I know I haven't updated in a long, long time. If you read this, thanks for bearing with me. It's people like you who make writing fanfiction worthwhile, when I actually do it that is.

Here's the next chapter. Please R&R- that would make me a happy person. This is probably one of the reasons I took a break too. Reviews would be nice, even if they're to tell me about all of the little things I'm messing up.

And to all of my readers in the U.S., have a great independence day! Don't blow any fingers off!

Arrival

The next hour was spent looking for a hospital. There were plenty in the area, but the ones that the two did come across were either overrun with infected or…well, overrun with infected. They were everywhere. In every building, on every sidewalk, scattered everywhere across the streets; it never ended. Leon was about to go insane from just looking at all of them.

The wound in Leon's shoulder was merely a throbbing pain. As long as he didn't move it, the pain would stay that way. He still wanted to get to a hospital; they would have better equipment to remove the bullet from his shoulder. All he was really worried about at this moment was infection from the wound. Well, that and zombies, of course.

Mark occasionally glanced over at Leon to make sure that he was holding up alright. He assumed that Leon had been shot a few times before, because if it had been him, he would be crying like a little bitch. He went as fast as he could while still being safe in order to find a hospital quicker. It was impossible to find anything without a few zombies crawling over it.

After the cycle repeated itself again-drive, find a location, see zombies everywhere, drive away-a few more times, Mark came upon a hospital that had only a few zombies in contrast to the rest of the buildings they had encountered. There weren't more than twenty near the entrance, scattered out so thinly across the lot that it would be incredibly easy to maneuver around them. Mark parked as close to the hospital as he could without being next to the zombies. Shutting off the car, him and Leon exited the vehicle and made their way to the entrance.

Most of the zombies that did notice their approach were too far away to actually do anything about it. The few that were close enough to attack them were easily taken out with a bullet. They had attracted the attention of the rest of the zombies by the time they got to the entrance, but they needed only to walk inside to get away from them.

Taking a few steps away from the door that the zombies were clawing at, they surveyed the inside of the hospital. The floors were surprisingly clean; not a body or bloodstain in sight. After the sights they had encountered thus far, this was almost eerie in comparison. The foreboding sense of terror seemed to loom in every open doorway, and this unnerved the two survivors.

The two cautiously made their way through the building, taking small, deliberate steps in order to avoid being jumped by stray zombies. Walking down the main hallway towards the lobby, they encountered nothing. They passed by several small office rooms, peering in to them to the sight of neatly arranged files and workspaces. And still not a single drop of blood adorned the walls of these rooms. Leon knew that he should be relieved at this sight, but it only made him more anxious about the entire situation.

Standing in the lobby, Leon was still struck by how tranquil everything looked. He knew that probably wasn't the right word for it, but it was the first thing that popped in to his head; tranquil. Leon looked over at Mark and, commenting on the desolation inside of the hospital, curtly said, "What the fuck?" That was all Leon needed to say, Mark understood completely. He felt it too, the tension in the air behind the calmness of the hospital.

Looking around the Lobby, Leon didn't notice anything spectacular. It was a bleach-white walled lobby with ugly carpeting and chairs lining the sides. There were a few light fixtures on the ceiling-turned off, unsurprisingly-and a reception area on the far end. There were two hallways branching off on either side of it that ultimately led to more rooms and to staircases and elevators that took guests to higher levels.

"We're taking this hallway," Leon said, pointing to the right. Mark made no objection, since he had absolutely no clue as to what they should do now. Leon started down the hallway with Mark close behind him, looking over his shoulder every now and again to make sure they weren't being followed by anything. Leon stopped at every room and swung low around the corners, his gun outstretched and ready to shoot anything. Mark established his own routine and stood above Leon every time, scanning the room high left and right as Leon scanned low. As with the main hallway, all of these rooms were deserted as well.

Coming out of the final room in the hallway, Leon sighed and said, "What the hell is this? It's as if everyone just disappeared. There's not even a damn spot of blood in this place!"

"I know, and it's not sitting very well with me," Mark replied, and it was true. This seemed like a good idea at first, but he had a feeling that it would blow up in their face soon.

Nodding in agreement, Leon said, "Yeah, me neither. I wanted to stay here longer, but that may not be such a good idea now. We'll find the medical supplies that I need and get out of here. I don't want to be here longer then we have to."

They opted to take the stairs to the second floor, as the elevators were probably out of service, or on the fritz. Mark had been in this hospital before, and recalled how a lot of the supplies were up on the second floor, and close, thank God. Leon's shoulder was starting to go stiff and tender from this bullet wound. Making their way up, they were less cautious than they had been. They saw no immediate threats on in the stairwell, and thus lowered their guard, which was good. If Mark had to keep his gun held up any longer, he would probably have accidentally shot something just because of the tension building inside of him.

Stepping out of the stairwell and on to the second floor, they noticed that it was a repeat of the first floor. The bleach-white walls had no blood on them, and everything had been deserted. The second floor was 4 hallways connected to form a square, the middle acting as a storage room for the medical supplies. On the North and South ends of this square were other hallways leading off to different wings.

But all Leon was interested in was the room in the center. That held all of the supplies that he needed in order to get the bullet out of his shoulder, and to stop it from getting infected. He knew that he would have to pick the lock though. The room was made from concrete walls, and the doors weren't kicked down very easily.

Leon found a pen and some sort of pin and went to work on the lock. It took him several minutes because of the pen's large size, but he eventually got the lock open. Inside, he quickly located the supplies he needed. They turned out to be tweezers, a scalpel, hydrogen peroxide, gauze pads, and tape. Outside of the room, Mark waited, diligently looking for anything that could kill them. It wasn't long before he heard muffled cries of pain coming from inside the room. He had to hand it to Leon though; it took a lot of balls to do something like that.

A few minutes later, Leon came out red-faced and gripping his shoulder in pain. Mark walked over and, worriedly, asked, "Dude, are you okay?" Leon just nodded and dropped the bullet in to Mark's open hand. He took one look at it and reflexively threw it across the room.

"You're a dick, Leon."

Leon smiled at the remark. Straightening up, he said, "We should try looking for the cafeteria. No use going further if we don't have any energy left."

Mark agreed and headed off to where he remembered the cafeteria to be. Leon was bringing up the rear this time, and it was odd to Mark. He was so used to being led by Leon. They skipped all of the doors this time, seeing as they were all closed. There was no sense in opening them if they didn't have to.

The hallway-the one branching off of the north wall-ended at the cafeteria a few minutes later. Leon put his hand on Mark's shoulder to signal that he would be taking the lead again. Mark gladly obliged with his request and traded places with Leon. Leon opened the door ever so slightly, just to stick the barrel of his gun in. He then threw the door open and immediately stopped dead in his tracks.

The room was caked with blood and guts. The floor, walls, tables, ceiling; everything was soaked. Bodies littered the area. Some were thoroughly chewed for everything they contained, and others were merely missing parts. Some had their own intestines hanging out. The mere sight of all of this froze the two in their spot, and prevented them from seeing something else.

Over in one half of the room was zombies. Not just a few of them; there were a lot of zombies. It was almost as if the people who hadn't been zombies had been herded in here in order to lead the zombies this way. The large group was slowly making its way towards Leon and Mark, still unbeknownst to them. It was only until they were directly in front of the two that they noticed the sheer size of the group.

The cafeteria was by no means small. Being as busy as the city was, the hospital needed to accommodate as many people as possible. Thus, the cafeteria could hold several hundred people at a time. Unfortunately, there seemed to be just that many zombies. Leon and Mark stumbled backwards in a desperate attempt to get out of the groups' reach, forgetting to close the cafeteria door. They realized this too late though, and the zombies broke free from the room.

Sprinting down the hallway, Leon and Mark decided to pocket the guns and focus on running. There was no use firing into the crowd of undead chasing after them. A few bullets wouldn't do much against the hundreds of those things chasing them. Instead, they focused on sprinting away; sprinting to survive against the hungry, undead onslaught.

Coming out of the hallway, they made a beeline straight for the stairs down to the main floor. These zombies were uncommonly fast. They weren't Crimson Heads, but they weren't ordinary zombies either. Leon and Mark were sprinting as fast as they could and weren't as far ahead of the group as they should have been. Going down the stairs, Leon could see that the zombies' motor skills were still the same as every other zombie's motor skills, meaning they were shit. They stumbled and fell over themselves going down the stairs.

This gave the two survivors a bit more time to get down to the first floor and, hopefully, to safety. The growls and screeches of the zombies still sounded close as they descended the stairs, which made no sense if they were falling over themselves. Leon and Mark didn't stop to check it out though, they just kept running. That was all they could do right now: Run.

Blasting out of the stairwell and into the hallway Leon panted out while he was running, "Go through the…lobby and in to…the next hall." Leon wanted to circle around the zombies and lose them that way. He would have to risk the chance that they weren't smarter along with being faster. There weren't a lot of choices available to them right now.

Unfortunately, their choices were limited further by the fact that the zombies at the main entrance had broken through the front door. They had flooded in to the main lobby and started making their way towards the survivors as soon as they saw them.

Leon and Mark froze in their tracks and quickly searched for a way out of this new predicament. Leon started trying the doors on the left wall of the hallway. Mark followed suit and started checking the doors on the right wall. The first few doors were locked, of course, but Mark soon found an unlocked door. "GET IN," he screamed at Leon. Leon ran inside the unlocked room and Mark closed the door behind him. Holding it closed Mark told Leon to find something to put in front of the door.

Leon turned on the lights and immediately saw and office desk that could be moved in front of the door. He started pushing it over, but was going too slow. Mark chanced the door holding the zombies back and went to help Leon push the desk. They finally got it in front of the door, and not a second too soon. The zombies had started pushing and scraping against the door as soon as they had finished.

Leaning against the closest wall, the survivors could see that there was nothing spectacular about the office. It was a small, drab office that wasn't decorated with anything, leading them to the assumption that it wasn't used very much. There were a few chairs, and a computer that had gone unnoticed until now. Maybe this room was used to type up medical reports or to report filing on the computer.

So there they sat for an hour, doing all of nothing except staring at the door, hoping it would hold against the horde outside. There were a few times that they thought the top half of the door would snap against their weight, but it ended up holding. It looked as if they would be safe for a while, so there was no point in panicking.

Leon had been pondering the room over for a while now and suddenly blurted out, "I think there might be a false wall here."

Mark looked over at Leon like he was crazy. Sure, the things that had been going on recently weren't normal, far from it actually, but things like that were things of movies. He didn't want to say this out loud though, he was sure that it was just Leon trying to make the situation better than it was. This was to say, better than the position of, "completely fucked and unable to do anything." So instead of voicing his initial thoughts, Mark only asked, "Leon, are you sure about that?"

Leon either didn't hear him or was ignoring him, because he kept searching for the fake wall that supposedly existed in this room. He was darting around the room, knocking his fist upon every square inch of the walls. Mark was getting tired of seeing it, and listening to it. The incessant knocks weren't doing him any good after everything that had been going on today.

After about five more minutes of listening to the knocks Mark finally spoke up. "Damn it Leon, there's obviously not a secret wall in here. All you're doing is walking around, looking like a complete idiot, and pissing me off! It's time to cut the shit and find a way out of here and…are you even paying attention?"

He was not. During the entire rant Leon had been knocking away at the walls. Mark was about to explode again when he saw Leon slow down. Leon was knocking on a particular spot in the wall now, and it sounded almost hollow. Mark was completely dumbfounded: Had Leon really found a false wall? Most likely yes, but a part of Mark secretly wanted it to be a false alarm out of pure spite.

Leon punched through the wall revealing a hole. Reaching to the back of the hole, he found a lever and pulled it forward. Upon doing so, a section of the wall next to him opened up.

"Now," Leon started, "Can you stop bitching and ranting long enough to follow me through the door?"

Mark stared at him for a few seconds and said, "I know I should be really happy right about now, but I fucking hate you."

Leon only snickered and walked inside, Mark close behind.

A/N: Also, I have a poll on my profile that I would like you to answer if you have the time. And once again, thanks for reading.