The next day, Amelia woke up to the sound of yelling coming from the hallway. She detangled herself from Seb and carefully stepped over Chuck and David, who were using each other as pillows. Walking out into the hallway, she found Bob yelling at Gerard, Mikey, Ray, and Frank.

"What's going on?" she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes

"Oh nothing, Bob is just being an asshole again," Frank replied, glaring at Bob.

"I'm not being an asshole! You guys are just being childish. I mean, between what happened to Pierre yesterday and then what Carden did to AJ, I'm sick of trying to help you guys! You guys are hopeless and I'm done. I'm leaving!" Bob fumed

"Wait Bob, please, reconsider!" Amelia begged

"No. I'm done trying to play mediator to your constant feuding. Let me know when you all grow up and maybe I'll come back to help you. Oh and while you were all sleeping, I went and put wards up around the perimeter of the building so that nothing could get in. You're welcome," he said as he turned away, ready to Apparate out of the hospital.

As he turned away, Mikey grabbed his wrist.

"Mikey, let me go," he commanded.

"No. Listen, man, I know we've gotten off to a rough start, but come on. We need you here with us. That's the only way that this is going to work. You don't know how long we've all waited to actually have you back with us. We've missed you, man. Things haven't been the same since you left. I know it's going to take a lot to sort out our issues, but I know we can do it. Please, don't go," Mikey said as he tried to hug Bob.

Bob tried to wrench himself away, but in the end, he allowed himself to be hugged by Mikey. In truth, he didn't want to leave. For the first time in years, he actually felt like he was right where he was supposed to be. He had missed his friends, even though he'd never admit it. Besides, if he left now, he'd be back to fighting zombies on his own and that wouldn't get him anywhere.

"Okay, okay. I'll stay. Let me go now."

Mikey let go of Bob and walked back to where everyone else was standing. Before anyone could say anything, Amelia's phone buzzed. It was a message from Chuck.

"Hey Gerard, I just got a text from Chuck saying that Pierre is finally waking up. I'm thinking you're gonna want to be there," Amelia said as she turned to walk back to the room.

Gerard followed behind her. They walked in the door and saw that Pierre was slowly starting to stir. Amelia went and stood next to Chuck. Pierre opened his eyes and slowly sat up.

"Hey Pierre, how are you feeling?" Seb asked

He shrugged. "I feel pretty good actually! Nothing hurts and I feel like I could run a marathon."

Everyone exchanged glances.

"Do you remember what happened yesterday?" Jeff asked

"Well, I remember exploring the basement and then getting a pipe impaled through my stomach. That's about it. I must not have been hurt too badly if I feel this good!"

Everyone exchanged glances again.

"Uh, well, it was actually pretty bad. It was bad enough that I had to turn you into a vampire," Gerard admitted.

Pierre made a face that said that he didn't believe Gerard, so he ran his tongue over his teeth and he discovered a pair of fangs.

Amelia wasn't sure how he would react, so she was picking at the skin of her thumb, a nervous habit. Suddenly, she felt the familiar sting in her hand, meaning she had picked too far. A small drop of blood welled up.

At once, Pierre turned to look at her and he leapt forward with such ferocity that Sebastien almost wasn't quick enough to grab him.

"Shit, I forgot that he would need to feed right away!" Amelia exclaimed, embarrassed. She quickly healed her thumb with Waterbending, but Pierre still fought against Sebastien.

"Well, looks like he has to feed now. I think I might still have some blood bags in our pack," Chuck said as he started to rummage through the bag.

"Actually Chuck, it's usually best if a new vampire's first meal is fresh blood from a live person," Gerard piped up.

Chuck and Amelia both looked at each other. It was going to have to be one of them.

Before Amelia can realize what she's doing, she walked over to Pierre and Sebastien.

"You sure about this?" Sebastien asked as he struggled to keep Pierre at bay.

Amelia nodded. With a sigh, he loosened his grip on Pierre, who all but tackled Amelia into the floor. Fangs bury deep in her neck and Amelia actually cried out in pain. After a few minutes, she felt Sebastien rip Pierre away from her. Pierre, obviously still hungry, tried to reach Amelia again.

"What are you doing?" Gerard asked

"If I would have let him feed from her any longer, she would be dead. You know that. Besides, she's not the only source of mortal blood here," Sebastien replied, looking at Chuck.

Chuck gave Sebastien a nod and walked toward Pierre. He wrapped his arms around him, almost in a hug. He gasped slightly as Pierre bit him.

Jeff went and got Bob, who healed the wound on Amelia's neck and gave her the blood replenishing potion. Meanwhile, Pierre continued to feed from Chuck, who was growing pale as he feebly tried to shove Pierre away. Before Sebastien could tear Pierre away, David held up a hand.

"Let me talk to him first," he said, walking over to Pierre.

"Pierre, it's David. You have to listen to me. I know how incredible the first bite can be. It's like you're drinking water after being thirsty for a long time and I know that it's difficult to stop. But listen to me, you have to stop. If you take any more blood, you're going to kill Chuck. I know that you wouldn't want that to live the rest of your immortal life with that weighing on your conscience, so you have to stop. Let him go," David said, speaking in a calm voice.

He put a hand on Pierre's shoulder, which seemed to snap him out of his bloodlust. He lifted his head from Chuck's neck and turned to David and embraced him.

"Thanks, man. I don't know if I would have been able to stop without you. Oh shit, Chuck, I'm sorry!" Pierre said once he noticed Chuck lying on the floor as Bob attended to him. Chuck waved his hand in a dismissive gesture as if to tell him that it was okay.

"So how do you feel now?" Gerard asked

"I feel great now!"

"How is your Earthbending?" With a flourish of his hands, Pierre demonstrated an impressive array of Earthbending.

"It seems that the change has made you an even better Earthbender. Good, that's going to come in handy," Gerard remarked.

"What'd I miss?" AJ bounded into the room, William walking after her, Amelia noting the girl was (once again) unusually bubbly.

It only made sense when Amelia realized she was wearing something that had been ultra familiar to them during TAI's heyday – she had the blue vneck on from the About A Girl video, along with the leather jacket from the Santi era.

"How'd you even-"

"You really think he got rid of this stuff? He's still got the belt buckle from Slow Down." AJ responded, trying to zip up the jacket, this time actually trying to hide the hickies along her collarbone.

"Pierre's awake and feeling a whole hell of a lot better, and we're still not sure where Carden is." Jeff said, though two seconds later the entire group heard a mumbled, "Right here, guys. Nice of you to finally notice."

Walking out of the shadows of a nearby operating room, Carden continued, "So you turned him after all." He turned to look at AJ, who, on instinct, turned and hid behind William, clutching his arm and poking her head out from a safe distance.

"You know I didn't mean it upstairs," he tried to apologize, but Gerard had walked over, and after a glance at William; who nodded, promptly smacked Carden upside the head.

"Bullshit. That's for AJ, because as you can see she's worried about even being near you. Now, we've all agreed – you attempt that with her again or even think about it with Amelia; William, Sebastien and my brother and I are going to tear you limb from limb, do you understand?"

Carden snorted in disbelief, thinking it was nothing but an empty threat, but nodded anyways. Maybe it was finally time to stop trying to get himself killed, now that he had atleast four people threatening to murder him if he started something again.

"Alright, I get it. Now back off, would ya?"

It was quiet, that kind of annoying silence after tension that still hung in the air hadn't quite dissipated.

"So I had a really fucking weird dream last night." AJ started, laughing when she caught Amelia mouthing 'AJ I swear to god if it's anything like that damn book.'

"Zombies. Well, they weren't zombies. The zombies in my dream were like puppets I guess. It was like they were being controlled. I couldn't see by who, but they only went after the people around me, I couldn't figure out why. Ryan, you were the first one to die...then Brendon, then Jon - and that's the weird part. It was only Panic. And then it's weird, I swore I saw Spencer in my dream too. I don't know why it was only you guys. But like, what if that's what's going on here? That these zombies...what if they're controlled by somebody?"

"Oh like what, southern voodoo and weird black magic like that?"

Bob shook his head.

"Have any of you guys actually been to the South much? It's not all about the creepy stuff, even though the ghost hunting shows and movies seem to popularize that."

"But wait, what if there's some truth to that? I mean, there are different ways of creating zombies," Mikey added, looking around at the others, noticing Ryan had frozen where he stood, an out of place expression on his face.

"Ryan, are yo-" And before he could finish asking him if he was okay, the guitarist had ran over to Jon and grabbed his shoulders and had started to shake him, looking like he was on the edge of tears.

"Ryan. Ryan. Man, what the hell? Calm down! Did you see something? It's okay, it'll pass, you know how your visions are." Jon reassured, putting a hand out so he'd stop moving.

"No. No. NO THIS IS NOT GONNA PASS! I just...I just...it was...fuck, you guys. I know who's causing all this!" his voice cracked, whatever he had seen was really bothering him.

"WHO?!" Almost everybody in the group shouts at once.

"Spencer. He sent me a vision...there's these drug dealing guys, they're keeping him somewhere back home and they're...the people keeping him are..."

"LIke the guys we're talking about now that may or may not have been in my dream?" AJ offered, grinning slightly although the situation was totally inappropriate.

"Exactly. He's being held by necromancers, and if we don't get to him soon-"

"We're pretty much dead already, no matter what." William pointed out, "Because you know the number of zombies we're facing is only going to increase."

"No, there's NO WAY he's the cause of all this...he's Spencer. Spencer James 'Flawless Bitch' Smith. Do you see my point?

"Looks like Flawless Bitch isn't so flawless after all."

FLASHBACK

Spencer Smith walked quickly down the Las Vegas street. He only had to make it a few more blocks and then he would be at J's house and everything would be okay again. The stress of being a part of Panic At The Disco had severely stressed him out and he was no longer able to stand it. In a need for a quick fix, he had turned to drugs and alcohol. Of course, he had had to get creative, seeing as regular mortal drugs had no effect on his no longer living body. It took a couple trips to the seedier side of Las Vegas before he found J.

J was a necromancer, someone who could control the dead. He was also a druggie and a dealer, specializing in drugs for the undead. All it had taken was one little pill and Spencer was inevitably hooked. He began doing everything he could to support his habit, from stealing to selling prized possessions. He would do anything just so he didn't have to face reality sober. It had inevitably lead to tensions between him and his bandmates. After Ryan and Jon had left, he and Brendon had done a lot to try and distance themselves from the two, though it wasn't easy, especially for Brendon since he had sired the three of them. Eventually, Brendon and Spencer had gone their separate ways as well, Brendon being none the wiser to Spencer's problem.

Everything had been going great for Spencer until about two months ago. His tolerance to the drug had been steadily increasing and he was running short on cash. He had bought a large amount of drugs from J and his crew with the intent to pay them as soon as possible. Unfortunately for him, he never paid them.

One night, he was stumbling around downtown Vegas, drinking in the sights and sounds, made even better by the combination of drugs he had ingested. Suddenly, he found himself surrounded by a group of people. Even in his drug-induced haze, he recognized them as J's fellow dealers.

"Hey guys, how's it going?" he slurred

"Well, you're about it find out. We're going to take you on a little adventure," one of the men said as he beat Spencer over the head with a metal pipe. Spencer fell to the ground, unconscious. They bound and gagged him and threw him in the back of a van, which sped off towards an undisclosed location.

Spencer slowly came back to consciousness. He was sitting in a chair, bound by ropes. There was something covering his eyes and there was something that had a putrid taste in his mouth. Suddenly, the covering over his eyes was ripped off and he was staring into bright white light. He hissed in displeasure.

"Oh hey, Spencer. Good to see you're actually awake. I was worried that Animal over there had killed you by mistake," said J.

J was a tall man with fire engine red hair who wore a lot of black and carried a large scythe.

"Spencer, do you know why you're here?" J asked, walking closer to Spencer

Spencer shook his head.

"Oh come on, surely you have SOME idea as to why we've brought you here."

Again, Spencer shook his head.

J reached forward and grabbed Spencer's hair, forcing his head up so that he would look him in the eyes.

"How about the money you owe us, you little asshole?!"

Spencer winced and tried to reply, but the gag in his mouth made it come out muffled.

"Hey J, it looks like he wants to say something!" remarked one of the female necromancers

J ripped the gag out of Spencer's mouth and threw it to the floor.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" J asked

Spencer tried to reply, but when he opened his mouth, he vomited on the floor, the sour taste of the gag becoming too much for him.

J walked over to Spencer and took a knife out of his pocket. He gently ran the blade up and down Spencer's cheek.

"Listen, Spencer, you've been a great client. You really have. However, I'm running a business here, and I need my money. Now, do you have the money or not?" he asked

"I don't….I don't have the money," he slurred, his voice hoarse.

J pushed the knife a little harder against the side of Spencer's face, resulting in a cut.

"No no, that simply will not do. Hm, since it doesn't look like I'll be getting my money, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do, Spencer Smith. Instead of waiting for you to pay me, I'll have my revenge in another way. You see, my friends and I are able to control the dead. Actually, we're able to control anything that was once living that is now dead. We're going to use our abilities to make you life and the lives of anyone you care about, a living hell. After all, it's been said that when there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth. So, let's have a little fun, shall we?" J asked as he walked towards his comrades.

Over the next two months, J and his friends caused the dead to walk among the living, starting small at first. They only went for Las Vegas, but they soon got bored, and J sent his associates to other cities in order to wreak havoc, and wreak havoc, they did.