Author's note: So this chapter turned out way longer than I anticipated, my apologies for that. I could have cut out the last scene, I suppose, but I didn't want to; you'll see why when you reach the end :) Anyways, yes, prepare for a lengthy read, sorry!

Thanks to the following reviewers: 666snoopy; Guest (you are correct, yes; that's where the limp comes from); Richon; Kalos; JaiJayce; Weebio; solitare1

Warnings: Some zombie gore

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.

I hope you'll like it!

Chapter 4

"You have enough food and weapons?" Father asked, approaching Sasuke as he stuffed the last bag into the back of the van.

"Enough to last us four days at least," Sasuke confirmed and jumped out of the van, leaving it open still in case Naruto and Gaara had extra bags.

He had packed two bags of his own with food and bottles of water, which should normally last them four days if shit ended up turning sideways after all. It might even last them a bit longer if they rationed it. He hoped the supply run would go smoothly, but it was better to be prepared and he didn't know enough about the place to be certain they could hunt if necessary.

"Still feeling confident about taking them with you?" Father questioned and crossed his arms.

"They haven't given me any reason so far to doubt them," Sasuke said and shrugged. "Did you get a bad report about them?"

"No, nobody has any complaints about them," Father said and smiled very briefly. "Except that they apparently aren't real chatterboxes." He side-eyed his son. "Except to you if I have to believe Itachi."

"Oh my god, don't listen to what Itachi tells you," Sasuke said exasperatedly and pressed the heels of his palms briefly against his eyes, cursing his brother. Damn that bastard. "Not sure what exactly Itachi has been blabbering about, but it's not like they talk excessively to me either."

"Whatever you say, Sasuke," Father said amused before he sobered up and he clasped Sasuke's right shoulder. "Stay safe, okay? We've been doing quite well on the losses department, I don't want to break that streak." There was a hint of humour in his voice, but his eyes were deadly serious when he caught Sasuke's eyes.

Sasuke covered his hand and gave it a firm squeeze. "You know me, I don't give those bastards a chance to get to me."

"Hate to break up this nice, emotional scene and all that, but we ready to go or not?"

Naruto's voice startled Sasuke into stepping back and he turned his head around to stare at the other man; his heart quickening in fright. Naruto and Gaara were waiting a short distance away; Naruto with a neutral face, Gaara looking slightly bored. Fuck, but how could people be this damn silent? There was gravel covering the ground here; Sasuke should have heard them approaching way before Naruto spoke up.

"That all you taking with you?" Father questioned and lifted an eyebrow.

Sasuke couldn't blame him for his confusion. Naruto only carried his by now familiar dagger, his machete and he had a gun tucked behind his waistband. He carried nothing else, though; only a thick jacket to protect him against the cold, harsh wind. His nose was already turning a cherry red and Sasuke thought absently they should find a scarf for him soon.

Gaara wasn't carrying anything more than a crossbow, a gun which was also tucked behind his waistband, and two blades strapped to his thighs. He had a thick jacket on as well, which was unzipped and he had his hands stuffed into the pockets of it. He and Naruto looked like they were just going outside the walls for a short walk and not on a supply run that would take at least two to three days.

"Yeah, 'course," Naruto replied non-puzzled. "That's all we need. What else would we take with us?"

"You didn't think to bring food?" Sasuke inquired sceptically.

It wasn't really necessary with the amount of food he had packed, but he would have assumed that bringing food with them would have been a given when he had informed them to pack for a two day trip. Who didn't bring food with them on a supply run?

Naruto shrugged and made his way to the front of the van. "I prefer having protection with me over food. 'Sides, not the first time I go a couple of days without food, I'll be fine." With that said, he opened the door and jumped into the van, slamming it shut behind him. At least he hadn't taken place behind the wheel.

"Food's not going to do shit when you're surrounded by dead fuckers," Gaara snorted and walked to the right side of the van. "You can survive a couple of days without food. How long do you think you'll last when your arse ends up in an entire mob of zombies?"

He didn't wait for an answer and simply climbed into the van as well.

Both Uchiha men stared at the van for a moment. Father uttered a sigh and rubbed a hand over his cheek.

"Make sure they both eat as well. I don't care that they're apparently used to it; they're not going to risk your life by damn fainting from hunger," he muttered.

"I'll make sure of it," Sasuke promised and closed the back of the van. "I'll see you in a couple of days. Tell my dear brother that he's full of it."

Father snorted; his eyes lightening up a smidgen. "Yes, of course. Be safe."

Before he stepped into the van, Sasuke lifted his hand into the air and signed at the ones manning the gate, waving once with four fingers. It was the agreed upon sign for the gates to open so that he could drive through. He got behind the wheel, started the car, and watched the gates open slowly, rolling smoothly to the right. They left the gap just big enough for the van to squeeze through and the second he was outside, the gates rolled shut again, closing off the compound.

Then they were off; the road stretching out endlessly in front of them as the sky slowly turned lighter.

Sasuke glanced to the side where Naruto was lying with his head braced against the window; he had his eyes closed and his right hand resting on his dagger. A look in the rearview mirror showed Gaara in a similar position, though his head was reclined against the back of the seat. It was a question whether they were truly asleep; it seemed impossible for anyone to fall asleep so quickly when the van wasn't that comfortable to begin with and when taking into account that these two had been on the road for ages, creating hypervigilance.

Sasuke understood their hint well enough, though. No chatting, that was fine. He had no problems with driving in silence. He shifted until he sat more comfortably in his seat; his hands relaxed slightly around the steering wheel when they left the compound behind them.

Here was to six hours of hopefully peaceful silence.

They stopped for a short break at the three hour mark, using the time out of the van to stretch their legs and drink some water. Well, more accurately Sasuke drank water and then waggled the bottle in Naruto's and Gaara's direction, forcing it into Naruto's hands when neither made a move to accept the bottle.

"You're going to feed us as if we're babies too?" Gaara rolled his eyes, but took over the bottle from Naruto when the blond man was finished sipping from it.

"How much further do you think it is?" Naruto asked curiously, looking around.

They had paused on an open stretch of road; some dozen cars piled up on one side, a couple of others abandoned close to where they stood. The wind had free reign to howl in this open space and it let them feel exactly how cold it had become by now as they inched into winter.

"If we can keep up this tempo, I'd say less than three hours perhaps?" Sasuke guessed and peered up at the sky.

The sky was lightly overcast, a dreary grey having overtaken the weak sun around an hour ago. It didn't look like it was about to start raining any time soon, though. For now all they had to worry about when it concerned weather related crap was the fierce, harsh wind. Doable for now when they were driving; it might become problematic once they started scouting the place and the harsh wind might be a hindrance to their hearing.

"Can I see the map?" Naruto inquired.

"Sure." Sasuke ducked into the van to grab the map and spread it open against the side of the vehicle so that it would shield them at least somewhat from the merciless wind. "Think we're right about here." He circled their position on the map and drew his finger upwards. "And we need to go all the way here."

"That leads us straight past some woods," Gaara remarked, studying the map carefully.

"You mentioned this is the first time you attempt such a long trip?" Naruto commented, narrowing his eyes slightly. He nibbled on his lower lip while he studied the map as well, leaving indentations behind when he released it with a quite pop.

"Yeah, don't really have much of a choice anymore. All the places around us have been picked clean," Sasuke muttered and scowled. That was naturally to be expected, three years into this whole bullshit, but it was enervating nonetheless. The further they had to go, the more risk they ran.

"There's a chance someone set up camp there already," Gaara mused, tapping the map.

"Yeah, 'specially because malls aren't exactly common in small, off the grid places," Naruto added and cocked his head to the right. "I doubt we'll be the first ones to arrive there."

"That's a risk we unfortunately have to take." Sasuke furrowed his eyebrows and stared at the map. "We'll leave the van a mile away from the place, check it out and if it's safe, we'll drive the van into the town."

"And if it isn't safe?" Naruto regarded him expectantly.

"Then we try to sneak around and grab whatever the hell we find," Sasuke stated frankly. "If someone tries to stop us, well, you know what to do then."

Instead of being horrified or shocked at the implication – though honestly Sasuke had not really expected them to be that, considering what they had told Itachi during their interview – Naruto and Gaara just nodded in agreement.

"Good plan. Simple, but effective," Gaara muttered.

Sasuke honestly couldn't tell whether he was being sarcastic or genuine.

"Let's go then," Naruto said. "Best if we get there before it becomes too dark if we still want to scout."

"I'd rather not scout in the dark if we can avoid that," Gaara agreed.

Sasuke started folding the map, cursing inwardly at the howling wind, which one, made it almost impossible to hear anything else but its sharp whistling tone, and two made it an absolute bitch to fold the map properly.

"Naruto," Gaara said right as Sasuke finished folding the map.

Sasuke started to turn his head when Naruto raised his machete in the air suddenly and in a flash slashed it down abruptly.

Zombie blood and gore sprayed across Sasuke's stunned face, stinking up the air, and his mouth dropped when he stumbled black, staring dumbfounded at the zombie who had been about to take a bite out of him. The same zombie he hadn't heard approaching in the first place because of the goddamn fucking wind. The zombie who gurgled lowly one last time before he crumbled to the ground like a puppet whose strings got cut; his head sliced neatly in two, the halves drooping to each side. His brain splatted wetly on the asphalt, a victim to gravity.

Calmly Naruto shook off the remaining gore from his machete and checked briefly behind the van. He clucked his tongue. "Best get back in the van; I'm spotting a group of five more fuckers making their way over here and where there's five of them, there's bound to be more."

"Yup, they're coming from that side as well," Gaara said and jerked his thumb at the piled up cars. "Best not keep lingering here, I'd say."

"I didn't even hear him." Sasuke hadn't meant for either man to hear him, upset at himself that he had been so fucking careless, and so he jumped when Naruto slapped his shoulder; his fingers digging into his muscle.

"Considering you had your back to him and the wind's been howling like mad around us, that doesn't surprise me. Hell, Gaara and I only spotted him because we were facing the right direction. Fucker must have been hiding behind one of those cars," Naruto said flatly.

His eyes warmed just the tiniest bit when he caught Sasuke's gaze. "Don't beat yourself up over it, nobody's perfect. 'Sides, that's why you have us here. To have your back, remember? Now come on, let's get going before more unpleasant visitors show up."

Sasuke chanced a look behind him and acknowledged that yeah, they had to leave immediately. A group of zombies was stumbling in their general direction and he wasn't in the mood to deal with them.

"Thanks," he muttered, aiming the gratitude at both Naruto and Gaara.

"Don't mention it," Naruto grinned and walked back around the van to climb into the passenger's seat.

"Not like it would be in our best interest if you died," Gaara said blankly and stepped into the van as well.

Sasuke snorted and after one more look behind him, he got behind the wheel again, shutting the door behind him.

The moment he turned his head, a small towel hit him smackdab in his face.

"While you still look crazy hot even with all that blood on your face, fucking unfair, I tell ya, that shit stinks and I finally got used to not smelling zombie shit again," Naruto drawled with a glint in his eyes. He rested his feet on the dashboard. "Be a dear and clean yourself off, all right?"

Absurdly, it was that almost coquettish sounding demand and Gaara snorting in the back that shocked Sasuke into laughing. Naruto joined him soon, throwing his head back. His laugh sounded amazingly light for someone who acted so jaded at times. Gaara's low chuckle ran like a current through their laughter.

They were still snickering when Sasuke started the van and drove away.

The sight of buildings looming had Sasuke slowing the van to a stop and he parked it close to the treeline, using their low hanging branches as coverage. They hadn't encountered a single living person all the way here, so the van should be safe for now.

"Every place ends up looking the same, doesn't it?" Gaara stated critically, adjusting the crossbow on his back.

"Rotting zombie gore will do that to everything," Naruto muttered, glancing around.

"Let's look around, see if we can drive the van there or if we have to sneak around," Sasuke said and locked up the vehicle.

They followed the treeline up until they reached the first building, a decrepit home which had its windows smashed in completely and its door busted to hell and back. A quick look inside one of the windows showed a table upended and several broken wooden parts that might have been chairs once upon a time.

Eerie silence greeted them when they sneaked into the town. Most buildings here were tall enough that they blocked the wind for the most part, but that still didn't make it more comfortable to walk around here. It only seemed to increase the eeriness even. Sasuke didn't know which sound he dreaded more: that of the groaning, gurgling dead meandering around or the utter absence of sound, where it felt like the air was being sucked out. Silence didn't always equal safety any longer. Silence could also be the harbinger of a group of people ready to jump them or take them under fire.

For now they kept to the right side of the street, their backs against the walls as they slowly made their way deeper and deeper into the town. The fate of the first building had befallen several stores as well: their doors were busted in, old blood painting some of them. Through one door a dead zombie slumped towards the ground as if someone had forcefully shoved him through the wood – or the zombie had attempted to crawl out after someone before meeting his final end. Everything was possible in the world as it was today.

"How about we climb onto one of the roofs?" Naruto murmured; his left shoulder pressed against Sasuke's, his right against Gaara's, so that his voice wouldn't carry over and potentially alert other people roaming around here. "Could be useful, such an advantage point. At the very least we won't waste time walking through the entire town."

"We might be able to locate the mall that way," Gaara agreed.

Sasuke considered the idea and nodded then, seeing the sense in it. The houses here weren't particularly tall nor was there a building that really stood out, but any height would help them out with checking their surroundings quicker and easier. It could hopefully also give them a good estimation of how far the mall was exactly.

They went down the street, testing a couple of closed doors to see if any of them would open without too much effort or noise. The fourth one Naruto tried, opened without much issue and he slipped inside, Gaara and Sasuke following right behind him. They paused in the dark hallway for a moment, pricking their ears for any unusual noise. The whole house was quiet.

"The door shut tight?" Naruto questioned out of the blue.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, why, what are - "

Without any warning Naruto pushed a lonely vase off the table. It toppled over the edge and shattered apart on the tiled floor; the noise almost ringing in Sasuke's ears, his heart beating faster in response to his surprise.

He stared at Naruto when the man cocked his head to the side and announced after a short moment, "Well, looks we're completely alone. If there was a dead bastard here, they'd be greeting us by now."

"Let's go upstairs," Gaara said, appearing wholly unbothered by what Naruto had done. Most likely they had done this stuff before.

Sasuke huffed in disbelief but followed them upstairs; the stairs creaking faintly underneath their weight. "Could have fucking warned me," he muttered darkly. "You pull that kind of shit often?"

"Fastest way to find out whether any of the dead are inside," Gaara replied dismissively.

Naruto offered a quick grin over his shoulder. "Checking the rooms would take too long and that could still lead to nasty surprises. We figured long ago that this is the easiest way. If a dead bastard is present, we'll be prepared by the time they come to us."

That made sense, Sasuke supposed, but still a bit of a warning would have been fucking appreciated.

The first floor only had two rooms; one appeared to have been a study, a desk and a bookcase visible from the open doorway, while the second one contained a lonely futon and empty drawers strewn across the room.

"Looks like the owner grabbed everything and got the hell out of the dodge when shit hit the fan," Naruto commented after a quick, but thorough check of the room. "Nothing left save for the futon."

Gaara squatted next to it, regarding it sceptically. "And we're not taking this one with us. Smells too questionable for my liking. I didn't survive zombies for so long to then fall victim to some kind of disease."

"That would be highly unfortunate – and embarrassing as hell," Naruto smirked.

"Any of you got an idea how to get on top of the roof?" Sasuke asked after realising this house only had two floors and no attic they could use to look over the town.

"Hm." Naruto entered the old bedroom again and looked out of the window. He wriggled at the latch until the window opened and looked up, biting his lip. "There's a ledge here. I can use that to push myself off and onto the roof. Should be doable."

Gaara walked over to him and looked down. "Looks narrow, but doable," he muttered.

"You're not going to break your neck like that?" Sasuke questioned sceptically and drew closer so that he could take a look out of the window as well.

He frowned when he saw the lack of decent wiggle room. One wrong step and Naruto would make one hell of a nasty fall. Especially because, Sasuke frowned harder, the previous owner had apparently been trying to wait out the apocalypse in his home and had planted several spikes as a line of defence in the garden.

Spikes which were still firmly aimed upwards and which looked way too sharp for comfort.

"Nah, I've climbed in worse conditions," Naruto said dismissively while Gaara took a step aside. "Just be ready to cover my arse in case shit hits the fan, all right? Either one of you, just don't fight over my butt."

"Sure, just as long as you can keep your arse whole and don't get it spiked through if you do slip off the roof," Sasuke riposted dryly and pulled out his gun.

His katana was strapped to his back as always, a reassuring presence, but he had taken some of his guns as well because a katana, while deadly and quick, was only useful in close quarters. In case of an ambush from the rooftops, his katana wouldn't do shit.

Naruto surprised him by grinning before he swiftly swung his body out of the window, hopping onto the edge. "Knew this wasn't one-sided between us and you do appreciate my butt." He winked.

"Concentrate on the roof, not the guy," Gaara droned. He crossed his arms, but his gaze was sharp as he looked out of the window, keeping an eye on the other roofs.

"You're an idiot," Sasuke snorted, but couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy as he watched Naruto stretch out, hovering precariously on the ledge as he grabbed onto the gutters.

He pulled himself up, using the nearest wall to brace his feet against it, and then there was a light thump above Sasuke when the blond landed onto the roof. He heard nothing else anymore after that and he decided to join Gaara in keeping watch from the window, looking out for anything that might betray the presence of someone else. So far only a couple of birds seemed to have accompanied them here, twittering quietly in one of the trees behind the fenced garden. A whole row of trees had been planted behind these houses and Sasuke thought he could see the roof of a school on the other side of it. He wondered whether they should stop there and see if anything useful had been left to scavenge. Some bandages, maybe even medicine.

He voiced his idea aloud. "Think I see a school there," he pointed in that direction, "think we should make a stop there and see if we can find something?"

Gaara leant slightly forwards, peering in that direction. "We can give it a try," he said with a nod. "Sometimes they do have useful stuff left. Doubt many people scavenge a school to be honest."

The gutters protesting alerted Sasuke to the fact that Naruto was getting off the roof and he spent a second wondering how the hell the guy was going to manage getting down with nothing decent to hold on to, but somehow Naruto succeeded in lowering himself down enough so that his feet touched the ledge again. The second he was down, he basically swung his body inside and closed the window again.

"See, told you I could do it, not a single scratch," he said breezily, but when he turned to look at them, his gaze was serious. "Couldn't see anything immediately suspicious, but this town is quite big actually and has got a shit ton of buildings, so who knows what might be in those."

"You think we can risk bring the van here?" Sasuke asked.

Driving into town might attract attention if there were indeed other people hiding here, but on the other hand if they landed into trouble, they would be able to make a quicker get away with it.

Naruto nibbled on his lip; his fingers rubbing almost absentmindedly over the handle of his machete. "I'd say we take the risk," he replied eventually, sharing a look with Gaara. "If we do get caught, we'll be quicker with the car instead of trying to make it on foot."

"All right, let's go back then." With a bit of luck the rest of their hunt would proceed as smoothly as the start of it.

They located the mall after driving around for half an hour. The shattered doors and glass strewn about made it abundantly clear that they weren't the first ones to try their luck here, but whoever had been here before hadn't snatched everything. They dodged a couple of zombies, ignored the pile of rotting zombies smashed to pieces on the ground floor – yep, people had definitely been here before – and systematically went through every store that looked promising.

They succeed in filling three large sport bags with clothes they looted from two clothing stores and a fourth bag with some kids clothes Sasuke had discovered in the back of a third store. After stuffing those bags in the back of their van, they returned to the mall and for once luck was on their side: the first floor harboured a baby supply store. Still filled with quite some stuff from the looks of it.

"You want to go in here?" Naruto asked surprised when Sasuke made short work of two zombies blocking the doorway.

He stabbed the first one through his head and cut off the head of the other one, letting their lifeless bodies fall onto the floor.

"Yeah, got orders to collect as many baby supplies as we can," he answered and stepped over the dead bodies.

"Someone's pregnant?" Gaara questioned.

"Yep."

"All right, let's see what we can find then," Naruto said lightly, following him inside.

Whoever had looted the mall before them obviously hadn't had much interest in baby supplies because the shop was still fairly stocked. They cleared one table and collected everything on there that might seem useful. Five boxes of disposable diapers, two containing reusable ones. Eight cans of formula and a full box of empty bottles. A stack of crawlers, mini jump suits and sweaters with some shoes in pastel colours.

While Gaara and Naruto brought their haul to the van, Sasuke walked through the store, eyeing the bigger items such as cribs, chairs and carriers. Some strollers were still left, but he thought those wouldn't be useful in the event they had to run. Trying to flee from zombies with a stroller didn't sound like such a good idea.

"Van's filled up to nearly a third already," Naruto announced when he and Gaara got back from dumping the clothes in their vehicle.

Gaara raised an eyebrow when he saw Sasuke standing in front of the cribs. "We're taking that with us?"

Sasuke frowned and tilted his head to the left, considering the boxes. "Maybe two of each? We'll have to save room for other supplies too."

While still disassembled, the boxes would also take up space and if their luck held on and they found food or medical supplies he didn't want to have to return to the store to dump some stuff.

"Sure." Gaara shrugged and grabbed the first box.

They had to kill a couple of zombies, but they found several boxes with canned food in the lonely supermarket. Every single food item in the store had in fact been crammed into the storage room which led Sasuke to assume that at one point someone had been camping out here. The streaks of dried blood smeared across the tiles and the walls, however, made it clear that this person or people were no longer around to prevent them from taking the boxes with them.

"Oh man, Gaara, look, even coffee still," Naruto sighed and shook a can back and forth. Some blood was smudged across his cheek from where he had rammed his dagger into a zombie's forehead.

Gaara glanced at it before sniffing. "Not exactly the good kind, but beggars can't be choosers I suppose," he muttered, slightly aggrieved.

"You two coffee fans?" Sasuke asked idly.

"Personally, no, never really was, but if you need to keep watch an entire night, this stuff sure does help," Naruto said lightly. "Gaara basically taught me to drink it, though he tends to be more picky about the taste. Hey, there's even cereals left here!"

"I'm not picky; I just have taste," Gaara murmured, dumping some cans in their box.

"One's loss is another one's gain," Sasuke mumbled and looked behind the counter to check if anything had been stashed there. Only some gum but he took them anyways, adding them to their pile.

All the weapons from actual guns to simple kitchen knives had already been looted, which was disappointing, he wasn't going to lie, but they still found a lot of supplies and they took care to check every zombie for any weapons they might have been carrying during their untimely death. Not like those dead fucks would still have a use of them anyways.

They set out to the school next, taking some bandages and some scissors from a couple of classrooms of which the windows had been shattered a while ago. It looked like people had had a lot of fun destroying the furniture inside because none of the tables or the chairs had survived; the splinters of wood mixing in with the shards of glass.

They rounded the corner and peeked through the dusty window of the nearest room. Judging by the large table in the middle, the cabinets lined up against the walls and a couple of broken laptops, this must have been the teacher's lounge. Unfortunately this room wasn't as empty as the others had been: someone, perhaps a teacher, had taken care to lock up zombies here. Sasuke estimated that there had to be around twenty stuck in there, some still kids. They mingled around, groaning and moaning mindlessly. One of them, a balding man, had been smashing his head into the wall for so long that his face had been reduced to nothing but a messy, bloody pulp; his skin scraped away, showing nothing but a mangled mess of bloodied tissue and hints of white bone.

"Well, that's a face not even a mother could love," Naruto mumbled and snorted.

Sasuke shook his head and made to turn around, figuring they could check out the rest of the town before they would bunk down for the night.

"Where are you going?" Gaara asked to his surprise.

Sasuke blinked at him before jerking his thumb at the van. "Back to the van, of course. There's nothing left for us here."

"I see a room that doesn't appear to have been looted yet," Gaara said dryly and gestured at the teacher's lounge.

"We might still find some good stuff in here," Naruto chimed in as if Gaara was being reasonable here.

"Unless you two suddenly are in need of glasses," Sasuke began sarcastically, "you cannot have missed the bunch of zombies stuffed in that room. There is no way you can get any stuff out there while they're around."

"Easy fix, we'll get them out of there," Naruto said flippantly and glanced at Gaara. "What do you think?"

"If there is enough furniture left standing, we should be able to do this," Gaara confirmed whatever idea Naruto had apparently telepathically sent to him.

"Able to do what?" Sasuke asked, a tad exasperatedly.

"The plan is simple," Naruto said and stretched his arms. "I'll go back into the school and search for enough tall furniture to build a barricade in the corridor. Once that's up, I'll unlock the door of the teacher's lounge, gain those fuckers' attention so that they leave the room and once they're gone, you two pop in, lock the door from inside and get all the shit you can find. I'll lock them up somewhere else before meeting you back here."

He looked expectantly at Sasuke after he finished explaining his batshit insane plan like he expected Sasuke to clap his hands and declare it a genius idea. What the fuck was he on? That plan wasn't simple at all!

"Are you insane?" Sasuke asked flatly.

"What's so insane about this plan?" Naruto protested and scowled at him. "Gaara and I have done this sort of crap before and we're still standing."

"How, I really don't understand if you do this kind of crazy shit on a regular basis," Sasuke sneered.

"Look, we know what we're doing," Gaara said calmly, peeking through the window again before he looked at Sasuke. "I know it sounds crazy, but it's doable. If Naruto can't pull off the barricade, he won't even try distracting them."

"I'm not stupid," Naruto snorted.

Given the plan he had just proposed, Sasuke was doubting that particular claim at the moment. He looked between the two men, who both had a determined look on their face.

"If you can't pull off the barricade, you return immediately," he ordered, giving in with an aggrieved sigh. "This is fucking insane, I don't know why I'm agreeing to this shit."

Naruto grinned and clapped his shoulder, shaking him lightly back and forth. "Because we know our shit. Just be ready to get inside as quickly as possible. You need to lock the door immediately, otherwise you'll be fucked either way."

"No pressure whatsoever," Sasuke muttered darkly.

Naruto winked at him and walked past him, disappearing behind the corner.

"You really think this is a great plan?" he asked sceptically, listening to the muted groaning from the zombie crowd.

"We have done this before," Gaara replied and placed his crossbow on the ground before he pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around his arm. He dragged an old chair to the wall next, propping it underneath the window. "Keep an eye out on the playground, see if no dead fucker is going to surprise us."

"What are you going to do?" Sasuke asked warily, but grabbed his katana.

"I need to smash the window. There won't be any time to do that once Naruto distracts them," Gaara answered and climbed onto the chair. "The noise of the glass will otherwise pull them back. If I do it now, we can enter the room once they're gone."

"What if they try to escape through the window?" Sasuke pointed out.

Gaara shook his head, however. "There's a table on top of the cabinets, remember? They can try but they won't be able to reach."

"You are too confident," Sasuke said darkly, but stepped in front of Gaara to cover his back anyway.

"No, we just have done this before; we got it down to a routine by now," Gaara mumbled and grabbed one of his daggers. He transferred it to his covered arm before he pulled back that arm and struck the tip of the dagger rapidly in several places.

Where the dagger had hit the window, thin cracks appeared, spreading out rapidly. Before the spider cracks could touch, Gaara used the butt of his dagger to simply smash the window to pieces. Shards of glass showered the windowsill, the sound of breaking glass echoing throughout the playground. Sasuke tensed up as the groaning of the dead inside grew louder, shuffling noises approaching the window.

"Look at those dead fucks," Gaara snorted and jumped off the chair, pulling his jacket back on after he shook it. "Like a bunch of grabby kids."

Sasuke turned his head a bit, keeping part of his attention on the playground and the rest on Gaara as the man set about punching out the rest of the glass, freeing the window completely. A mottled green grey hand poked out, the fingers worn to the bone, but Gaara simply hacked them off and finished removing the glass.

"Now we simply wait until Naruto lures them out," Gaara said and slung his crossbow back over his shoulder, strapping his dagger to his thigh.

"You know how we have to give reports of every run?" Sasuke said neutrally. "Yeah, not sure if I want my father to know we did this kind of stupid shit. That's not exactly the definition of a safe run."

"What's safety nowadays?" Gaara said and shrugged. "If we get the stuff, it doesn't matter."

"How long do you think we'll have to wait?" Sasuke questioned.

Gaara cocked his head to the right. "I don't think that long anymore," he said and nodded at the window.

Sasuke rose up on his tiptoes and his eyebrows rose at the sight of the door opening, followed by Naruto's boisterous voice calling out, "HEY, YA DEAD FUCKS! WANT A BITE? FOLLOW ME!"

"Well, that certainly grabbed their attention," Sasuke mumbled in disbelief and watched how every zombie's head turned sluggishly towards the door.

Their moaning grew worse as they stumbled forwards, following the lure of Naruto's voice and the noise of something smacking rhythmically against the floor in the corridor.

"Here goes nothing," Sasuke muttered and put his katana away.

Gaara got back on the chair and pulled himself up on the lower frame of the window. He swung his left leg across it first before climbing through the window completely.

"Come on, I'm locking the door," he called out from inside the lounge.

Sasuke sighed, shook his head but climbed through the window as well. Gaara was already at the door, locking it and jamming a chair underneath the doorknob for good measure.

"You're sure Naruto will be okay out there?" Sasuke asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Naruto knows what he's doing," Gaara reassured him and grabbed a bag from the table, unzipping it before emptying it. An empty bottle, a crumpled box of biscuits and a smudged lunchbox clattered onto the table. "Come on, let's check this room quickly."

They made their way methodically but quickly through the room, ripping open drawers and doors of cabinets to check their content. A couple of first aid kits were shoved into the bag, followed by some loose bandages, some scissors and two pencases filled with pencils and pens.

"These painkillers have one more year left," Gaara read from a generic white box.

"Might as well take it with us," Sasuke said and folded up a scarf and some mittens he found discarded next to a broken coffee pot.

"Think we got everything useful here," Gaara declared after one more quick round.

"Let's go then," Sasuke said, eager to get out of here before the zombies decided to test out how sturdy that door actually was.

Sasuke got outside first, landing on the ground. Gaara threw the bag out of the window and Sasuke caught it, stepping away from the window so that the red haired man could climb down as well.

They nearly ran straight into Naruto when they went around the corner. Some blood had splattered across Naruto's trousers, but he didn't seem injured. He was wiping off his machete and grinned at them.

"Got some good loot?" he questioned, looking for all the world as if he had just gone on a walk instead of luring zombies through a corridor.

"Some useful stuff, yeah," Gaara confirmed and pointed at the bag in Sasuke's hand. "You got them locked up somewhere?"

"Yep, in another room. They're someone else's problem now," Naruto replied lightly. "Now let's get out of here. Empty schools are creepy as fuck, man."

"I don't think you can call this one empty exactly, considering the zombies stuck there," Sasuke retorted dryly.

"You know what I mean," Naruto snorted and rolled his shoulders. As they hurried back to the van, he checked his watch. "We've got around two hours more, give or take, before the sun sets. We going to check out some of the houses too?"

Sasuke opened the back of the van and shoved the backpack inside. "Why not?" he decided after climbing back behind the wheel. He waited until the other two were in the van as well before starting the car and driving off the parking lot. "Maybe our luck will hold."

Sasuke didn't know why he expected their luck to hold. It did not. Far from it.

He had parked the van on the side of the road between a couple of deserted ones. They planned to check the houses in the block here, bunk down somewhere for the night and then tomorrow they would leave. With all the supplies they had found so far, the van was nearly filled to the brim already, so there was no point in staying here for much longer.

Their plan had been a good one – more sane than the plan for the teacher's lounge had been – up until a gate next to one of the houses unexpectedly was broken down by a swarm of dead fuckers who had gathered somehow; their weight and insistent pushing having been too much for the thin iron gate to handle.

"Motherfucker!" Naruto cursed as the dead swiftly surrounded them, pouring from every goddamn crevice it seemed like.

"Should have expected our luck not to hold," Gaara said darkly and grabbed his two daggers, brandishing them expertly.

"Guess so," Sasuke muttered and swung his katana straight into the head of the nearest zombie before it could try to take a bite out of him.

He had the vague idea of cutting their way through the dead to their van and get the hell out of here, but no matter how many zombies they killed, more and more seemed to stream out of every fucking corner. It took all his focus to keep slashing and stabbing, blowing out several zombies' brains when they got a bit too close for comfort. Fuck the noise, it wasn't as if being silent would help them now. He nodded a quick thanks at Gaara when the man rammed his dagger through a dead girl's head before she could sink her teeth in Sasuke's arm.

"Fucking shit!"

The cut off yelp somewhere behind him had both Sasuke and Gaara whirling around instantly and something akin to panic bubbled up in the pit of his stomach when Sasuke saw Naruto falling down, toppling over a dented garbage bin.

"Naruto!" Gaara snapped; a hint of panic in his voice.

A zombie – a guy with stringy black hair and a gaping hole in his back, showing parts of his spine – stumbled towards Naruto, eager for a bite now that his prey was down.

His skull was blasted apart before he could bend down.

Sasuke dodged several zombies and hurried over to Naruto, grabbing his wrist the second he was next to him and hauled him back on his feet. "You okay?" he urged, hearing another gunshot behind him as Gaara felled another zombie.

"Yeah, I'm – MOTHER DICK!" Naruto practically howled when he settled his weight on his left foot. "That shit hurts, fuck!"

Fuck, he had probably twisted it when he fell down. Fucking fantastic. Just what they needed.

Sasuke killed three more zombies and hastily looked around, spotting the small apartment building across the street. It was the only place for now that didn't have zombies swarming in front of it and it was currently their only chance to get out of this nightmare alive.

"Naruto, how bad is it?" Gaara called out, stabbing two zombies in the head at the same time.

"Got my foot fucked up!" Naruto called back with a growl.

"This is going to hurt like hell," Sasuke warned and Naruto's head swivelled towards him for a second before he turned around and stabbed a dead woman through her forehead, letting her body sag to the ground, taking two others down with her. "Gaara!"

"Yeah?"

"The second I clear the path in front of me, we need to run to that apartment building. That's our only chance to get out of here."

"Fine, as long as we get the hell out of this mess," Gaara growled.

"Think you can handle it?" Sasuke asked Naruto, who was frowning.

"'S not really the question whether I can handle it, don't got a choice," he replied grimly and so swift it was difficult to imagine he was injured, he whirled around and shot four zombies in succession.

Sasuke saw him grimacing, however, saw the sweat beading across his forehead, noticed the way he tried to favour his right leg while still keeping his balance. At best his ankle was merely twisted. At worst it was broken. If that was the case … They would have to deal with it later.

"Get ready, both of you!" Sasuke barked.

Gaara cut down four more zombies, but managed to make his way to them, throwing Naruto a worried look, who offered him a pained grimace in return.

There was no time for more concerned talk, so Sasuke swung his katana in a wide arc around them, which gave them the small opening he had been aiming for. They made a mad dash to the building, dodging several of those fuckers and –

Slammed straight into the closed door. Sasuke started trying to kick in the door immediately, adrenaline spurring him on. It was wooden, there was some mould, it should fucking give at one point, surely! Behind him, Naruto and Gaara were shooting their dead pursuers. Naruto switched over to his machete when his bullets ran out while Gaara stepped towards the side and grabbed his crossbow.

"Should have fucking brought my crossbow as well," Naruto muttered and then raised his voice, "Hey, any day now, Sasuke, please!"

"I'm fucking trying!" Sasuke snarled back and took a couple of steps back before he forcefully slammed his shoulder into the door.

Hot pain instantly exploded in his shoulder, making him see stars, but the constant barrage of kicks and now his shoulder did the trick. The door slammed open, he stumbled inside, able to regain his balance before his face smashed into the floor. He grabbed Naruto by his jacket and dragged him inside.

"Gaara!"

"Yeah, coming!"

Sasuke was still seeing stars from the pain, making it hard to focus on his surroundings, but a quick look around showed a heavy closet blocking the staircase. Straight marks across the floor led straight to it; someone had probably used the closest to block the door at one point.

Trying to ignore the little voice that said that apparently blocking the door hadn't done shit for the previous occupants, Sasuke bit through the throbbing pain in his shoulder and rushed to the closet, pulling it away from the stairs. He put all his weight behind it to push it against the door. Naruto was leaning against the door at the moment, the wooden frame creaking dangerously as the undead tried to force themselves inside. The second the closet was so close it nearly hit his face, Naruto ducked away and helped pushing it against the door.

By the time they had managed that, shoving a couch from the nearest apartment in front of it for good measure, sweat was dripping off their faces and they were panting like mad; Sasuke's lungs and muscles screaming from the heavy lifting he'd been forced to do so soon after swinging his katana around.

His blood rushed loud in his ears, drowning out the miserable groaning outside, and he straightened up, ready to ask Gaara to help bring Naruto upstairs.

Naruto's deadly quiet question, however, turned Sasuke's blood to ice.

"Where's Gaara?"

"What do you mean, he was right behind …" Sasuke trailed off as he looked around and the horrifying realisation settled in when he only saw Naruto, dead pale in front of him.

Gaara wasn't here.

AN2: :)

Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.

I hope to see you all back in the next chapter! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!

Cuddles

Melissa

P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.