As Simmons, Donut, and Doc were trying to make their way through winding hallways and past unknown, trigger-happy gunners, Grif and Sarge were busy trying to figure out what the fuck just tried to eat their faces off.

"What the fuck was that!?" Grif jerked back with a shout, blood and other matter that was thankfully not his was splattered across his front and slowly seeping into his clothes.

There was a body at his feet. He blinked hard, twice for good measure, yet it was still there. Now, don't get him wrong, he's seen corpses before – he was in the army for fuck's sake – but he had never seen one like this. The body was sprawled on its stomach, legs and arms splayed in a twisted version of a starfish. Its hair was long, dirty, and matted. What might have once been blonde hair was a mix of sickening browns and newly blooming reds. Its clothes were dark and baggy, practically falling off its emaciated frame. He could just barely see part of its face peaking out from under the halo of its hair. Its face was ashen, the skin looking like it had been falling off in chunks. Where what once might have been prominent cheek bones in life were sharp as blades now. If Grif were to look closely, and he won't, he'd be able to see that a neat, circular hole under the mass of hair was the cause of death. Though he didn't particularly have to, given that the back of its head was blown off.

Sarge stepped out from behind where he had been using Grif as a human-meat shield. "Well, whatever it was, it's dead now." He punctuated the statement with a sharp kick to the corpse which caused it to jerk, sending Sarge back with a nervous chuckle.

"No, seriously, was that a person? What the fuck happened to them?" If Grif's voice pitched a little high at the end, then no one had better blame him because what the fuck.

Grif was still waiting for an explanation on what the fuck just happened, but Agent Washington didn't explain himself, the dick. "We don't have time for this. I'll answer all of your questions after we get out of here." His eyes kept darting over Grif and Sarge's shoulders. It was hard to tell if he was lying or just searching the shadows. Either way, Grif still didn't trust him, but faint noises behind him and the mess at his feet reminded him that he didn't have many options. Grif didn't get a chance to answer before Sarge shoved past him again.

Sarge strode up to the agent with confidence Grif was sure he was faking. He drew his shoulders back and faced Washington, toe to toe. "Don't think this means I trust you any farther than Grif can throw you, which, let's admit it, isn't very far–" "Hey!–" "But I'm not willing to die here. My place is on the battlefield, going out in a blaze of glory! That hopefully takes Grif out with me–" "Rude–" "So we'll follow your lead, for now, but I've got two conditions."

Washington was still keeping an eye out for another attack, but took a moment to look down at the shorter man, his eyebrow raised like he couldn't believe that offering to save their asses wasn't enough. "And they are?"

"I want my shotgun."

Grif could have sworn he saw an almost-smirk on the agent's face but decided that was just a bullshit trick of the lighting. Washington crossed his arms and tilted his head, something almost like humor in his voice when he said, "Right, and?"

"And we're getting the rest of my team."

The agent's relaxed posture disappeared as he nodded, "Done" and started walking down the hall. "We'll make our way to the basement. Your files said they stored your personal belongings down there. Meaning, if we're lucky, your weapons should still be there." 'If we're lucky', he says. Yeah, they were just full of luck. Chock full of the stuff. Grif sighed, but followed the agent anyway, still not keen on trusting him, but lacking any other option.

'We are so screwed.' Grif wished the agent would hand over on of his guns, he didn't need a rifle and a pistol, right? Grif's hands were sweating, even if he had a gun he was sure it would have slipped through his fingers. This was so bad, security should have been all over the intrusion, but other than stray bullets and errant grenade tosses he hadn't seen the security detail. Come to think of it, Grif had been seeing less and less personnel other the last few weeks. Less doctors stabbing at him, less security escorting him, less training kicking his ass. Grif had been happy about that at the time, always game for an excuse to relax, but thinking back on it now it just seemed...odd. Like they knew something he didn't. Sarge and Grif had been left in their room for longer and longer periods of time. Grif would have been okay with that if Sarge hadn't been the "get up and do something fucking useful" type.

Lost in his musings, Grif didn't noticed they had stopped until his nose collided with the back of Sarge's neck. 'Ow, fuck!' Or, that's what he would have said if his hand cradling his nose didn't muffle the words into a garbled mess. Either way, he didn't get to question why they were stopping before Sarge and Washington were crowding around him, Sarge's hand crushing the questions back into his mouth. Grif would have been tempted to lick it to get him to back the fuck off if that wasn't fucking gross. As it stood, Grif was left glaring angrily into the dark.

Now that he was focused, he could tell that there were...lumps further down the hall, unmoving and cast in shadows. Grif wished Sarge's hand were covering his nose too as the wind shifted to blow through the bars on the hall windows, the wind carrying a metallic scent that was determined to lodge itself at the back of Grif's throat. 'So that's where security went.' Grif thought grimly, gagging behind Sarge's hand. Sarge just tightened his grip, probably wishing it were around Grif's throat instead.

The bodies were gross, really fucking gross, but Grif doubted that was the reason they were sto-oh shit fuck why- a pair of eyes were staring at him from the doorway of one of the rooms. Grif didn't blink, afraid that if he did then the last thing he'd see would be a hallway that looked like the inside of a sausage. He nearly shit a brick when one set of eyes turned to two, and two to three, then half a dozen before Washington shoved the both of them down an adjacent hallway, bringing up his pistol to start firing. "Run! Get to the basement then get out of here!"

Grif didn't have to be told twice, already stumbling down the darkened hallway, the sound of – fuck, was that hissing? – sure to chase him into his nightmares. Sarge looked like he wanted to do some "no man left behind" bullshit before he started after Grif, the both of them not sure where they were going but knowing that "anywhere that wasn't there" was a pretty good start.

They ran until Grif was sure he was going to spit out a lung before Sarge shoved him to the left – Grif was really starting to get sick of being pushed around – towards an illuminated sign. Grif could have cried, "The basement, thank Christ."

"Don't start celebrating yet, princess." Sarge slammed into the door but it wouldn't budge. It was locked, of-fucking-course it was. Nothing could be simple, could it? He tried the wall but it was just plaster covering brick. Fuck. "Grif, under normal circumstance I wouldn't trust you to watch a rock without tripping over it, but Simmons ain't here, so you'll have to do. Watch my back and try not to shit yourself." Sarge gave that entire speech while pulling off the control panel next to the door, not seeming to care when his bare fingers began to bleed onto the hard plastic.

Since Sarge wasn't facing Grif, he missed the way Grif's eyes widened and he flailed, looking all around him before whispering loudly at Sarge. "Watch your back? With what, a piece of plaster!"

Sarge was surprisingly calm for a man that was staring a shit-storm in the face. "If you have to, but I'd prefer if you just threw yourself at them. Give them something to chew on while I get this door open."

Grif would have felt indignant but that would have taken too much energy. Instead, he set himself up in front of where Sarge was crouched, a pile of miscellaneous plaster chunks piled at his feet. They were so going to die.

It wasn't until his heart had calmed enough to where he could no longer hear it in his ears did he notice something was missing.

He couldn't hear anymore gunshots.

"Shit, shit, shit." Grif grabbed the largest piece of plaster he could find, clutching it tightly between slippery fingers. "Uh, Sarge? I think Washington's dead." When he didn't get a response, Grif turned to look over his shoulder. He could see that Sarge had his eyes shut, two wires in each of his hands. As quickly as it had happened, it was gone just as fast and Sarge was back to working on the door.

"Just keep your eyes open, private."

Grif alternated between looking behind and in front of him (and also above him because you never know). Dammit, there were too many places to get ambushed and not enough people to cover their asses. He most certainly did not jump at the sound of Sarge shocking his fingers, nor does he scream and throw the piece of plaster as hard as he can when he sees something move towards him out of the corner of his eye.

"Fuck!"

"Jesus Christ! Wash? What the fuck, man!"

Washington didn't respond, just clutched the side of his head with a scowl and a soft grunt that sounded something like 'Why would you do that?' and 'I'm gonna fucking kill you.'

Grif was torn between laughing his ass off at the state of the agent or being angry at having the shit scared out of him (again). He settled for being mildly irritated because the look of murder on the agent's face was directed at him and he liked having all of his organs on the inside, thank you. "What happened back there? We thought you were dead!"

Washington just rolled his eyes and walked up to Sarge, apparently checking to see how far he had gotten on getting the door unlocked. "Obviously not."

"Ha, got it." Sarge looked pleased as the mechanical clicks of the door signaled they could finally get out of the fucking hallway and into some progress. The door opened and – there was another fucking hallway, goddammit. It was the longest hallway they'd see so far, but still a fucking hallway.

"Are you fucking kidding me!"

Washington just ignored Grif's outburst (Grif was getting tired of being ignored). "Come on." But as they got the door open, a blood curdling screech hit them. Washington whipped around at the sound. There were three people at the end of the hall, all of them standing as if they were puppets, bodies swaying mindlessly, until they looked up, eyes locking with Wash, slack mouths sharping into wicked snarls. Before the things could even blink Washington had shot one in the forehead, but growled in frustration as his pistol clicked on an empty clip. "Sarge!"

Sarge didn't need to be told, just bolted for the other door as Wash and Grif slammed their own door shut, forced to keep pushing against it as they had no way to lock it from their side. Grif's feet started to slide, the weight of the bodies pushing on the other side seeming to gain strength as Grif was loosing his. "There is no fucking way there are just two of them out there, I'm calling horse shit. Seriously, who the fuck are they!"

Washington's voice sounded slightly strained, though not nearly as much as Grif's, when he answered, "It's likely more showed up because of the noise. They don't normally travel alone."

Grif was getting sick of these non-answers, "Seriously, what the fuck is going on here?!" His shout was punctuated by a particularly heavy bang from the other side.

Washington grunted, shoving the door back when it opened a crack. "You want the short answer, or the long answer?"

They were starting to get pushed back, the door hinges creaking in protest. "I want some kind of answer, asshole!"

"Got it!" Sarge shouted from the end of the long hallway, the sound of the unlocking mechanism a fucking godsend.

Wash had just enough time to shout – "Zombies!" – before they were fleeing down the hall, the undead slowed by the door just long enough that their fingers only grazed the back of their prey's clothes before Sarge slammed the door shut behind the two, severing the fingers of zombie that was reaching for Grif's neck. Sarge's hands fumbled for only a second before he threw the manual lock into place, sealing them inside a stairwell. The lock wouldn't hold for long though, so the trio made their way down the stairs to...another fucking door. Grif could have kissed that door, the more things between him and those – fuck – zombies, the better.

The door at the bottom was, surprisingly, unlocked, so Wash quickly shut it behind them, making sure that all the locks were securely in place before jamming a metal chair under the handle. Grif just stood there, slack jawed, trying to reboot his brain from the worst case of "what-the-ever-loving-fuck" he had ever experienced. "Zombies! Are you fucking with me right now!"

Even though Grif couldn't see the agent's face, he could hear every ounce of sarcasm dripping from his words as he placed a metal table as firmly up against the door as he could and began stacking crates on top of it. "Yes, Grif, I am completely fucking with you. It's all an elaborate prank, and I shoot innocent people in the head for fun."

Grif could probably believe that last part, maybe not the innocent bit, but didn't want to think about it too much as he was too busy trying to get his basic bodily functions to work properly again, like his bowels.

Sarge's gruff voice called out from where he was searching the shelves. "What's so hard to believe? They look like they crawled outta hell, been eaten, shit out, and dragged by a Warthog, yet they're still trying to carve out our livers. That's the walking definition of a zombie if I ever did see one...or my brother-in-law, either one."

Grif just pointed a slightly ('only, slightly, okay?') trembling finger at Sarge, "You, you are way too fucking calm about this."

"Quit your bitchin' and start loading up on ammunition. Weren't you the one always talking about a zombie plan?" Even though Sarge sounded calm, Grif could see his hands were shaking as he searched the crates.

Grif wasn't all that concerned about putting on a brave front. "Zombie plan! Zombies weren't supposed to be real! That was just shit me and Simmons used to talk about so we wouldn't die of boredom!"

Wash walked up to him, a kind of calmness in his voice Grif wasn't sure how anyone could possibly have when there were zombies kicking at the damn door. "This is not the time to panic."

"This is perfect time to panic! We're trapped in our own personal grave with a horde of fucking zombies trying to eat our goddamn brains out! And you're telling me to stay calm!"

Wash just looked him straight in the eye. "Yes."

After a beat of heaving breathing on Grif's part, he deflated, not used to someone combating his panicked, "we're gonna die, oh god, oh god," attitude with the kind of zen-bullshit that Grif was sure the agent was faking, but was begrudgingly grateful for it. "Fine," he sighed, "Okay, I'm calm, calm as a cucumber, so fucking calm. Now, what's the plan for not dieing horribly?"

"We grab as many guns as we can, storm the stairs, take out the zombies, find your friends, then get the hell out of here."

The banging up the stairs was getting louder. "I liked everything except the part where we charge face first into a narrow set of stairs trying to escape while an unknown number of the undead try and rip our heads off."

Something collapsed and tumbled down the stairs; there went the second door. "We don't have a choice, it's not like there's another way out of here."

"What about a grenade? We toss it up the stairs, take out those sons of bitches, and keep all our limbs."

"Have your forgotten where we're standing? That thing goes off and it won't matter how many zombies are out there when we've been blown up! And even if we did survive the blast we'd still be trapped down here after you took out the stairs."

"We'll, it was better than your idea!"

"What part of that was better?"

"Hey! Numbnuts!"

"What!?" They shouted in unison, seeming to have forgotten there was another person in the room.

Sarge stood up from where he was searching, wiping his hands on his pants, shotgun perched on his shoulder like it never left, "If you two are done with your little tea party over there, ya'll can help me move these crates away from the window."

Both looked up to where Sarge was pointing, a sliver of light could be seen at the edge of the ceiling. Sarge knocked another one of the boxes away, and there was a window. It was small and dusty, like someone had stacked a box in front of it a long time ago and forgotten it was up there. There were no bars, thankfully, but what looked like chicken wire was placed between two panels of glass. It'd be a pain to remove, but a hell of a lot easier than iron bars. They both shifted sightly, relaxing the angry stance they had taken up at the start of their argument.

Washington cleared his throat, possibly trying to dislodge his embarrassment. "Right," then ordered Grif to gather up any supplies that he can, a job Grif found himself doing happily as it got his hands on a rifle. Sarge shoved more boxes away before Washington climbed up the remaining ones to get closer to the window. The door started shaking, a gap could be seen at the top of the door where it was starting to bend inwards. Washington turned his face from the window, "Get back and cover your eyes," before he slammed the butt of his rifle into the glass, shards raining down and cutting shallow marks into the agent's unprotected skin.

Grif managed to scrape together some minimal supplies, and by minimal he means an old tarp, guns without ammo, a scratchy blanket that looked like it held every STD ever, and a med kit that looked like it came straight out of WWII. He then fashioned the tarp to hold their supplies by turning it into a sling-type-thing...okay, it wasn't pretty but it worked, alright? He wasn't Donut for shit's-sake. A crate suddenly fell to the floor in front of the door with a crash, the other crates looking like they were about to follow. "Okay, this has been fun, but we should really get going now," Grif said in a rush of air, quickly getting to his feet and backing away towards the window.

Washington ignored him, fingers starting to bleed from where he was pulling at the wire. The wire was old and rusted but eventually started to give, bits of the stubborn metal crumbling as the agent pulled. Not all of it was gone, but it would have to do as the agent again thrust the end of his rifle at the window, shattering the second layer of glass. "Sarge, you first." Sarge looked like he wanted to argue, probably something like how he wasn't a coward and would face the enemy head on, but just then an arm pushed through an opening of the door, a simple chain lock preventing it from entering the room.

"Every man for himself!" Sarge shouted, crawling through the window, broken glass and wire snagging at his clothes.

Grif was next. He tossed the bag to Sarge though the opening, then, with a boost from Wash, started shimming through the window.

Until he stopped.

"I'm stuck."

"Oh my fucking god, are you kidding me with this right now!"

"Suck it in, private! Don't let your fat rolls be the end of of ya. I was planning something special for your birthday!"

"My birthday was last month, Sarge!"

"Both of you, shut the hell up! Sarge, grab his arms, I'll push him through from this end."

Sarge grabbed Grif's arms just above his elbows, while bracing his feet on the ground underneath Grif's head. Meanwhile, Washington grabbed Grif's legs, shoving himself forward to push Grif through. It was a tight squeeze but Grif started to inch forward.

Grif dropped his head, the brownish yellow grass starting to look really fucking interesting. "I've just had a face full of Sarge's crotch, kill me now."

"Ah, shut up." Sarge grunted, "You're just lucky I'm pulling your lard ass out from there. If you weren't blocking the only chance we had at survival I'd of left you to fulfill your rightful place as a corpse."

Washington was saved from anymore of the duo's bickering by Grif falling forward with an omf, followed by the sound of Grif rubbing his face in the dirt after landing on Sarge's dick and Sarge kicking him in the ass. It would have been a hilarious moment for Washington, had the chain on the door not snapped.

"Shit!" Washington just barely made it though the window, having to crawl over Grif to do so, but the undead were crawling through after them. The group started running, painfully aware of the horde forming behind them. Washington started firing behind them, drawing their lunges towards himself. One lodged itself between Washington and Sarge, only to get hit in the face with a sickening crunch by Sarge's gun. It wasn't until they were nearing the building connected to theirs that they noticed that the sound of gunfire was getting further away.

Grif chanced a look behind him, expecting to see decaying faces and emaciated limbs reaching out for him.

Only, no one was behind them.

"Wash!"

Wash had gotten separated from the others, more and more zombies going after the one actively attacking them. Wash turned to where Grif had shouted, stepping on the neck of a zombie that had tried to take a chunk out of his leg. "Go! I'll catch up with you."

Somehow, Grif knew that was a lie. He didn't have time to argue though as his shouting had alerted part of the mob to their escape attempt. He didn't get the attention of a lot of them, not compared to what Wash was up against, but having a gun without bullets can make five zombies feel like an army. Sarge started running, pushing Grif as he did so that the private was stumbling along side him.

They had a head-start, but not much of one. They didn't stop, not when the sound of Wash's gun became muffled, not when their legs started cramping, not when they flew beyond the crest of the hill that meant they were halfway across the compound, and they almost didn't stop in time before a jeep crushed them under its tires.

Okay, they stopped for that.

"Simmons!"