One of the men said into a walkie-talkie, before exiting the apartment along with the other three men, leaving Angelina and Audrey in tears.

After laying on the floor crying for an hour next to their dead friend, Angelina broke the silence. "Audrey, what are we going to do…?" she asked, seemingly hopeless. "What were they looking for? What's happening?" Audrey looked up at her friend. "I don't know…I don't know." She said, choked up.

Suddenly, Nellie's eyes began reopening. "Wait wait wait…Audrey, look." Angelina said, noticing it. Audrey looked over. "This isn't possible…they shot her straight in the heart." She said, tears still streaming down her face. Nellie's eyes weren't the emerald green color they once were though, they were yellow. She began moving her fingers, and then her hands. "She's back? Holy shit! Audrey she survived!" Angelina started shouting, wiping away her tears, and beginning to help Nellie back onto her feet.

"Angelina…get away from her." Audrey advised, beginning to step away from the corpse coming back to life in front of her. "The bullets probably missed her heart or something, we have to stop all this bleeding, we don't want her bleeding out." Angelina yelled. "Get me a towel!" Audrey stepped into the kitchen, grabbing a dishtowel, while also taking a knife and hiding it behind her back.

"Here." Audrey said reluctantly, handing Angelina the towel while still holding the knife behind her back. Angelina fashioned the towel into a tourniquet and wrapped it around Nellie's chest, right where the blood was pouring out from. While Angelina was caring for Nellie's wounds, she grabbed Angelina's arm and put a tight grip around it, trying to wrap her teeth around it. Before she could think, Audrey took the knife and stabbed the zombified Nellie in the head, causing her to release Angelina from her clutch.

Angelina in shock, crawled away from her dead friend, with tears streaming down her face, breathing heavily. She looked straight into the eyes of her best friend Audrey. "She wasn't alive…was she…" Audrey shook her head. "No Ange, she wasn't."

"And to think you always made fun of me for owning a car while living in New York City." Audrey said to Angelina as they walked down to their apartment building's parking lot, each with a backpack full of food and survival items. "This isn't time for told you so's, we're just gonna get in your car and drive up to the Canadian border, show the border patrol our passports, stay in the first hotel we can find, and then contact our families. America's falling apart we can't stay here." Angelina rambled on.

Audrey grabbed Angelina's arm and stopped her from walking. "Ange, I don't think this is just an American thing." Angelina rolled her eyes. "Then what is it?" Audrey took a deep breath. "I think this is the apocalypse." Angelina laughed. "Okay, sure, whatever you say captain." She said, as they reached Audrey's car and got in.

"How did something like this happen…?" Angelina asked her friend as they drove through the state they called home. There were people dying on every corner, every block. Windows were broken, shops were boarded up. The only people on the street walked aimlessly, seemingly having no ambition or purpose. "I don't know Ange, but what I do know is that we have to get far away, no turning back." Audrey responded.

Angelina frowned. "But…our families. We have to check in with them. See what happened." Audrey shook her head. "There's no time for that."

"Audrey! Just because you have a shitty relationship with your family doesn't mean that you have to get in the way of other people talking to theirs!" Angelina shouted. "There is no fucking time!" Audrey reiterated. "You think we have time to go all the way down to South Carolina to visit your mother?" Angelina sunk down in her seat. "You don't even want to see if your sister's ok?" she asked, trying to get a reaction out of Audrey.

Audrey slowed down the car and looked at her friend. "Leanna is fine, nothing's ever gonna happen to her." Angelina rolled her eyes. "And how do you know that? And what about Mel, and your parents? Is anything gonna happen to them? You're so full of shit Audrey, you know that." Audrey abruptly stopped the car. "If you're gonna be acting like this you might as well get out and walk your sorry ass to Canada, or where the fuck you're trying to go!" Audrey screamed in frustration.

Angelina sat still, crossing her arms and pouting. Audrey started up the car and continued driving. "That's what I thought."

"Where even are we?" Angelina asked, scratching her strawberry blonde head. "Not sure," Audrey responded, checking around the area. "I think somewhere in Westchester, maybe White Plains?" The annoying beep that signifies that the car is running out of gas begins to ring. "Shit shit shit shit shit!" Audrey screams.

"Wait, what does that sound mean?" Angelina asks. Audrey clenches her fists. "We're running out of gas." She begins to pull the car over to the side of the road. "We're stranded."

"How long have we been fucking walking…" Angelina asks, obviously stressed out from the events that they endured this day. "No clue," Audrey responds, slyly making her way passed zombies every now and then. "All we have to do is make it to a gas station, find some people to talk to, ask them what's going on. Someone has to know what's happening."

As the girls continue walking, they finally reach a gas station, miles away from their car. They see a pick-up truck, and two people standing near it. One a younger man a little older than them with curly black hair, and the other in his 60s, with grey hair and a long beard. They notice the girls. "Hey! Are you guys ok?" the younger one screams out.

Angelina and Audrey become startled, not realizing people upstate are more welcoming than those from downstate. "We need help, a lot of it. Our car broke down a long way back, and we just got out of the city. We have nowhere to go." Audrey tells them. The older man rolls his eyes, and the younger one seems to notice, giving him a disparaging look. "My name's Jeremy Bosco, this here's Virgil Carney. Me and my girlfriend Karen are running a safe haven for survivors up in our house, and you're welcome to join us." The younger one states.

Angelina seems overwhelmed. "Holy shit, we'd love to, thanks so much I don't know how we could ever repay you." Audrey gives her a look, silently asking How are we sure we can trust these guys? Angelina ignores her. "Can you first explain to us what's happening?" Audrey chimes in. Jeremy gasps a bit.

"You don't know? About any of this?" he asks, shocked. The girls shake their heads. "Well, I'm not really too sure myself. But from what I've gathered, there's a virus going around, and it turns you into…these flesh-eating brainless creatures. And when you're bit, that's when you get it." he says, holding back tears.

"I witnessed it myself with my parents…had to shoot 'em in the head." Virgil rolls his eyes. "Enough with the sob story, now are these little girls coming with us or not." Jeremy looks up. "Are you?"

The End