Okay, so I had this chapter posted before but I was reading through my story so far and realized that I had LEFT OUT the entire chapter that was supposed to follow this one! :O Sooo sorry, not sure how it happened. Apparently Dean's not the only one with severe memory loss lately. :/ Anyway, I just tacked the chapter I forgot about onto the end of this one. So it's now really long, and chapter 10 should actually make sense. I have the portion I added marked, so just scroll to the author's note. Haha, wow. I am so baffled right now as to how I forgot about a chapter.

"Okay Dean," Sam said, checking the perimeter again, "Here's the deal. Remember all the times I wished that you would just stop talking?" he loaded a few more shells into his gun and snapped it shut with a click. "Couldn't you have picked a time when we were not in the middle of a forest surrounded by the walking dead?"

No answer.

"You know what," Sam muttered, thoughts racing to get around the cliff of panic so he could find a plan, "I'm going to walk to the car and burn all of your cassette tapes."

No answer.

Sam shook his brother as hard as he could until thoughts of shaking baby syndrome came to mind, but Dean didn't even notice. Luckily the zombies were lacking as well, though panic was rising in him like a flood. "Damn it Dean," he said, "Come on," he gave him one last earthquake shake and pushed him, hard. Dean fell backward and landed with a thud on the forest floor, body still rigid.

Sam glared down at his brother's lack of reaction. "Great," he said, snatching Dean's shotgun from the ground and shoving it inside the gun bag. "Great," he said again, scowling around at all the bodies. He punted the stereo Dean had brought with as much force as he could muster. It sailed off and nailed the base of a tree, throwing clods of dirt into the stream. He turned back to Dean. "When you wake up…" he began, pointing at him accusingly. He trailed off, and groaned. "I'll be so relieved it's not even funny. But then I swear I'm going to kick your ass," he finished, and slung his brother over his shoulder.

SNSNSN

By the time Sam reached the Impala, he was pissed. Lifting Dean was…well it was kind of like carrying a massive sack of potatoes, except you couldn't put it down and there were roots to trip on and trees to walk into and it was dark. Oh, and there were zombies lurking nearby ready to feast on human flesh.

Sam lowered his brother onto the backseat, fished in Dean's jacket for the keys, and then climbed into the front seat. He slammed the door so hard that it would have made his brother scream a stream of profanities if he had been awake. Sam glanced in the mirror, hoping to find Dean aware and lunging at him.

Nope.

Sam turned the keys in the ignition. He sped down the road to get to the hotel as quickly as possible, secretly hoping that Dean would wake and throttle him for driving recklessly, but again, no cigar.

Sam called Bobby when he was halfway back. It went straight to voicemail.

Convinced that decades of mad scientists and movie producers were laughing in his face, Sam sped into the hotel lot and jammed on the brake. He stepped out of the car and nearly stepped on a dark haired woman sitting on the curb, a cigarette trailing from her mouth. She eyed him wearily.

Sam opened the back door and heaved his brother out and onto his shoulder. He turned toward his room, finally meeting the woman's perplexed gaze. "No, we're not gay. Yes, I'm covered in blood. No, it's not mine. Now go inside and lock your damn door."

Sam trudged past her and into the dingy room they called home at the moment, slamming the door and dropping his brother gently on the bed. He tried calling Bobby again. Voicemail. Damn. It.

He had closed Dean's eyes earlier so that they wouldn't dry out, and now he pried one open and examined it. The pupil reacted to the increase of light, but that was all he got. Sliding the eye closed again, he noticed the heat coming off Dean's skin. He got the thermometer and wedged it in his mouth until it beeped. The little screen read 100.5, and he squirmed. If it kept rising…

Sam pushed the thoughts back and lifted up his brother's sleeve to check the bite. He instantly wished he hadn't.

"Ahh…" Sam muttered hoarsely, staring. Long black slits on Dean's skin extended past the strip of gauze that he had previously used to bandage the wound. The cuts were oozing a black liquid. Sam slowly pulled the bandage off.

He gaped.

Trying to remember how to breathe, Sam ripped his brother's shirt off his shoulder. He sat back on the bed, hand unconsciously still entwined in Dean's shirt. The new cuts hadn't been made by the zombies; they had spread from the bite, pumping the infection outward.

The gauze from the wound smelled like something had died.

Sam tossed the gauze into the plastic garbage can by the bed and bolted to the bathroom, where he promptly hurled the contents of his stomach, and possibly his intestines, onto the tiled floor. Gasping, he pressed his forehead into his hands and fought back a scream.

SNSNSN

Bobby had to be dead. Mauled by demons, bleeding out on the linoleum, dead. That was the only explanation for why he hadn't answered his phone or, at the very least, responded to the many frantic and near-incomprehensible voicemails Sam had left him.

Sam sat at the edge of Dean's bed, watching him. Well, researching on his laptop, officially, but mostly just watching. It was difficult to research when every other supposed cure suggested a bullet to the brain. Something Dean was bound to demand at some point, Sam speculated with teeth clenched.

It had been three hours since his return to the room. Since then he had cleaned Dean's wound with every disinfectant they owned, scoured it with holy water (worth a shot), poured holy water down his throat (also worth a shot), and re-bandaged the spreading wound.

Now he was stuck researching, and since he couldn't leave Dean alone in the room he was dependent on what people posted on the Internet. The suggestions seemed mostly guesswork, and he couldn't tell which suggestions—if any—were backed by actual firsthand experience with zombies. It was frustrating.

Some people suggested amputation of bitten limbs right after the bite, because the first thing everyone thinks after a friend gets chomped by a weirdo is 'Oh shit, I should run over and ninja slice off their limb to prevent infection.' Still, even if he had done that, the procedure didn't have a hundred percent success rate and might require a bullet to the brain.

Others suggested quick fixes to give the individual more time before chowing down on friends. One guy suggested using tourniquets to slow down the infection—which might have bought them more time if Dean hadn't been bitten somewhere complicated like a shoulder. Ultimately, Sam ended up dismissing the idea because it was too late in the game and the remedy was still just a patch job before the seemingly inevitable bullet to the brain.

One girl had posted that the only way to stop the infection was to have the infected individual willingly bite another zombie. Bite…another…zombie.

If he hadn't been so worried about his brother, Sam might have sought that particular girl out and put a bullet through her brain.

So far, the only logical explanation for the new plague of zombies was voodoo, and Sam wanted nothing more than to go find the source of the infection and, possibly, the bastard responsible for it. Unfortunately, that meant leaving the room, thereby leaving Dean, who was currently about as capable of survival as a newborn kitten.

Sam glanced at the door and then back at his hands that were clenched in his lap. Nope, not leaving.

He just wanted Dean to wake up—no, he just wanted Dean to wake up and still be Dean. Anything else was an added bonus. He shut his laptop with a click and leaned back onto the bed, exhausted. I'll just close my eyes for a second…

SNSNSN

Sam sat in the corner of a crowded department store. Blood coated every shelf and rack of clothing, and the escalator was a mess of amputated limbs. Bobby chased after a twenty foot grizzly that was wearing his hat and chewing on his cellphone. Ahead in the lingerie section, Dean stood amidst a crowd of supermodels, each wearing enough clothing to cover the surface of a small teacup.

"Sam?"

As he watched, Dean lifted one girl's curled brunette strands of hair to reveal a brain. It looked suspiciously like cherry pie.

Taking a spoon, Dean plunged it into the girl's brain and transferred a glob of brain matter pie to his mouth, smiling. The girl giggled and kissed him long and hard. The floor of the store began shaking wildly, and Sam leaned back against the wall to brace himself—

"Sam!"

Sam's eyes snapped open as he woke up and his reflexes took over. He pushed against the thing that was holding his shoulders, managing to knock it back a little before realizing that the 'it' was actually his brother.

"Dean," Sam whispered, and was up in an instant, looking Dean up and down and gripping his good arm to make sure he was really there. "Dean?"

(Author's note: Below is the portion I accidently forgot to post the first time through.)

"Appears so," Dean said, trying not to panic that he couldn't remember how he had gotten back to the room or what had happened in the forest. The look on his brother's face wasn't helping. "What…what happened?"

Sam shook his head and gently pushed his brother away and into a sitting position. He stood and walked to the wall, hands on his head, and stood there for a moment, breathing.

"Sammy?"

"You've been out for hours," Sam said, without looking at him, "You've been practically comatose, your bite looks like road kill, and Bobby's gone AWOL."

Dean's eyebrows furrowed, "Bobby…?" he questioned, grasping at something.

"Isn't answering his phone," Sam said, "Or voicemails. God knows I left plenty. Don't touch your shoulder," he shot at him, noticing that Dean was pulling at the new gauze covering the bite.

Dean paused, caught in the act. "How bad?"

"You don't want to see it," Sam said.

"So that bad, then," Dean said, discreetly looking his brother over for injuries. "Are you—"

"I'm fine," Sam said, knowing what he was going to ask, "You're not."

"What definition of fine are we using here?"

"The state of not becoming a flesh eating zombie."

"I doubt that's in the dictionary."

"Like you've read the dictionary."

"Sorry, I forgot it's your favorite book. Probably have it memorized."

Sam ignored him. "Focus. We need to figure out where and why the zombie thing started if there's any hope of finding a remedy. Since Bobby's out of the equation…" Sam said, trailing off. "You talked to him last. Did he say anything about doing a hunt?"

Dean looked at him blankly. "What?"

"Bobby," Sam repeated slowly, "Did he say he was on a hunt? Maybe he's in trouble."

"Uh…" Dean said, thinking furiously and coming up empty. "Sam…"

Sam plunged on, "Anyway, we should move. I did some research, and either we're on candid camera for a new reality show—and if that ends up the case I'm going to brutally murder all of the staff—or this is probably some kind of voodoo. I'm thinking there's someone out there behind the whole thing— the sites I've looked at call him a bokor, or sorcerer—and he would use these certain powders to…" Sam trailed off and snapped his fingers in front of Dean's face. "Dean."

Dean's eyes snapped up. "Huh?"

Sam sighed in relief. "Thought you checked out again."

Dean shook his head, cringing at the effort it took to move even a little. "Feels like I'm moving through concrete or something," he said, blinking hard. "An' it's tough to focus."

"I'm just happy you're conscious," Sam said softly. "I was going crazy here by myself."

Dean swallowed hard, trying to ignore the bad taste in his mouth and the stench coming from his shoulder. This was bad. He knew it, and, as much as he wanted to hide the severity of the situation from his brother, he knew that Sam already knew it as well. "Sam," he said, "I have no idea how long I'm gonna stay conscious. Or even me."

Sam knew where this was going and he didn't want to hear it. Not now, not ever. "I know," he said, "That's why we have to move fast."

"What if we can't find it?"

"We will."

"What if it's not voodoo?"

"We will find it, Dean!" Sam shouted, his voice cracking. He leaned too far to the side and his laptop fell off the bed with a thud. "Shit."

Dean flinched. "Sammy…" he said, reaching out to put a hand on his brother's arm.

"Just…just stop," Sam said, shaking him off, "I don't want to hear this right now."

"Hear what?" Dean asked. He persisted until he had Sam's arm tight in his grip. "Sam? Hear what?"

Sam paused. "The 'put a bullet through my brain' speech," he said finally, looking like a kicked puppy. "I don't want to hear it."

And now it's time to redirect the conversation. "Oh, that speech," Dean said, thinking fast, "I wasn't going for that speech, was actually about to plunge into the Miss America speech. But if you don't want to hear my plans for world peace…"

"I don't."

"Your loss."

"Doubtful."

"Right," Dean said, catching himself picking at his shoulder again. He lowered his hand to his side and gritted his teeth. "Sam…what happened? I need to know. I mean…we were in the forest…the zombies?"

"You remember that. That's good."

Dean rolled his eyes at his brother's expression. "Right. Don't talk to me like I'm some helpless victim in our cases. I know I'm in bad shape and blacking out all over the place, but I'm still your older brother."

Sam nodded, relief visible in his eyes. "I know."

"So, lay it on me. What happened to the zombies?"

"I took care of them," Sam said.

"Uh-huh. I have a case of Alzheimer's, Sam," Dean said, troubled by the fact that some of his words were slurring together, "Remind me how you took care of them, exactly."

Sam shrugged. "I killed the zombies that attacked, and then I brought you back here," he said carelessly, like he was talking about a day at the office.

"All of them?" Dean demanded, trying to formulate some idea of what had happened, "How many?"

"I doubt it was all of them, just the ones that attacked."

"Okay, so you went all Jason Bourne on their asses," Dean said, "Congrats. What did I do?"

"You…" Sam began, trying to think of a way to form the sentence so that Dean wouldn't hate it and coming up empty, "You checked out."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning you just stood there holding your gun up and stared off into the woods."

"While you fought them off?" Dean said, horrified. Shit. Never should have suggested leaving the room, not like this.

"I told you already," Sam said, "I took care of it," he leaned back and yawned, and Dean noticed the dark circles under his eyes.

"You look terrible," Dean said.

Sam smiled. "Thanks," he said. He sat there a moment and then pulled out his phone.

"Who you calling?" Dean asked.

"Bobby," Sam said, scowling when the call went to voicemail again. He hung up and threw the phone down onto the bedspread. "Like we don't have enough going on," he said, frustrated. "How are we supposed to check up on him too? I don't even know where he is."

Dean stayed silent for a moment. "Why would we worry about him?"

"I know, we shouldn't," Sam said, absently rubbing the back of his neck, "He can take care of himself. I just can't help worrying…I mean, with Dad this was normal, but Bobby usually…"

"Usually what?" Dean prodded, unsettled.

"Usually answers his calls. At least, he does when it's us," Sam said. He looked Dean over critically. "You're looking a little better. Color's coming back."

Dean looked at him skeptically. "Really?"

"I think so. And if it's not I'm going to pretend it is," he said, standing and walking across the room. "So are you ready to go?"

"Uh…" Dean said, brow furrowed. He exhaled slowly. "No. Not yet."

Sam froze in mid-step, halfway to his bag. "What?" he stammered, half expecting to have heard wrong. Dean was always ready to leave. Even when he was seriously injured or only partially conscious. His heart started pumping faster. "Why?"

Dean was silent a moment. "Don't freak out."

Sam turned completely around and was back beside his brother in an instant. "Shit. What's wrong?"

"Sam…" Dean said, reaching out and pushing him back gently, "You're freaking out. I told you not to."

"And that's supposed to stop me from freaking out?" Sam demanded incredulously, arms spread wide.

Dean winced. "Yeah. Probably not my best plan ever. Thoughts are still kind-of muddled. Do I have a fever?"

"Yes."

"That explains a lot."

"Dean," Sam said loudly, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Dean said hurriedly. It would have been more convincing if the word hadn't cracked in his throat. He coughed. "I just have a question."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "A question?"

"Yeah," Dean said slowly, "It's not a question you probably want to hear me ask right now."

"Dean, look at me," Sam said, "I am already freaked out right now."

"I know. I feel partially responsible for that."

"You are completely responsible for that," Sam said with emphasis, "Now just ask me the damn question."

"Fine," Dean said, "Uh…"

"Dean! The question."

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "Well, you keep mentioning Bobby and how he's missing and he usually helps us out…"

"Yeah, so?" Sam demanded.

"So…" Dean trailed off and then plunged onward. "Who's Bobby?"

Thanks for reading, and sorry about the confusion!