Title: NCIS: Apocalypse

Rating: T- for some violent images and swearing

Author: ncisgranger

Disclaimer: NCIS isn't mine... I wish it was.

Summary: "Boss! And I quote from Dawn of the Dead, 'shoot it man, shoot it in the head!'" That was probably the best movie quote advice Tony had ever given. | The team investigates the mysterious deaths of many naval officers in connection to a neurotoxin.

Note: I really, really wanted to write a 'walking dead' type of storyline for the NCIS team to handle. I had an image of Tony, Ziva and Gibbs as a zombie fighting team and the wheels started turning. If you guys had to pick 3 NCIS members to fight zombies with, who would it be? Thanks to Sean for helping me out during the writing process!

Enjoy!

"Boss! I've seen all of the George Romero flicks! And I quote, 'Shoot it, man! Shoot it in the head!'"

"DiNozzo!"

"Gibbs!" Ziva yelled in warning as Gibbs continued to stand his ground. The stumbling, rather unintelligent creature reached out for him. Dried blood crusted around its grey, dead mouth.

Gibbs fired two shots into its skull after it let out a hissing groan.

"Since when did NCIS become a goddamned zombie service?"

"Zombies… This is like NCIS of the Dead." Tony, the movie buff, received a Gibbs slap for that one. He couldn't help but try and lighten the mood, even if there were stumbling, zombie like people- or at least what used to be people, wandering around looking a bit bloodthirsty. So the rare times it happened, Tony was thrown into one of his movie fantasies. Yet, this was no fantasy; more of a nightmare than anything.

Much Earlier…

Petty Officer Michael Rodriguez sat droopy headed in the small box he was assigned to. He had been here over his assigned time. He was supposed to have been at home in his own damned bed by 0300. This really was the last fucking time Dan Ramsey screwed him over. The bastard lied. He never set a replacement to take over his watch and check- in-station at the port. So here Michael sat, overworked, pissed off, and hungry. Shaking his head like a type of irritated bulldog, Michael inched his way up on the metal chair he was currently sliding out of. Of course he knew that Dan Ramsey picked him to watch over Lieutenant Ramsey's ship. It was because, as much as he had called the man a bastard inside of his own mind, (the only safe place it seemed when in the Navy), and Michael knew he was one of the best. So he was going to sit here and check in Petty Officers and Seamen the like instead of going home and lying in bed with his fiancé. Didn't mean he had to like it.

As he reached out for his dried up bagel he managed to grab from his house only 12 hours earlier, he heard a loud metal, reverberating sound; as if a part of a ship fell and crashed through a deck from a nearby ship. Instincts kicking in, he jumped up from his tiny box from hell and ran towards the cacophony. He took a tentative glance back toward his own Lieutenant's ship and pursued on, wondering the possible danger that may lie ahead.

As he arrived, several other officers stood around as he joined them in a group of anxious, ready to get-to-business guys. A few men responsible for the ship raced around like scurrying ants.

"What the hell was that?" Michael asked, looking toward the nearest officer.

"Dunno. The boys are checking it out now. It was like a line snapped and a cargo load or something fell into the deck."

"Sounded like a ship tore in half where I was," he said, looking up the hull.

Petty Officer Michael Rodriguez shook hands with the other officers once he knew they had everything taken care of and headed four ships down back to his post. Not looking forward to it again, and knowing that he broke a big rule by leaving the post, he felt off.

Yet, why did he feel off?

He didn't just feel off. His instincts were telling him something was really wrong. Michael began to jog the rest of the way back.

He stopped, almost too shocked to keep going.

Petty Officer Sawyer, his good friend, lay on his stomach over the entry way of the ship.

He called out, "Sawyer?"

Nothing.

"Sawyer, you prick, cut it out. Get up. Did you hear that cargo load fall through the deck on...?"

He leaned over and touched his friend's clammy skin. He pulled his fingers back and crimson red painted four phalanges.

"Jesus Christ!" Michael fell backward onto the deck. His pants immediately soaked with blood. With the most gentle of touches, all from fear he knew, he pushed the Petty Officer's body over. Sawyer's eyes, normally a bright blue, bled red from the corners, and some seeped from his open mouth.

His instincts kicked in, whether he wanted them to or not, and Michael Rodriguez crawled away backwards. His breathing heavier than anything he's experienced, his eyes caught sight of the inside of the ship. Flooding? He blinked.

A pool of slowly dancing red had covered the entrance and as far into the ship as he could see.

NCIS Navy Yard: 0700

"You know Ziva, you should really be more optimistic. Frowning gives you wrinkles earlier." Tony flashed a smile across his desk at her. Her long, dark hair covered most of her disgruntled face, but Tony knew he was going to be pushing a few buttons this morning.

"Tony, I do not have time for your poking wars! This is not Booking Face."

He let out an overly obvious snort. Sure, he always made a point to fix Ziva's mix-ups, but he loved when she did it… and not just for the reason of poking fun.

"It's called Facebook, Ziva. And for your information, I was not poking you anywhere."

Ziva squinted her eyes and got up from her desk in a half attempted fury, possibly for Tony. With a snatch of the stapler and a white flash of paper, she snapped the desk utensil down onto her paperwork. A pressured coil flew out.

Tony laughed, quite heavily in fact. He couldn't believe his luck; bugging Ziva would be very easy this morning.

"You really make mornings worth waking up to, Zeeee-vah."

With a half opened mouth, and a glare that could either seduce… or kill a grizzly bear, Ziva tossed the rest of the worthless plastic utensil in his direction.

Moving faster than he had all week, Tony zipped sideways just in time for it to shatter on the bulletin board behind his head.

"My God. Have you killed a man with a stapler before?" With a face that screamed disbelief, Tony got up out of his chair and dusted himself off, as if he really had survived something.

"How did you know, Tony?" she raised the smallest bit of eyebrow before continuing, "well, he did somehow manage to get my weapon away from me so I used the closest object to me."

Suspiciously, Tony asked, "What if the nearest thing was something cute… like a baby or a puppy?" It was more of a matter of statement not question.

Ziva opened her mouth to answer but Gibbs popped in. Tony noticed he didn't have his usual cup of coffee at hand.

"Use the puppy, DiNozzo." Gibbs turned around and glanced quickly at Ziva's desk; the spot where the missing stapler had been. "You're going to replace that stapler, Ziva."

Tony, still thinking about puppies, scrunched his nose as images of thrown puppies buzzed in his mind, and he groaned for a change of subject.

"We have 13 dead officers, all from the same ship. It wasn't on voyage. A Petty Officer stumbled upon them all after checking on a ship nearby, we got the number from his check in log." he stated; Gibbs was all business and no play today.

Tony whistled lowly. "13? Gee, Boss… what an amount for only 0700."

"How did they die?" Ziva asked, wondering if Gibbs was told anything else.

"That's why we were called."

Ziva shook her head at asking such a stupid question; perhaps, she just wasn't on her game today. Yet, Ziva is always on her game.

"Sorry, I…"

Gibbs kept talking, "They were bleeding through the eyes, mouth and ears- said it's a literal blood bath inside that ship."

"You think it's a gas or chemical leak, Boss?" McGee walked into the conversation.

"Where were you, McLatey?" Tony rocked bath and forth on his heels, waiting for Tim McGee to get a type of reprimand from Gibbs. Tampering with McGee was a bit like Gibbs' coffee. He had to have that satisfaction every day.

"I sent him off, stand still DiNozzo before you get yourself sea sick." Gibbs was already gearing up; the rest followed only fractions behind him.

With a small, pleased grin, McGee walked in front of Tony as they left for the elevator. He enjoyed victorious moments over Tony; then again, who didn't?

Lieutenant Ramsey's ship: 0800

"You know Jethro, the last time I had seen something so vicious in the ironic sense of the word was back when I had participated in the hunt of…" Ducky began as he gingerly touched the body he studied in front of him.

Gibbs blinked and butted in, "Ducky. 'So vicious in the ironic sense of the word'?" Gibbs had 13 dead officers, lying in their own blood. He certainly didn't have time for Ducky's mind teasers this morning.

Ducky leaned back to look into Gibbs' eyes, as if the situation was fairly obvious and that he was surprised Leroy Jethro Gibbs was asking.

"Why yes, Jethro! You see, these people are dead, yes?" A nod from Gibbs and he continued on, "Well, what I see here is gore that one would not even want in a cheap 90s horror picture, let alone in a Navy ship. What I see is no outer physical altercations or even traces of physical weapons being used on these poor chaps…" Ducky glanced at the body to his right and corrected himself. "Oh, yes… my apologies. I cannot forget the ladies as well."

Gibbs observed the area around him. It was indeed horrific. The team walked in here and McGee was the first to run out and puke into the space between ship and ocean. Tony had been about to say something, but once DiNozzo had taken a glance inside, he too took a longer-than-necessary gulp to keep down whatever he had eaten that morning. Gibbs felt angry. What an indecent way to die, whatever that officially was, (for Ducky and Abby to determine of course), but all he knew was that these 13 people had died, all together in a thick coating of each other's blood.

"So they bled to death? All 13 officers mysteriously dropped dead right here, at the same exact time?" There could not be anymore sarcasm painted in Gibbs' voice.

Ducky gave him that friendship grin, for they've been through enough with one another to already have alternative death reasons playing across their minds.

"You see, Duck, my gut's telling me something a bit less mysterious," he nodded at his old friend and moved on to check on his team.

A small, knowing grin from Ducky followed Gibbs to where Ziva and McGee seemed to be having a conversation of why.

He fell into Ziva and McGee's exchange. "Well, I am not sure of that McGee, what I do know, or I feel, is that this could be a type of attack. Possibly terrorist."

"Possibly, Ziva?" Gibbs looked deep into her eyes, possibly trying to read her mind.

Ziva swallowed nonchalantly and continued, "Well, yes. Back in Mossad, we had countless threats and attacks from gas and the like."

Gibbs, his brain grinding even more than before, wished he had a cup of coffee; maybe even two. He raised his hand to his temple and rubbed it slowly.

"Boss, since we had to trace the air previously for any type of huge gas threats, there wasn't anything that showed up on the gear, but…"

"But, what Timmy?" Tony strolled over, the DSLR camera swinging lazily in his hand; a light smile dancing on his face.

McGee continued, ignoring Tony. "BUT there were small traces of a type of alkaloid that's commonly found in chocolates, fruits, vegetables in the bits of water sitting around."

"Ah, Blood & Chocolate. A young, rather hot, female werewolf must choose between the steamy man she loves and the family secret she's been sworn to keep."

"Shut it, DiNozzo. This isn't a case for movie quotes; it doesn't help anything." A Gibbs glare smacked Tony and he suddenly found interest in taking photos of the crime scene again.

"Well," McGee continued, "it's not necessarily odd. The only odd thing about it is that there isn't really types of food around on this ship that could give off the small amount it did, and be in that general category of an alkaloid."

Gibbs turned his head in light frustration. 13 dead people, and no seeable weapon. The angry looking Lieutenant they spoke with only briefly, 30 minutes before, caught his eye as the man lit up a cigarette just outside the ship. Gibbs tapped Ziva on the shoulder and called out for Tony.

"You two, go ask our steaming Lieutenant over there why he's suddenly so angry."

Ziva was getting rather annoyed with this chunky man in front of her. He had a short temper, and was rather unpleasant to be around not only because of his personality, but because of his cigarette breath and stained teeth. She was looking directly at the brown, nubby squares when she suddenly noticed his mouth move in the same talking pattern as before.

"I am sorry. What did you say?"

"I said, Miss David, that I want that bastard kicked off. Kicked out! Either way I want that Michael Rodriguez gone!" His skinny lips curled in anger.

"Yes, sir, so we've heard… for the fourth time." Tony pinched through his clean, white, straight teeth. Ziva blinked, looking quickly away from Tony's mouth and directed her attention towards Lieutenant Dan Ramsey.

"You said he left his post? Yet, he had a reason to, no? He believed another ship to be in danger." Ziva looked into the man's piggy, dark eyes.

"Hey, that's not his problem. This ship is his problem," an ugly disgruntled sound of pissiness escaped from Ramsey.

Ziva tried the passionate route, this route also included a few bats of the eyelashes; nothing obvious, just enough to calm a man down.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant Ramsey, has Petty Officer Michael Rodriguez… done something to you in the past? Perhaps, disobeyed orders…"

"He's a regular man with a regular attitude. Maybe you both should talk to him," Ramsey said, his lips pinched in a painful manner. His face looked like he had something else he wanted to add.

Tony piped up, "Ok, Lieutenant. Is there anyone else you think we should have a chat with?" Tony's eyes slanted a bit, feeling underlining hostility between more than just Petty Officer Rodriguez.

The Lieutenant looked side to side, a shady nervous glance.

"The Commander of course should be questioned about what will happen to this ship next, you see. He is in command of many ships." he swallowed hard, and instantly his face began to change back to being angry. "I want you to question Rodriguez and why he left his post."

With that, the Lieutenant zipped off and away.

Tony continually watched him as he left. He knew that Lieutenant Ramsey was either terrified of his Commander, or he was terrified of letting the Commander know Ramsey didn't trust him.

Ziva gently touched Tony's arm and he blinked.

"A little fishy don't you think?" she whispered quietly.

Tony could still feel Ziva's fingers on his arm, he looked down but they were no longer there.

"Yeah, I just had a thought…" he told Ziva about what he originally came up with about Ramsey and his Commander.

"Well one thing is for certain, we have to talk with Petty Officer Rodriguez."

Ducky looked at his gloves and frowned. So much wasted life was on his very much alive hands. He felt rather melancholy toward the loss of life in this ship. As Jethro had said, they really did die with a loss of dignity. A sea of blood and an enormous amount of questions have risen out of it. Yet, no answers decided to surface. Ducky felt determined to take these people home and make them comfortable; give them rest, and of course, give them closure. He leaned forward, close to the body's ear.

"Don't worry, my boy. I have a very impressive track record. I will find out what happened to you and your friends." Ducky added quickly, "of course it is never just I who solves these matters. Miss Abigail and the people you've met here are the greatest team you could hope would be solving your misfortunes."

Jimmy Palmer kneeled beside Ducky. "I will help too, Dr. Mallard."

Ducky let out a type of surprised 'Oh!'

"And how can I forget Mr. Palmer! We will take care of you all."

Tony leaned closer to Ziva's ear and whispered quietly. He could smell white lavender.

"They say he's been all screwy ever since this whole thing happened. Can't get a straight word out of him."

Ziva noticed Tony lingered by her neck longer than necessary and she moved slightly away.

"Well," she said raising a rather seducing eyebrow, "maybe I can give him a go."

Tony's laugh came out more as a short bark.

"Do what you can. No more than necessary, this is a professional atmosphere and…"

Ziva was already gone. Tony jogged ahead to meet her.

"Excuse me, Petty Officer Ramsey, we're NCIS as you know and we have to ask a few, short questions." Ziva flashed a smile at him.

Rodriguez's face changed just in the slightest, he seemed to be paying attention to Ziva.

"Ok… just… just hurry, I can't…"

"Well, did you see anything unusual? Hear anything unusual before you left to check on that ship down there?" she asked.

Rodriguez began twisting his hands together.

"No, that's what I can't figure out. I was supposed to leave at 0300 but the Lieutenant never sent a replacement for me like he said he did- so I had to stay and I- we found out that noise from the other ship was a cable break; sent the whole damned cargo into the ship deck!" Rodriguez spoke quick, bumbled words.

"So you heard nothing, saw nothing? Is there anything useful you can tell us?" Tony was getting a bit annoyed. Nothing seemed to make sense.

"I was at my post. Then I heard the cargo fall and I raced over there to make sure- I know the Lieutenant wants me out now, he's been after me and I can't fucking stand him anyway and I…"

Tony put his hand out, "Whoa, buddy. Calm down. I understand that it's crazy, and saddening that something like this happened while you were at duty for your Lieutenant. You lost 13 people you knew."

Tony had said something very wrong, and meant very wrong. Rodriguez's face turned to the palest of whites. His eyes began to water as if someone had punched the guy in the nose.

"Petty Officer Michael Rodriguez?" Ziva asked, in a calming, small voice.

"13?"

"Yes, sir. 13, it's on the report."

Rodriguez was fast and strong. Tony had not expected to be thrown to the ground so quickly. His red face was only a few inches from Tony's and Rodriguez began to shake him as if there was really nothing to it.

"WHERE ARE THE REST OF THEM, DAMMIT? THERE WERE MORE THAN 13!"

Ziva swooped in for Tony's rescue and plucked Rodriguez up with surprising strength. He began to cry violent tears, streaming down his cheeks. Something was not right in the man's head.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" Ziva asked. She half shook Rodriguez, hoping to make him cooperate.

"Don't make her angry or anxious, she'll…"

With an action of surrender, Rodriguez slid to the ground in a useless heap of tears and bumbled sentences that didn't make sense. He lifted his pitiful face up and looked Ziva in the eyes. They were sad, pitiful, and hurt… but if anything, fear was the most obvious.

"I didn't sign in 10 others on my log; if you're checking my log for people, it's wrong. I- there were 23 people on the ship. That's impossible, how-… They were there when I left and when I got back after checking the ship. I counted them all. 23 GODDAMNED DEAD NAVY OFFICERS!"

Tony and Ziva both gaped at each other, there was no possible way something had happened to those 10 other bodies. The log had said 13 in Rodriguez's slanted scripture, and there were 13 inside the ship. What had they done, got up and walked off?

So, fellow friends and NCIS lovers- If you had to pick 3 members of the NCIS team to fight some zombies with... who would it be? My pick is: Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs.

I also really appreciate any feedback, friends. It helps me get going on writing new and better material for you all. So, please leave comments or whatever you'd like for me to read!

ncisgranger