"No! Don't hold hands!" Alfred's shriek rent the air as the couple prepared to jump from the carriage, but it was too late for warnings. The disaster had already been set in motion. They only managed a confused glance at the blond holding their daughter before their feet hit ground, and the woman was thrown off balance. Her knees buckled, dragged the man down alongside her as a decomposed hand made a grab for her ankle, followed by a putrid mouth biting its way through her flesh, biting all the way down until it hit bone. The rotten maw was attached to a disembodied torso that had already spilled most of its dried gusts across the field.

All the woman could manage was a shrill scream as the burning knowledge that she was going to die, was never going to see her daughters grow, seared its way through her cranium. Trying to disentangle himself, her husband pulled away from his wife, desperately trying to catch up to the two boys who held his daughters. He could see their retreating (tactically relocating) backs as they ran towards the waiting gate. If he could just get away-

Snap.

Crunch.

Alfred looked back as he reached the gate to see if the kid's parents had made it. Instead of seeing man and his wife catching up to them, all he could see was a field full of zombies. Two of them were new.

Ludwig closed the gates on the helicopter, leaving the wretch that had caused to whole mess to haul up inside his copter until the zombies grew disinterested and shambled away to find something more lively.

The second Matthew put Mary down on the ground; she asked where her parents were, even though she must have seen what happened to them.

The other child, Elizabeth, refused to bury her head in denial. "Murderers!" She screamed, rounding on everyone, not even caring that the commotion had drawn a small crowd from the villagers. "You left my parents to die! This is your fault! You were supposed to protect us. You promised us you would."

Matthew look away, shame on his face, but Alfred was having none of it. He picked the girl up by the scruff of her dress, much to her surprise, and said, "First off, we never made any promises. We said we'd do our best, and we did. Your father paid us to risk our lives to protect you. Well, Missy, we did that, but we weren't paid to die for you. Your mother was bitten. There was nothing we could have done for her."

Angry tears filled the girl's eyes, though she tried to blink them away in an attempt to appear defiant. "And my dad? What about him? He wasn't bitten, was he?"

"Not right away."

"Then why didn't you-"

Shaking her a little, Alfred raised his voice, shouting, "We would have died, Squirt! Your dad was a dead man the second he held your mom's hand. Sure, it's romantic and crap, but you can't do a four-legged relay when you're running for your life. But if you really need someone to blame, blame me." Matthew looked as though he were going to protest, but he stopped, mouth hanging ajar, once he saw his brother send the girl skidding across the gravel.

Mary ran to her sister's side.

"I'm the one who convinced Mattie to take this job. I told him we could handle it. It was my responsibility to protect your family, and I saved my own skin instead." Enraged, Elizabeth struggled to her feet, then charge head first at the tall blond standing in front of her. Alfred shift to the side, pushing her back to the ground as he did so. "You can't avenge your parent's deaths with that small body of yours. Find a family that will take you in, grow up, grow strong, then come and find me."

The older sister tried one more time to charge Alfred, a feral screech on her lips, her pretty face distorted by rage. This time, Alfred knocked her out.

"Dude," Gilbert noted as soon as they found a family that would take Elizabeth and her traumatized sister in, "You are colder than a block of ice."

A scowl drew itself on Alfred's boyish face, which was new to Matthew but not to the German brothers, who had just seen him throw around a little girl like a hacky sack, "Come one, Mattie. Let's see if the zoms are gone. I want to have a talk with that pilot."

As the brothers began to walk about, Ludwig called out for them to wait. Alfred turned around to face him, one eyebrow raised due to the curiosity he was reluctantly giving in to. He gave Gilbert a questioning look, but the albino just shrugged, obviously just as clueless as to what his brother wanted to say as he was.

"Did you ever find the one who said those words to you?" Alfred and Matthew both started at the insight, before allowing themselves a small, relaxed smile.

"We haven't yet."

"But we will."

"And when you do?" Ludwig asked.

The two blond brothers grinned. "Isn't it obvious?"

"We'll kick his ass!"