Author's note: Alerts are still teh suck.

MsBrooklyn: Hey, no food or drinks allowed. Management cannot be held responsible for any popcorn-related mishaps.

Phoenix Skyborne: I'm glad to know I've got the proper balance. I didn't want to let this get too silly, but I have never yet been able to pull off straight horror.

Thanks for reading, one and all!

-3.0

Eventually, the zombies seemed to get bored. A few of them shuffled away into the darkness. A few more wandered over to gnaw on the glass wall of the Mad Hatter's cell across the hall.

"Excuse me? Hello there," the Mad Hatter called out to them, his voice muffled by layers of glass and distance, and overshadowed by the groaning of the dead. "What exactly is going on here?"

"Zombies, Jervis," the Riddler called back.

"Oh, is that all?" the Mad Hatter said, and went back to bed.

"Do you think someone should tell him that they're not the typical mind-control zombies he's always making?"

"Oh, please. Next you'll be suggesting that we break him out of his cell and take him with us," the Joker said. No one answered that directly.

"I wonder if his little chippy things would work on those creatures," Harley mused.

"Do you really want to get close enough to find out?"

"No, I guess not." She sighed and stared at the zombies. They stared back at her. "Jeez…all those things used to be alive," she said.

"What's the big deal, Harl? We kill people all the time. We killed Fred and George last Thursday," said the Joker.

"Yeah, and now they're trying to chew their way through the door. It's just…kind of icky." The Scarecrow looked up from his studies of the zombies' movements.

"Icky? There's nothing icky about science."

"Science is brutal and it cuts like a knife," the Joker said at random.

"Oh, Puddin, not that song. Not now. Besides, Professor Crane, you had a pretty good freak out about the brains on my shoes."

"Braaaaains," the Joker echoed.

"Zombies don't eat brains," the Scarecrow snapped.

"Well, actually…"

"Puddin, he doesn't want to hear about Simon," Harley said hastily.

"Who's Simon?" asked the Riddler.

"You don't want to know," she repeated. The Scarecrow sighed. Now that they were all hell-bent on conversation again, his chances at studying the zombies' reactions to sound stimuli were shot.

"Shall we start thinking about escape plans, then?" he asked.

"If we can get past the zombies, I can get us to the main security room," said the Riddler. "From there, we can find out what's going on outside these walls, and—"

"Who cares about that? I'd rather just leave."

"Haven't you ever heard that knowledge is power? We can't just walk outside into more of this chaos. Besides, from the security room, we can call for help."

"And are you sure you can hack into the system?" asked the Scarecrow. The Riddler just gave him a "duh" look.

"Are you sure you can give small children nightmares? Fat lot of good that skill will do us here, though."

"There's no need to be snarky, Edward. How do we get past the zombies?"

"Just run for it," the Joker suggested. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"A valid point," the Scarecrow conceded sarcastically. "On the other hand, it would be interesting to survive this, so perhaps we could come up with another idea."

"Did you have something good in mind?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Nygma, do you happen to know the Mad Hatter's security code?"

"7940520051. Why?"

"You…may not like this plan," he warned. The Joker smiled.

"I like it already."