"Once again, you have my sincerest thanks for attending my first annual bar-beet-Q. Lunch is served!"

Pam's hands found each other and joined in the fairly desultory clapping. She blinked, shaking her head a little. With a concerted effort, she brought herself back to the present. She could hardly recall a single word Dwight had said as he waxed poetic for the cameras about the origins, care, and uses for his favorite pinkish-red root, the humble and oft-overlooked beet. It had a vast number of culinary applications, did you know? Well yes, it's true. Beets are capable of being used to equally great effect in both sweet and savory dishes.

Pam rolled her eyes. Apparently, she remembered more than she thought. To say she was less than thrilled to be spending a beautiful, sunny Saturday at Schrute Farms was the understatement of the year, or at least the summer.

She couldn't help comparing the so-called festivities to the barbecue Jim had hosted a couple years back. Michael had made attendance today mandatory, which naturally put a damper on things. But the real problem was Dwight's lack of personality. He had approximately as much charisma in his entire body as Jim had in a single thumbnail.

"Dude, where are the hot dogs?" Michael asked incredulously.

Pam ducked her head in silent mirth and glanced to her right. Jim was wearing an identical expression. Exchanging knowing grins, they rose from the picnic table as one to get in line for the buffet. Fortunately, and entirely unlike the team-building event at Lake Scranton, there wasn't a single hot dog in sight.

Unfortunately, every single food appeared to be made from beets. Even the beverages were beet-based.

Oh well, at least Pam hadn't been relegated to taking notes on people's indefinable qualities this time. She'd been free to zone out inattentively during Dwight's pompous grandstanding, along with the rest of her co-workers.

"Who knew there were this many ways to skin a beet?" Jim intoned mockingly as they picked at the contents of their plates, trying without success to find anything remotely edible.

Pam's carefree laugh rang across the field and she leaned into his side, just for a second. She quickly reminded herself that their camera-less reprieve had ended, so she'd have to be extra-careful.

Fortunately, Kelly chose that moment to begin screeching incomprehensibly at the top of her lungs, drawing the undivided attention of the documentary crew and their co-workers. If the cameras hadn't been there to record what happened next, Pam was fairly sure she couldn't have recalled the order of events as they unfolded.

Jim was equally as sure he'd never forget. One minute, he was side-eyeing Kelly along with everyone else as she squealed heartbrokenly and wound up to throw the contents of her plastic cup in Ryan's face.

Without warning, she became a fucking grease spot.

Ryan was left alone and splattered with a not-insignificant quantity of beet juice, although it paled in comparison to the amount of blood. Horrified, he stumbled and fell to the ground, instinctively yelling in shocked astonishment at the enormous, vaguely-insectoid creature that just obliterated his newly-ex-girlfriend.

Naturally, he was the next to go.

The nearby cameraman, Nate, had been zooming in on the action with a small handheld. He shouted in a combination of dismay and amazed disbelief that he'd caught such a momentous event on film, then promptly followed them both into oblivion. The only thing that remained of him was the camera, which shattered into pieces of itself as it hit the ground.

“EVERYBODY REMAIN CALM!” Michael bellowed while leaping onto a picnic table, sounding about as far from calm as it was possible to be, trying to regain control of the situation the only way he knew how. Dwight cuffed him by the shirt collar and pulled him out of reach of the monster's talons in the nick of time.

With a squeaky sort of chittering sound, it kept going in a straight line and encountered little Sasha. An inhuman scream issued from Toby's lungs as he stumbled toward the empty air she'd previously occupied. In the blink of an eye he, too, vanished in a bloody spray of innards.

The murderous being, whatever it was, scampered beneath the boom mic, ostensibly on its way to eviscerate Brian, the boom mic operator. Suddenly, a loud EEEEEEEEEEE of feedback issued from the microphone. The ominous alien-thing retracted the claws that had been extended so threateningly and cowered, writhing in something that might resemble pain if it bore any resemblance whatsoever to a human, which it didn't. The harder and longer it squirmed in place, the higher-pitched the feedback became.

The significance of that didn't register with anyone at the moment, not even Brian, although he was so close he could see every razor-sharp tooth in its horrifyingly wide-open mouth. They were all too busy fleeing for their lives, screaming in terror, or both.

Jim was a flighter, not a fighter, with the reflexes of a passably well-trained athlete. By the time the group at large had become aware that a "situation" was developing, he was already halfway to the only safe haven that made sense in that moment, tugging Pam relentlessly behind him. Given that he was dedicating every ounce of air in his lungs to running full-tilt, he didn't make a sound other than the requisite amount of panicked gasping required to move as fast as humanly possible.

Pam stumbled and fell to her knees. She dropped her paper plate, scattering its contents on the ground. That wasn't a problem. Her beet burger, fried beet chips, and beet hummus had tasted fairly disgusting. Honestly, she didn't even mean to bring it with her, she simply failed to notice it was still in her hand. The problem was how utterly incapable she was of keeping up with the unbelievably rapid pumping of Jim's legs. She didn't understand how the hell he was running so fast, much less how she could reasonably be expected to keep up.

She opened her mouth to beg him to wait, or ask him to slow down a little at least, or possibly to say something noble about leaving her behind.

Fortunately, he chose that moment to stop, turn, and bend over. He hoisted her up into his arms without the slightest hint of an audible grunt. Like she weighed twenty-five pounds instead of a hundred and twenty-five. Like he was some sort of action hero and she was some sort of swooning bimbo. Rather than squealing Innndyyy though, Pam's words vanished in a bemused gasp. Relieved, she clutched him silently and closed her eyes, more in love with him at that moment than words could express.

As he turned to scoop up his comparatively non-athletic girlfriend, Jim glimpsed the thing wrapping its lethal pincers around Toby's daughter like it wanted to give her some kind of demented, too-hard hug. He lacked the breath and presence of mind to do more than huff out a horrified, near-silent exhalation. He fucking babysat for that former person. More than once. He literally couldn't believe she was gone.

After a split-second of mournful contemplation, he snapped back into the present, turned on his heels, and bolted away. Carrying Pam slowed him down a little, sure, but he didn't think twice. If she was going to become a grease spot, he was going right with her. He had no intention of leaving behind the woman he loved more than life itself. He'd rather die with her than live one more day without her, no fucking question.

In spite of the delay, they were still the first to arrive. Jim opened his mouth to yell, to demand the fucking code, but Dwight was hot on their heels. Michael clung desperately to one of his arms, Angela to the other. Dwight shook them both off and punched it in before Jim could make a sound.

Eventually, he’d be more thankful for that than he could say.

The door opened with a faint, hermetic hiss and a complete absence of creaking hinges. The five people near enough to appreciate that failed to do so. Dwight gestured impatiently for them to precede him inside and down the steps.

Across the field, Brian realized that he was alive and in one piece, although by all rights he shouldn't exist to think such things. He had no idea how or why, nor did he care in the least what the answers to those questions might be. He recovered from his startled gaping, dropped the boom, and hit the ground running. Even though he was the last to get started, he wasn't at the back of the pack for long. He ran five miles every morning, putting him in the best physical shape of anyone present except for Nate, who was an amateur bodybuilder in his spare time.

Shit! he remembered. Not anymore, because Nate was fucking dead. Not only was he dead, he'd basically evaporated, as though he'd never existed. Whether or not Brian deserved to continue existing, he desperately wanted to, so he ran all the faster.

It wasn't long before the monstrous entity recovered and gave chase. Phyllis and Bob Vance, huffing and puffing hand-in-hand like twin rhinoceri, died at exactly the same time, which was truthfully for the best since neither wanted to outlive the other.

Surprisingly, though, everyone else made it. Stanley beat several younger and fitter people to the door, in spite of his girth and the tween daughter slung over his shoulder like a ninety-pound sack of potatoes. Meredith brought up the rear, stumbling drunkenly inside just after Kevin who was right behind Mitchell, the full-size camera operator who somehow managed to save both himself and the full-size camera.

Dwight threw the door shut behind the last of the survivors, then slammed a heavy metal barricade home. The creature crashed against it with a series of loud pounding sounds that had everyone covering their ears. Fortunately, the door was several inches of solid titanium and held without so much as a dent.

"Turn on the lights!" Angela screamed, because everyone was stumbling into everyone else in the complete blackness. Someone fell down the stairs, probably Meredith, although it was impossible to tell with the amount of bedlam currently underway.

Dwight felt around knowledgeably and flipped a switch on the wall. As he descended the stairs, a series of fluorescent overheads flickered on, illuminating the long narrow concrete hallway below. “Is anyone severely injured?” he called out, injecting authority into his voice.

“You mean besides the several people who were just brutally murdered by a goddamn… whatever that thing was?” Stanley roared in frustration.

“Precisely,” Dwight replied in a clipped, no-nonsense tone.

“He's only a temp. He can't be permanently dead!” Michael shrieked hysterically, huddled against the wall in a fetal position.

"I'd appreciate if you would pipe down, Michael," Dwight countered rationally. "We do not want to start a stampeding panic. If anyone requires medical attention, kindly speak up."

 “You ok?” Jim murmured urgently, running his hands up and down Pam's arms, squeezing her elbows, reminding himself that they were both still alive.

Pam was a lot of things right now. She knew that "ok" was not among them, but she was having difficulty communicating much of anything at the moment. Her lungs were on the verge of exploding from all the hyperventilating. Her entire body was chattering, including but not limited to her teeth. Her cheeks were slick with tears and she had a small patch of rugburn on her knee from the grass.

Still, she nodded quickly, several times. All of her innards were precisely where they belonged, so she figured she'd be fine once the shock wore off. She wondered how many years from now that might be.

She clutched instinctively at Jim's biceps, because the world had inexplicably turned upside-down and she needed something to hold onto. She looked up into the incredible greenness of his eyes and tried to slow down her terrified gasping. Breathing was important, but her stupid lungs were trying to do way too much of it, way too fast. “Wh-what w-w-was–” she stammered stupidly, which was surprising because she truly hadn't believed herself to be capable of speech in that moment.

“Dunno, I dunno,” Jim responded with tearful disbelief, rocked to the core with emotions that he'd never in his life had occasion to feel so strongly. Every inch of his body was shaking from the adrenaline rush. He could hardly speak, hardly breathe, but he was alive. More importantly, she was. After the events they'd just witnessed, he couldn't fucking believe it.

He tugged the love of his life against his chest. They were in Dwight's underground bunker and the door would probably keep them safe. No, it definitely would. It already had. But he couldn't not be holding her right now, keeping her even safer.

At that moment, even though the lights were on and there was no excuse for it, someone stumbled sideways into Pam. Jim spun her away, putting his back to the chaos in the hallway. If he hadn't been holding onto her, she might have fallen. He squeezed her even more tightly.

"J-J-Jim," Pam sobbed against his chest, clinging to him like he was her rock and she was utterly adrift, which was exactly how she felt.

"Pam… Pam, I–" he choked out, just as utterly wrecked, and suddenly they were murmuring I love you back and forth, over and over again, sometimes simultaneously. Except for Jim's initial confession in the parking lot over a year ago, they hadn't said those particular words to each other yet. They'd only been dating for a couple months, but there was no time like the present to tell people how you felt.

If they'd been asked afterward who said it first, they would have argued fairly adorably without coming to any conclusions. Of course, it didn't occur to either of them right now to care who said it first, only that they were both saying it… feeling it.

"You still love me?" Pam asked reverentially when they came up for air. Her smile was beatific. She realized, even as she asked, that it was a stupid question. He'd just said so, like twenty or thirty times. She tried to wipe his cheeks, but her hands were shaking so badly that she only succeeded in smearing around the dampness there.

"Loved you, love you," Jim replied in a fierce whisper. Pam's waterfall of existing tears were being replaced by fresh ones so quickly, there was no point in trying to remove them. That didn't stop him from trying. "Never stopped. Always will."

"Always will," she affirmed tearfully. Her knees went weak in an uncharacteristic, fairly stereotypical manner. She really needed to be sitting down right now. Or even, better, laying down. On a couch, in a bed, on the floor. She wasn't picky, as long as Jim was there too. Either way, remaining upright had become a dicey proposition, as far as her legs were concerned… one that was quickly moving into the realm of literal impossibility. She swayed into him, grabbing his shoulders for support.

Jim hadn't expected that particular reaction to his confession, but of course he loved it. She was practically swooning, totally like a girl. There was a grin on his face and his heart was firing on all cylinders. This was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, no doubt, and he was totally going to tease her about it at a more appropriate time.

Fortunately, he was fully capable of compensating for Pam's temporary inability to stand up straight under her own steam. Not to mention how far beyond thrilled he was to have the opportunity. For the second time that day, he hoisted her off the ground. Instead of sweeping her sideways cradle-style, though, he encouraged her legs to circle his waist. If he'd been watching this scene play out in a movie, he would have found it believable, if cheesy… relatively tropey.

The reality was fucking incredible. His world shrank to the size of the well-endowed yet petite, not-at-all-heavy woman in his arms. She slipped her arms around his neck, holding on tight, turning his hair into a rumpled mess and slicking her tongue between his lips like her life depended on it. She clung to him like they were made for each other, leaving no room to think about silly things like monster attacks or movie tropes or who might be watching. He leaned against the wall, needing the support while they exchanged desperate kisses, like maybe the world was ending.

It was, quite literally–or at least, it had started to–but nobody could possibly know that yet.

Jim held on tight with both arms, one around Pam's back, the other supporting her ass. He reveled in the fact that nobody else there knew how sweetly-rounded it was, that it was the exact color of peaches and cream, or the way it quivered when she came from the coaxing of his tongue and fingers. Even though her ass was concealed by blue denim at the moment, he was distinctly and uniquely privileged to know these things. He did his best to ignore the massive erection he was sporting beneath a layer of khaki, but it was going nowhere fast. It was neither the time nor place, but his body apparently hadn’t gotten that particular memo.

It was a testament to the atmosphere of distracted anarchy that none of their co-workers seemed to take notice of the embracing and kissing and heartfelt declarations they were currently engaged in. Pretty much everyone was talking and crying at once, asking questions that nobody had the answers to.

"Goodbye sweet Prince!" Michael wailed dramatically, getting the line wrong, but nobody could be assed to correct him. Oscar had his partner Gil wrapped up tight and they were rocking back and forth. Stanley and his wife and daughter were sprawled on the floor, like a soft pretzel made of arms and legs and crying. Andy sang Everything's Gonna Be Alright to himself in a corner. Darryl, the only one of the warehouse staff who hadn't wormed their way out of attending the event, clutched his daughter to his chest. They were both shaking but soundless, seeming relatively stoic in comparison. Creed looked on with a vaguely bemused air, one of the few who wasn't beside himself with anguish or relief or a combination thereof. Mitchell filmed it all.

Without warning, Meredith gripped the rim of an industrial-size trash can and vomited for dear life. Momentarily, she was joined by others. "Gross," Kevin mumbled in between bouts of frenzied puking, his hands firmly clamped over his ears. "Hearing someone else throw up always makes me have to throw up. Always."

“Frickin’... beet chips… man,” Andy gasped between copious ralphs.

Brian sagged weakly against the wall after evacuating the contents of his stomach. Although he couldn't disagree about the horrendousness of the beet-based foods, he wasn't anywhere near capable of speech just yet. He felt empty, in more ways than one. He didn't have anybody to hug or cry with, though, so he wrapped both arms around his waist and wept by himself.

Dwight's voice boomed out over the general pandemonium. "Attention, everybody! Since it does not appear that anyone is urgently in need of first aid, you are allotted five minutes to grieve the fallen. Those of you who are minors or female may have ten. As you recover your senses, kindly follow me to the Observation Room. In the meantime, I will contact the authorities."

Naturally, nobody paid him the least bit of attention.

A yawning man wearing a straw hat and overalls without a shirt meandered out of a side room. "Sorry to wake you, Mose," Dwight said in an uncharacteristically gentle, apologetic tone. "It is, however, extremely fortunate that you were already here. Since you're awake, would you please make some coffee for…" He took a quick headcount. "Seventeen? Extra-strength. And some powdered milk for the two remaining children?"

"Yupper!" He skipped merrily down the hall and disappeared around a corner.

"He's a good mensch, isn't he Monkey?" said Dwight.

"I want Sprinkles," Angela replied sobbingly.

Dwight guided her down the hallway to a room containing a television and a number of monitors. He flicked a series of switches with one hand, bringing them all to life, and lifted a satellite phone with the other.

Seconds later, Creed wandered in. "Nice setup, Cheroot," he said admiringly, eyeing the internal and external camera feeds. The ersatz arthropod was nowhere to be found. "Where's the speaker system? You oughta blast some tunes. Those cats are goin' crazy. Mellow 'em right out. You got any Eagles? CCR? Blue Oyster Cult?" He clapped Dwight on the shoulder. "Don't fear the reaper, man. Don't."

Dwight held a finger to his lips and relayed the situation and identities of the deceased to the 911 operator. No, they didn't need ambulances. Considering the state of the remains, even hearses would be unnecessary. And, while she was welcome to dispatch officers to investigate the scene, he strongly advised against it. He would not set foot outside the bunker, nor would he open the door for anybody. There was a Demogorgon on the loose in Honesdale, thank you, and they were already over capacity.

He surfed news channels on the television after hanging up. Most of them were business as usual, although a couple local stations were running breaking stories about very bloody attacks by mysterious, multi-limbed predators. The skepticism on the faces and in the voices of the anchormen and women spoke volumes. There was presently a lack of evidence to support the existence of any such things, they warned. They were careful to couch their reporting in weasel words like supposed and alleged, making it clear that the opinions they were conveying were anything but their own.

Before long, everyone had gathered in the room, drinking coffee or milk as appropriate, watching more-or-less silently as the news cycled along. After a field reporter in Harrisburg was decimated live on camera–followed by the screaming cameraman–the footage was quickly picked up and re-broadcast by the major networks. Frames were frozen, studied, analyzed. In spite of their general cynical tendencies, the newscasters changed their tune in a hurry.

As far as anyone was able to determine, whatever the things were had begun attacking Pennsylvania that very day. Nobody was sure what they were or where they came from or could advise what to do at this point, but the speculation was rampant. Maybe they were aliens, or a genetic experiment gone wrong. Perhaps they were an advanced species that had evolved from ants or praying mantises beneath the Appalachians for thousands of years. It could be that they were eating people, but it was also possible that they were simply hunting for sport. If they hit New York City, stock markets around the world would surely be devastated.

Although the only thing anyone could actually know was how incredibly quickly they moved and how lethal their claws were, the creatures were alternately rumored to be possessed of impenetrable insectoid armor, infrared vision, highly-evolved olfactory receptors, and impossibly acute hearing. In all likelihood, they couldn't be harmed by human weapons. As a matter of fact, they could see in the dark. Certainly, they could smell fear from a mile away and hear a pin drop from just as far.

Pam worriedly pulled a cell phone out of the purse that had fortunately been slung over her shoulder at the time disaster struck. "Is anyone getting any bars?" she asked the room, because she had no signal whatsoever. Suddenly, everyone began digging out their own to check.

"You may use the satellite phone," Dwight replied, sanguine as ever. "Cell phones will be unable to function down here in the bunker. The walls are lined with lead, in anticipation of a radioactive event. I believe it would be a wise course of action to institute a five-minute limit, for the time being."

Pam sprang up halfway through his speech. Lifting the handset, she glanced around the room. A line was already forming behind her. She could hardly ask everyone to leave. It was becoming apparent that privacy would be a rare commodity in this place. Sighing inaudibly, she faced the wall, dialed a familiar number, and spoke as quietly as she could.

Jim didn't have to ask or listen in on Pam's conversation to know who she'd called first. Hastily, he dug out a dollar bill and scribbled his parents' phone number and a brief message across the bottom. She took it with a nod, making sure to pass along the information.

After she hung up, Jim followed her into the hallway and slung his arm over her shoulder. "How are they doing?" he asked with concern. He was glad he'd had the presence of mind to pass along a message. Based on the line, the phone would be tied up for at least the next hour.

"I don't know about Penny, I had to leave her a voicemail. But my parents are fine. They're at home, they didn't even know anything was going on. I gave them the number on the phone, but…" She sniffled and flopped her arm fruitlessly at the extended queue. "How are they going to get through, if there's a problem?"

And who’s going to answer the phone? Jim wondered. "I don't know," he said. He didn't say that their ability to do anything for anyone on the outside was all-but-nonexistent. He'd watched more movies in the disaster-horror genre than anyone present, with the possible exception of Dwight. At any rate, he'd seen enough to be very thankful that he and Pam happened to be together today, even if that meant they were stuck with their ridiculous co-workers too. Not to mention their luck at being within running distance of an underground shelter-thing.

All things considered, this situation or debacle or predicament was a far superior prospect than pretty much any alternative. Not only weren't they dead, but they weren't stuck in either of their small, fragile, and relatively-poorly-equipped apartments. Jim didn't harbor any illusions that glass windows or wooden doors would keep those fearsome claws at bay. "What do you say we take a look around?" he suggested, figuring they might be stuck here for a few days while the police and/or military took care of the problem.

Like everyone else in the world, he was vastly underestimating the scope of the problem, but that was understandable. It had only started that day, after all.

Nodding, Pam clung gratefully to his side, feeling more helpless and purposeless than she had since breaking off her engagement to Roy. She wondered idly how he was doing as she wandered down the narrow concrete hallway with Jim.

The structure was a lot bigger than it had looked at first glance, with lots of rooms off either side. First was a kitchen, with a stove and sink and incinerator. No refrigerator, though. She turned on the water. It ran clear and smelled fine, but she wouldn't risk drinking it unless Dwight said it was ok.

The kitchen was adjacent to a large and very-well-stocked pantry that had Pam's eyes widening in legitimate appreciation. Home-canned beets were among the supplies, but fortunately there was a wide variety of non-beet shelf-stable foods. Things like rice, powdered milk, spam, jerky, and granola bars, among many other canned goods. An entire wall was dedicated to medical supplies.

Next up were six small rooms with labels on each door–Irrigation Room, American Room, Nighttime Room, Venetian Room, Mountain Room, and Distillery Room. Each was slightly wider and longer than the twin bed and nightstand inside it. Shelves ran along the back walls for storage, in lieu of closets that would have taken up valuable floor space.

Clutching Jim's arm, Pam continued on to the Recreation Room, which contained some comfortable-looking couches, a card table, and four folding chairs. There were lots of books, board games, a combination TV/VCR, and an appreciable selection of VHS tapes.

Then there was the Shower Room, with folded white towels, bar soap, deodorant, disposable razors, individually-wrapped toothbrushes, and toothpaste. Across from it were two Bathroom Rooms–at that, she almost laughed, but she wasn't precisely capable of humor at the moment–with toilets and sinks. One contained a towering pallet of toilet paper. The other, to her amazed surprise, held a mountain of pads and tampons. Lastly was the Laundry Room, with piles of neatly-stacked white sheets and pillowcases and utilitarian cotton blankets.

Jim rubbed his chin, thoroughly impressed with the size and condition and contents of the shelter. Although he and Pam had privately mocked its existence during the group tour not more than an hour ago, things had changed a whole fucking lot since then. Under the circumstances, how could he do anything but admire the amount of forethought and expenditure that had clearly gone into setting up and maintaining it? He couldn't bring himself to criticize one single thing about it. It could easily have been musty or stale, but the air and floors were dry. It didn't smell bad. Sure, the linens were predictably dusty. The walls and floors were a dingy shade of gray, except for the tile which was dingy and off-white. The surroundings were relatively prison-like, but the shelter was intended to keep the world out rather than the inhabitants in. At that, it would do a far better job than average, which had been proven when the bug-monster had been unable to penetrate the thickness of the door. He wondered what the hell it was made of.

"I guess we can always wear togas," Jim joked hesitantly, because they'd run out of rooms to explore and hadn't found the faintest scrap of actual clothing. All they had on them were the clothes on their backs, Pam's purse, and the contents of their pockets. He also wasn't sure Pam was quite up to joking around yet, because she wasn't exactly the type to handle unexpected changes very well. It wasn't really possible to predict how someone would react in a survival situation until they were in one, though, so he tried to keep an open mind.

Pam buried her face in her hands with a sobbing half-laugh. She'd always been vaguely claustrophobic and it felt like the walls were closing in around her. "This is insane," she mumbled through her fingers.

"The fact that this place exists is the definition of insanity," he agreed, wrapping her up tight with his arms, tugging her into the shelter of his body. They wouldn't be able to escape from their co-workers at five o'clock like they normally would, which was the only thing that got him through five-sevenths of the days of his life. "But it could be worse."

Pam sniffled against his chest. Her first, rather uncharitable thought was that things couldn't really get any worse than this. But, she reasoned with herself, of course they could. Although they'd be stuck with their awful co-workers for awhile in Dwight's freaking bomb shelter, they were alive. And it was pretty much the Rolls Royce of bomb shelters–at least, it seemed that way, given her relative lack of experience with such things. They'd have things to do, food to eat, water to drink, showers to take, and beds to sleep in until the police or soldiers solved whatever problem was going on.

And if it became intolerable–which was inevitable with the number of people versus the number and size of available beds–they could always leave. Not that she wanted to yet, she wasn't suicidal and they had no idea what those… things were capable of. But they had the option of leaving, and Jim was here and holding her so steadily and sounding fairly optimistic, all things considered. He'd stopped running from certain doom to save her life, like Indiana Jones or maybe Bruce Willis, and he loved her. He'd never stopped loving her, apparently, and suddenly she was breathing a little easier.

"It could be worse," she whispered in agreement with a firm squeeze of his by-now-familiar torso. She looked up, finding him looking down at her. She thought she saw pride in his eyes, just for a second, before he closed them and lowered his mouth to hers. With very few, very recent exceptions, Pam wasn't a brave person. She knew that. But he made her want to be… now more than ever.

"Found the beet wine! There's an assload of it," intruded a distant, muffled voice. It was Meredith, of course. Her proclamation was met with a number of requests to share the wealth. Jim and Pam poked their heads out of the Laundry Room, not without interest.

"It's for special occasions!" Dwight called, hurrying down the hall to the pantry.

"There's gotta be at least a hundred bottles in there," she volleyed back, already swigging heavily from one. The wine rack had been hidden behind an inconspicuous curtain the exact shade of the concrete walls, but she'd found it right away. "Can't you just make more? I'll pay you back later."

Dwight snatched the bottle out of Meredith's hands. "By the time all is said and done, currency may very well be worthless," he predicted with astonishing accuracy, although that was just a coincidence. "We don't know how long this will take to play out. Fact: the beet harvest is presently stored in the barn. Fact: the yeast is in the house. Fact: the only way to retrieve more of either would be by leaving the bunker. So, unless you are volunteering–"

"Oh, I think this counts as a special occasion," Jim interrupted with a friendly grin. "Do you mind if we have a little?"

"Please?" Pam added, clasping her hands together. Although she was anything but happy, she forced her lips into a smile that she hoped was winsome. Mostly because it was of the utmost importance to stay on Dwight's good side while they were mooching in his bomb shelter, but also because she was incredibly thirsty and didn't know if the water was potable. Also, beet-based though it was, a glass of wine sounded pretty damn amazing right now. Being drunk, or even just tipsy, would be a massive improvement over the existential despair doing its best to crush her spirit.

Dwight rolled his eyes, but conceded. "Very well. I suppose a few bottles for the group would be permissible, under the circumstances." He poured a small plastic cupful for each of them.

Jim and Pam shared a private toast in the corner of the kitchen. Pam thanked God she was a lightweight and that she'd been unable to stomach much lunch, because the alcohol went straight to her head. "Thank God," she huffed aloud, pressing a hand to her forehead. Although less than a minute had gone by, her drink was gone. Already, she was feeling a little better.

Jim handed over the remaining half of his cup. "Here, finish mine." She looked like she needed it more. It also tasted fairly terrible, but then he'd never been a big fan of wine.

She accepted it without hesitation, wrapping a grateful arm around his waist as she chugged it down. "God, I love you," she gasped as she set down the tumbler, clunking it against the counter a little harder than necessary. Being plastic rather than glass, it didn't matter in the slightest.

Thoroughly unaccustomed to hearing those words from that mouth, Jim let out a surprised chuckle and echoed her affectionately. He could get used to this, but he wasn't yet.

A moment later, Oscar's voice rang out from the Observation Room. "You guys might want to come see this."

Jim and Pam made their way back, where almost everyone was still waiting in line to use the phone. NBC was showing a couple dozen riot police in paramilitary gear preparing to attack one of the insect-beings, live. According to the ticker running across the bottom of the screen, they were in the Moyamensing neighborhood of South Philadelphia. The camera was looking down on the scene from above ground level, probably the top floor of a nearby building.

The police began unleashing a substantial amount of firepower into the creepy entity. Unfortunately, none of it appeared to have the least effect. Every policeman and woman on the street was turned into crimson goop in short order. Then, the thing skittered up the side of a nearby rowhouse in an eerily unexpected manner. Naturally, the camera zoomed in and followed the action. Without warning, the monster obliterated a window on the third floor as though it were made of plastic wrap, shredding a screaming woman holding a screaming baby on the other side.

"Jesus Christ, they can climb!" the cameraman panted as the creature clambered efficiently through the shattered window and into the building. "Holy shit, oh my fuck–"

The live feed cut out and was replaced by the utterly shocked faces and dead silence of the anchorman and woman.

"What can we do?" Michael asked nobody in particular with an air of helpless desperation.

"Survive, of course," Dwight opined in a level tone. "We already know they cannot penetrate the bunker, so kindly refrain from panicking. Once everyone has used the phone, we will need to go over a few ground rules in the Recreation Room. If you like, you may stop by the kitchen for a single serving of beet wine on your way."

"It's really good," Pam volunteered in a small voice, trembling and weak-kneed from shock and thankful that Jim was holding her up. Not just for those reasons, of course. She was thoroughly unable to cope with what she'd just seen on television, so she clasped the waist of the man she loved and did her best to ignore it. She wasn't all that happy about all that much that had happened today. But she was glad that she'd finally told Jim the truth about her feelings for him, and even gladder that he had the same ones for her.

He said words that she hardly heard, but the words themselves weren't nearly as important as the comforting way in which he said them. He stroked her back reassuringly and pressed his lips sweetly into her hair. She closed her eyes and took comfort in the way that he was so much stronger than her right now. She found it more than a little surprising that nobody had addressed it yet, but she didn't care. Although they'd previously agreed to keep their relationship a secret from their terribly nosy co-workers and the even nosier documentary crew, Pam didn't give a single crap anymore, not one. They could have died today. If anyone had anything to say, they could freaking suck it.

"Thank you, Pamela," Dwight replied with a touch of pride. "As it is an ancient Schrute family recipe, it could hardly be any less." He turned toward Angela and spoke sotto voce. "Will you serve the drinks, Monkey? Pam, Jim, and Meredith have had theirs already. I can't trust everyone not to go overboard."

"And you shouldn't," she replied stiffly. "It would be my pleasure, D." She took the bottle and made her way to the kitchen with a sense of purpose, giving Jim and Pam a wide berth and a disapproving glance that neither of them noticed.

"Would anyone like to do a talking head?" Mitchell asked the room.

Jim leaned down and spoke quietly. "I don't suppose you'd want to do one with me?" Pam shook her head convulsively. "No worries," he soothed her, letting it go, completely unwilling to leave her side for longer than it would take to use the bathroom.

"How can you think about work at a time like this?" Brian muttered exasperatedly, rubbing his hand over his eyes. They were the first words he'd spoken since coming face-to-face with… it.

"This is fucking history in the making," Mitchell argued, un-shouldering the camera with a distinctly avaricious gleam in his eyes. "I got more than one of those attacks on film. So did Nate, and his memory card might be salvageable. If we play this right, we could be millionaires." He was wrong, of course, not to mention shockingly insensitive.

"Have fun with that," Brian replied stoutly, resolutely refusing to get out of line. He'd been the only one to see the creature up close without dying. After staring his own mortality in the face–or mandibles, as it went–he'd done quite a lot of thinking about what really mattered in life.

Mitchell, unsurprisingly, had undergone no such revelation. There was no love lost between the two of them. As the full-size camera operator who had become the talking head question-asker by default, Mitchell had always thought he was better than the rest of the crew. And that didn't even take into account the fact that he was fat, lazy, selfish, and a serial philanderer.

Sensing the rising tension in the Observation Room, Jim murmured in Pam's ear again. "Hey. Maybe Dwight has Dazed and Confused on VHS. You wanna check it out? If we get there first, we can call dibs on the TV and that awesome plaid couch."

She nodded and held on tight, trusting him to walk her backwards down the hall far more than she trusted herself to walk unassisted at the moment.

Meredith beckoned Mitchell into the nearest bedroom. He closed the door behind them.