AN: Here is a short story for everyone...Happy early Halloween!...

The Last Stand by Kricket Williams

In no uncertain terms, David Rossi was jaded.

It wasn't a statement that needed arguing. It was simply the truth and as plain as the goatee on his face. He'd been around a long time; he'd earned his stripes and the respect of everyone around him, even those who didn't like him. As a profiler who'd been in the minds of some of the darkest criminals known to the FBI, he'd seen enough of this world to become baldly cynical—and deservedly so.

Still, nothing had prepared him for this.

Reaching for his Glock, he loaded another ammunition cartridge and whacked the chamber hard against his open palm. They were coming from everywhere, every nook and cranny of society, every single fucking day. He aimed his pistol and shot one dead center: straight between the cold, lifeless eyes staring back at him.

Zombies.

It sounded like a joke, a rude farce, a B-movie that never should've made it out of production. It was a nightmare that he should've woken from two months ago. But it wasn't anything like that. It was real, and it was terrifying. Everything in Dave's logical soul rebelled against the notion of a zombie apocalypse, only to find himself leading one of the armies fighting against them.

He was doing it alone, too. He didn't have his team, the members of the BAU he loved and cared about more than life. Evacuation had been necessary and imminent; it hadn't been safe to stay in Quantico. After much discussion, they'd planned their exits accordingly.

The first to leave was JJ. She, Will, and Henry had gone—under direct order from the rest of the team—to a colony in Alaska, one of the few places left that had been untouched by the undead. They couldn't go to Will's hometown of New Orleans. Louisiana seemed to be ground zero for the activity, a viral cesspool of unnatural phenomena. Other hotbeds were New York, followed by Los Angeles and Chicago. The team had figured those areas were targeted merely because of population.

More people equaled more dead. Easy calculation.

Morgan had left for his hometown of Chicago, loaded for bear with more ammunition and weapons than a man could carry. His soul objective was to save his mother and sisters, who were still in Chicago, and there was no stopping him from going. He'd been lucky enough to make contact with them via telephone early in the infestation, but when the lines went dead, he'd marched away, a brave soldier off to do battle.

Reid had been next to go. He was in a think tank in Las Vegas. Not the glitzy city he grew up in, but Las Vegas, New Mexico, where there were far fewer people and less chance of infestation. A bunker, far under the earth, housed some of the greatest scientific and analytic minds in the FBI, attempting to sort out what the hell had happened and how to stop it. The desert landscape also had been virtually untouched by the zombies. It made Rossi almost smile to think of it, that apparently the undead like to stay hydrated, too...

Although she'd been devastated by her family going, Garcia had resolutely stayed behind, trying to maintain contact via cell phones and tablets with everyone that had left. She hadn't been completely successful. The internet had crashed nearly every day, and there were multiple blackouts that made her job very difficult. Reid and JJ had checked in, but Morgan was MIA, and that was taking its toll on Garcia. She'd wanted him to stay, and he would have stayed for her, but she knew how much family meant to him. She couldn't hold him back from saving his family. After he'd left, she'd cried more often than she smiled, and she'd looked pale and wan. She'd insisted on staying, but Hotch and Dave had talked her into leaving, ensuring that she would find better contacts out of a red zone, contaminated area. Penelope had left for Wichita, Kansas, another spot that had been spared.

They'd nearly come to fisticuffs, but Dave had finally talked Hotch into taking his son and leaving. He'd known that as a leader, Aaron would've wanted to stay until everyone had left, and that included Dave. However, Hotch had a young son, too, and after Erin had died, Dave had nobody. The reason the team had given JJ for leaving was her child, and Hotch's situation had been even more intense: he was all Jack had left in this world.

Dave closed his eyes and thought back to the parting he'd had with his best friend.

They stood in the hallway, mostly silent. Attempting. Trying. Saying—but not saying—goodbye.

"You'll leave soon?" Aaron asked, arching a brow.

"Next caravan." Dave smiled. "A month after you."

That was how it had to be done, in stages. Too many people attracted unwanted attention.

Aaron's expression was grim, stoic. It was how he appeared to many people, but Rossi knew him well. Hotch concealed his emotions well, but in this case, the expression fit the situation. He drew a slight breath, exhaled, and then began, "Dave..."

Shit. Rossi couldn't take this. Not now. Not ever.

"Hey, I'm not dead yet!"" Dave said, attempting to chuckle. When Aaron cracked a smile of his own, he continued, "We'll see each other again."

Hotch reached his hand forward and clasped Dave's firmly. "We will."

They'd clasped each other in a manly sort of embrace, one that showed little emotion, but meant more than meets the eye. It had been a hug of support, of caring, of a long friendship that had weathered much and would continue to battle whatever was thrown at it.

It also was the last human touch Dave had felt. His caravan had been attacked, and he was one of the few surviving souls left in the Quantico area.

"Sonofabitch," he muttered, opening his eyes to see the empty street and the body of the zombie he'd shot. Lying there, eyes closed, the zombie looked far less menacing than he had moments earlier.

Damn, this was a young one, he thought. Probably only a teenager.

The kid had fallen face first to the ground after Dave had shot him, so he couldn't tell exactly how old he was. It was his fashion that had him wondering the kid's age: designer jeans that were belted far lower than his boxer shorts and some death metal band on his oversized T-shirt that amazingly was still partially tucked in.

A pang went through Dave's chest at the waste of it all, but he blew it aside. He didn't have the luxury to be sentimental. He hadn't killed the kid—that was impossible.

The bastard was already dead.

"Okay, kiddo," he said, bending over the corpse. "Let's see what you got."

There was an urgent necessity to keep any supplies that could be used to treat survivors that he might come across on his journey. He was on his way to his home in Quantico, and then he was going north. Anywhere north.

Dave reached into the back pocket of the sturdy jeans and found a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, a stick of Wrigley's Doublemint, and a cell phone that had no charge. He kept the cell and the gum, but tossed the cigarettes—those were bad for his health, and there were enough things wanting him dead. He flipped the body, ignoring the kid's face, and dug into the pockets. There wasn't anything but lint in the front pockets.

Just before he was about to leave, he looked up at the face of the zombie. Damn it. He'd been right: he was only a boy. Barely pubescent, he didn't even have the start of a mustache.

Dave took a moment and closed the lifeless eyes staring up at him.

"Sleep well, son. Sleep well."

After standing, Dave swatted the dust off his fine Italian, tailored pants. He stretched and then checked his gun before tucking it into his FBI-issued hip holster.

He sighed heavily. "I'm getting too old for this shit," he groused as he began marching on toward what remained of his home.