A/N This chapter is rated M and contains thoughts of suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

Chapter 9

Dearly Departed

"We just loaded up the last of the equipment that you wanted, Doc." Graham said as he and Kendra walked back into the hospital's medicine supply room. "What else did you want us to take?"

"Alot of the medicine that I was looking for isn't here." Lexie responded as she turned around and looked at him.

He had a look in his eyes, that seemed to be somewhere between lust and love as his eyes roamed her body, before looking back to her face. Seeing that he was caught, he looked away sheepishly as his cheeks turned a bright pink.

"Kendra could you take those two boxes of meds to the truck?" Lexie asked, not taking her eyes off of the soldier. "Me and Graham are going to go to the downstairs storage to make sure they didn't take the supply of medicine that I need."

"Of course, Lexie." the Jamaican Slayer replied as she picked up the boxes, completely oblivious to the sexual tension that was in the room before leaving.

"I'm a little too old for you, you know." Lexie said as she tried to put a frown on her face and crossed her arms. She wanted to let him down as easily as possible.

To her surprise though, he didn't look away or deny it and started to approach her slowly. Letting his full height be known, it was Lexie who now had to look away.

"Look Doc, I know we just met but the way I see it is we're both single, we're both adults and..." he stopped as he gently stroked her cheek with his finger before placing it under her chin to make her look up at him. "believe me you're not too old."

Lexie had to admit that he was handsome and that it had been awhile since she had any companionship, but the soldier was just too young for her. Plus she didn't know if she was fully over Abe or not. Shaking her head for even entertaining the thought, she lightly slapped the soldier on the chest.

"Come on big guy, let's go and get those meds."

Following up behind her, he smiled to himself as he noticed that she didn't say no. As they made it down to the bottom level storage room, only having to kill two walkers, Lexie had found some things that she needed on the way, before Graham came to the door and opened it. He froze in horror at what he saw on the other side.

"What are you looking..." the words stopping in her throat, Lexie looked around him and saw five naked white skinned things, standing closely together in a shadowed corner of the room. Without even waiting until they had turned around Lexie already knew what they were.

They were Night Stalkers.

Maybe hearing her voice or even hearing their hearts beating, all five of them turned around creepily at the same time, their eyes glowing red and filled with insatiable hunger.

"Shit!" Graham shouted, as the things readied an attack.

Something dark, something terrible filled the biggest ones eyes as it lunged at Graham, the others standing back to let their obvious leader hunt. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Graham pounded him with three bullets. Two in the stomach. One in the shoulder. Blood spattered and the Night Stalker teetered a little, but didn't fall. Knowing that he had him, Graham aimed at its heart and fired, but his weapon clicked empty.

"Oh fuck!" he muttered as he hastily started to load a clip. Then he knew, somehow he just knew this was it. Taking something off his neck he threw it to Lexie, before ordering her to run.

"But what about you?" she asked.

"I'll be right behind you." he said as he finally jammed in the clip. "I'll hold them back for you."

As she ran Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow. Graham aimed at the basement windows causing glass to shatter and a wall of light poured in hitting the other four with an unhealthy dose of the suns radiation.

The skin on their faces started to blister and smoke rose from their skin as they let loose a howl that nearly shook the building. Taking this to his advantage the leader extended his arm. As he concentrated for the briefest of seconds, the muscles and tendons of the forearm thickened and his nails extended, creeping forth from the flesh, forming razor like talons.

He then used vampiric speed and slashed Graham's throat, before slashing him in the chest twice. His body began to spasm and twitch at the massive blood loss, but there was clearly still life in his eyes. With a scream, the other four moved forward on him like vultures to a dead body. Graham let lose a gurgle of protest but within moments, he was mostly drained.

Claiming his victory the Leader's talons punctured his heart. As his nails receded, he cupped Graham's blood up in his hands and began to drink from it. As his eyes opened they were red with ferocity and satisfaction. A satisfaction that grew as his bretheren tore Graham apart.

As Lexie ran full speed outside, she bumped into Kendra of whom looked at her with keen eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Graham... those things in the basement." were all Lexie was able to get out.

That being all she needed to hear Kendra grabbed her crossbow and ax, before running into the building. As she ran off, Lexie finally looked down into her hands to see what the young man had thrown to her. They were his dog-tags. Not knowing why but she clutched them to her heart and started to cry as she heard the last thing he said to her play in her mind.

'I'll hold them back for you.'

With somber expressions on their faces, with the exception of Oz of whom remained forever stoic, Jesse and the others walked into the house. And they also walked into the sounds of Lexie crying. Ghostly pale and sweating profusely, Oz quietly slipped out of the room.

"Hey, Lex what's wrong?" Jesse asked as he walked into the living room and saw Sam and Kendra comforting her. "Where's Graham?"

"He's dead." Sam replied for her as she handed Riley his dogtags. "There were some Night Stalkers at the hospital and... hey where's Donovan?"

"Suicide." Riley murmured, as he put his gun down and sat down next to his wife. "Sam there's something you need to know. Something all of you need to know." he said as he started to relate the story that Dr. Lawson had told them.

"So everybody is..."

"Yeah we're all infected." Riley told his wife. "Look we should keep this from the others right now. When I think the time is right, I'll..."

Before he could complete his sentence Alexandria and Caridad ran into the room.

"You... you guys need to come quick." Alexandria said trying to catch her breath. Taking a quick puff of her inhaler, she went on. "There's something wrong with Oz."

Giving each other a look Sam, Riley, Kendra and Jesse quickly walked into the kitchen. As they did, they saw Oz sitting at the table with his head down, unmoving.

"Oz, buddy are you ok?" Jesse asked as he walked up on him.

Grabbing his arm, he felt for a pulse and found none. "He's dead." Jesse announced. Seeing a blotch of blood on his long sleeved shirt, he rolled up his shirt and saw a bite mark on his forearm. "He must have gotten bit when we went to the CDC."

"Jesse get away from him." Riley said as he pulled a gun out of his side holster. Watching him, he saw that he took out a silver bullet. Chambering it he walked over to the table and pointed it at Oz's head. "I'm sorry about this man."

Right before he could pull the trigger, with lightning speed Oz sat up and slapped the gun out of Riley's hand. Grabbing the soldier around the neck, the shorter man threw him the length of the room.

As the former lead guitarist of Dingoes Ate My Baby turned around, they saw that his face was already half transformed to that of a werewolf. His body was starting to sprout grey fur and he seemed to be growing in height and muscles. But what was most striking about him, were his eyes. They were grey like that of a zombie, but they had red flecks in them.

Not getting lost in his eyes, Kendra ran forward and slapped him in the snout with her axe. As she went for another swipe, Were-Oz caught the handle and threw both of them up in the air and over the long elegant kitchen table.

Hearing a scream, it looked up and saw Caridad and Alexandria standing at the door. Letting loose a horrible roar, he was about to advance, when a gunshot rang out, making a decent sized hole in his chest. As Lexie dropped her arm, the revolver barrel still smoking, Were-Oz let out a final cry before falling over dead. For good measure Kendra walked over and cut off his head.

"What the hell was that?" Alexandria asked, as Caridad fainted.

"Oz... Oz was a Werewolf." Riley admitted.

"A Werewolf!?" Kendra asked angrily. "Are you mad? Why didn't you..."

"Because he learned how to control it." Sam said in support of her husband. "We knew the risks and he learned to control..."

"Control!? Control!? Jesse asked angrily. "You call that..." not even bothering to finish his own sentence, he angrily stomped out of the room.

Waiting until he was fully alone, Jesse sat in his room and took out his colt. Sitting on his bed he looked down at it before opening the chamber and letting all of the bullets hit the floor. Picking one up he loaded it back in the chamber and closed it.

Putting it back down on the bed, he just sat there looking at it. Deciding the hell with it and not seeing the reason for going on living, he picked it up and put it to his head and before he pulled the trigger he remembered his reason.

Kendra

If he couldn't live for anything else he would live for her. Putting the gun back down, he couldn't hold it in any longer and he started to cry. Feeling a pair of hands on his shoulder, he looked up and saw the object of his affection holding him.

'When did she come in?' he loosely thought to himself.

"I...I love you." he whispered into her ear. He had just seen too much death.

Looking down at the gun, Kendra swallowed hard before replying. "I Know."

The Next Day

The sun sat high in the sky and birds chirped peacefully as the whole gang all stood around Oz's grave. With a fresh tear rolling down her face, Sam hung her fallen friends and fellow soldiers dog-tags on Oz's grave marker. It was with regret that they couldn't bury their bodies so they had taken their dog-tags whenever someone had died.

As everyone took turns saying something about the people who had died and the family members and friends they had lost, Riley decided to go last.

"Graham was the kinda guy that could get under your skin." Riley started as he pointingly gave Jesse a look. "After all the years I knew him, he sure as hell got under mine. But that was because he was never afraid to say exactly what he thought, how he felt. That kinda honesty is rare. Especially now." he said as he stopped to look up at the sky as if talking about the whole world.

"Whenever I make a decision I looked at Graham and he'd look back at me with that look he had." he stopped for a second as a tear rolled down his cheek, memories long gone playing in his mind. "I couldn't always read him, but he could read me like a book. He knew things about this world... he knew the truth. So much so he risked his life a hundred times to save my ass and he gave his life to save others. Awhile ago, before we came here he told me that this world was broken and what was left of mankind would fade away into nothing."

As he said that he looked at each and every last one of their faces. "The best way we can honor him and everybody else that died, is to pull together into one group and do what we need to do to survive. We should go out and find others and bring them here too. What I'm saying is simply this. Let's prove him wrong."

A/N I also wanted to dedicate this chapter to my best friend. She committed suicide a few months ago because she had a tumor that the doctors couldn't operate on. I also decided to end this fic at least for now in the next chapter. It will have an uplifting ending but will give a glimpse of what's to come in the next season.