Disclaimer: The premise of this fanfic is completely ridiculous. You know, just in case you hadn't figured that out already.
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Charlie was striding down to the beach in a generally morose fashion when Steve caught up to him.
"Hey," he said, falling into step beside Charlie. "Locke said something happened."
"Ethan is still at large," Charlie explained, fidgeting with the knife as he walked. "Locke reckons we'll just have to take his whole head off, assuming we find him." He glanced nervously into the underbrush, as if Ethan might stagger out and "urrrgh" at them at any moment.
"No one even knows where he is?"
"Nope." Charlie smiled without humor. "He could be anywhere."
"Huh." Steve fell silent for about a minute. "So... we are going where?"
"To the beach. We have to warn everyone."
Steve snorted. "'Hey, everyone, just to let you know, there's a zombie in the jungle.'"
"That's the general idea," Charlie said, raising his eyebrows. He had been trying to figure out a way to phrase the warning that wouldn't get him laughed clear off the beach, and wasn't having much luck.
"That'll go over well, I'm sure," Steve said lightly.
"I wasn't going to say that exactly," Charlie replied, trying not to sound too nettled.
"What were you going to say?" Steve actually looked politely interested, not sarcastic. Charlie shrugged in response.
"I'll figure it out when we get there." Charlie was then dismayed to see that they had, in fact, just reached the beach. He glared accusingly at the sand for not providing him with an answer; out of the corner of his eye, he could see Steve fighting back an ironic grin.
"Well, then," Charlie muttered to himself. After a brief internal debate, he decided the best person to notify would be Sayid. He seemed like a capable guy; he'd probably dealt with zombie insurgents in Iraq or something.
It didn't take Charlie long to spot Sayid and Shannon lounging under a tarp. They were trying to appear engrossed in some maps as opposed to one another, and weren't (in Charlie's opinion) fooling anyone. He felt an odd rush of satisfaction in interrupting them.
"Hey," Charlie said, stopping in front of Sayid's makeshift table.
"Charlie," Sayid said evenly, raising his eyebrows slightly and giving off faint go-away-why-don't-you vibes. But Charlie refused to be deterred.
"We have a bit of a problem," Charlie said delicately, still not sure how to bring up the particular nature of this problem without sounding like a imbecile. Shannon squinted up at him in a mixture of curiosity and annoyance, her hair far more perfect than it had any right to be.
"What kind of problem?" Sayid sat up and looked more attentive.
"Well," Charlie hesitated. The moment of truth. "There's a, er, zombie. In the jungle." Steve let out a suspicious string of coughs; Charlie turned his head to glare at him.
Shannon snorted. "A what?" Sayid looked as if he was trying very, very hard to keep a straight face and finding it to be more of a struggle than he'd anticipated.
"A zombie," Charlie insisted sulkily.
"What, like this is some kind of B horror flick?" Shannon smirked incredulously, then lowered her voice in an imitation of a movie announcer. "Island of the Zombies."
"Look," Charlie decided to bust out the heavy artillery right away, "Locke's seen it. Do you need me to get him down here to explain things to you?" The pair immediately sobered, which both gratified and annoyed Charlie. Apparently, no one on the island would be taken seriously unless they could back up their assertions with either a ludicrous number of sharp, pointy things, or a person who possessed a ludicrous number of sharp, pointy things. It just wasn't fair.
"I've seen it, too," Steve added gravely, having recovered from his earlier fit. "Well, him."
"Him?" Sayid raised an eyebrow.
"Ethan," Charlie said flatly. "He's out there somewhere."
There was a long pause.
"Ew," Shannon commented. "So he's all, like... falling apart?" She wrinkled her nose.
"He's not that dead yet." Charlie said with poorly-concealed scorn.
"What does Locke want us to do?" Sayid inquired before any actual spats could occur.
"Keep an eye out," Charlie shrugged. "He's not exactly difficult to deal with if you see him coming." He paused, then added as an afterthought, "You might try removing his head if you get the chance. Locke reckons that might kill him properly. Nothing else we've tried has worked."
"What have you tried?" Sayid frowned pensively.
"Bashing him about with a stick and plunging a knife into his skull," Charlie said dryly.
"Perhaps we could use the fireworks... if we pointed them at him and fired them. Or we could strap the fireworks to him and set them off all at once..." Sayid mused half to himself, then blinked and looked back up at Charlie. "We'll set up guards to watch out for him."
"Thanks." Charlie managed something like a smile, then turned and started to walk back towards the jungle, Steve trailing behind.
"Zombies, huh?" a voice drawled from a tent to their right. Charlie stopped, not even attempting to hide his exasperation. Sawyer lounged in one of the airplane seats; to all outward appearances, he was completely absorbed in a battered paperback copy of Pet Sematary. After a moment he marked his page, closed the book, and turned to Charlie with a smirk. "Don't that beat all."
"Did you want something?" Charlie asked pointedly, not much in the mood for any sort of interaction with the asshole who stole Claire's diary.
"Easy, John Bull," Sawyer stretched languidly, the smirk never quite leaving his features. "I'm just a little curious as to whether or not I'm going to have to defend my stash from an army of the undead. Is that such a crime?" He cocked his head slightly to one side.
"It's not an army of zombies, it's one zombie. And Sayid and Locke are taking care of things, so I doubt you'll have to worry." Charlie randomly glanced down the beach, hoping to find some excuse to leave. None was presented, much to his dismay, so he turned back toward Sawyer.
Sawyer raised his eyebrows, then sat back in his chair, his smirk widening. "Gotta hand it to you, Nigel. There are few people on this planet who can shoot a guy..." he paused to execute a mental count, "hell, four times and still not manage to kill him."
Charlie could feel his face growing hot. "Sod off," he said sharply, turning away and continuing back toward the caves. Steve blinked in some surprise and hurried to catch up. "And it was seven times," Charlie muttered crossly under his breath. Couldn't people count?
"Yeah... he's a bit of a..." Steve trailed off, motioning halfheartedly over his shoulder and looking sideways at Charlie.
"He's a bloody inbred redneck git," Charlie snapped impatiently, then immediately felt bad for taking out his frustration on Steve.
"Yeah, those were the exact words I was looking for." Steve nodded seriously.
Charlie shrugged sheepishly. "I shouldn't let him get to me."
Steve shook his head. "Sawyer gets to everyone. It's practically his job."
Charlie would have replied with something sarcastic, but that's when he heard the scream. He froze in his tracks, stiffening with panic at the horrible familiarity of it.
Steve frowned, craning his head to look farther up the path. "What..."
"Claire," Charlie said hoarsely, breaking into a sprint. The cry had come from further up ahead; he was certain of that much. He flailed frantically up the path, mentally berating himself. God, why had he gone to the beach? He'd left her alone. He'd made the same mistake he made before with the same result; Ethan had found her. He was an idiot, he should have looked after her properly...
He rounded a corner and saw her standing in the middle of the path and hugging her belly. She appeared to be alone, much to Charlie's confusion and relief. He skidded to a halt next to her, but she didn't look over at him or in any way acknowledge his presence. "Claire?" He touched her shoulder and tried to catch his breath. "What happened?"
For a moment, she didn't respond. Then she turned to Charlie with wide eyes, her expression achingly reminiscent of their last encounter with Ethan. "Did you see it?"
"I... no." Charlie turned to peer into the jungle, but he couldn't see anything besides bark and greenery. "No, I don't see anything."
Steve jogged up, clutching at a stitch in his side. "What the hell's going on?"
"I don't know," Charlie replied, turning back to Claire and repeated his initial question. "What happened?"
"I..." she looked down and shook her head, then stammered in a halting, increasingly frantic tone. "The caves... I didn't like it there, it didn't feel safe... I was going to go to the beach, I thought I might find... and then I saw it..."
"Okay," Charlie said in what he hoped was a calming sort of way, "it's all right; you're safe." He glanced around again. "I don't see Ethan anywhere."
"No, you don't understand," Claire shook her head vigorously. "It wasn't Ethan!"
"It... what?" Charlie stared at her, baffled because he had no idea what she was talking about and frightened because she was clearly terrified half out of her mind.
"It was someone... something else. I don't know..." she looked down at the grass and bit her lip. Charlie turned to look at Steve, who shrugged animatedly.
"I don't know any more than you do." He frowned and squinted into the jungle.
"Right." Charlie turned back to Claire. "Look," he said quietly, "the caves are safer than they feel, and they're definitely safer than here. I'm going to take you back, okay?"
"Uh... Charlie?" Steve interjected, staring wide-eyed into the jungle. "We have a problem."
"What kind of problem?" Charlie looked warily over.
"Well... the good news is, it isn't Ethan. The bad news is... it's definitely a zombie." Steve continued staring into the jungle, an expression of deepest disgust slowly developing on his features. "And it's... been dead a while."
"Oh, bugger; another one?" Charlie stepped over to where Steve was standing and followed his gaze into the jungle. What he saw made his blood run cold.
It wasn't Ethan. It was the Marshall.
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Oh noes! Muahaha!
steph: The sad thing is, I thought he was pretty cute before he turned evil. :P Don't you just want to hug him?
SKroberts: Nice of you to stop by! I won't tell her. ;) Glad I amuse!
cryogenie: I've been thinking... I don't think Locke is the resident zombie expert. But someone else is... muahaha.
Satara: Okay, the phrase "little tropical slut" cracked me up. I splorfed all over my computer screen. And I hope you think I handled Sayid, Shannon, and Sawyer as well as I'm supposedly handling everyone else. ;)
szhismine: Thanks! Just wait till summer... I will be able to update a lot more often.
Ainu Laire: Hahaha, crossover!
Pointy Ears Are My Thing: Oh, man. We're in the same boat, there. It'll stay... I can't help myself. ;)
GamgeeFest: Thank you, thank you! Jack will most likely continue to be a prick. ;)
Megan Sleevewillow: Nah... it hadn't been dead too long. Glad you lurve!
Swede85: Muahaha... there are so many options! I could turn anyone into a zombie... though, to be honest, I'm so amused by the idea of Claire's baby becoming King Baby of the Zombies that it isn't even funny.
Mint Sauce: And there was more pseudo-Chair! Aren't you lucky! ;)
Quirky Writer: Hahaha! No, I'm not killing off Jack. Yet. I suppose I'm technically not killing off anyone... I'm turning them into the undead!
Stahlfan125: I know... he's such a cutie when he isn't being evil! I just want to give him a big ol' hug. And Jack will continue to be portrayed in as unflattering a way as I can manage. ;)
Esmarelda Gamgee: Me, too!
Ember the angry Firedrake: I'm one, too. And no, he can't... so he's out recruiting! ;) And HA! You can't deny it!
Thanks for the reviews! They make me writhe with joy!
Platy