Jimmy Hendrix blared through the speakers as a figure ducked between shiny metal operating tables. Right now, the population of the Huntington Morgue was down to five. The living currently outnumbered the dead: dead 2, living 3. Three attendants made up the living.

The deceased consisted of an elderly man; his toe tag read natural causes, but he'd been slowly poisoned by paint chips that his daughter had stirred into his soup. Then there was a middle age man who had fallen asleep in what had been an empty irrigation ditch only to be caught in a flash flood around 2am and drowned about a week ago. His body had been found just yesterday by some kids.

A young woman with bright red hair, hair that was helped along into such garish redness by color in a box, scanned the room. She had a face that was on the plain side of pretty, however, her inner lust for life made her whole body light up. Her eyes sparkled and her grin was infectious, and that was what drew people to her and made her in certain circles, irresistible. Her blue-grey eyes caught a hint of movement to her left and she grinned pumping her super-soaker. She tilted forward into a roll and came up on to her knees, finger pressed on the trigger. Water arced six-feet into the groin of a thin young man.

Jimmy was doing a guitar solo as the young Pakistani man stood up cursing. "Damn it, Carson! Now I'm going to look like I pissed my pants."

She just grinned and started skittering through the tables in a crouched run for her last opponent. "Come out come out where ever you are," she said making her voice high-pitched and wobbly, like Glenda from the wizard of Oz.

God she loved working the late shift. Huntington was a new city; it had sprung up around HTR Industry to give food, shelter, and other amenities to those who worked for the mega-corporation. There was virtually no violent crime in the area. If people were seriously sick, or needed major surgery, they got life-flighted to San Francisco, 86 miles away, so the morgue was an easy job.

She would rather have been a doctor but Dr. Hamilton had made sure that would never happen. So, instead of being upstairs as an intern in the ER, she bagged and tagged dead people down in the local dungeon.

She heard a shoe squeak on the tile behind her and she turned firing. Water splattered on her chin and chest.

"Gahhh, Emily!" she shouted. "Why... how... do you get ice water into yours?" she howled then shivered.

The tiny little Goth girl, with her black hair swept up into two long pigtails, laughed, her obsidian eyes sparkling as she sprayed Carson again.

"No more! I surrender, she squealed. "You are yet again the reigning Queen of Morgue Tag."

Carson and Johar bowed to their Queen.

The girl cocked a hip sideways and hefted her super soaker in what she thought was a heroic pose. "I think I prefer the title 'Goddess' actually."

Carson quirked a brown eyebrow, "Someone is getting too big for their black tights." She laughed and went to the meat lockers, pulled open one of the doors, and slid out the table. It was empty of a dead body but held a couple of cases of beer. She grabbed one for herself, threw one to Johar, and then raised an eyebrow in question to Emily.

"You have to ask?" the dark haired girl demanded, holding out a hand for one after jumping up onto one of the autopsy tables, black lace up boots dangling.

"Whatever was I thinking? A frosty one for the Goth girl." She tossed a can to Emily and then opened another drawer. She hummed as she viewed the contents then turned around holding up a bright red Hawaiian shirt with little hula girls all over it. "Is it too much? Does it scream drug dealer?"

Emily shook her head, sending long dark braids flying. "No. And even if it does the police should be too busy laughing to catch you."

Johar rolled his eyes. "You know one day Hamilton will figure out where all his missing drugs are going and you'll really be in trouble." He sat down and took a drink of his beer a towel draped over his crotch.

Carson pulled a face. "Jay, my man you worry too much. Hamilton is too busy fucking interns and kissing corporate ass to pay attention to me."

"She has a point. Besides, he won't say anything. If there's an investigation someone might just notice he's been keeping some for personal use," Emily pointed out, laying down on the autopsy table and staring up at the ceiling above her.

Rolling onto her side the Goth stared at where the other woman was considering her shirt options. "Do you think the Librarian is going to be there?"

Carson slipped out of her wet Hawaiian shirt, orange with pineapples, exposing a small beer belly on an otherwise fit frame. Johar blushed and quickly looked up at the ceiling. "Jay I'm wearing a sports bra, it's more than my bikini covers." She shook her head with a smile at her prudish co-worker before turning her attention to Emily. "Librarian? Oh you mean Samantha, 'Do not even think about calling me Sam or I will drive my high heels into your neck,' Sakamoto?"

"A woman, who likes high heels, sounds like someone I can respect." Emily quipped, tilting back the can and took a few gulps.

Carson shrugged, buttoning her shirt. "She probably will be there, I think she pissed someone off 'cause she works the night shift. She's been there the last three times I made a 'transaction.' God you should see her, she knows but she can't prove it, and its so pissing her off. Her black eyes get all fired up and she looks like, if she could, she'd be breathing fire. Last time I blew her a kiss as I left. I thought she was going to throw a book at me." Carson laughed remembering the look on Samantha's face.

Jay rolled his eyes, tossing away his empty can in the box behind the administrative desk. "I wish my shift were just ending so I could get out of here for some extracurricular activities." He mock leered at Carson.

Carson snorted. "Whatever? You run and hide every time a girl even looks your way."

Bony shoulders slumped "I do not," he whined.

She laughed. "You ever want pointers I'll take you out to the Pink Poodle. You can watch a master at work." She smoothed her shirt and looked at the clock, eight minutes until lunch and her 'lunch date.'

The Pakistani man blushed at the mention of the prominent gay club in town. "No, ah, thank you. I don't think I'll need pointers at a gay club, ever."

Carson shrugged her shoulders and closed the metal door. "Hey, what better place to get pointers? Who knows what a woman wants better than a lesbian?" She lifted her beer, finished the last of it, and threw the can at the garbage. She raised her arms in victory, "Two points!"

"Never know, Jay, you might just like it." Emily cackled at the look on the dark haired man's face, before shaking her head at Carson. "Get out of here, we'll hold down the fort while you're gone. If Dr. Idiot shows up we'll tell him you're gone to lunch."

She snorted, "Like he'd come down here. The new teaching session had started. He has all that fresh meat to drool over. Thanks Emily, I'll be back in a bit. You want anything special for lunch?" she asked on her way to the door.

"Peanut butter and banana sandwich!"

Carson stumbled and made a face. "I'll see what I can do." She started whistling as she left. Once in the harsh white hallway she paused and ducked into the lone unisex bathroom. Once inside she promptly stood up on the toilet and pushed the ceiling tile up, reaching around she smiled as the found the small baggy of pills she had stolen from the pharmacy upstairs. "Hello my beauties," she whispered to the bag before tucking it into her pocket.

---------------------------------------------------

The librarian twirled a pencil, staring across the library at one of the late night patrons. Long dark hair was curled up into an imminently practical bun on the top of her head. Her Asian heritage was clear to anyone who glanced at her and if one more idiot made a Lucy Liu joke about her she was going to kill them.

Samantha, no one called her Sam to her face and lived to tell about it, Sakamoto was having a bad night. She'd had a string of them, ever since she'd been "promoted" to the night shift in the teaching hospital's medical and research library. She should have just quit, but damned if she was going to let those breaurocratic idiots have their way. Instead, she fumed as she worked the night shift, keeping the library open for the steady stream of fellows, graduate students, interns and 'others.' The woman she was pointedly staring at firmly fit into the others category in Samantha's mind.

The woman, wearing some god-awful Hawaiian shirt tonight, was up to something. Samantha was positive of it and she was going to catch her. From her position at the front desk, the Japanese woman narrowed her eyes as she glared at the red haired woman, who was sitting in the periodicals section.

"Errr... excuse me?" Samantha glanced scathingly towards the nervous intern - a fairly new one - standing in front of her, dismissed him, and went back to staring at the redhead.

"Umm... Ma'am?" he asked, nervous with dealing with the beautiful woman who had a reputation of being a real bitch. She was definitely fantasy material, but the scathing look he'd just gotten was causing him problems right now.

The librarian sighed. "What?"

"Do you have the current issue of Clinical Cancer Research?" Maybe, he dreamed, he would be the one to crack her shell and get her to go out for a date.

Manicured nails bit into the palms of her hands as she swiveled to face the man who had dared to interrupt her stakeout. She pasted a fake smile on her face as she asked, "Is it a scientific journal?"

Sensing danger the resident nodded slowly.

"Then I believe that you might find it in the journal section of the library. That stands to reason, doesn't it?" The fake smile became even faker. The young man nodded so quickly his glasses nearly flew off, giving up any dreams of asking her to dinner.

Dismissing him firmly she swiveled back to her prey.

"Umm... Miss?"

The pencil Samantha had been toying with snapped; the cracking wood loud in the relative quiet of the library.

"Yessss?" she hissed, turning back to stare at him.

"Where's the journal section?"

Her jaw clenched, locking her face in a rictus of anger as she jabbed a finger upwards. After a second, the puzzled resident looked up, and then blushed as he saw the sign clearly pointing the way to the journal section of the library. Feeling death nearby, the young man took off before something bad happened. Dark eyes followed him until he was well away from her, then Samantha made certain her hair was still impeccably tied up, and that her neat gray shirt still remained impeccable. The remnants of the pencil were carefully brushed up and deposited into the nearby trash can.

If there was one thing that Samantha prided herself in it was being neat and precise in everything she did. Only then did she go back to glaring at the woman in the Hawaiian shirt on the other side of the library.

Carson was well aware that Ms. Samantha Sakamoto was staring daggers at her back, it was a fun little game she had started playing with the librarian about two weeks ago when she became aware Samantha was on to her. It was fun to torment the uptight woman, and see the frustration there because she just couldn't prove what Carson was up to. The safety mirror she had strategically placed in her line of sight clearly showed her the fuming librarian.

She lazily flipped through the magazine before getting the periodical assistant's attention. "Do you guys carry Playboy?" She laughed as the assistant blushed.

"I-I-I, um, I don't believe we carry that one." The nervous woman stuttered out looking to her boss in a flustered panic.

The click of high heels on the tile floor signaled Samantha's approach, summoned by the assistant's nervous look. "What seems to be the problem?" her tone clearly indicating that whatever problem there was, it was entirely Carson's fault.

"This person w-w-wants to know if we carry, um, Playboy. I told her that we didn't. Is that right?" She squeaked out the last part.

"This person," Samantha used the term lightly as she stared down at the bright Hawaiian shirt, "should know this is a research library, and we do not carry such journals."

Carson turned around giving her most charming smile. "No biggy. I'm sure one of the Doctor's at the hospital will leave his lying around and I'll just snag it then. Just love the articles. Don't you?" The redheaded woman was doing her best not to laugh, but Ms. Sakamoto just looked so serious.

Samantha, for her part, was not amused. She might not like the night shift, but she was in charge of the library. "If you continue to harass my staff I will be forced to ask security to escort you out." Her lips quirked in a small smile, she really hoped the redhead would push. It would give her an excuse to have her thrown out.

"There was no harassment; just gentle inquiry. I mean, this is an institute of learning, right? Okay then, I'll just go meet my friend up in the journals and not 'harass' this poor underpaid assistant anymore. Have a great night." She gave a happy little wave then turned and bounded for the stairs knowing that Ms. Sakamoto wouldn't be far behind.

Samantha gave her assistant a tight-lipped smile. "Don't worry about her Annette, go take your break." She then spun around and followed after the departing redhead, intent on keeping an eye on her.

Carson took a sharp left once upstairs and headed for the elevators. She was not meeting her lunch date in the journals but the lovely and charming Ms. Sakamoto didn't need to know that. Hitting the down button she was happy to see the doors slide open immediately. Stepping inside, she hit the button for the first floor.

Downstairs again, she waved to the Periodical assistant, who did a double take, and then headed to the stacks to find Bruce.

The Asian woman glared and did a slow spin in the journals section of the library. Where had that annoying redhead gone? Fuming, she started down the stairs, back to the front desk.

Job done and wallet heavier, Carson emerged from the stacks. She paused for a moment and watched the librarian. Every once in a while the woman would glance up from the book she was reading and give a piercing glare around the library, looking for her, Carson had no doubt.

The librarian was pretty enough but she was certain the severe bun was cutting off blood flow to the woman's brain. Of course, the sharp Asian features, the bun, and the nasty attitude brought to mind a sort of dominatrix librarian. Carson couldn't help but grin at that mental picture. "Oh yeah, I bet you're a naughty librarian," she mumbled to herself.

As if sensing she was being watched, Samantha turned, eyes narrowing as she scanned the racks for any sign of her quarry. She knew the redhead was doing something, probably dealing, in her library, and she would catch her at it.

Behind her someone cleared their throat then asked, "Am I doing anything exciting?"

Controlling the urge to jump, Samantha slowly spun around on her stool, the ever-present glare in place. "You" she jabbed a pencil at Carson "are not supposed to be behind the desk."

"You're a control freak aren't you?" Carson asked with a grin as she moved around the desk, "and since there are stacks behind your desk there are always going to be people behind your desk."

"People are allowed - it's just you that isn't."

"Oh well that makes perfect sense then. You know I'd bet you'd be even prettier if you wore your hair down once in awhile." Carson gave her adversary a grin and a wave. "See you tomorrow night, same time." She then turned and walked out the front doors.

An inarticulate growl of barely controlled rage from behind Carson was punctuated by the sound of another pencil snapping.

Carson entered the bowels of the Hospital with a grocery bag under one arm. "Lunch time cats and kittens." She opened the sack and tossed a banana and sandwich wrapped in plastic to Emily. "The lunch lady still refuses to make your sandwich." She sat up on top of the one beat-up desk that they all shared and pulled out a half gallon of milk and her own peanut butter and jelly sandwich. "Yummy," she mumbled before taking at bite.

"Hey, what about me?" Jay demanded as he wandered in from one of the back rooms carrying a tray of autopsy equipment.

She reached into the bag and pulled out another sandwich, tossing it to the thin man. "You know, if you ate meat you might get some weight on that frame of yours."

The thin man made a face as he unwrapped his veggie sandwich. "I see enough dead meat every day."

"True." Her blue eyes flickered from Johar back to Emily. "Your librarian was there again today."

Emily mumbled something, her mouth full of peanut butter. Grabbing the jug of milk, she forced herself to swallow so she could talk. "Did you talk to her?"

"Of course. She threatened to have me removed from the library. She's got a huge oak stick up her ass."

Johar arched an eyebrow at that, but said nothing as he continued to munch on his vegetable sub. The Goth grinned, "You of course didn't provoke her at all."

Carson's blue eyes got all big and she tried to look innocent. "Me?" She started laughing, "I asked if they carried Playboy. You would have thought I'd committed a sin. I tell you, only sexually uptight people work in libraries." She stuffed the last part of her sandwich into her mouth.

"Maybe we could fix her up with Jay." Emily teased the Pakistani, loving it when she got him to stutter and choke, just like now.

"Hmmmm." Carson eyed her shy friend. "I don't know, Ms. Sakamoto, I have the feeling is probably a naughty librarian. I'm not sure Jay could handle all that kink."





The ocean was glassy and black, like a smooth piece of obsidian. The faint wind barely caused a ripple on the night inked waters. Dim lights from the marina spread out feebly, but nothing important came through here, mostly private speedboats that only saw the water on a warm sunny weekend. A few diehards had their boats docked year round but the rest of the moorings were only occupied during pleasant weekends. Nobody was around when the Elora Dannon, a small cargo ship headed for Seattle, plowed through a couple of boats, the dock, and finally smashed into the pier walkway, destroying the snack shack. There were no warning bells, or shouts of alarm, and the ship's engines just kept running driving the ship into the unmoving earth.

When the morning rays of a golden sun hit the water, slowly changing it from black to a dirty blue, the shore was no longer quiet and silent. Police cars choked the partly paved, partly gravel parking lot. An ambulance was making its second run; a pale, visibly shaken EMT shut the doors and slowly walked up to the passenger side door his boots crunching on the gravel. Getting in, he shut the door and wiped a hand through his thinning blonde hair. "Jesus. You ever see anything like this. It's like straight out of some Stephen King novel."

The driver, a large man who was losing the battle of the bulge, ran a hand down his dark beard then shifted out of park. "Hell of a thing," was his only answer as they pulled away from the ship. Another ambulance was waiting to take their place as yet another body bag was unloaded from the silent ship. "Did they say how many bodies were onboard?"

His faded green eyes shifted up as he searched his brain, "Um, something like 15, I think."

"Jeeesus," the driver swore, shaking his head as they pulled up to a stoplight. "Wonder what happened to those poor bastards?"

The guy in the passenger seat seemed to pale even further. "I have no idea. The CSI guy thinks they were smuggling in large game cats or something. All I know is, every single member of the crew I saw looks like an animal mauled them." He lifted a hand to his forehead and wiped at the sweat that had suddenly beaded there.

The ambulance started to move again as the light turned green and the driver shook his head. "Poor bastards," he whispered again as they headed for the hospital.

Back on the ship, a small African American woman was examining the ship's hold, making her way among the small and large wooden boxes as she followed a trail of blood drops. She came around a crate noting a bloody scrap on the edge.

"Oh Fuck," she muttered as the weak light from her flashlight struck a hunched over figure. "Sir, are you okay?" When the figure failed to respond, she approached. She quickly realized why the figure was hunched over; another man had his feet planted in his stomach. They had died in a bizarre freeze frame from an action movie.

The guy on the bottom had a handgun loosely clutched in one hand; his upper shoulder and throat had bite marks and deep bloody scratches. He had bled out; probably a major artery had been nicked. The top figure was covered in blood starting disturbingly enough at his mouth and trailing to parts farther south. There was a gunshot almost dead center in the man's forehead.

"Hutch!" she shouted.

"What?" an annoyed male voice responded from somewhere behind her amid the rows of packing crates.

"I found two more bodies. You have to see this to believe it. Its out of one of those action flicks you like so much," she answered, reaching for her camera.

"Really?" The voice sounded closer this time and a moment later a tall gangly man moved around the corner, his own flashlight helping illuminate the area. "Holy Christ. Look at that." The blue gloves he wore were already bloodied and he pointed back the way he had come. "Found another one back there, looks like something gnawed off his leg."

She shuddered, her dark skin fading to grey for a second, until she got her stomach under control. "There's something different about the guy on top. See it?" She quirked an eyebrow at her sometimes partner.

"You mean other than the bullet hole in his forehead?" Hutch responded, looking a little green as well. Moving to the side, he peered at the two bodies, wincing a bit at the smell. "Huh, he's the only one that doesn't look like he's been used as a buffet lunch."

"Yep. I think we found our ground zero." She clapped Hutch on the back. "If I didn't know better I'd say these two were fighting."

The tall man worriedly looked at the dead men, then back at the woman. "You think this one guy killed everyone and... what? Ate them?"

She shrugged. "That's a theory I guess. We'll know more once we get this pretty boy back to the lab and pump his stomach. We can also get Nate to do a mold of the bites and compare them to his dental work."

Hutch stared at the dead men, shuddering slightly. There were days when he truly hated his job. "Come on, let's go get someone to help us move these guys," he said, eager to be out of the darkness of the ship's cargo hold.


The night shift progressed in its entire snail like glory until 20 minutes to eight when a shrill beeping noise echoed through the basement rooms. A pale hand reached off the metal table and slapped the alarm. With a horrible moaning noise, a body sat up, a white sheet slipping down the body as two arms stretched upwards. "Okay kids, night shift is over. Time to get up before our work-a-holic counterparts show up," Carson mumbled.

An interrupted snore came from the corner as the Pakistani yawned and slowly woke up from his nap. "I hate the night shift," he whined as he always did at the end of the shift, standing up and wincing as his back cracked.

"Yeah well that's what you get for not being white. If you were white and boringly normal, Hamilton would assign you the good positions. And if you were female he'd suggest a few positions," she said sliding off the table. Scratching her bright red hair, she went to the desk and started check marking all the duties they had supposedly done for the night.

"And if you were smart you'd let him have those positions," Emily mumbled through her own yawn, tossing off the white sheet she'd been laying under on top of one of the other steel tabletops. "Telling him to stuff it up his ass was fun but probably not the greatest career move you've ever made." The Goth grinned and hoped off the table. "But it was really, really fun."

Carson grumbled, "Yeah, yeah. Like I'd let him go where no man has gone before. Big ego, prick, man can stuff it up his ass. How could I be the greatest doctor alive if I couldn't look at myself in the mirror?"

Emily put an arm around Carson's shoulder and gave her a quick hug. "Awe, you can play doctor with me anytime you want." Grinning, the dark haired girl waggled her eyebrows as Jay started coughing in the corner.

Carson stuck out her tongue at Jay and hugged Emily back, "If you weren't one of my best friends, Em, I might take you up on that."

"You two...!" the short man started to say in aggravation as he rearranged his glasses, but was interrupted when the service elevator dinged. Shaking his head at both Carson and the laughing Emily, he made certain there weren't any empty beer bottles lying out. The doors to the old elevator slid up with a grinding sound and the two orderlies inside started to wheel two corpses draped gurney's, covered with white sheets towards them.

Blue eyes widened and Carson let out a whistle. "Damn! We miss out on all the fun." She smiled as Truman Daly, the day shift manager, walked in after the orderlies. "Wow, Truman, two dead corpses and on your shift. Just remember to wear protection."

"I'm safer with them then I am with you," the balding man sneered, snatching the night watch sheet from Jay's hands as the dark skinned man offered it to him. "My crew will be doing real work today, unlike you bums. We've got twenty bodies coming in from a ship in the harbor."

She smiled back at him thinly. "True, but are they safe from you? If their poor families only knew into whose hands they had entrusted their loved ones. How's that fingernail collection going?"

There was just something about Daly that creeped her out, maybe it was because he looked so much like a walking corpse that it was unnerving. He was short for a guy, thin, and she bet if she ever saw him with his shirt off, she'd be able to count his ribs, even the floaters. He made eve Jay look overweight. She shuddered at the thought of him with his shirt off.

The clock behind him chimed and he gave her a nasty smile. "Look at that, your shift's over." Behind them, the elevator went back up for another set of cadavers. "Don't you three have a rock to go crawl under?"

"Not a rock, but there's a beer with my name on it. Have fun with the dead, but not to much fun Daly," she shouted as she left the back room.

Johar followed closely behind rubbing his eyes. "You know? Oddly enough I think he lives for those morning chats."

"Fingernail collection?" Emily whispered, grabbing her jacket. "Where does he keep it?"

"I don't know. I saw it on an episode of the X-files and Truman struck me as a guy who'd get off taking fingernails from the dead and keeping them in a shoebox under his bed."

The Goth wrinkled her nose at that, although she looked more thoughtful than disgusted. "Well, I'm off, there's a horror movie marathon on this afternoon."

Carson just shook her head. "Me, I've got a date with a beer and a nudie mag. Tell Snake or Carla, or whoever you're dating this week I said hi." She gave Emily a wave then punched Jay in the arm, as they got upstairs.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Samantha Sakamoto wanted to scream, actually to be more accurate she had screamed, stomped around a bit, and kicked the tire of her two-door car. Not only had she been transferred to the night shift, after moving to this god-forsaken-city - because of a girlfriend that had left her a month later - but now she'd locked her keys in the car. "It's not fair," she muttered, crossing her arms and glared at the cars that were beginning to fill the parking lot as the day shift began. Triple-A was supposedly on its way to help her get into her car, but they were taking their sweet assed time about it.

"Ah, fairest damsel, may I be of some small assistance?" a voice asked from behind the librarian.

The Asian woman closed her eyes, gritting her teeth. "Go away." She didn't need this. Not now, and not from 'that' excessively annoying woman.

Carson grinned. Oh, and here she thought she was going to have a boring morning of beer and porn, before giving in to a nap filled with warped dreams. "Hark. What is this? A foul metal beast has eaten your keys." She rushed forward falling to her knees and setting her ear against the cold metal. "Nay, fair maiden, I can not leave you in this your time of need." Her grin got larger as she wondered if Sam was going to burst a blood vessel.

There was just the barest hint of a twitch at the corner of the dark eyes that were staring at Carson with very obvious distaste. "Get away from my car," she growled, fingers clenching and unclenching behind her back.

Carson's grin got sly. "Well, if I get away from your car that just means I'll be standing that much closer to you. So consider this the lesser of two evils." Carson stood up and walked around the car examining it.

"Triple-A will be here any minute." Samantha tried to sound firm about that, but there might have been a hint of doubt in her voice. It had been nearly an hour after all.

After a moment, Carson paused and looked around frowning when she didn't see anyone from hospital security. "You didn't happen to rip security a new asshole or anything because it's odd for them not to be here. Especially since you're a relatively attractive female in distress."

"I am not in distress," the librarian growled, shifting back and forth on her high heels. She really just wanted to get back to her apartment, but apparently, even that was out of the question this morning. "Besides those idiots are useless."

"Oh, my mistake. Have fun waiting for 'Triple-A'." She used her fingers to quote Triple-A, and smiled sympathetically. "Last time I used them it was three hour." A lie for the express benefit of Sam's discomfort. She gave a little wave and started walking in between the cars.

Carson chuckled to herself. Steve Parnel was the only Triple-A shop in town and, if she knew her mom's old boyfriend, he was stoned out of his mind. She'd let the naughty librarian stew while she got some tools from her car.

Behind her Samantha stamped her foot, crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned back against the aqua blue Toyota. "I'm going to kill someone," she muttered. She wasn't sure who, although the annoying woman from the library was a front-runner in the race.

After about 17 long minutes, Carson was back and happily asked, "Triple-A show up yet?"

"I hate this city," was Samantha's only answer, arms crossed over her chest, glaring down the parking lot towards the road.

"I'll take that as a no." Carson hummed a nonsensical song and walked over to the car. "I just had to find a big enough stick." She pulled a small metal bar out of the light jacket she was wearing. "Have this open in a jiffy. I'll just smash the windows and you'll have your keys," Carson said seriously, having to bite her tongue to keep from laughing at the irate woman.

"What?" the librarian asked as Carson pulled out the bar. "Stay the fuck away from my car!" she yelled, coming up off her leaning position against the car so fast she tripped. One high-heeled shoe went flying one way and Samantha went the other, right into Carson.

Startled, Carson dropped the bar; it clanged loudly on the cement. Not braced for the impact she staggered back trying to catch Samantha and keep her balance. She managed to catch the librarian but they both fell. Her breath whooshed out of her lungs as her back struck the ground and the Samantha fell on top of her.

Startled dark eyes stared down into Carson's.

Carson wheezed trying to catch her breath. "You know there are so many things I could say right now that the possibilities make my head spin. But I'm going to let them all go and just ask you to move your knee a little to the left."

Dark eyes narrowed as Samantha remember who it was she was lying on. Instead of answering, she used both hands to shove herself off Carson's body and then hobble upright. "Don't even think of hurting my car." Now where had that shoe gotten too?

The redhead sat up wincing. Gently she rubbed her lower back. "I was just kidding. I wasn't really going to smash your window. Jesus, you need to chill out." Crouching she found the metal jimmy bar. "I was going to open your car door." She held it up waving it about.

Snatching up the high heel shoe from the ground, Samantha held it almost like a makeshift club. "How?" the librarian asked warily.

Carson took a deep calming breath and walked over to the driver's side door. In a matter of seconds she had slipped the thin piece of metal down the windshield and down into the guts of the car door. The metal surfed back and forth until she got it caught on the part she was seeking and the lock popped.

Brushing a small lock of dark hair that had gotten free from her face, Samantha blinked in surprise as the lock popped. "Oh." Steadying herself on the hood, she managed to put the shoe back on. Suspicion returned almost immediately "Do you steal cars?"

Carson rolled her eyes. "Actually, Sam, the proper response is 'thank you." Carson pulled the jimmy out and walked past the librarian. Once she was sure she couldn't be seen, she winced and tried not to limp, positive that she had bruised her tailbone.

"Thank you, and don't call me Sam!" was shouted after her, quickly followed by the slamming of a car door and the sound of an engine revving.



The steady beep, beep, warned anybody nearby that the forklift was backing up. The large wooden crate it carried shifting as the forklift turned and then sped off towards the warehouse where the ship's cargo was being sorted. An overhead crane groaned as it lifted another bundle of cargo from the ship's hold, many of the crates stained with blood. "What the hell is all this crap?" a man wearing the bright orange vest with the words foreman on the back growled to the person standing next to him, swiping a hand across his forehead.

"This crap is all stuff from that ship that ran aground." Lauren grumbled, rubbing her eyes. She was tired, a bone weary tired that made her want to cry and throw things all at the same time. Where the hell was her partner, Hutch?

She was so going to kick that skinny white boy's ass. With a large sigh, she went back to the ship's manifest, double-checking the numbers on the crates, as they were lifted out, to the numbers on the piece of paper in her hand.

The man grunted and used a small flashlight to study the sheets on his clipboard. The walkie-talkie crackled to life with directions from the team organizing the crates in the warehouse. "You're sure there's nothing in them that's toxic or something right?"

Her bloodshot eyes glared at him from over the clipboard. "The homeland security team was the first on site. We couldn't go in until they cleared it. So if your men start losing body parts take it up with them." She went back to the numbers. God they were starting to blur together.

She wondered again, where Hutch was and got a vision of him asleep at the chair behind his desk. She'd give him 15 more minutes then she was calling the station.

Sudden loud shouting came from within the warehouse, followed almost immediately by the sound of wood shattering. The foreman was already starting to move towards the big metal building when his walkie-talkie crackled to life. "Hey boss, you better get in here, we've got a problem," a worried voice shouted.

"Fucking A, just what I need," the man grunted, shifting into a brisk jog.

Loren threw up her hands in frustration. What else could go wrong? She ran after the foreman. "What's happened?" she asked briskly.

Instead of answering, the man stepped into the brightly lit warehouse and swore again under his breath. The forklift that had passed them only moments before was stopped in the middle of the warehouse. The large wooden crate it had been carrying had fallen, toppling several other crates as it went, and shattering on the concrete floor. The contents of the crates, which seemed to be mostly packing material, had spilled everywhere. "Jesus Christ! Decker, what the fuck were you doing, playing bumper cars?" the man yelled, stalking towards the unfortunate red-faced driver of the forklift.

The African-American woman snorted. That looked like exactly what the guy had been doing. "Great, more paperwork," she mumbled, thinking of the expression on her bosses face when she handed him this report.

The foreman took in a breath, obviously intending to rip a bloody strip off the driver for being so stupid.

"Hold up!" she shouted. "I need to go take a look and take some pictures so we have it for our records." She groaned, as she got closer and saw the mess. For a second she fumbled wearily for the camera at her side, but then she had it up and was focusing in on the mess. She snapped off some quick shots. The stuff looked like tribal art and figurines. Thankfully, none of it looked damaged due to the packing materials. Letting the camera rest back by her side she looked at the manifest looking for the shipper. Hugo Greene. She paused. That name rang some bells in her head. She'd have to look into it, if she ever got back to her desk.

"We'll clean up this mess," the foreman growled, glaring at the driver, who was trying to disappear into the floor. The way the older man said the word "we" it was crystal clear who exactly would be doing the cleaning.

She sighed. "Leave it. I'll have to have the CSI guys come in and bag and tag everything. Just for stupid lawsuit reasons now." Yep she was so kicking Hutch's ass.


A spiky black head bobbed up and down to a rhythm being blasted out through a pair of clunky grey headphones. Dark brown eyes watched the numbers highlight one after another as the elevator groaned down into the bowels of the hospital.

The metal box lurched to a stop and a hand fell out off the cart. The orderly blanched and then crouched down picking it up. His nose wrinkled in disgust and he examined the wrist that looked like a dog had chewed on it. The index finger twitched and he screamed a loud scream that would do a pre-teen girl proud, just as the doors opened.

He threw the hand on to the white-sheeted figure and hurriedly pushed the gurney out into the hallway. The swinging doors to the morgue slammed open. "Here's another," the guy shouted and took off.

The morgue was already full and sheet covered corpses lined the walls as they awaited logging and storage in the refrigerator units. Those units were almost full as well and it was anybody's guess as to where they were going to have to start storing corpses after that. Scratching his nose, Truman Daly considered his options. Maybe they could commandeer one of the large walk in refrigerators upstairs. Autopsies were still being carried out on three more members from the ship that had run aground. "Hey, stop slacking, and move it. We've got more bodies on the way down," he snapped as he caught a few of his staff grabbing a quick cup of coffee.

The staff all rolled their eyes. "We need more space," someone grumbled. Another asked, "Why aren't they being taken to the hospitals in San Francisco?" Then a third person shrieked, "Jesus Christ, he winked at me. That fucking corpse winked at me."

"Knock it off." Truman snarled, shoving the man who had just shrieked away from the corpse. "Get a grip. God, you people are pathetic. Log them and put them on ice, do your jobs people."



Carson came into the morgue shaking her ass and singing, "Shake your groove thing. Shake your groove thing. Yeah, Ye...." Turning around, she stopped mid-shake. "Well, I've just lost my groove."

Emily, laughing at her friend's antics, ran into her back as she suddenly stopped just inside the door of the morgue. "Hey, if you want me to feel you up there are easier ways."

The walls were splashed with red splatter. "What the…?" She turned, looking at Emily. "I think someone on the day shift nicked an artery. Look at all that."

"Eww, I'm not cleaning that up. I think we should make Jay take care of it." Shaking her head, long beads swinging back and forth, she grinned mischievously up the stairs at the Pakistani as he slowly climbed towards them. "Clean what up? Why are you grinning at me like that?" he demanded, suspiciously.

"Truman tried to take a live one. I keep telling him that he should stick with the dead ones, they don't struggle so much, but does he listen." She pointed to the walls.

Making a face at the mess on the wall, Jay slipped past where Emily and Carson were standing. Opening the door to the little office they all shared he stopped, blinking. "Someone had a party and didn't invite us Carson." His voice had a high strained quality to it.

With a sigh, Carson went over and set her stuff on the desk. She looked over the desktop for any notes that would explain the mess on the walls. "You think Truman is getting back at us?" she asked with a frown when she didn't see any notes. Papers had been tossed everywhere.

Jay reached down to pull his chair upright. "He does not seem to like you," the dark skinned man agreed.

"Hey guys, you should come see this," Emily called from deeper in the morgue, her voice sounding very odd.
"Kay," Carson mumbled and picked up the bag and tag sheet, looking it over as she wandered back to Emily. "What's up?"

The younger woman tugged on Carson's sleeve to get her to look up from the file she was looking at and nodded towards the main area of the morgue. "That."

Unlike the entryway that had a splash of blood against the wall, the morgue itself was red. Blood was smeared across the walls, bloody handprints accentuating the bright red splashes. The floor was covered in it along with pieces of flesh. The tables were empty, but white sheets routinely used to cover corpses were strewn about on the floor, stained red.

Oddly serious, Carson looked at the morgue and at the file. After a few seconds, she said. "Well, I'm freaked. Anyone else?"

"How many bodies are supposed to be here?" Jay asked, coming up to stand next to the other two.

Carson's blue eyes darted down the sheet. "Um...." Her eyes got huge. "Looks around 20. Holy crap."

Emily started to back away. "That's it, I'm calling security. In the movies, this never ends well."

Carson's mind was trying to process everything. "What? Wait. There's a perfectly logical explanation." She went silent trying to think of one. "Okay. Call security. I'm going to go check the freezer."

The Goth grabbed the phone, wrinkling her nose at the blood splattered across it. "Ewww." Holding it up away from her black ponytails, she quickly dialed the number for security. A second later, she cut the line and then dialed again. "The line's busy. How can the line to security be busy? They don't do anything!"

Johar shrugged as he tried to pick up his little space on the desk. He really just needed a little bit of order in all this chaos, something that wasn't splattered with blood and out of whack. His dark skin was pale and his breathing a little rapid. "Maybe they're dealing with the police on whoever broke in and pulled this prank," he tried to reason.

Carson put the login clipboard under one arm as she went to open the freezer door.

"Jay, there's like ten gallons of blood on the floor, you really think this is some kind of prank?" Emily demanded, redialing and still getting a busy tone.

Johar took a deep breath. "Emily, it has to be a prank. The world revolves on certain truths. This is not a movie."

Carson eased the thick metal door open and looked in. The bodies inside lay at rest with white sheets pulled over them. The room was free of chaos; the dead were dead. She took a deep breath almost laughing at herself for jumping on Emily's horror movie bandwagon. Zombies. What had she been thinking? Walking over she pulled down a sheet and gave the body under it a quick once over. Bullet in the head, not much brain matter left. She went to the next body checking it, broken neck, and the next. This one she had to pull all the way down to see where the legs ended at the knees.

As she went to check on the next body out of the corner of her eye she saw a finger twitch. She paused and turned to face the corpse. Maybe he wasn't dead, she reasoned with herself. "Sir?" She kind of hoped he wasn't. Truman would be in so much trouble. Pulling a light out of her pocket, she pulled up an eyelid. "Sir, can you hear me?"

No response. Fingers to the neck revealed no pulse. She laughed at herself again. "Carson, you are losing it." She turned to the next sheeted body.

Emily pulled Johar with her to the door of the freezer, dark eyes large as she watched the other woman moving from corpse to sheet covered corpse. "Carson, maybe we should just, you know, go get somebody? Call the Police?"

With a sigh, Carson let the sheet fall back. "That's probably the best thing. This is seriously freaking me out. I swear one of the corpses twitched." She gave a strained laugh. "Lets go up and report this to the front desk upstairs. They can call security and we can wait for answers in a well-lit place with lots of exits. Everyone agreed?"

Johar, still holding the clipboard, with the night's duty sheet on it, to his chest, nodded. "Let us go quickly."

Emily, eyes still wide, grinned a little. "Careful Johar, if this were a horror movie you'd be the first to go. The guy who freaks out is always the first to go."

Carson rolled her eyes and bravely led the retreat from the morgue. "If this was a horror movie we'd all be the first to go. Minorities and women going down a long dark hallway... dear God, none of us are wearing red, right?"

"Nope, black all the way," Emily answered cheerfully, and then nearly did a nosedive as her feet slipped in a puddle of blood. "Ewww...."

Carson looked down and gave a sigh of relief until she noticed a strand of her hair. "Crap. Well, I'm cannon fodder." With a grin, she started towards the elevator.

Johar followed right after Emily, unbuttoning his red over shirt and tossing it into a waste bin as they passed, leaving him in a thin white t-shirt. At Emily's amused look, he forced a wavering smile. "No need to take chances, right?"

The sightless staring eyes of one of the corpses in the cold storage suddenly blinked and its eyes dilated. The legless man's mouth opened and a groan creaked out. Once dead flesh began to twitch and it tumbled from the metal table. The atrophied brain sent only the simplest of commands. "Food." Over and over, neurons fired this message. Flesh tore off fingers leaving bone exposed as it dragged its legless body across the cold floor to the door. Unable to move forward anymore it started ramming its body over and over again into the door not stopping.


"Sir, you need to remain seated. Sir, you can't come back here! Jesus, he just bit me! What the fuck? Ma'am just remain calm!" These and various other things were being shouted as the elevator doors slide open. The normally sleepy emergency room was utter chaos. Orderlies, nurses, doctors, and hospital administrators were running around, most splattered with blood.

"Wow," Emily whispered; dark eyes wide and ghostly against her blanched skin as she stared in shock at the scene outside the elevators. An orderly, his face, and white uniform red with fresh blood, screamed as three security guards struggled to restrain him. "Umm, how about a different floor?"

"I wish. First floor, front desk," Carson replied stepping out of the elevator. As a man growled and broke away from the security team trying to subdue him, she grabbed the bright red fire extinguisher off the wall and whacked him in the head. He spun about 90 degrees and dropped.

"Nice one," Johar nodded, impressed, as the large man collapsed. He started hiding behind Carson instead of Emily and ignored her not so subtly whispered, "wimp."

"Hey. Excuse me. What's going on?" Carson yelled at one of the doctors as she rushed past. There was no answer the doctor kept on moving.

"I'm seriously thinking a bunker in Montana would be a good thing," Johar whispered then flinched as teeth snapped inches from his face.

"Hello? Hey, there's a lot of blood in the basement, don't you think you guys should look into that?" Emily yelled at the three security guards, who ignored her and rushed off to the next patient trying to bite his doctor.

"Carson, I don't think they care about the morgue," the Goth groused, annoyed at being ignored.

"I'm sensing that this is a lot more serious than blood in the morgue. There is a disturbance in the force young grasshopper." She started moving; Johar and Emily falling into a single file line behind her as she swung her newly acquired fire extinguisher. Once she even fired the cold foam into the face of a raving young woman who had blood ringed around her mouth. "That is so cool." She grinned and fired it again just for kicks.

"Did she just make a star wars reference?" the younger woman in the back demanded. "And how come she gets the fire extinguisher?"

"I heard that grasshopper, and for your information I stole it off the wall fair and square."

"Can we just get out of here?" Johar cringed, trying to step around a lady who was restrained to a bed and snapping at him. "Where did all these people come from? It must be drugs. They are all hopped up on PCP," Johar babbled.

Carson and Emily just looked at him.

"Is it a full moon?" the small woman in the black clothing wondered, watching as another ambulance pulled up to the emergency room doors and unloaded another screaming patient.

As they slammed through a set of double doors, Carson's blue eyes lighted on a familiar figure. "Hey Hamilton!" she shouted.

The tall, distinguished looking man, with black hair that was graying in just the right places to make him look like a trustworthy doctor, looked up and pulled a face. "I don't have time for your crap right now Mahoney."

"Ooohh, it's the big boss," Emily whispered to Johar, mock trembling. "Maybe I should kneel down in front of him or something?"

"We are in the presence of an exalted lord," Johar answered Emily, his tone brittle dry.

"What crap?" She snarled. "I just want to know what the hell is going on. There's blood all over the place in the morgue and I'm missing 14 bodies. I'm just starting to think I'm in a Resident Evil game."

"Well since you've managed to lose 14 bodies I can now finally fire you. So thanks for that bright spot in my day." Hamilton and Carson were now almost face-to-face snarling at each other.

"Right, and I'll just turn in that little home movie I have of you and one of the day shift nurses."

He sighed and looked down his hawk like nose at her. "If you must know, and I'll use small words so you'll understand Mahoney, from what we can tell that cargo hauler must have been carrying some sort of biological agent that is affecting some of the people in town. People have been falling into violent rages and attacking each other without cause. Huntington does not have the manpower to deal with such an event and the armed forces have been notified. Now if you'll excuse me I have lives to save." He grasped his clipboard to his side and marched off.

Emily and Johar raised both arms and then made bowing motions as the senior doctor marched off. "We basked in the presence of his greatness, Johar."

The dark skinned man nodded sagely. "I feel wiser just for being here." They both broke out snickering.

"What an ass!" Carson shouted.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have lives to save. Quickly, Carson, to the bat cave!" Emily poked her friend in the shoulder, trying to get her to calm down.

Blue eyes looked over at Emily. "Holy end of the world, Batman. Come on guys I'm thinking we need to scream like little schoolgirls and flee in terror. Whenever the Army is called in to deal with infectious disease in the movies, don't they just bomb the living heck out of everything?"

Both Emily and Johar sobered at that and shared a worried look. "Yeah, but that's just in the movies. Right?" Emily asked, as they moved away from the chaos of the emergency ward.

From up ahead of them came a shrill noise.

Carson rubbed her temples, "Great someone has set off the fire alarms."

Instead, a tiny man with short blonde hair came running at them. The shrill noise was him screaming, he was being chased by two snarling and growling men who were blood splattered.

"See, just like that; scream in terror and flee like a little school girl. Nice form." Carson swung her extinguisher as the man ran past. It connected with a bone-crunching thud that made everyone wince and the first attacker was dropped like acid at a grateful dead concert.

Off balance, Carson was only able to use the red metal as a shield between her and the other man.

"Fuck! Some help!"

"Axe!" Emily shouted, pointing at the nearest fire station. Johar took off at a sprint back down the corridor, then tripped, and went sprawling. He slid to a rest at the base of the wall, managed to shove himself upright and then stared at the window with a perplexed look.

"How do I open it?" he yelled back.

"Break the glass you idiot!" Emily yelled ducking as Carson swung around with the fire extinguisher.

"Oh, right," he said sheepishly then used his elbow to break the glass. Grabbing the heavy axe, he started back down the hallway. "Here! I got it!"

Carson screamed and let go as the bloody man she was wrestling with ducked his head down and bit her hand. "Fine, have it you freak." The tank dropped and the man tripped over it slamming into the floor.

The redhead quickly back peddled "what are you waiting for Jay? Get him."

"What?" He blinked. "I can't kill him!"

The man growled and started to get up off the floor, face slick and red with blood.

"Okay, remember what shorty was doing a few seconds ago?" She points to the blond man who is cradling his right hand to his chest. "On the count of three. One, two... three." In a dead run, they all started screaming and heading towards the front doors.


Down one of the stacks where the scent of dust and knowledge permeated old books that no one had looked at in years, an odd noise came slithering out into the lighted areas. Drag, thump. Drag, thump. Drag, thump.

Samantha Sakamoto frowned as she considered the doors to the library. The night shift was always a slow one, but there was always some resident ducking in to do some research. Tonight there was no one; despite the hustle and bustle, she'd seen in the hallways of the hospital when she'd come on duty at ten o'clock. Tapping a pencil against the book she'd been staring at, Samantha sighed. How had it all come down to this? She was supposed to be well on her way to a PhD of her own, instead she was staffing a hospital library at night. Life, she decided, really sucked sometimes.

The odd noise coming from the racks caused her tapping to stop. The dark haired woman hadn't realized there was anybody else inside the library. What was that sound? Was someone dragging something? Standing up, the Asian walked around the counter top, her heels loud on the linoleum floor. "Hello?"

There was a hollow moan that echoed eerily around the wing, but the drag, thump never stopped.

Samantha rolled her eyes. Perhaps it wasn't going to be quit so boring a night as she'd thought. "Whoever that is, stop it. This is a library, so be quiet." Maybe it was that annoying woman with the bright shirt.

There was another moan although this one sounded like there might have been a growl attached to it. As the figure got closer to the lighted area, its form could be made out in the light streaming through chinks in the books.

"Look, be quiet or I'll call security," Samantha snapped. She was about to march towards the offender when a sliver of doubt held her still. This had to be someone screwing around with her, right? Almond eyes narrowed. Whoever it was she was really going to let them have it.

Drag, thump. The right leg was shorter than the left where it was broken at the ankle. Drag, thump. Light struck the torso revealing a neat 'Y' incision on the chest, and then it was back into shadows.

Despite herself, she gasped and took a step backward then a second, until she felt the smooth wood pressed up against her. "This isn't funny, I'm calling security." Blindly she reached behind her, grabbing the phone.

The figure stopped and eyes seemed to glint in the darkness zeroing in on the librarian. It shifted its stance and began to move toward Samantha.

Jabbing a button on the old clunky black phone, she scowled at the busy signal. "Useless idiots." Samantha disconnected then tried again, with the same results.

The florescent lights hit naked, pale flesh as the figure emerged from the stacks. The skin was shrink-wrapped to the bones, blue veins etched darkly like a roadmap across the skin. Black eyes seemed to glow with a fierce hunger and it made a beeline for the librarian. It raised its arms, one hand missing where it hade been gnawed off at the wrist, and made a grab for dinner.

For a second the dark haired woman stared at the creature that was lumbering towards her. The logical part of her mind, the part she valued above all else, froze. Such a creature did not, could not, exist. It was simply impossible by any law of nature that Samantha knew. Thankfully, the less logical part of her mind took over, kicking the gibbering logical part aside. She heaved the clunky black phone, a relic from the eighties or even seventies, at the creature's head.

The creature did not even attempt to duck and the phone struck it, glancing off the side of the face, tearing away skin, which hung loosely flapping as it moved. It started forward again its mouth opening revealing teeth and a black hole that was its mouth.

"Fuck it." Samantha turned and fled, surprisingly fast for a woman in high heels. Bursting through the library doors, she glanced up and down the empty hallway for help. "Where is everyone?" she demanded, turning back to the library door. She'd figure out what was going on later. Grabbing the keys on her belt, she started flipping through them, trying to find the door key. "Come on, come on."

"This one." she slid the key into the lock, looking up at the window in the door just as she started to turn the lock.

Then she screamed as a mangled arm smashed through the window.


Carson's face was red as they cut behind the library to the parking lot. "So far so good," she wheezed. "God, I'm so joining a gym."

The short blonde man who was tagging along piped up. "Could we stop for a moment? I really need a doctor to look at my...." The last part was drowned out by a piercing scream.

Carson stopped and hesitated at the sound of the scream. Her conscience warred with her common sense. "Damn it!" she growled then changed course and started running around the building.

"Hey wait! Seriously, I've lost a lot of blood," the blonde guy huffed out. "I really need a doctor." He trailed off when it was obvious no one was paying attention to him.

Samantha flew down the hospital hallway, her high heels long gone. The thing followed her, having burst through the cheap assed door of the library. With a scream, she slammed through the metal doors at the end of the hallway and tumbled out into the parking lot beyond.

Shoving herself up off the ground Samantha whipped around, brushing hair that had come loose from its topknot away from her face. Where was her car?

The zombie hit the door and the metal dented. It plowed onward its mass pressing against the lock bar opening the door.

"Go chase someone else!" Samantha yelled as the metal door swung open, the dead body stumbling after her.

Carson's face was even redder as she came around the corner. "Oh God," she wheezed. "Jay, go kill that thing." She gestured weakly to the thing fighting its way out the door.

The Pakistani skidded to a stop next to her, chest heaving as well, axe clutched to his chest. "I can't kill someone!"

Emily trailed behind them, cursing as she tried to keep up and leaving the blonde tag along behind. "Hey guys, wait for me!"

Carson waved her hands wildly at the thing. "It's not a someone, it's a zombie. It has a 'Y' incision on its chest for crying out loud."

Seeing his face was still wavering in indecision, she took a deep gasping breath getting oxygen into her abused lungs and said. "Fine. Give me that thing."

Samantha backed away as the thing managed to get out of the door and into the parking lot itself. "One of you idiots, do, something!" the blazer-wearing librarian shouted.

Jay hesitated and then handed over the ax. "Carson I don't know... what if he's just sick?"

She grabbed the axe out of Johar's hands. "Its okay, I like your ability to rationalize the chaos around us. It means, when this is all over, you can return to society a normal human, but really it's the living dead." She hefted the fireman's axe, her hand stung as the bite mark on her hand pulled open.

"God how many times to I have to come to your rescue?" she remarked to Samantha as she passed her, hefting the axe over her head. "Hey buddy?" She addressed the naked dead man.

He growled and lunged at its new target. Carson brought the axe down letting gravity do most of the work. The blade powered its way through the skull into the brain. Carson stared in terror as the man growled and continued to drag and thump his way toward her two more steps before finally dropping.

She felt funny. Intellectually she knew it wasn't a real person, but still she had just stuck an axe into some man's face. Her stomach twisted itself into a large knot.

Samantha brushed her hands through her hair, tidying it up as she tried to get a bit of control. "Well, you're almost useful for something," the librarian admitted, grudgingly. "One of your musketeers is bleeding all over himself though," she pointed out as the blonde man finally reached them.

The bleeding man in question looked quite pale but he managed to smile at the librarian in thanks. "I really was going to the emergency room for an emergency, and then those guys started chasing me." He held up his hand where a large nail was driven through it.

"Wow." Emily moved closer to peer at the wound. "How'd you do that?"

The short man cleared his throat nervously. "You see, I was tinkering with some stuff in my workshop when two chemicals that should never meet, did. So when they met and shook hands there was a small reaction and well...." He held up his hand.

"You should disinfect that and get tetanus shots," Samantha said, reciting the information for puncture wounds that she'd read in a first aid book. "You sure we can just leave him here?" she asked, nodding to the dead body. Distantly the sounds of sirens could be heard.

The small man smiled brightly, "I got a tetanus shot last month when an engine I was modifying blew up." He lifted up his blood spotted t-shirt exposing a small beer belly, and pointed at a scar right above his belly button.

Samantha shifted her gaze from the corpse with the axe buried in its head to the white beer belly being exposed nearby with the exact same look of disgust on her face.

Carson shook her head as the conversation became weirder.

Samantha rolled her eyes and stared at the dead man on the ground. "We should call the cops." She paused. "Maybe the army."

"Too late," Carson replied coming over to look at the hand wound. "According to the almighty Dr. Hamilton it's already been done."

"That's it. I'm leaving," the librarian announced, turning to walk towards her car. She moved gingerly, her pantyhose the only thing still on her feet.

"Did it hurt?" Emily asked prodding the bloody man's stomach. Johar rolled his eyes and offered the blonde man a handkerchief to wrap around his injured hand.

The man's grin got bigger, "Well not at first 'cause, you know, big boom. It was awesome. Then I realized, well my experiment had failed and a big piece of metal was hanging out of my body. I realize some people pay a lot of money to have that done but it wasn't really me." He pushed his wire-rimed glasses back up his nose.

Carson shook her head again dislodging the picture from her mind and called after the librarian. "Um, Sam, you might want to stay with us. Safety in numbers and all that."

Tendrils of black hair, that had come free from her usually meticulous bun, flew as Samantha whirled, giving the annoying woman a blistering glare. "My name is Samantha, got it? Not Sam, or Sammie, but Samantha." Turning back around she stalked off two paces, stopped, winced, and let her head drop slightly as she realized where her keys were. She sure as hell wasn't going back inside the hospital for them. Turning around she walked back towards the group of insane people, watching the dark skinned man help the crazy inventor wrap his hand. On second thought, maybe she should just brave the hospital. How bad could it be?

Carson struck a Captain America pose. "Ok team, the hospital is overrun. I say we stick with the plan, make a break for my truck, pile in, and run away as fast as we can. All in favor?"

"Maybe I'll just go get my keys and...." Samantha trailed off as four police cars screeched to a halt in front of the hospital. Policemen jumped out, running inside with guns drawn. Seconds later, shots could be heard from inside. The librarian held up her hand. "Aye."

Jay quickly raised both his hands and the blonde man did the same, winced, then raised his unhurt hand.

"Okay, good, I'll just get my axe and we'll be off." She stared at where it was imbedded and her stomach did a little loop de loop. "Never mind." She turned and started off in a brisk jog.

"Hey shorty. I have a first aid kit in my car. I can stitch up your hand." She huffed out trying not to deplete too much precious oxygen from her body.

"M-m-my n-n-names not shorty. It's Jeff."

She eyed him with his shaggy blonde hair and weak goatee, which consisted of a few wiry hairs, "I'm calling you Shaggy."

Samantha looked back towards the hospital longingly, grimaced, and followed after the four people. She tried to keep up but running in nothing but pantyhose through a hospital parking lot was a painful experience.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked hopefully.

Johar and Emily laughed.

"You wish," the Goth chick said between laughs.

"What?" she huffed out, as her face was turning slowly red from the long overdue exercise. "I could have been a doctor. A lot of people say I have skilled hands."

That only caused Johar and Emily to laugh so hard that they had to slow down to catch their breath.

Samantha passed them as they were still chuckling. "She's a dealer," the librarian announced, eyes narrowed as she watched Carson run. She still hadn't been able to prove it, but she would eventually.

"Blah, blah, blah. She's a dealer," Carson mimicked. "I wouldn't be making fun of the person who is saving your ass. I could decide there's not enough room in the truck for your ass."

The Asian woman snorted, opening her mouth to tell Carson off when she stepped on a particularly sharp piece of gravel. Cursing, she hopped around, trying to limp after them towards Carson's truck.

For a moment, Carson felt bad. Then she figured it was just Karma and it wasn't like she could carry the woman. She wasn't that butch.

"Wait for me," Samantha called, hobbling towards the pickup truck they were headed toward. She really had to find some new shoes. "Oh no, tell me we aren't going in that?"

"What's wrong with it?" Carson asked looking at her truck, highlighted in the harsh yellow lights of the hospital parking lot. "It has four new tires and it runs." The redhead fished around in her pockets for her keys.

"Umm, Carson?" Johar asked, peering into the back and seeing through the rusted steel to the asphalt below. "I can see through your truck."

"Well, since most of my money went towards college, and then medical school, which Dr. Hamilton booted me out of, I do the best I can." She flushed feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Hey this things a classic," the geek said eyeing it appreciatively.

"Thanks, Shaggy," Carson mumbled finally fishing out her keys.

"If it runs, it's perfect," Emily chimed in, giving her friend a one armed hug. Shots echoed behind them followed by screams from inside the hospital.

"I don't care if it falls apart half a mile from now, just start it!" Samantha demanded, hobbling up to them.

Carson grinned and hugged Emily back, "Okay. Two up front and three in back. There's a little rug in the back you can unroll so you don't get paint chips all over you." She unlocked the driver's door and got in leaning over to unlock the passenger's door.

Samantha gave the glare of death to Johar as he started to head towards the passenger side door. "I'll rip out your tonsils," she said seriously. The Pakistani blinked, and then backed away. "Right, back it is."

Emily, Shaggy, and Johar all piled in the back, as Carson turned the ignition and prayed. "Come on start, first time, come on baby."

The librarian slammed the passenger side door shut, then frowned as she tugged on the seat belt, which didn't budge.

The engine coughed and sputtered but finally caught. "Okay, hold on." She threw the truck into gear and sped off.

"To what?" Samantha snapped, reaching for something, anything, to hold onto.

"Jesus aren't you supposed to be a smart woman. Be gentle with the seat belt. Ease it out and it will work. If you yank on it like a bell rope it won't move."

Not deigning to answer that, the Asian woman eased the seat belt out and buckled in.

Two more police cars sped past them, heading for the hospital. "That man. He was dead wasn't he?"

"Yes," she answered sharply but her mind was questioning what she had done. What if she was wrong?

"That's completely impossible you realize," Samantha said, glancing behind them to see if any of the three stooges had fallen through the bed of the truck yet.

"What's impossible?" Carson asked as she turned on her right turn signal.

"He was moving, he chased me through the hospital, and he was dead." The librarian turned back to see where they were going. "Where are we headed?"

"Out of town." She turned out of the hospital lot on to the darkened still sleeping streets of Huntington, though there were a few lights on from the sirens.

As they drove down the Old Shore Highway, the ocean was visible on their right in all its stoic serenity. Ripples could be seen as the waves rolled up onto the rocky shoreline highlighted by the highway lights. Carson yawned, feeling zapped of energy now that there was no immediate crisis.

Samantha fidgeted in the passenger side seat, turning to look behind them every few minutes. "I just got chased by a dead guy." The librarian shook her head, having a hard time making herself believe it. It seemed so, so impossible.
"Yes," Carson agreed, mid-yawn. "Excuse me. Yes, dead guy. Chased you. All better now." She looked into the back to see the trio all huddled together.

The Asian woman shot the driver a look of scorn, muttered something about smart asses, and crossed her arms. They were passing the last of the outlying village houses; soon they would hit the highway. "What is that?" Samantha asked suddenly, sitting up a bit straighter in the uncomfortable seat. A mile or so ahead of them lights filled the road.

The redhead squinted, "I don't know." She gently pressed on the break slowing them down.

They rolled along over some rolling hills before it became very clear what they were seeing. It was a roadblock. There were three other cars idling in line, an old bronco was in the lead the driver's window rolled down and a person in some sort of uniform was talking into the window.

"Crap."

"Yeah," Samantha echoed, squinting at the lights. "Are those army trucks?"

Carson pulled over into the break down lane and slowly came to a stop. "I have a bad feeling about this."

Emily shoved open the small sliding section of the rear window. "Hey guys, this our welcoming party?"

"I guess," Carson answered. She watched the Bronco get back on to the highway headed back to town. "Well double crap. Man, the army moves fast."

"How did they know about this?" the librarian asked, watching curiously as the second vehicle, a battered sedan, followed after the Bronco. "Maybe they'll tell us what's going on?"

"Well hospital procedure would be to call the CDC, and then they probably called the Army to quarantine the town I was just hoping to get out before they got here," Carson said while she flashed her lights at the Bronco but the driver passed them without slowing. "Dickhead!" she shouted out her window.
"What a way with people you have," Samantha remarked dryly as the driver of the sedan gave Carson the finger as it too sped past. The comment surprised a giggle out of Emily, who quickly decided she'd leave the two of them alone, when the small Asian woman gave her a scathing look, and retreated to the back of the truck's bed.

Carson turned in her seat, her blue eyes hard with anger. "Look you. Just keep your comments in the peanut gallery. I know you don't like me. It's as plain as the stick jammed up your ass. So if you can't stand me that much you're welcome to get out of the truck at any moment so you are not subjected to my drug dealer ways."

Dark eyes narrowed as Samantha built up a full head of steam, clearly intending to rip a bloody strip in Carson. A sudden squeal of tires on asphalt cut her off before she could start though. The dark four-door car ahead of them had apparently decided to take its chances with the army. The driver floored the accelerator and the car sped towards the barricade, blasting past the soldiers who had been talking to the driver of the Bronco just a short time before.

Shouted commands at the driver didn't slow him. The hail of bullets from the top of the Humvee parked diagonally across the road did. The sharp staccato bursts ripped through the car with flashes of tracers interspersed between them. Samantha could feel her mouth hanging open as the car slowed, then coasted to a stop near the army trucks. "Holy crap."

Carson didn't even wait to see the fallout. She killed the lights on the truck, flipped a U-turn, and started driving very slowly back to town. Once they had crested a few hills, she turned back on her headlights.

"They just killed that guy." Samantha was well aware her voice was rising to near screeching levels. Two impossible things in one night was a bit much to handle though.

"Thank you for yet again stating the obvious," Carson muttered. She pulled off the road and parked in the parking lot of a Dairy Belle.

The Dairy Belle was located near the edge of the small city, and often used as a landmark by locals driving into town. Next door stood an old white washed church, it's single steeple still holding the same bell that tolled every Sunday morning as when it had been built generations earlier.

Samantha raised an eyebrow as they parked in the middle of the empty lot. Not even the Dairy Belle was open after midnight. "What are you doing? We have to get out of here!"

"Stop shouting at me!" Carson yelled at the librarian. "I'm stopping so we can figure out what the hell to do."

The Asian woman crossed her arms, glaring out of the windshield. "I wouldn't have to shout if you weren't so dense."

"Where the fuck do you get off? I'm sorry, next time you're about to become a snack for a zombie I'll just keep on running. 'Cause if we hadn't stopped to save your ass we'd probably have gotten out before the Army set up camp." Carson face was flushed and her blue-gray eyes had turned grayer with anger.

"Really? You and your band of merry losers?" Samantha sarcastically asked, glancing towards the rear of the truck where the three in question were still seated. The young man was showing off his wound again, describing in graphic detail how it had happened and what he had been building when it had. Emily was staring at the nail with rapt fascination and Jay was wincing in sympathy to his explanations.

"It's a fucking peninsula Sam! Where would you like me to go, because the army has control of the only strip of land in and out of Huntington? So, I thought hey, maybe we'd should stop and discuss options before running into a pack of bloodthirsty zombies. As for that merry band, at least I have friends in this time of crisis. I don't see anyone looking for your ass!" Carson yelled getting into Samantha's face.

"I don't need anyone to look out for my ass! I've been doing just great on my own. I don't need a drug dealer and her mortuary goons to help me!" She didn't need anybody's help and she was going to be damned if she'd let this annoying, white drug dealing, horrible shirt wearing, mortuary technician tell her otherwise.

"Hmmm, let's see. Who killed the evil zombie? It was me! I stuck an axe into that guy's face." She blinked realizing that she was practically on top of the librarian and was feeling really rather turned on, if the funny feeling in her pants was any indication.

"Um, guys should we stop them?" The newly nicknamed Shaggy asked his fellow huddlers in the back of the truck.

Johar glanced at the ruckus in the cab, shrugged, and turned back to their conversation. "Not unless you want to try. I'm not getting my guts ripped open."

"Can you make it move?" Emily asked, still staring at the nail and completely ignoring his question.

"Huh? Well I don't know." He pushed his glasses up with his good hand and then tried tensing the muscles in his hand seeing if the nail would wiggle.

Back in the cab of the old truck, the librarian shoved Carson back against her door, moving with her and pinning her there. "You aren't the only one who can kill," she growled; dark eyes narrowed dangerously, her breathing speeding up with her pulse.

Carson squirmed against the door, this was so wrong, the woman had called her basically the lowest form of life on the planet, and she was just getting more and more turned on. "Um, wow," she mumbled when she realized she couldn't move.

Samantha knew she shouldn't be doing this. The fact that they could have died, that she probably would have without Carson's help earlier at the hospital, was sinking in. The fact that she'd had to be saved by the person who annoyed her most, that she'd been weak, annoyed the librarian. Actually, it pissed her off. She, who had never once sought help from someone, who had always prided herself in being self reliant, had needed help. From a drug dealer! It was enough to make her want to scream. Instead, she was pressing the very same woman up against a door in a dirty pickup truck, well aware of the warm flesh beneath her hands. Dark eyes dropped to study Carson's lips and she unconsciously licked her own.

Carson's eyes tried to look at what Samantha was looking at on her face. Was it a bug, or a booger? Her eyes went cross-eyed, oh her lips. Oh her lips. She squirmed at little more maybe there was hope for the librarian.

There came a knock on the window separating the cab from the truck bed. "You two aren't going to hurt each other are you?" came a timid voice.

Samantha quickly shoved back from Carson and slammed open the small hatch set in the rear window. Reaching out she grabbed the man's arm, digging her nails in, and dragged him down to her level. "What's your name?" she demanded.

"Jeff, Jeff King, um, Ma'am." he said with a squeak.

"Well Jeff, Jeff King, if you ever interrupt me again I'll rip that nail out of your hand and use it to gauge out your eyes." she shoved him back out of the cab, slammed the hatch shut and crossed her arms over her chest as she glared out of the front window.

"Are we just going to sit here all night or are we going somewhere?" she demanded, refusing to look at the woman in the driver's seat.

Carson's reddish brown eyebrow hitched. "Um, what? Oh yeah, well where would you like to go?" She asked shakily wondering if she could get a moment alone somewhere just to take the edge off her arousal.

"Away from you," was the immediate answer that sprang to Samantha's mind. For once though she didn't say it. "Home," she heard herself say instead. "I don't live far from here," she added, scowling as she realized she was undoubtedly going to have to bring people to her place. She didn't like people, as a general rule.

"Sure." Carson turned to the small window and opened it, looking into the bed of the truck. "Hey guys. After much discussion Sam and I have decided to go to her place so we can regroup and maybe figure out an exit plan."

The blonde with the nail still in his hand nodded shakily and huddled between Johar and Emily.

"We should probably do something about his hand, Carson." Johar said, eyeing Samantha warily after hearing her threaten Shaggy.

"I'll take care of it once we're there, okay? Honest Shaggy I would have made an excellent doctor."

"But she works with dead people now," Samantha muttered.

Carson glared at the librarian. "Yeah but somehow I get the feeling you should be the one working with the dead." She threw the stick into reverse and pulled out of the parking lot.

"They can't be worse than the living," the librarian muttered under her breath. "Turn right," she said louder.

"Definitely a dominatrix in her spare time," Carson muttered but did as she was told

As they drove into town, they could here someone shouting on a bullhorn several streets away. "Residents of Huntington. Please lock your doors and do not let anyone in. Huntington has been placed under quarantine."

The voice droned on and on about proper authorities, and that those who disobeyed would be punished.

As they drove around behind the Dairy Belle, Samantha sat glaring out of the windshield, arms crossed over her chest. She ignored the driver, preferring to fume, something that she had developed into an art form over the years. Squinting, she peered up at the night sky, wincing when a bright spotlight flashed over them as a helicopter flew past. "Cavalry is here."

"Yeah but will the Calvary know what to do or will innocent people die?" Carson asked her grumpy passenger.

Getting only the silent treatment in response Carson focused back on the road waiting for a terse turn here, and go forward, until she got a pull over.

The librarian grimaced as she glanced into the back of the truck cab at the three others. Why in the world did she want to bring these people into her house? A blare of a horn jerked her back to the street as a dark car raced past them, far too fast for the narrow city street.

"Jesus. Watch out!" Carson shouted as she saw someone stumble out into the street. The car tried to swerve and the driver laid on its horn, but all in vain. There was a sickening crunch as the stumbling body was eaten up and spat out underneath the car's rear tires. The car leapt the curb and squashed itself on a light pole.

"Oh my god," Samantha whispered eyes wide as she stared at the car, it's front end crumpled inwards, horn still blaring as steam leaked from the hood, all illuminated by the street lights.

Not even thinking about it, Carson got out, reaching into the back of the truck, grabbing her first aid bag, and slung it over her shoulder then rushing over to the car.

"Are you insane!" the other woman yelled, and then cursed as she got out of the truck and started hobbling after her in the ruins of her pantyhose. She glared at the three in the back of the truck. "Are you going to do something or just sit there?" she demanded sarcastically.

Shaggy held up his hand showing the large nail still imbedded in it.

"Wimp." she scowled hobbling along.

Carson reached over the woman, who was now impaled on her steering wheel, and angled her hand until she found the ignition and turned the car off. She was fairly certain the woman was dead but searched for a pulse. "That is why you should always wear your seatbelt little lady." Carson mumbled, letting her hand fall away. She scanned the car seeing worldly possessions that had been hastily thrown in, before she turned away to the person that had been run over.

Samantha slowed to a walk, Jay and Emily coming up behind her to stare down at the quite obviously dead person. "Hey, Carson," Emily called, grimacing a bit at the smell. "This guy looks like he was buried."

"What the fuck?" Carson mumbled. She fumbled in her bag and produced a slim flashlight, which she turned on. The guy was covered in thin layer of some dark substance but the big thing was there wasn't any blood.

"Is it just me or is this guy bleeding embalming fluid?" Carson asked Johar and Emily.

"Why's he wearing a tux?" Samantha whispered. This was the second, no wait, the third dead person she'd recently seen. That was three more dead people than she'd ever seen before.

Carson picked up the hand. The flesh was shredded exposing finger bones. She let the hand fall back to the ground then lifted each eyelid and shined her light into them. Nothing but a cloudy film. "This guys been dead maybe a week."

The car door was shoved open with a metallic scream and a body emerged with a horrible groan. Five heads whipped around to the noise.

"She's dead, right?" Emily asked, staring at the woman that slowly started to walk towards them, part of her chest crumpled in on itself.

Carson raised the flashlight to the chest, highlighting the bloody imprint of a steering wheel. "Um, yeah. Ribs crushed, probably puncturing the heart and lungs. Death was instantaneous on impact. The steering wheel prevented her from being launched out through the windshield."

Shaggy shook his head. "No airbag," he said sadly, studying the woman as she lurched towards them. "You know that makes me think of an invention I tried once."

"Umm, guys." Samantha started to back away from the group, staring to the left of them towards the old churchyard.

"So why isn't this guy still going?" Johar asked pointing to the corpse at his feet.

"Guys," Samantha said a bit louder, starting to back away even faster.

"I have no idea. What?" She turned to the bossy librarian.

The Asian woman pointed towards the cemetery behind the old church. "We should go."

"This can't be happening." Johar whimpered his eyes going wide.

"Not again." Shaggy said taking a step back.

Samantha turned and started to run for one of the houses on the opposite side of the street. "Move you idiots!"

"Time to go." Emily agreed.

"Okay kids follow the bossy woman," Carson agreed, herding the group after Samantha.

Shambling hordes of the recent dead were pulling themselves out of the earth in a horrible mockery of birth.

Jerkily they gained they're land legs and spilled out from the cemetery to satisfy the only urge they felt, to feed.

-------------------------------------------

"You know, I could design a better security door for you." Shaggy offered helpfully as he held out his injured hand for examination.

Samantha stood by the street side window, staring down with the others at the hordes of the dead who were moving about in the street below. The apartment itself took up the entire second floor of a nice sized house. The furnishings were a bit sparse, except for the books. There were bookshelves across every wall, and more books piled nearly everywhere there was space. Books in the kitchen, in the bathroom, under the coffee table, and in the bedroom. The entire place was stuffed full of books. "I like to read." Samantha had growled as they entered, slamming and locking the door behind them, daring any of them to comment, while thanking God that her spare key was still where she'd left it.

Carson said nothing but she was wondering if there was an X frame hidden somewhere in the apartment, but she kept that to herself. She instead focused on cleaning the area around the nail. Holding the pliers, which Samantha had chucked at her head, when she had asked for them, she asked, "You ready to swab the wound when I pull this, nurse Emily?"

"Whenever you are, oh great, Dr. Carson." Emily mock swooned, fluttering eyelashes and all, and then made a face. "Ugh, I think I just made myself sick."

"Well no getting sick on the patient, Nurse Emily, or we will have to have a little discussion later." She was happy to note Shaggy had relaxed with their joking and she pulled the nail, going for her suture kit while Emily blotted the blood that pooled out of the wound.

"Don't you dare get blood on the sofa," Samantha commanded, causing Shaggy to hold his arm hastily out over the wooden floor.

"You should see this, Carson. There are some of them that are barely even bones." Johar called, from his lookout in the kitchen window.

Carson, "uh huh'd," while she stitched Shaggy up.

"What do you think is causing this?" The small man asked looking kind of pale.

She sprayed more deadening agent on the skin and then finished up. "I have no idea: planetary alignments out of whack, necro hoodoo, coming of Christ, or cows having too much gas. I haven't got the foggiest. Why don't you ask the reader?" She got up and went into the kitchen to throw away the gloves she was wearing and wash her hands.

"Necromancy, Virus, and Aliens are the top three causes in the books," Samantha answered absently, grimacing at something down in the street. "Misses Hood's cat just got eaten. I hated that thing," she muttered, smiling a little.

"So what's the plan?" Johar asked looking around at everyone's face.

Samantha crossed her arms, saying nothing. Emily studiously started to bandage Shaggy's hand, while the fussy haired engineer bit his lip. As one, they all turned to stare at Carson.

Carson came into the room with a shrug and looked for a place to sit. "I'm thinking of going to the local market for some beer and porn, and dying with a smile on my face. Personally I'm tapped out of ideas."

"Good to see you'll die as you lived, a moron," Samantha muttered.

Carson's face turned bright red. "Fuck you! I haven't seen you do one productive thing. All you do is bitch and moan, and tear us down for our personal flaws. But at least we're trying!" Carson stormed off, the bathroom door slammed shut behind her.

"Where's your TV?" Shaggy asked as Emily finished wrapping his hand.

"I don't have one," Samantha answered calmly, walking towards the bedroom and closing the door behind her.

"She doesn't have one?" He blinked, his tone conveying what a sacrilege that was "How can she not have one?"

"We're doomed," Johar said sobbing into his hands.

"It's not that bad," Emily remarked, getting up and going to see out the window for herself.

"Um, well maybe we should sit down and look at this logically," the blonde man said nervously. "I mean, the dead don't just come to life. There has to be some sort of trigger. An event that put all of this into motion. Maybe if we made a list of what we know, it would help." He got up looking for a paper and pen.

Carson sat on the toilet wondering how her mother and half-sister were doing. She smiled wryly. Her mother was probably passed out and zombie chow and her sister was probably in some hotel room giving a blowjob to some client. They'd never have a clue to the chaos that was going on outside.

There was a slight feeling of guilt for not rushing out to find them but she knew that they were doing the same thing, if they were even aware of what was going on. She sighed and ran the hot water in the tub. Happily, she noted it was hot, so life wasn't all bad. She was going to get a hot bath, in the naughty librarian's bathtub, of all places.

In her bedroom, safe from the people who had invaded her domain, Samantha removed what was left of the pantyhose then went to find a nice pair of slacks to replace the ruined skirt. "Stupid zombies," she muttered, tossing her stuff aside. "I hope they get Mary-Ann." The librarian spared a small smile for that thought, and then went back to her search.

As the early morning rays struck the frightened city of Huntington, Carson was sticking her nose into every nook and cranny of Samantha's apartment. The trio of Shaggy, Johar, and Emily were passed out on the couch and the floor.

The door to Samantha's bedroom eased open and a yawning librarian peeked out. "Crap, it wasn't a dream," She growled, spotting the three people passed out on her couch. She'd rather hoped it had been a nightmare. Sighing she crept out, wearing the red silk pajamas she'd slept in, and tried to move to the bathroom without being seen.

Carson's head popped out from the doorjamb to the kitchen. Honestly, she tried to behave because she was mad at Samantha but her eyes wandered just the same.

"You're a pig," Samantha growled without turning around, slamming the bathroom door shut behind her.

"Blah, blah," Carson huffed. She moved into a small den that housed, big surprise, more books. There was a tiny desk that housed an old computer, and she noted happily, there was a phone line connected to it. She turned it on and waited what seemed like forever to connect to the Internet.

Scanning the news, she saw a small blurb on how Huntington was under quarantine for a biological agent. "My ass," Carson mumbled.

The sound of a flushing toilet came from the bathroom, followed by running water as Samantha took a quick shower. By the time she was done, and had slipped into her bedroom to change, the three on the couch were starting to wake up. "We still have electricity and water," the librarian announced entering her small den, somehow not surprised to see Carson behind the old computer.

"Again with the stating the obvious," Carson muttered.

"Are you always this annoying?"

She looked up from the computer, "So where do you keep the whips and chains?" Carson asked innocently.

Samantha leaned over the desk, her smile a touch feral. "If I had any, don't you think I would have used them to shut you up by now?"

Carson blinked and went to her happy place. "So what you're trying to tell me is that I need to work harder."

"What I'm trying to tell you is that I hate you."

Reaching out she caught Carson's hand, hauling it closer so she could peer at it. "What's this?" Samantha demanded.

"No you hate people in general. Me, I have a special place under your skin." She tried to grab her hand back, "What's what?

The Asian woman clung onto it, refusing to give it back. "This. Is this a bite?"

"Oh that. Yeah. Some guy bit me at the hospital yesterday. See, its already healing, its no big deal. Although if you want to play nurse...."

"What guy bit you?" Samantha demanded, ignoring the leer.

"One of the guys chasing Shaggy." She tried to get her hand back again. "Do you work out or something? Can I have my hand back? It's obvious we aren't having a moment here so I'd like it back."

Samantha suddenly released it and stood back from the desk, watching Carson intently with an odd expression on her face.

"What?" Carson sat at the computer looking back. She looked down at her shirt. It was relatively clean since she had been wearing a hospital scrub over it. She looked back up, her blue eyes looking at Samantha in question.

"Do you feel any different? Fever? Aching? Strange urge to eat flesh?"

"Huh?" Carson got up out of the computer chair. "I feel fine. Why are you concerned about health all of a sudden?"

"Virus is number two on the top three reasons for zombies." She let the rest stay unsaid.

Carson's eyes got wide with understanding. "Oh, and here I thought you had a moment of caring." She stormed out past Samantha.

Samantha refused to feel like an asshole for having raised what she thought was a valid worry. This, she decided, was just another reason why she didn't like people. They always blew things like simple questions, out of proportion. "I was just asking!" she yelled after Carson's retreating back.

"What's going on?" The trio asked sleepily as Carson stomped into the room.

"Nothing. She's just being her charming self again," Carson huffed, going into the kitchen and raiding the refrigerator

"For your information, I can be charming when I want to," Samantha muttered, stomping across the room to peer out of the window. She winced as she saw the chaos in the streets below. A thick column of smoke was rising from the direction of the hospital, and the streets were littered with debris and bodies, some of which still moved.

Carson grunted in the kitchen and drank right out of the carton just for spite.

"God, they act like an old married couple," Johar whispered to Emily.

Emily snickered until Samantha turned around to glare at her.

"What's going on?" Shaggy asked, looking back and forth from the kitchen to the annoyed looking Librarian.

"She has a bite. On her hand," Samantha announced, feeling it was best if they all knew, just in case.

The three stooges blinked for a moment before their eyes went wide in understanding.

Flicking a non-existent bit of dust off her sleeve, Samantha pretended not to notice as she turned back to studying the scene outside.

"Guys, chill out. I'm not going to come down with a sudden case of dead," Carson grumbled, seeing their panicky faces, and glaring at the librarian's back.

"I think it's getting worse out there." The Asian woman announced, in the same tone one would use to say 'I think it's going to rain'.

Emily, Johar, and Jeff just looked back and forth from one woman to the other as if they were watching a tennis match.

"Well, you have the dead killing people and those people getting up. Its kind of a slippery-slope of creationism," Carson muttered, scratching her itching hand unconsciously.

"Carson? Maybe we should, you know, disinfect that or something?" Emily said from her position on the chair. The Goth girl was watching the other woman itch her hand with a fascinated look on her face, as if she almost hoped Carson would change right in front of them.

"So are you going to start chewing on us?" Shaggy asked what they all were pretty much thinking.

Carson sighed and walked over, smacking him on the back of the head. "No." She turned to Emily "Yeah probably should get it cleaned. You wanna do the honors?"

"I'll help." Johar said quickly, standing up with Emily. He wasn't going to be left in the same room as the Librarian without Carson or Emily for back up.

The reflection of Samantha's face in the window smiled.

"My med bag is in the kitchen." Carson stuck her tongue out at the librarian before following Johar and Emily back into the kitchen.

Shaggy sat nervously for a second, fidgeting. He cleared his throat but said nothing. Then he too got up and went into the kitchen.

The smile got larger and Samantha pulled a chair closer to the window so she could sit and watch outside. For the first time she wondered if she should have gotten a television, or even a radio, to replace the one's that her ex had taken.

A half-hour later Samantha entered her kitchen, pausing at the doorway to watch the three people who were huddled over Carson's hand. Medical supplies were spread out across her small kitchen table and a small reading light had been brought in to provide better illumination. How, she wondered had she ended up with this, this group of... people. For some of them she used the term lightly.

"Emily, unless you have a very powerful microscope you can't see if I've been infected with anything. Just wrap it already," Carson muttered.

"We have a problem," Samantha said finally.

"And what would that problem be?" Carson asked, her head poking up out of the huddle over her hand. "The one where sooner or later the zombies figure out that there's live meat to be had or the one where we run out of food?"

"I think we are going to have to leave before either of those." The Asian woman walked closer, trying to peer through the huddle at where Emily was wrapping Carson's hand.

"Careful. Don't get too close or I might eat you." The leer on Carson's face gave away the double meaning of her statement.

Samantha stopped and sneered. "I'd kill you."

Carson just chuckled. "You say that a lot. But you're warming up to me, I can tell."

"Umm, excuse me?" Shaggy interrupted before the two of them got going. "You said there was another problem?"

Johar kept his head down and whispered, "They're doing it again."

"What?" Samantha looked at the man, annoyed, and then shook her head. "Right. I don't think anyone's putting out the fires."

"Yeah, it's kinda weird." Emily whispered back, taping off the bandage around Carson's hand.

"We need to get out of town, but we can't do that; ten to one the armed forces have this town locked up tighter than the brothel owner's cash box. So that leaves one other option." She looked down and took her hand away from Johar and Emily who were gripping it tighter with each word she spoke.

"I made a fire extinguishing bomb, it was really neat: it exploded and flung foam everywhere." Shaggy said wistfully, lost in his own little world of inventions for a moment.

Samantha gave him a strange look and then turned back to Carson. "Anyway, you were saying?"

Carson was also looking at Shaggy oddly at the strange jump in topic. She cleared her throat. "Anyways, we need to find the source of the zombie infestation and stop it."

"Uh, Carson?" Emily looked back and forth between the two others for support. "We don't know what started it, do we?"

Carson leaned back in the chair. "What's the only thing that has happened in this town the same time people started walking post-mortem?"

"I got a nail in my hand." Shaggy offered helpfully, holding up his injured hand.

Samantha shrugged; her days had been going about as well as any of them ever went before she nearly became zombie food at the library last night.

"They were getting a lot of corpses yesterday." Johar said slowly, frowning as he tried to remember where they had been coming from.

Carson rolled her eyes. "Don't any of you pay attention when Truman is yelling at us? That ship that ran around? All the dead bodies came from that ship and from the bodies I saw, they didn't die in a boating accident."

Emily and Johar looked at Carson blankly. "Sorry, was he yelling at us again? I went away to my happy place," the Goth chick quipped.

The legs of Carson's chair hit the floor with a thump and she leaned forward, letting her head rest on the table with a thump. "What am I going to do with you guys?"

"Toss them to the zombies?" Samantha offered hopefully, only partly joking.

"You know I like you, right Carson?" Shaggy said hastily.

Sitting back up she retorted, "No. There will be no tossing of my faithful minions. Ok minions, time to start plotting. We need to find out if that boat was connected in any way to our current infestation of living dead."

The lights flickered and died, leaving only the sunlight coming in through the windows to illuminate the room. Shaggy looked up at the now dark kitchen lights. "The electricity lasted longer than I thought it would."

"There goes using my computer to find out things," Samantha sighed.

"Police station," Johar stated.

"What?" Carson blinked.

"The police would know what's going on. They probably investigated that accident, plus there will be guns and hopefully people to protect us there," he answered thoughtfully.

Carson beamed. "Well done minion." She patted him on the back.

"The police station is six; no wait, seven blocks from here," Samantha pointed out. "And I think someone set fire to your truck sometime last night."

"What?" Carson shot up from the table then went and pressed her face against the window trying to look out.

"See? That's where you parked it right?" The librarian shoved Shaggy aside to push herself up next to Carson and point at the smoldering truck below. A car had flipped over next to it, and burned as well.

"Oh man," Emily whispered, peering around the librarian's shoulder.

"Shit." She knew it would be forever until she could afford another vehicle.

"Sorry," Johar offered, patting Carson on her shoulder. He knew she'd liked that rust bucket of a death trap. "It's in a better place now."

She pulled away from the window. "OK now it's personal. I need a chainsaw." She looked at Shaggy.

He looked back. "What?"

"Make me a chainsaw, you're the engineering geek."

He sighed in relief. "Why don't we just go to a hardware store and get one?"

"Pffftt. You and your logic."

"There's one opposite the church on Main Street." The Asian woman pointed down the block, past the cemetery.

"Fine." Carson strode toward the front door. "Teach those flesh eating creeps to torch my car," she grumbled.

"Wow, look at all those fires." Emily pressed her face against the window to see up the street, opposite the way Samantha was pointing. "Is the end of your block on fire?"

Samantha winced, looking around her apartment at all her beautiful books. Which one's to save? It was going to be impossible!

"Um, Carson maybe we should all go together. Safety in numbers," Johar pointed out.

"What? Fine," she huffed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The light shone weakly through gathering dark clouds on the burning town of Huntington. Carson slunk down the street pausing every once in awhile. She wondered two things while she did this. One - why did she have to go first? Two - why did Sam have a baseball bat? It seemed sort of low class for the librarian to have in her apartment. She didn't complain and actually found the wood of the bat comforting as she gripped it tightly in her right hand. It just seemed out of place.

A zombie lurched out of the shadowy entrance of an alleyway and she came to a stop plastering her body to the brick wall of a building grunting as bodies thumped into her from behind.

The librarian in question was doing her best to manage a rucksack overflowing with books.

Carson grinned. Feeling the hand resting on her ass she turned her head and looked at Samantha. "I knew you were warming up to me," she whispered.

The librarian narrowed her eyes, opening her mouth to yell at the annoying woman. Realizing that was a bad idea under current conditions, she smiled suddenly and pinched, hard.

Carson jerked in pain and surprise smacking her head against the brick wall.

Blue eyes glared back at the smiling librarian.

Johar shook his head, turning to Emily. "They're acting weird again. Maybe we should lock them in a room and let them work out this thing they have going on."

"They might kill each other," Emily whispered back.

"I'm afraid their going to get us killed, if they don't kill each other first."

Carson stiffly moved forward as the Zombie started off across the street dragging its intestines behind it.

Samantha wrinkled her nose at the sight, tasting bile.

Shaggy nearly fell over as Emily suddenly moved forward, and he had to jog to catch up.

Blue eyes stayed looking forward not wanting to see what could be causing such a horrible stench from inside the alleyway.

"How much farther?" she asked. She could feel sweat starting to gather on her face and the palms of her hands.

"At the corner. See it?" The librarian pointed at the small hardware store.

"Thank goodness."

Curious, Shaggy looked to see what that god-awful smell was. Was that a... his face lost color and he hurled the meager contents of his stomach.

The creature lurching across the street stopped.

"Uh oh," Emily said, grabbing Shaggy and dragging him even as he continued to retch.

"Uh oh," Samantha echoed, as they suddenly became the center of attention. "I think we should make a run for it," the librarian announced, craning her head to see more and more undead starting to head towards them. "Now would be a good time."

"Holy...." Johar started.

"Crap," Carson finished. "Single file kids lets all run now." They broke into a panicked run.

Carson easily kept up with the librarian due to the fact she was lugging a sack of books around. "Um, this is kind of a personal question," she huffed out.

"What?" Samantha puffed, trying to move faster, even with what felt like a ton of books on her back.

"But I know I can trust you with this. If I happen to shuffle off this mortal coil will you make sure to torch my body?"

"My pleasure. Now shut up, I'm running for my life here."

The redhead just grunted and then said. "But you can only torch me if I'm dead, no cheating." She dropped back to help Emily who was dragging a frightened geek who had picked up a hitchhiker. A zombie, which was nothing more than an upper torso, had grabbed his leg and was trying to grab some lunch on the go.

"Shaggy, there is just something about you they find tasty." She hefted the bat and brought it down again and again. Bones grated and broke with a sickening sound, and finally the hand released as Carson swung the bat with such force it caved in the side of the skull. Congealed blood and rotting brain matter splattered over her neck and chest.

"We better hope it's not a virus," Samantha grumbled, using her bag full of books to bash aside a wandering zombie that was between them and the hardware store.

"Emily, tell me I'm getting massive butch points for this," Carson whined grabbing Shaggy's other arm and helped the Goth girl drag the small man forward.

"You are queen of the butch," Emily huffed, trying not to be too disgusted by the brain matter that was now spattered all over her.

The librarian slammed into the doors of the hardware store, nearly bouncing off them. "Oh crap! It's locked!" she shouted back to the others, frantically tugging on the doorknob.

Carson rolled her eyes. "Johar, help the lady. Put that manly body to work."

Johar rushed the door, and bounced back off it again just as quickly. "Ouch," he whined, rubbing his shoulder. "It's hard!"

Samantha rolled her eyes, and then worriedly took in the large crowd of zombies that were now shambling towards them. "Umm, does somebody know how to pick a lock quickly?"

Lifting up the gore encrusted bat Carson muttered. "Got your lock pick right here." She tossed it to Johar. "Just picture the doorknob as that bitch from payrolls head, the one who keeps calling homeland security on you because you're a terrorist."

Johar grabbed the bat, grinned, and slammed it down on the old-fashioned doorknob, which made a very satisfying crunch before falling off. "Oh yeah. Who the man!"

Samantha shoved the door open and tumbled inside. "I've never heard that said with an accent before."

"Look at all the toys!" Shaggy babbled as he was helped inside, in a bit of shock after nearly having become food.

Carson slammed the door shut and frantically searched for something to wedge the door shut. "Guys, a little help."

A half gnawed off face slammed into the door window, smearing it with blood. "Here!" Emily grabbed a heavy metal crowbar and ran towards Carson.

As Emily slid the crowbar in the handles, Carson's blue eyes began to search for wood and nails. "Let's get this boarded up."

Samantha left them to it. The librarian set her bag of books down on the counter top then went and made certain the metal fire door at the back of the store was dead bolted shut. "We're safe back here."

Carson just grunted, and started to hammer the nails that Shaggy was handing her into the 2x4 that Johar was holding.

"Hey, amateurs move out of the way." Emily grinned grabbing a nail gun from off the rack and holding it up. "Look at this."

"To bad it has to be plugged in to work," Carson mumbled around the nails in her mouth. "I'm thinking weapon."

Shaggy wandered away, leaving Johar and Carson alone by the door and the horde of zombies. "Oh nifty! I could make it work somehow, I'm sure."

"Geek boy!" Carson shouted losing nails. "Focus. Zombies out there who want to make you their bitch."

"Right, right, my bad," Shaggy hurried back, spilling nails from the box he carried.

Sam eyed the metal grating that was pulled across the front windows of the store, swallowing as she saw the mass of zombies pressing up against the outside. "I hope that holds."

"Me too," Carson sighed stepping back from the door. It seemed to be holding. So far, everything seemed to be holding. After a moment of surveying her domain, the redhead suddenly felt worn out. She could feel sweat and other nastier fluids drying on her body and it struck her that she had bashed several people in the face over the course of a few days. Sure they were dead, but she wasn't sure if that made it okay.

"If you guys are okay I'm going to go find a restroom and hope that it still works." Absently scratching an armpit, she started looking for at least a sink so she could wash her face.

Samantha followed her, leaving the three musketeers to rummage through the tool aisle for something that could be useful. Personally she had dibs on one of those fire axes in aisle one. "You feeling okay?" she asked, standing in the door of the small 'Employee's Only' washroom.

Blue eyes blinked. "Just worn out." The redhead mumbled in response unable to come up with anything snappy. She ran the water and splashed some on her face, grimacing. "You know I took an oath to save lives. It feels like I made that oath a lifetime ago. Now all I do is deal with the dead, past couple of days the dead have been more active than usual."

"You were a doctor?" That was news to Sam. A triumphant exclamation from in the shop caused her to look back to where Shaggy was pointing at something. He caught sight of her staring at him, and winced, calming down.

Carson grimaced and wet a paper towel, trying to scrub away the drying gore on her neck. "Yes, well no, I was an intern in the ER, but Hamilton said I didn't have what it took and got me removed." She frowned eyeing her shirt. With a sigh, she stuffed paper towels in the drain and turned on the water.

"You start dealing before or after that?" The librarian knew how her question sounded, but she didn't really mean to sound that bitchy, she was just curious.

Carson turned off the water, stripped off her shirt, and tossed it into the sink to soak. Her blue eyes looked at Samantha "Nothing personal but I plead the 5th on that, cause once we go back to our normal lives you'll just go back to trying to get me arrested."

"Probably," she conceded that point. "But we might never go back to our normal lives"

Unconscious about her half-dressed state she walked out of the bathroom and started going through the five small lockers along the wall until she found a brown shirt with the name Bill sown on it. Slipping it on she faced the librarian and started buttoning it up.

"Nice shirt."

"Its mine. I found it fair and square." She grinned mischievously. "But if you want to wrestle for it I'm game."

"No thanks. I don't want to smell like Bill. He probably had lice or something."

Samantha turned in time to see Emily smiling in their direction. The second she was caught looking, the Goth hurried back to join the two men. "Are they always that weird?"

"Yes," Carson answered without thought. "Well, Shaggy is new, but he seems like he'll fit in well, if he lives."

Moaning from outside the shop's back door and the rattling of the fire door signaled that the shop was completely surrounded.
"We're not going to be able to stay here you know." Samantha figured she might as well state the obvious.
"Stating the obvious again. Really, Sam, why are you here, with us?" Carson asked, eyeing the librarian. "You don't like us and all you do is bring a rain cloud to our parade. You could have stayed holed up in your apartment. I'm fairly certain you're a big enough bitch to scare the zombies."
The librarian's face tightened. "My building was going to burn down, remember?" She curled a lip into a sneer. "Don't worry, the second I can, I'm going to get away from you losers."
"There are always choices Sam and remember you chose us." Carson said with a tight grin. "Now if you'll excuse me. As nice as the brief thaw in our cold war was, I can tell, I'm now back up to ranking right up there with something you found on your shoe. I'm going to go be productive and check this place out. Wouldn't want the zombies to sneak up on us." Carson turned back to Bill's locker then, not finding what she wanted, opened the next one. With a grin of triumph, she held up a flashlight. Happily, it turned on and off like it should.
"Under," Samantha whispered. "Under my shoe." Her eyes wandered around the hardware store. Now, what was a good weapon?
The redhead clicked the flashlight to the on position and started to explore the back recesses of the shop. Carson figured she really needed to have her head examined. There was something about the librarian that was well… she was a siren to Carson, and like those foolish sailors from Greek mythology, Carson kept bashing her boat into Samantha's rocky shore. She stopped and frowned. God, that was like the worst metaphor. Wandering behind the counter she found a small business office with a safe and stairs, gulping she gripped the flashlight in one hand, the bat in the other.
Oddly, she was happy for the space from the librarian, she found her brain was functioning much better. She could blame her juvenile and somewhat lusty thoughts and behavior to the crisis at hand, but she had to admit, the librarian had been having an effect on her before the world flipped on its ass. The first stair down into the gaping black maw of nothing creaked making her jump.
"Are you insane?" Samantha called from right behind her, a metal crowbar cradled in her arms. "Do you KNOW what happens to people who go off on their own during Zombie stories?"
Her heartbeat only increased to an alarming rate as Samantha's voice startled her. "Yes they die horrible deaths." She turned pointing back at the three stooges, "but look at them. They are happily playing and for a moment, they have forgotten that we all may die and right now they need that while they make weapons that probably will save us later on down the road. So I get to play lone hero exploring shadows."
The librarian snorted behind her. "And come back as a Zombie? I don't think so Lone Ranger, I'm coming with you."
"Of course you are because you love to torment me," Carson muttered.
"Shut up and let's get this over with." Samantha peered around the annoying woman. "I can't believe we're going into the basement. Do we really have to do this?"
Carson looked over her shoulder, "No we don't have to do this. You can stay here, thus losing the element of we."
"You're right, there is no 'we.' There is you and I going to do something stupid. Let's go." The irritation in her voice was growing.
Carson sighed and started down the stairs again. The stairs moaned and groaned in an obscene way as they made their way down into the darkness, the flashlight was making a feeble stab into that ominous gloom.
"You would think that a hardware store would have better stairs." Samantha grabbed Carson's shoulder and let out a startled yelp as the stairs shifted.
Carson was beginning to wonder if maybe this was a bad idea; briefly she thought about turning around but as Samantha yelped and grabbed her that threw that thought out the window. The librarian would never let her live it down if she chickened out.
"What was that?" Samantha whispered as something skittered through the darkness. She moved closer until she was crowded up against Carson's back.
It was dank, an unfinished basement; part packed dirt, part rough poured cement. Carson took a deep breath as Sam's warm body pressed into her back. "Um, it's probably a rat. It doesn't sound like anything too big." Carson's brain paused. "You know we haven't seen any living dead animals."
The other woman pressed even closer to Carson's back, swallowing as she tried to look everywhere at once. "Undead animals?"
The redhead started to move slowly around the basement her flashlight slashing through the dark. "Yeah, like your neighbor's cat. The one that got munched on, it didn't rise up. At least I don't think it did?" Carson paused trying to think back.
"It's not Pet Cemetery then." The Asian woman was happy about that, holding the crowbar out, with her right arm, pressed against Carson's back. At least the other woman made a good shield.
There was another scrabbling noise and Carson jumped. "Big rat. A big goddamn rat," Carson muttered.
"That doesn't sound small." The librarian whispered, glancing back and forth, wishing they had something brighter than the little flashlight. "Can we go now?"
After a moment, she got herself moving again. "Um, I just want to make sure that there aren't any stairs leading out, or basement windows."
"I say we barricade the door upstairs."
She finally reached a wall and shined the light up to the narrow windows at street level; she moved the weak light over the glass happily seeing that they were locked. A bloody hand smacked the glass making her jump.
Samantha yelped, and then gritted her teeth. This was getting ridiculous. "You satisfied? We should get...." she trailed off as a long scrapping noise came from behind them. "Uh oh."
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. "Uh oh? After spending the last few days being chased by zombies, 'uh oh' is the last thing I want to hear."
"Did you check under the stairs?" Samantha asked, holding up the crowbar.
Carson wanted to smack herself, "Um, well no I didn't."
"Shit."
Slowly Carson started to turn around, the flashlight slowly following. The weak beam stretched out over the floor coming to rest on a steal toed work boot. "Fuck me." Carson blurted out. She raised the light and it began to reveal length after length of bloodied denim, to a brown work shirt with the name Bill neatly stitched on the front. The shoulders were broad if only half there. The left one had been gnawed on, leaving the left arm hanging by a thin red rope of muscle.
What really sucked, Carson reflected, was he was stand