A/N: Well, I've worked for too long on this, so here's part one. It's a bit AU of RvB, though.

It had been six weeks since the infection had broken out. Though, 'infection' wasn't really the right word, was it? No one knew what it really was. It might not have been an infection after all; hell it could have been a mutation in the human gene! Whatever the case, it hadn't been that long since the world fell into disarray and the undead started crawling up out of their graves, sinking their rotted teeth into the flesh of the living. Despite the short span of time that had passed, most places looked like they'd been abandoned for years. It was unnerving, to say the least.

She'd gotten lucky when she'd stumbled upon the gas station. It was a fairly new building, and big. It had a lot of supplies in it and hadn't been looted too bad. Even the windows were still in tact.

Despite this, the supplies ran out quicker than she thought. She blamed herself for not doing a proper inventory and rationing everything. She was beginning to get really fucking sick of eating stale Snicker's and Ho-Ho's everyday, three times a day. It was nearing time to move on, though she didn't seem able to muster up the courage. She'd gotten used to her little gas station, she liked it. She didn't want to leave, even though she knew she had to.

Despite putting her best efforts forward, a slightly overwhelming sense of despair was starting forsake her. She would die if she stayed in the gas station, and she would probably die within days if she left; if not of the goddamn zombies wandering around, she'd die of exposure or starvation. At least in the gas station her only enemy was starvation.

For now, at least.

Mick ran a hand over her face and rolled over on her makeshift bed; a beach towel and a couch pillow. She looked out of the front windows in the gas station as the sun just began its rise over the hills in the distance. What with the dew in the grass across the road glittering in the light, and the stark contrast between the warm golden sunlight and black shadows of night, she imagined it'd make a nice picture. The type of thing someone would have as a wallpaper on their computer at work.

She sat up and her eyes scanned the parking lot in front of the store. No zombies yet, that was good. The monsters seemed to disappear during the night, and became active during the day. Maybe the heat from the sun made them come out more.

Regardless, the lack of them in the parking lot made it look normal outside. She almost expected someone to open the front door of the house across the street and waltz out in a bathrobe to the end of their driveway, pick up the daily paper and walk back inside without a care in the world.

Five minutes passed until she realized she'd been staring at the house. Apparently, she was doing more than 'almost' expecting someone to come out, maybe she still hadn't adjusted to the way things had become. Hell, had anyone?

Mick grabbed her Glock from its place by her bed and stood up, stretching. She reached her hands high above her head, causing her shirt to rise up over her stomach a little. She dropped her hands by her side after she felt something pop back into its proper place in her back and sighed a little. Walking down one of the aisles in front of the checkout counter, she surveyed some of the remaining goods.

"Let's see, should I have Snickers or…Snickers for breakfast?" she mumbled, scratching her chin and debating silently. "I opt for Snickers."

A heavy breathing filled the woods, accompanied by the sound of running footsteps. Voices called after the lone figure as they aimed weapons at him. The sound of a rifle shot echoed throughout the morning air and he faltered, letting out a cry as an acute pain flared up in his thigh.

He made the mistake of glancing back over his shoulder as he pressed a hand to the wound. He stumbled, almost fell to the ground. He was able to pick himself back up and resume running, just in time for another bullet to lodge itself in his shoulder. He yelped again as the voice got nearer.

He skidded to a stop at the edge of a ravine and cussed. It had seemed to just pop up out of nowhere; hidden by trees one second then it was there, ready and waiting to swallow him whole the next.

"There he is!" One of the voices yelled. "Get that sombicth!"

Don't think so, boys, he thought. He took a few steps back and took off at a run, jumping from side of the ravine to the other. He grunted as he landed, waving his arms a little to regain his balance. He spared a look over his shoulder as another voice yelled out and human forms started becoming visible on the other side. Grinning beneath the helmet on his head, he took of running again, quickly disappearing. By the time his pursuers showed up, it was like he'd never been there.

The man clad in grey and yellow armor paused once he was good bit away from the ravine. He leaned against a tree to catch his breath, his mind racing over what had happened within the past few days.

First he'd been out on a mission; searching for his dying comrades AI's and recovering them. Then, on a routine trip back to headquarters he'd been ushered around by a frazzled group of Marines barking orders. He'd been pushed onto a drop ship with a group of trainees and sent flying back to Earth.

It wasn't until they crash landed he'd even figured out why.

He sighed and pushed himself off the tree, holding onto his bleeding shoulder. He scanned the surrounding area as he walked, realizing he was totally lost.

'Great…just fucking great,' he thought as his agitation grew.

If my data is correct, there is a building a quarter mile ahead, his unseen helper notified. He winced slightly at the motion and resisted the urge to rip his helmet off and pull the unit out.

Apologies, Agent Washington, I am trying not to cause you any distress.

"I know, I know," he said, coming to a stop. His left hand had started twitching again. "Which way to the building, and is there anyway you can identify it?

Northwest. Also, I suggest we hurry. It seems our new friends have caught up.

"What?" he yelped. Another onslaught of bullets started whizzing past him, causing him to draw his Magnum from the holster on this thigh. "Don't these bastards ever give up?"

If I may take an educated guess…I would say: no.

"I fucking noticed that, thank you!"

I am here to assist.

Mick flipped through the pages of a trashy romance novel as she sat on the counter by the cash register. She hated romance novels. Wastes of dead trees, she'd always thought. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the only reading material her gas station had stocked. Well, that and an "Alien Killing for the Incredibly Inept" book supposedly by Master Chief. She assumed it involved methods that no one should ever discover, though she did wonder if anything would be useful for zombies.

She sighed, throwing the book down and staring off across the gas station. She'd left the two front double doors leading down the hallway to the back room open. The back room was the storage/office space for the station. They loaded and unloaded trucks with supplies back when the place was still functioning. There were two little rooms off to the sides of it, one served as the managers office and the other was a break room.

There was a clock on the wall above the side entrance. It was an old round analog clock that ran on batteries. It was still working properly, and even if it did die she had plenty of replacement batteries. Sure, such things should probably go to something like a flashlight, but she'd found that knowing what time on what day it was helped….though what exactly it helped wasn't entirely clear. Her frame of mind, maybe.

Her reverie of random thoughts in an attempt to pass time was rudely interrupted by the sound of an explosion and gunfire from outside.

"The fuck is that?"

Mick slid off the counter and made her way to the back of the building. She pushed open the doors to the storeroom and stopped. The sounds from outside continued and grew louder. Were they…getting closer? She moved across to the back doors- two twenty foot tall panels of solid, six inch thick steel- and unlocked them. The shiny silver latch slipped into place with a click, sliding easily across its track. She paused for a second, fingers on the door handle.

She let out a slow breath and opened the door a little to peer outside.

Washington burst out into a clearing and turned, chucking a grenade at the small horde of undead pursuing him. It had turned out that what had originally been concluded to be the group of very much alive men that had been after him was actually a large gathering of zombies. There were about thirty of them, and they were even more persistent than the damn rednecks.

Mick eyed the spectacle from a good bit away, peering out of the crack in the doors. Her first instinct told her to just shut the door, lock it back up, head to the front of the gas station and pretend like nobody was home. That sounded like a decent plan, but it had it's complications. After all, if the guy running around in the field out there blowing up zombies came banging on the door and begging for shelter, she'd have to open the door anyway right?

Of course she could always open the door and shoot him in the face…

No! That would be a waste of ammo, plus a freshly dead body would just attract more of 'them', and no one wanted that.

Realizing that it was logical to 'do the right thing' she sighed, tapping her head against the door a bit. Finally, she pulled it open all the way and offered to extend her cozy little hidey hole to this strange man she knew nothing about.

Wait, how was this the logical choice, again?

"'Ay! You, dumbfuck with the 'nades!" she yelled. The guy stopped and looked in her direction. "Yeah, you, over here! Run!"

Wash paused for a moment, looking over at the open door and the girl yelling obscenities at him. 'Think we can trust her?' he asked.

Well, can she be any more dangerous than those things?

He looked back at the zombies coming out of the woods. Some of them were even eating the other, now dead-for-real zombies, and other were fighting each other; ripping apart their opponents with their bare hands, biting, scraping and pulling them apart. Blood and organs were getting tossed about, and one of the zombies fell down after getting tangled up in its' own dangling intestines.

Their sickening sounds of grunts, growls, howls, and yells seemed to resonate throughout the clearing.

'You present a strong argument,' Wash replied, turning and taking off for the open door. He reached it within seconds, just as the girl pulled it open all the way. He dove into the room and skidded to a halt just in time to prevent himself from going ass-over-tea-kettle on a stack of loading crates. He bent over, hands on his knees, panting as she slammed the doors shut and locked them tight again.

"Thanks," he breathed out, looking up at her. "I owe- uh…." he trailed off as she shoved the barrel of her Glock to his visor.

"Don't thank me yet, asshole."