Another chapter! I only got a few reviews for the last one, and someone said that an author alert didn't go out... so if you may want to make sure you didn't miss chapter four. If you did, you'd find this chapter confusing, I'm sure.

Disclaimer: This fic is not for everyone. People with a history of kidney disease, heart failure, anxiety disorders, halitosis, or scabies should avoid this fic. This fic should not be taken with alcohol. Women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant should consult with their doctor before reading this fic, and before boarding Oceanic flight 815 from Sydney to LA.

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Hurley was sitting in the caves, constructing a rudimentary volleyball net out of women's lingerie. The golf course had been a success, so he'd decided to branch out to other sports. Volleyball seemed like a natural choice; they already had plenty of beach. All he needed were two bamboo poles, and something that would suffice as a net. But Jin had a net monopoly going on, and Hurley wasn't about to try and explain to the guy that he wanted some of his essential fishing gear for recreational purposes. That left him with one option: make a net, or something like one.

Hurley hadn't immediately leaped to the idea of using lingerie; in fact, it was a last resort. The fact of the matter was this: if you tie a bunch of flannel shirts or denim pants or other cold-weather clothing rendered superfluous by a plane crash together, it gets heavy. He didn't want the poles collapsing under the weight of the net - that would be ridiculous. He also didn't want the net to sag right down to the ground in the middle - that would defeat the purpose. So he had been reduced to using the one kind of lightweight clothing that no one the island felt like wearing: provocative underwear. It was also ridiculous, but at least it was functional.

Hurley had tucked himself away in a corner of the caves that wasn't readily visible to those in the more populated areas - this was both to preserve the surprise, and to avoid the embarrassment of being caught fiddling with a pile of underwear that definitely wasn't his own. Making volleyball nets out of women's lingerie was like making sausages, Hurley had decided: the finished product might be something fun that everyone could enjoy, but that didn't mean you necessarily wanted to be caught in the early stages of production and have to explain yourself to people.

But despite the fact that Hurley was out of sight of the main entrance to the caves, he was well within hearing distance. And what he heard was People Freaking Out.

Hurley sighed. He honestly didn't get it; it was like no one on the island could be happy unless they were crapping their pants in terror over something or other. Didn't they find the constant anxiety exhausting? He had been scared plenty of times in his life, and found it unpleasant and often unnecessary. Sure, there was a monster on the island, and it had supposedly eaten the pilot, but he hadn't seen that happen. He'd also heard about some polar bears roaming around, but he hadn't seen those, either. All he had really seen, honestly, were boars. And he wasn't too worried about an animal that Locke and Boone were actively killing on a regular basis. But still, people somehow managed to find something to spaz about every freaking hour or so. Hopefully the volleyball would help everyone loosen up.

Two things (or three things, depending on how you look at it) happened more or less simultaneously: the general sounds of People Freaking Out resolved themselves into a shouting match between Charlie and Jack, and Hurley realized that he didn't have a volleyball - something rather essential to the game - and furthermore, he didn't know how to make one.

"Damn it," he muttered, throwing down his building materials and standing up. There was no point in continuing with the net if he couldn't find a ball. Might as well see what all the fuss was about.

Charlie was glaring fiercely at Jack, who was standing there with his arms folded and shaking his head. Steve and Claire were standing a little ways off, Claire looking generally anxious and Steve looking like he couldn't decide if he should pull Charlie away or join in. Kate was standing next to Jack, apparently trying to restore order.

"Will you both just calm down?"

"I'll bloody well calm down when he stops acting like I'm a head case when four bloody people have seen what I've seen!" Charlie snapped, gesturing accusingly at Jack.

"What you're all claiming to have seen is impossible." Jack shot back, arms still tightly folded.

"Oh, so we're all just making it up? Let's think real hard about this one, Jack; what happened the last time you thought someone was making things up?" Charlie took an aggressive step forward, and Kate quickly stepped between him and Jack, who was beginning to flush with suppressed anger. "I think I remember... you were wrong, weren't you?" Charlie continued over Kate's shoulder.

"Charlie," Kate said warningly.

"What?"

"Dude... what's going on?" Hurley interrupted, ambling forward.

Everyone whipped their heads around to glare at him, as if he had just said something wildly offensive.

"Locke didn't tell you?" Charlie asked, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Uh, tell me what?" Hurley raised his eyebrows slightly.

Charlie frowned. "Locke and Boone were supposed to find everyone here and tell them!"

"Oh, well, I was..." sitting in a corner, playing with underwear for no real reason. "I wasn't here." Hurley shrugged. "So, what's everyone screaming about?"

Kate sighed and looked down at the floor. Charlie turned to glare at Jack, who rolled his eyes. Claire bit her lip and looked at Charlie. Steve actually answered the question.

"We have a bit of a situation... with, uh, zombies."

Hurley blinked. "Zombies?"

"Yeah," Steve said, shrugging sheepishly.

"Oh." Hurley stood there silently for a moment, then turned and walked away.

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Desperately needing some time to think, Hurley had wandered down to an empty bit of beach and plopped down. He missed his headphones. If he had known just how long he was going to be stuck on the island, he would have tried to conserve the batteries a bit more.

Dude... zombies.

Hurley shook his head.

Crap.

He shouldn't have joked about it. Joking had always been a comfort to him, since it tended to comfort those around him, thereby lessening the general negative energy that tended to thrive on the Island. But this was the one thing he never normally joked about. And now with those damn numbers... he should have known better. He should have kept his mouth shut.

But Charlie had been digging away with such an awful, grim expression on his face that Hurley didn't.

And now look. Zombies. Great. And it was all his fault.

Well, Hurley's brain offered in an unusually brisk tone, you're just going to have to do something about it, aren't you?

"No way, dude," Hurley muttered aloud. What was he supposed to do, anyway? He fainted at the sight of blood, for crying out loud.

You weren't always that way, his brain said, now sounding distinctly sly. Not before the hospital...

"Shut up," Hurley said a bit louder. He didn't particularly enjoy thinking about the hospital, and he knew better than to think about the time before. Better to pretend none of it had happened; heck, that had been the whole point, as far as he could tell. Pretend none of it had happened, and if he was convincing enough, they'd let him go. And they had let him go, eventually.

But when you pretend for a long enough time, and with enough conviction... well, eventually you start to forget that you're pretending. You repeat a lie so often that you actually start to believe it, and the next thing you know...

...you're fainting at the sight of blood.

You never fainted before.

Hurley really, really missed his headphones. It made his brain that much easier to ignore.

Look, it really isn't that complicated. You can get yourself a weapon or something. Maybe you can yoink that axe that's been around, or make one out of shrapnel--dude, one of Charlie's shovels! That would be... wait... dude, what the heck is that?

Hurley sat up slightly and squinted out at the ocean. It had been a calm afternoon, with one small wave lapping the shore and sliding neatly under the next, but now something was disturbing the water. A dark bump rose out of the ocean about twenty yards out, reminding Hurley of the blurred "photographic evidence" of the Loch Ness Monster he'd seen in books as a kid. As he stared, the bump slowly moved towards shore, rising further as it did so.

It was a head. A head topped with a combination of stringy hair and seaweed. As it neared the beach, more of the body was exposed. Hurley just barely managed to not gag. The skin - where it was still intact - was horrifically bloated from prolonged exposure to water, and a sickening shade of green that clashed horribly with the orange swimsuit it was wearing. But most of the skin was not intact: the body looked as if it had been nibbled, in some spots right down to the bones.

Hurley couldn't move. The name "Johanna" drifted lazily through his mind as he stared in growing horror at the figure, which was slogging slowly but steadily toward the shore. The hair and seaweed mercifully hid whatever was left of her face. A low gurgling sound emanated from behind the hair and seaweed curtain, and Hurley watched as a half pint of water and a small, wriggling fish plopped into the ocean. Then, Hurley did the least sensible thing his mind would have been able to think up, had it been fully functioning at that point.

He fainted.

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Hurley woke up some time later, the sky above him a sunset pink. He sat up slowly and looked around. Nothing. He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, then stood up. Maybe he had just imagined it all. Some sort of heat-related hallucination.

But there, in the sand next to where he'd been lying, was a sloppy trail of footprints stretching from the water's edge to the jungle. The sand around the prints was still very slightly damp.

Oh, crap.

Hurley frantically checked himself for bites, "Oh, crap" repeating over and over like a mantra in his mind. When he found no bites anywhere, he only relaxed a little. He hadn't been bitten, and there weren't any zombies around but if more of them kept turning up, it was only a matter of time before someone was caught sleeping or not paying attention. And things would only go downhill from there.

Hurley brushed the sand off his pants and headed briskly for the caves.

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Woo! There's another chapter for all y'all! More shall come, hopefully with more regularity now that it's summer.

Quirky Writer: Indeed it does! And I will... hopefully more often now that I actually have time. ;)

Ember the angry Firedrake: The dead just don't stay dead in this fic, unfortunately. But yay, I'm glad you liked my Sawyer! He's surprisingly fun to write.

Megan Sleevewillow: And now Johanna as well! OH NOES!

GamgeeFest: Hopefully you got an alert for this one. Raa. Her hair IS too perfect, darn it... isn't it humid in the jungle? She should have frizz!

Swede85: Pretty much anyone who has died so far in the show is going to show up as a zombie... well, maybe not Arzt. We shall see.

Only five reviews... oh, well. Hopefully more people will find this chapter. I love you all!

Platy