100 Ways to Kill a Doctor Halloween Challenge

(my response to Dsnynutz's prompt)

RULES:

1. Sheldon/Penny - They can be platonic, romantic, smutty, Super Heroes/Villains, etc.

2. Leonard/Amy's death MAY occur anytime from the Pilot thru Season 9.

3. The death must be completed in a single chapter, although you are welcome to contribute as many different forms of death as you like as long as they are a chapter each.

4. The story must be no more than 1,500 words long.

5. Deadline is October 31, 2015.

"I can't believe you just shot your girlfriend in the head," Penny said to Sheldon. She tried to sound disapproving, but she was actually fighting back giggles. It really was kind of funny.

"Dude, that was awesome! I haven't had this much fun in ages. We've got to do this more often," Raj cried. His girlfriend Emily leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Based on the way his eyes widened and a grin spread across his face, Penny guessed Emily had just said something about how all the simulated violence turned her on.

"I'm not amused," Amy scowled, tossing down her controller as she crossed her arms. "Sheldon, these childish games are beneath both of us."

Bernie paused the game, earning her exasperated groans from the rest of the players. "Oh come on, Amy. I think it's fun, and so does Howie and everyone else. Don't sulk just because you're a bad shot." She picked up her controller again, unpaused the game, and started making those "pew, pew" noises that Howard loyally insisted were adorable rather than annoying.

"Sheldon, I wanted to spend a quiet evening telling you all about my latest research regarding the reactivation of dormant glial cells," Amy protested.

"Can't talk now; I'm in the zone," Sheldon replied, further infuriating his girlfriend. Finally, she got up and left in a huff. If anyone noticed her departure, no one protested.

Over the next few weeks, Amy was still angry. She decided to punish Sheldon's inattention by canceling several of their regularly scheduled date nights. But she didn't get the results she wanted: a contrite boyfriend and perhaps another tiara. Although Sheldon disliked the interruption in his routine, he had more free time to play video games, read comics, and catch up on his favorite sci-fi shows. In fact, he was soon left wondering if he could renegotiate their relationship contract down to two date nights a month instead of one a week.

For Amy, the only benefit of this rift was that she had more time for her research. She was beginning to see some truly incredible results, and not having anyone with which to share her news just made her more upset. The only one she had to talk to was her current favorite monkey, Ricky. His full name was Ricky the 13th, as she has anesthetized twelve of his predecessors. In retrospect, he lived up to his unlucky appellation. As she was putting Ricky back in his cage for the night, the ungrateful primate bit her. Amy cried out in pain.

"Ow! I'm bleeding, you stupid furball! Try that again, and I'll start throwing my feces at you." It was not an idle threat; she'd done it before. She turned her back and reached for the latest slides she'd prepared, but the slides fell from her fingers as spasms racked her body.

"Hey, Sheldon, did you hear about those weird nighttime attacks on the USC campus over the past couple of days?" Leonard asked worriedly as he drove them both to work.

"Now, Leonard, you know the only news I pay any attention to is scientific news," Sheldon replied, but he sounded concerned. Moments later, he pulled out his phone and dialed Amy's number. There was no response, but that wasn't unusual. She still wasn't talking to him after the Halo fiasco. He resolved to go over to her lab after work, even if he had to take a bus to get there.

But at lunchtime that day, Howard came running up, holding out his phone. "Did you guys see this video? They're claiming that this is a real zombie. I've run it through every filter I know, and I think it's legit."

The guys watched the short clip in fascinated horror, seeing a man in the early phases of decomposition stumble across a grassy field. They could hear screaming in the background, but there were also a lot of college-aged kids seen holding up cell phones and filming it. By the time the video ended, a crowd had gathered around the foursome.

"I heaw fedewal agents showed up and heawded that thing into an unmawked van," Barry Kripke remarked over Howard's shoulder.

"You think this is for real?" Leonard asked.

Barry shrugged. "Who knows? It's pwobably just a hoax."

Leonard turned back to his lunch, nervous but unconvinced. He looked around. "Hey, where's Sheldon?"

Penny opened her door to a frantic pounding, shocked to see Sheldon standing there since it was the middle of the day. "Hey, sweetie, shouldn't you be at work?"

"No time," he panted, shoving a heavy black duffel bag into her arms. "I need you to carry this."

"Wait, what's going on?" she asked.

"Two words: zombie apocalypse," he snapped. He shouldered another two bags (apparently lighter than the one he handed to her) and jogged down the stairs.

She chased after him, if for no other reason than to find out what had him so spooked. She found him in the lobby staring in horror at the sight of several people throwing themselves against the glass doors. Icy fear crawled up her spine. There was something very wrong with those people. They looked… dead. Was Sheldon right? Were they really zombies?

Choking back a whimper, she dragged him away from the doors. They went out the emergency exit in the basement and found the parking lot momentarily deserted. Penny wasted no time in starting up her car and tossing the bags in the back.

"What now?" she asked, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice.

"Caltech," he answered. They sped away as more undead figures lurched around the corner. They started to move faster once they saw-or perhaps smelled-their prey.

Sheldon directed her to a part of the campus she had never seen before. The zombies were everywhere they looked. She even had to run a few over with her car to clear away the interlocking metal doors. They ran into the darkness and latched the doors behind them.

"Leonard! Howard! Raj! We've got to save them!" Sheldon cried. He turned on a flashlight. Together they ran through the abandoned steam tunnels under the university. But when they reached the entrance to the science wing, they could hear screaming and crashing.

"What can we do?" Penny asked fearfully.

"Nothing. We don't know how to stop the zombies. If we went up there, we would only succeed in dying ourselves."

She buried her head in his shoulder. He must have been just as scared as she was because he held her tightly, without any pointless blandishments. They spent a sleepless night in the tunnels, where Penny discovered Sheldon had been secreting emergency supplies for years behind a padlocked door.

He insisted that they wait until the next day to investigate. By then, the undead appeared to have moved on in search of fresh meat. They found Leonard and Howard's bodies in the cafeteria, right where Sheldon had last seen them. "I should have tried to get them to leave," he mourned. Penny hugged him and said nothing. She knew they never would have taken him seriously.

In the weeks that followed, they discovered that a gunshot or heavy blow to the head would drop an undead in its tracks, but the only way to make sure it wouldn't get up again was to cut off its head, severing the spinal column.

After a few months, they were a seamless zombie-fighting team. Often, they communicated with only a glance. They had found Raj, or rather his walking corpse, and buried his remains. It was usually Penny's job to decapitate the bodies, since she was still the stronger of the two, but this time, she cried and had to pass the machete to Sheldon. He finished the matter grimly, saying nothing. A few days later, they found Amy. She was badly decomposed, but she was moved determinedly toward them, jaws open wide. Sheldon put a bullet through her head before Penny could even blink.

"I can't believe you just shot your girlfriend in the head," she said numbly.

"This is all her fault. She started this whole thing," he said bitterly. He grabbed the machete from Penny's backpack and hacked Amy's head off savagely. "She's the reason all of my friends are dead. It was her experiment with glial cells that caused this epidemic." Suddenly, he screamed and swung the blade at her body several more times. Eventually, he had worn himself out, and the blade dropped from his hand.

Penny came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Not all your friends," she said softly.

He held her close. "No, not all of them," he agreed. "I have you."

A/N: Quick poll - leave a comment if you knew what my title referenced without looking it up!