"Everyone okay?" Louis asked as he readjusted his tie. Everyone looked okay. They weren't in an okay situation, but he was taking small steps, here.

"Yeah," Zoey said, scooting back from the jumble she'd recently extracted herself from. Maybe she should have spent some of her payoff money on ninja school because, without guns, they weren't going to get very far. Assuming their wipe out was zombie related, but what elsecould it possibly be?

"I'm fine," Bill said shortly. He'd been closest to the wall and had ended up on the bottom of the pile. He dusted off his beret.

"Any ideas how to get out of this sardine can?" Francis asked, knocking thoughtfully on the wall. Something knocked back, hard. "I want my gun back," he added.

"This thing isn't designed to hold prisoners, we should be able to get out the door." The entire vehicle was on an angle and Bill used the benches as a handhold to start climbing up the floor. "I hope we're not the only folks left alive out here. That roadblock had at least two other vehicles. I'd like to know where they are." He scrambled up towards the door. "There's a latch on both sides, someone want to get the other one?"

The entire vehicle rang hollowly as something hit the side again. Francis put his hands up to his ears. "Let's get out of here before we all go deaf."

Zoey climbed up to the other latch and wrapped her fingers around it with a nod. She was ready to get the hell out of here, zombies or no zombies. Probably zombies though. It was one of those days.

While they worked on the door, Louis cast about for something, anythingthat might be useful as a weapon, but he came up dry.

Once the latches were undone all it took was a solid push to swing the door open, revealing a strip of sky gleaming with stars. Snuffling, growling sounds, by now familiar to all of them were all that broke the silence.

"So much for the convoy," Bill said. He glanced around at them to make sure they were following and hauled himself out the top. A glance at their vehicle revealed that they'd nosedived into a ditch beside the main road leading to the base. A bit further back, a jeep, its lights still on, stood silent. Francis climbed up behind Bill; no one was going to drop down alone.

Louis followed after Francis and helped Zoey out after him, even though she didn't really need his assistance. When he saw an eerily familiar scene around him, abandoned vehicles and the sounds of infected, he felt a chill run up his spine.

"How is it out already?" he asked quietly.

"It's nothing but desert around here," Zoey frowned, putting a hand in front of her eyes to block the headlights, "And it's not like infected run around in herds, you know? Mostly they just amble around. They could still contain it."

She was telling herself that. Louis nodded and seemed to take her idea on board. The alternative was considerably more negative. At least they'd had a lot of practice if things went the way of their simulations

"My guess is it's still spreading in the base," Bill said. "Maybe our friend didn't make it to quarantine," he added darkly. They were perched on the top of the AVP, and as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they could make out a couple of dark shapes, staggering around in the ditch. "Our weapons are likely to be in the jeep," Bill said.

"So we're gonna run for it?" Francis asked.

"Just be careful, we don't know if these two are all that are left. Just because we heard shots earlier don't mean they actually hit somethin'." Bill glanced at them to make sure they were ready, and dropped down off the back of the APV.

Zoey dropped down after Louis, feeling a bit useless without something to fight with. Whacking zombies with a rifle or a pistol was one thing. At least she was armed, and she could shoot them if necessary. This whole hand-to-hand combat thing wasn't her scene.

"Where we gonna go?" Louis wondered quietly, inching forward a little, "Back to Gasoline? Or back to the base?"

What could they really do? They'd tried to help, but they couldn't single-handedly stop an outbreak, could they? He could remember their days of darting from safe spot to safe spot without a word spoken between them, and he didn't really relish the thought of going back to it. The 'no chatter' rule had never sat that well with him.

"Quit chattin' and get movin!" Bill ordered.

Francis dropped down behind him and one of the shapes in the ditch snarled, taking a few staggering, curious steps towards them. Bill started running. Zoey was hot his heels. She had absolutely zero desire to engage in fisticuffs with a zombie. There was a greater probability of her breaking her hand than actually doing damage to anything.

Louis pressed his lips together. Running he could do. That was a lot more productive than yammering on and on and getting Bill on his case.

While they could hear scrambling from the ditch they managed to get some distance between them and the ill-fated APV. Bill tried not to look at the lights on the jeep; it was impossible to see much further. He'd reached the edge of the lit area when a figure clad in an MP's uniform loomed up in front of him making a grab.

Bill ducked and Francis swung his fist at the infected. It connected and the attacker staggered back a few feet. "Jesus fuck!" Francis swore, holding his fist and grimacing.

"Shit!" Louis agreed, skidding to a halt and looking around again for a tool more well suited for bashing zombies. If Francis was hurting himself punching zombies, somehow Louis doubted he was going to fair much better.

"Their guns have to be around here somewhere," Zoey insisted from behind them, crouching slightly and squinting at the road. Hell, maybe one of the infected still had a sidearm on it still. How hard could it be to wrestle it away?

"Are guns even gonna work?" Francis asked, flexing his fingers and trying to stay a step ahead of the infected. It had recovered and hurled itself at him. He'd sidestepped, not keen on taking another swing.

"Eventually," Bill said, approaching the jeep but stopping when he heard growling coming from inside.

"Pistol whipping is better than punching," Zoey said. Oh great, there was one in the car. She looked at the others and raised her eyebrows at Louis's stance. He looked like he was ready to pounce. There was no way, though, what the hell did he think he was going to do?

The infected, getting increasingly wound up from its near-misses, screeched and hurled itself at Francis again. Louis intercepted it, head down, digging his shoulder into its waist, and both of them hit the pavement.

"Get its gun, get its gun!" he exclaimed. Zoey would have laughed at his rather high-pitched demands but she was too busy darting over to obey, flinching away as the thing clawed wildly in an attempt to right itself. It caught her on the temple and she smacked it away irritably before she finally yanked the pistol free, falling back on her behind while the infected started to snap at Louis.

He flung himself back and away, copping long scratches along his arms for good measure.

Zoey flicked the safety off and hesitated. The infected's face was completely covered in its helmet. She started to scoot back a little, eyes flicking around for a place to shoot, but hell if she could tell what was armored and what wasn't. Turning the pistol around in her hand she settled for smacking its claws away and getting to her feet.

"Next time tackle them hard enough to fling their helmets off, Louis," she said shortly, brow creased in annoyance. Stupid zombies.

"Those helmets aren't gonna take more than a couple of direct hits," Bill said, still watching the infected in the jeep.

"Incoming!" Francis warned, as the infected from the APV began to catch up.

"Zoey?" Louis asked impatiently.

"Yeah, yeah!" she frowned, taking aim and firing at the infected they'd mugged. It took a few shots, but eventually she got through, the creature pitching forward with a squall. There definitely weren't enough bullets in one clip to manage so many other zombies and she turned her attention to the one in the jeep.

"Nice work," Bill said approvingly, circling around towards the back of the jeep - it was unlikely that all their gear would be in the cabin, after all. The infected inside the jeep had fixated on Bill, and as he moved, it tried to scramble after him. Zoey considered pulling the door open, shooting it while it was distracted, but it was too awkward. Instead she followed him around and took aim, ready to pop the zombie as soon as Bill opened the door. This way, at least, she could fire directly at its head.

As Francis extended his hand to help Louis up, he grinned, "You take the one on the left, I take the one on the right" If Louis could tackle zombies, he certainly could. "Come on," he beckoned them.

"Dunno what we're gonna do to em," Louis admitted, taking the hand up and rolling his shoulder. He had played a little football with the guys now and then, but he'd never been that fond of full contact sports. Even so, he braced himself and charged to meet the infected on the left, taking it down the same as he had the other. This one was on the feisty side, however, screeching and biting at him, and he found himself wrestling with it just to avoid getting his face gnawed off.

"Someone got a gun yet!" he called out in alarm. This zombie was starting to kick his ass.

Francis had tackled his zombie with so much enthusiasm they'd both skidded on the ground a short way, the biker skinning the underside of his forearms. Knowing better than to punch at the helmet, Francis threw his weight on the creature and tried to break one of its arms. Ineffectually.

"Just one second." The infected in the cabin had turned its attention on Zoey once she'd fired the gun and was slowly shuffling out of the cabin, obviously having a bit of trouble with the bulky armour in the cramped space. Bill took the opportunity to duck around the back. As soon as he saw the other infected leap out at him, he cursed himself for his overconfidence. Why wouldn't there have been more MPs? They'd set up an entire roadblock.

"Aww hell!" he managed to avoid most of the infected's momentum but they both went down in the dust, Bill fighting furiously to keep it off him.

Zoey fired a few more shots at the zombie struggling awkwardly to reach her, snapping her head around in alarm when she heard bodies hit the dirt. Damn it! She hurried around to the back of the jeep and grabbed the back of the infected's body armor and its belt, trying to haul it off of Bill so he could get away from it and hopefully grab something to shoot it with. It was heavier and a lot stronger than her but she heaved anyway. If nothing else, she could throw it off balance enough to make some sort of difference. She didn't think shooting it while it was on the veteran was the wisest of ideas.

"Guys!" Louis shouted more urgently, letting out a yell as the infected sank its teeth into his forearm, "Goddammit! Shit!"

Maybe pulling off it's helmet to make it easier to shoot had been, in retrospect, a poor idea.

Bill pulled the infected's pistol out of its holder, and the plexiglass plate splintered, then shattered as he put it against its head and pulled the trigger three times. The armoured limbs stopped flailing and it's entire body went slack. With Zoey's help he heaved it off him. He accepted Zoey's hand.

"Heads up!" He said, as the infected in the cabin abandoned it's post and rushed at them. Zoey turned and their pistols spat. Bill emptied his and scrambled up into the jeep.

"Thank Christ," he said, as he uncovered their arsenal.

"Gonna help Louis," she told him crisply, hurrying over to the struggling engineer, "Move!"

Louis struck the infected in the head a few times to dislodge its teeth and fell back, putting up a hand to guard against splatter as Zoey fired at it. Skull unguarded, it slumped over immediately, and Zoey moved to help Francis next. If he needed it. What was he even doing to it?

Francis stood up, flexing his fingers. His knuckles were bloody.

"I hate cops," he said, kicking the discarded helmet as he walked away.

Bill reappeared with a rifle in each hand and he returned them to their respective owners. Francis grinned when he reacquainted himself with his shotgun.

"What's the plan?" he asked.

"We have to make sure these are all there were. We can't risk infected wanderin' the desert. God knows where they'd end up." He jerked his thumb at the jeep, "All aboard, keep your eyes peeled."

Zoey felt whole again with her rifle back in her hands and she rolled her window down once she took her seat, keeping a sharp eye out for any stragglers. Gasoline had seemed fine when they were there, but she was already picturing it crawling with shambling infected, and it wasn't pretty. Even though they'd been through a mock up of that sort of reality, here in the now there would be no safehouses waiting for them, and likely a lot less 'lucky' windfalls as they made their way to... wherever the hell they would be going in a situation like this.

Louis sat up front and started to patch up his arm, muttering irritably. At least these zombies didn't want to eat people, but hell if it didn't sting anyway.

They discovered another jeep a bit further along, complete with its compliment of infected soldiers. Drawn by the engine noise they ran at the survivors and it was easy enough to lean out the window and pick them off.

Louis's phone rang. He pulled the phone out in a hurry, nearly dropping it before finally putting it to his ear, "Hello?"

"Slater here," came the familiar voice. "Thanks to a friend on the inside, I've gotten my eyes and ears back ahead of schedule. He's in quarantine currently, I'll let you know if I have any more information."

"Man, it ain't so good out here," Louis said, frowning out the window, "They put a roadblock up outside of Gasoline, and we got picked up by the military. They got infected somehow, though."

"Is that Slater?" Zoey queried. Louis waved a hand to confirm her question, a bit prickly, and put a finger in his ear. Zoey made a face and returned to scouting for infected.

"I see. How many did you ...kill? I've got a roster of all the MPs who were out at the roadblock, and all but ten have returned safely enough. You might have contained this particular outbreak."

"Maybe a little under a dozen," Louis said, frowning a bit at how casually he could rattle off a number like that, "Two jeeps and an APV worth. Haven't seen anything else yet. How the hell did it get out so damn fast? We gotta stop this."

"They haven't totally contained it within the base. Don't worry, I have that under control now. But the seal wasn't watertight. I've been using DELPHI to work out just where the leaks occurred. Uh, look, you've done more than enough, and I'd hate to ask this of you, but all I can do is track the spread. What we need is immunes on the ground, to contain it." He fell silent.

"Of course we're gonna help," Louis said, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, "You think I wanna go back to spending the night on a concrete floor, wondering who the horde is tearing apart while I'm safe? Screw that. I wouldn't wish that shit on my worst enemy. You tell us where the infected are, we'll go contain them."

Zoey didn't know exactly what they were talking about, but she was pretty sure she agreed with Louis. She couldn't really go on a cross country road trip, after all, if there wasn't a country left to road trip through.

"Just what the hell are you signing us up for?" Francis asked, eying Louis dubiously. Bill had a fairly good idea, and he remained quiet.

"Your favourite, Francis, shooting zombies," Louis told the biker dryly before he turned his attention back to the phone.

"Four days ago a group of soldiers left for some R&R. They were going to a small town to do some hunting and fishing. They're not awol yet, but local news feeds are reporting a spate of violent attacks in the last two days. People have been hospitalized. I can email you the details. Once you get back to Gasoline, I recommend booking a flight."

That's it, folks. The end. To those who stuck with us, thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoyed the ride. We always planned for this story to have a very open ending; we wanted nothing more for our survivors than for them to ride off into the sunset with a lot of guns and big plans to kill zombies and save the world. Lurking Grue and I don't see much of each other any more, and I didn't feel right doing a lot of heavy editing solo - so any mistakes in the last handful of chapters are mine alone.