Chapter 10

Heading Home

The van slammed into the wrought-iron gates at over forty kilometers an hour, and the occupants were thrown about upon impact. Madoka, securely buckled in, watched helplessly as Hitomi flew forward, her head slamming into the ceiling. Nakazawa was screaming curses from the driver's seat as the vehicle lurched up and down, several jarring bumps hinting at something underneath the vehicle.

Homura forced herself to open her eyes, bracing herself against the dashboard in the front seat. The first thing she noticed was the brown-haired boy's white-knuckle grip, her eyes flicking to the strange, almost scary look on his face. Something caught the transfer student's attention out of her peripheral vision and she tore her gaze away from Nakazawa. Immediately, her purple eyes widening with terror. "Watch OUT!"

Grunting, Nakazawa clenched the wheel, refusing to take his foot off the gas as the van burst through the gates, driving over multiple zombies that hadn't been thrown clear from the impact. Tires screeched, searching for purchase as the van rocked alarmingly to one side, a tree materializing right in front of them and Homura screeching in his ear-

The passengers in back were tossed around again as the van made a sharp, heart-stopping turn. "Careful!" Madoka cried shakily, trying to help out but feeling overwhelmed by panic and despair. Even in the fright of the moment, her mind turned to Mami, and Mazushii, both gone. Kyousuke, too. The thought haunted her, even through the terror-induced adrenaline rush she was experiencing in the back seat. She reached forward, trying to get to the struggling form of Hitomi, but she was pushed back into her seat as the vehicle spun again, accelerating.

Sayaka held on to the door handle tightly, liquid azure staring at nothing as she was flung to and fro, her body limp and defeated. People were talking and screaming, but none of it seemed to penetrate the strange fog that had suddenly descended over everything.

"WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" Homura roared, lunging across the center console to grasp the steering wheel with both hands. Nakazawa gave her a sour look. "Slow down, you're going to get us killed!"

"I'm getting us away from them, you ungrateful-"

"None of us will be feeling any gratitude if you flip us like Hitomi did."

That calmed the boy down. Breathing heavily, he eased up on the gas, each fraction of a centimeter requiring a surprising amount of inner resolve. Flexing his fingers, he realized he was shaking.

Looking in the rear-view mirror Nakazawa saw a nightmarish scene, a horde of hundreds of shambling forms that had descended across the school parking lot. As he approached the turn into town, he saw the great wave of undead flesh burst out of the broken gate, a rippling tide of inhuman hunger following in their wake.

"I'm s-sorry," someone mumbled in the back seat.

"Hitomi-chan!" Madoka cried, unbuckling herself and helping the green-haired girl off the floor.

"I'm… s-s-soooorry." Shaking, Hitomi laid her head on the pinkette's shoulder, something that hadn't occurred in years. Madoka patted the girl's back as she began to sob.

"What happened?" Homura asked, voice firm as she turned to look into the back of the van. "How did-"

"A-accident…"

"What I fucking want to know is what the fuck happened to Mazushii?!" Nakazawa interrupted, his voice harsh with anger. Fury. Homura looked over at the driver, suddenly worried at the wild cast of the boy's face.

Nakazawa's teeth were clenched tightly, so hard she imagined hearing them grind together. The tendons on his arms stood out, his entire body tense, like a coiled spring. Red-rimmed eyes stared out, blinking furiously as he drove out onto the city street.

It's beginning to add up. First his friend, and now Mami-san and Mazushii. I'm not good at this, the transfer student lamented. She glanced back, but Madoka was occupied with Hitomi, and Sayaka… didn't look like she'd be much help. We'll all be choking on the bitter taste of despair in the days to come, she thought. Something I'm all too familiar with. But these other… pampered children... "We're away," Homura commented. That counted as a success, didn't it? Nobody seemed to pay her words the slightest heed.

"Well? What happened-" Nakazawa insisted.

From the back seat, "S-s-sorry-"

"Shhh, it's alright, Hitomi-chan-"

Homura swallowed. "We're out. Away from the school," she clarified, talking louder than she'd intended but getting everyone's attention. "Nakazawa-kun, nice driving." The boy's brown eyes glanced at her, suspicious, but saw nothing but sincerity. "Really. You got us out. Ramming those gates…" Some of the aggression left his gaze, and he shrugged. Needlessly, she pushed at the perfectly positioned corrective sport goggles, held securely by a strap that was beginning to itch. "I don't know if I could have done it."

First one block sped by, revealing another. The roads were eerily abandoned. An occasional car lined the wide residential streets. "We… that was tough, incredibly… difficult. But… We're out."

Catching on, the pinkette agreed from the back seat after swallowing the lump in her throat.."I thought… with all the zombies at the gate…" Madoka shuddered theatrically, holding back a sob and attempting a blurry-eyed smile. "Hitomi-chan and Nakazawa-kun are heroes! You two were amazing!"

Cold blue eyes blinked, unnoticed, narrowing as they stared out the window. Everything seemed to have gone grey.

Nakazawa felt a small flame of pride burst inside his chest, but it was immediately quenched by the emptiness he felt within, hollow and black. "Not all of us got out. Seriously, Akemi-san. I need to know. What happened to her, and to Mami-san?"

Hitomi, who'd quieted briefly, began crying again.

"We were swarmed, on the roof," Homura began. "After we started clearing you two a path, they pressed up against the building. There were so many… they climbed right over one another." Homura shook her head. "Even Mami-san hadn't anticipated that. We were trying to hold them off… they got around, came up the other side of the building. She was… they grabbed her before we could do anything."

The boy's white-knuckle grip shifted as the steering wheel turned, heading down a road away from the school. He wanted to get as far away from that cursed place as possible. "So… they got her?" His voice broke, a little sob escaping at the end at the thought. Just like that? It's not fair.

Madoka's eyes were so filled with suffering that Homura's heart felt like it would break right there. Clearly the thought was killing her inside. Steeling herself, Homura shook her head once, flipping back some errant hair that had slid over her shoulder. "No," she said, quietly.

"What… what do you mean?" Nakazawa asked, suddenly hopeful.

Desperately, Homura glanced into the back seat, her expression heavy with a sudden guilt. Madoka stared deep into the black-haired girl's wide, fearful eyes. The pinkette's own gaze compelled Homura to go on, to explain what she meant. The transfer student shuddered and looked away.

"She was… I couldn't… I couldn't let her suffer, like that. It was too late. She was bitten, I mean, she was… badly wounded." Throwing the pinkette an apologetic look, seeing the girl's pain, Homura sputtered out, and a tense silence descended over the vehicle as it sped past another block. Nakazawa's shoulders were tense with expectation, face inscrutable as he stared ahead. Madoka's eyes filled with a horrible look of hope. Homura took a deep breath. "I sh-"

"What's that?!" Sayaka asked suddenly, becoming aware of something strange and unsettling.

An increasingly harsh clunking noise was coming from underneath the vehicle. Nakazawa glanced at the dashboard, as if something there might explain the problem. "It doesn't sound… normal."

The clunking was accompanied by a faint, high pitched humming whine. Driving in silence, the students listened intently to the noise. Homura looked down, surprised at the small gloved hand laid across her own, clenching the headrest tensely.

For a moment, the purple-eyed girl was lost, a great sadness interspersed with islands of joy and admiration threatening to drown everything else out. Losing herself to that sense of wistful yearning, a deep pent-up need that she realized would never, could never be fulfilled, yet remained so attractive a haven for her thoughts… even now, perhaps especially now, with the world gone to hell. But the noise persisted, and the future was fraught with danger. Madoka was real, here and now, and she'd enjoy as much of her friendship as fate decided to allow. First things first. "Where are we going?" Homura demanded, suddenly businesslike.

"How should I know?" Nakazawa responded defensively, pointing backward with a thumb. "Away from all that shit."

She looked in the back seat. They were five terrified kids again; Homura was beginning to realize what a blow Mami's death had been. "Madoka-chan, you still want to check on your family, right?" Barely waiting for the pinkette's nod, she turned to face forward once again. "We're going to the Kaname's place. Turn left up here."

Nakazawa gave her a funny look. "You know how to get there?" Sayaka asked incredulously from the back seat, her inner turmoil dispelled by several startling implications.

"Just… drive, Nakazawa." Ignoring the blunette's suspicious look and the boy's amused chuckle, she tried to remove the glower from her face as she turned back to the others. What they needed, now, was a goal. Something to focus on. For the moment, at least, the choice seemed obvious. "We're heading to Madoka's first. The van must have been… damaged, or something, when we ran through the gate. Or the zombies. Anyway," she continued hastily, seeing the look Hitomi and Madoka shared, "we have to be ready to abandon this thing." She glanced around, amazed at the emptiness of the streets. There were no abandoned vehicles, burnt-out or otherwise, nor were there shambling packs of the living dead or the torn remnants of their unholy feasting. Another block blurred past as the van sped down the road. There wasn't even the refuse she'd expected. The sky had begun to darken ominously, roiling clouds looming over the entire horizon. A plume of smoke rose up in the distance far behind them.

"It looks… pretty clear," she admitted. "But we need to be ready to take what we have and go. Speaking of which," she pointed in the back. "What do we have in here? I remember throwing stuff into vans, but in all honesty I wasn't paying that much attention to detail at the time."

Hitomi had recovered enough to aid the pinkette in rummaging around. After a few moments, Madoka looked up mournfully. "There's one gun. The others, and most of the bullets, were with Mami-san." The pinkette's breath caught. "T-there's some b-backpacks. N-not mine, though." The last was said with a whimper.

"Any other weapons?"

"Just what we're holding," Madoka stated regretfully.

"That's all we need," Homura answered with false cheer. She couldn't bear to see the girl like that. Conscious that the engine had begun to make a peculiar grinding, clattering noise, the transfer student looked again towards the blunette, who had resumed staring blankly out the window. "Miki-san? Are you okay?"

Madoka laid a small hand on her friend's shoulder, and Sayaka gave a start. "What? I'm… fine." She blinked, looking around, eyes locking on Hitomi. "What-" Sayaka swallowed. "What happened, Hitomi? How…"

"I'm sorry, it's all my fault," Hitomi began, breaking down again. "I was driving, and… one of those things leapt in front of us. I… It was instinctive. I turned, too hard." The girl pulled at her wavy green hair, fingers clutching in desperation. "Tomoe-san was leaning out the window. Shooting…" The tears coursed down her cheeks as she stared, haunted green eyes staring at an unseen horror. "It f-flipped," she started, then broke off. "On…t-top of-" The feeling of the world spinning around her, the horrible grinding and grating of metal on pavement, and the jarring crash followed by the cacophony of shrill noise. Head fuzzy and ears in agony, she'd slowly become aware of laying on top of the remains of the blonde, her fleshy body crumpled awkwardly against the door that had suddenly become the floor. "On top of her."

And when the body had twitched underneath her… Hitomi had never felt such a desperate need to get away. Then Homura had appeared like some raven-haired porcelain angel, and somehow she'd ended up in the van, safely speeding away from the encroaching monsters.

"I've seen internet videos to that effect, drag racing and stuff." Homura stated. "Not pretty." The angry and disbelieving stares that shot in her direction made her flush. She frowned, biting back her first response. "I… sorry. Mami-san will be missed."

"And Mazushii," added Madoka, thoughtful as ever despite the overwhelming sadness she felt at the loss of her blonde mentor. Poor Mazushii had been a classmate for years; thinking of Homura's story about her ultimate fate gave the pinkette an unexpected lurch in her belly.

"And Kyousuke." Hitomi sighed. "I… I want to apologize, to all of you. This has all been overwhelming, and I've… reacted poorly, I suppose." She closed her eyes, tears squeezing out to run trails down her glistening cheeks..

"Time enough for that later- Uh-oh," Nakazawa muttered from the front. Hitomi, imagining him rolling his eyes in that obnoxiously immature way he always did when she was baring her feelings, turned and saw a hissing cloud of steam erupt from underneath the hood of the van, an instant sheet of fog completely obscuring their vision.

Nakazawa slammed on the brakes much harder than he needed to, and the passengers were jostled violently once more. "Shit," he complained. "What do we do now?"

Homura looked at the other students hopefully. "Anyone know anything about cars?"

The looks that regarded her varied from blank to incredulous. Flipping a long braid back over her shoulder, Homura stated the obvious. "We can't stay here." Then she looked at Sayaka, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

"What?"

Homura shrugged. "I was hoping you had an idea. We're, what, halfway to the Kaname house?" she asked, Nakazawa shrugging a tentative affirmation, his eyes peering out the side windows vigilantly. "That's about fifteen blocks. You know this area. Mami-san listened to your advice," she added purposefully.

Sayaka's eyes narrowed in anger for a moment before her face seemed to drop, becoming tired and sad. "Mami's dead."

"Yes. We'll miss her." Homura meant that with all her heart. She was too afraid to ask if anyone knew the location of the blonde's fortified paradise in the mountains. "But that's all the more reason we need you right now." Hurry up already and pull it together, we don't have time for this crap! She held the hopeless blue gaze for a moment, willing some fight in the blunette.

Sayaka glanced around, out the windows. "Let's get out, now. It seems clear but we should keep watch on all points. If the car was as loud outside as what we heard, it might have attracted some attention." Not the most impressive plan, but it was a start. Homura kept her smile of victory suppressed. The street they were on, a scant kilometer from the school, was as empty and abandoned as the rest of the small residential buildings lining the preceding blocks.

Getting out, five sets of eyes gazed up and down the street. "Where are they?" Sayaka wondered aloud.

"Do you think they're all safe?" Madoka asked hopefully. "Maybe everybody got away, somehow, maybe it was just the school, maybe everyone else has been rescued…"

Homura made a noncommittal noise. She'd assumed the blunette had been wondering where all the zombies were, not the people. The people, in all likelihood, were the zombies. Slowly, with exaggerated care, Homura shouldered her backpack and stepped around the left side of the van.

The steam continued to pour out of the disabled vehicle. The streets were eerily quiet, and the sun was approaching its zenith behind a thick layer of cloud cover, the streets mirroring the shifting sky with pristine reflection off the ever-present Mitakihara glass. Not understanding the fixation herself, Homura nevertheless admired the effect, and the lack of bodies and smeared blood within the nearby buildings was encouraging. Hand resting comfortably on the grip of the pistol stuffed into a pocket, the transfer student slowly spun around, looking for… something.

Inspiration, maybe.

They abandoned the wrecked van with equal parts reluctance and haste. "It did it's job," Homura had tried, bracingly, but she knew the others saw it as something that had come at far too high a price.

That's the problem with getting attached to people, the perennial outsider acknowledged wisely to the uncaring universe. It messes with your perception.

Hustling down the streets, each carried part of the load. At Homura's insistence, they'd each taken something of everything; food, clothing, the remnants of their medicine, and the small supply of weaponry they'd acquired. Sayaka relinquished one of her pair of bokken to Homura. Nakazawa had his crowbar, and Hitomi and Madoka were tasked with carrying the two rifles; one that Homura had used, the other a battered, angular one that had been Mami's pride and joy.

"Uh, guys," Nakazawa had said softly, stopping the group in the street. "I really need to, er, take a break…"

"A break?" asked Homura, astonished. "We've got another kilometer and a half to get to Madoka-chan's house, and it has to be noon already." She glanced up at the clouds with a look of annoyance. "We can't-"

Nakazawa rolled his eyes in frustration. "Bathroom break, if you need me to spell it out for you."

"Oh."

"Don't mind Miss Iron Bladder over there," Hitomi smiled tiredly, "Some of us humans would welcome a few minutes in a bathroom."

"There's a gas station up on the corner," Madoka supplied helpfully, itching an arm thoughtfully.

"We need more food, and maybe there will be, uh, a car or something. With the keys in the ignition… what?" Nakazawa asked, defensive. "It could happen."

Every head rose simultaneously, turning to scan the street.

Madoka asked, "Was that…"

"Gunshot," Homura confirmed. They waited a few tense minutes, periodically scanning the still-empty streets for danger. Finally, the transfer student shrugged. "It's almost impossible to tell exactly where a single shot comes from; if you're even sniping at someone, remember that. I think it was from back there," she gestured, back across the opposite end of the city.

"Should we… try to find them?" Hitomi asked. "If they are fighting, and have weapons, maybe it's the authorities. Maybe they can protect us."

"Maybe," sneered Homura. "But just as likely to be the other kind of people who have firearms in this country."

The others glanced at her. Nakazawa eyed the gas station at the end of the block longingly. "The military?" Madoka guessed.

"No. Criminals. Dangerous people."

"Oh." The pinkette considered this, perplexed. "But, if we're all in danger from these monsters, why wouldn't we work together? Those things are worse than anything else, right?" Then she remembered what Mami had been telling her the night before; no rules. A part of her couldn't accept that things would be that bad. Surely, under the same threat, people would put aside their differences and band together. Work together. Like their group had.

Sayaka, noting Nakazawa's discomfort, shepherded the group along. "That shot will have attracted attention, so we should stay away. If we run into some police, that's one thing. But Akemi-san's right; we gotta play it safe." The blunette considered. "The fact that there's shooting tells us that there are people still alive, and they're presumably shooting at something dangerous."

"Fairly obvious," Nakazawa agreed, an intense look of concentration on his face as he marched toward the building ahead.

"Unless they're trying to signal help, communicate with other survivors," Hitomi contributed. "After all, as soon as we heard them we knew they were people-"

"A person. Just one." Muscular shoulders shrugged. "We can guess and hypothesize all day, but for now…" Sayaka gestured to the glass-walled gas station across the street. "I think Nakazawa has some business to attend to."

Luckily for the girls, the store had separate facilities for men and women.

The water hadn't worked, but there were plenty of bottles of it for a quick but thorough washing. Refreshed, the group had set about grabbing whatever appeared useful. The shelves had been ransacked, food and items scattered through the aisles. While Homura stuffed a duffel bag with plastic bottles of tea and can after can of energy drinks, Madoka scrounged through the toiletries, finding some necessary items with a profound sense of relief. Hitomi and Sayaka took turns watching outside and gathering up an assortment of candy and nuts, the green-haired girl hastily stuffing a brightly colored magazine into the bag she held with a guilty glance at the others.

Nakazawa, who'd eyed the display a few times during his meandering through the store, looked around shiftily. Heart pounding, he grabbed a handful of the small, square boxes, shoving them into his pocket, overwhelmed at the selection: ribbed, lubricated-

"What have you got there, Nakazawa-kun?" Madoka asked, her small frame appearing from behind the row of health-care items.

Blushing furiously, the boy stammered. "Oh… uh, n-nothing, there's-" Desperate, he glanced around and reached out, grabbing the first thing he saw at hand. "Um… here's some, er, gel. Can never have too much lub...ri...cation…" Too late, he took a closer look at the label, fairly innocuous but suddenly all-too-clear. Now it was the pinkette who was blushing, and Nakazawa felt ready to wither and die on the spot.

And then Homura had shown up. "Oh wow, you found some! Just what I was looking for," the raven-haired girl had stated, proceeding to gather up handful after handful of the small boxes that had held his fascination. By now, the others had stopped whatever they were doing, glancing over at the trio with startled looks.

"Ah… re-really?" I must have misunderstood, the brown-haired boy allowed.

"Huh? Oh, not for that," Homura assured, stopping for a moment to glance at Nakazawa, who had begun to wilt under the scrutiny. "Not for that," she reaffirmed, staring at him intensely for a moment. "At least," she continued quietly, "not with Madoka. Or me." The last was added almost as an afterthought, almost too obvious to be stated aloud.

"Uh…" Nakazawa began, but once he got that much out he failed to follow it up with anything coherent. With unstoppable, willful treachery, his eyes shot over to Sayaka and Hitomi. "Um-"

Sayaka had been close enough to catch the gist of the conversation; the outraged look in her gaze made it clear as day. As if!

"Where are all the, er," Homura's eyes narrowed, glancing in Madoka's direction. The pinkette's earnest curiosity made them narrow even further. "The unlubricated ones," she whispered into the boy's ear. The boy blinked, uncertain, and the girl huffed in exasperation. "You can have these, for all the good they'll do you," she began, pressing a dozen of the individual packages into his hands. Then she reached into his pocket. "Here they are," she confirmed, pulling out several of the things and displaying them proudly, and began peeling the packaging away, one after another.

Sayaka couldn't decide whether to laugh or get… upset. Or something. Is that an overreaction? she wondered. This whole display had grated on her… the boy was at least guilty of being… presumptuous. That was the word. But, she reluctantly admitted to herself, at least he's thinking ahead. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hitomi stuff another brightly colored fashion magazine into her duffle bag.

Homura began explaining the utility of the stretchable, waterproof latex, rolling one down the length of the heavy, utilitarian rifle that was their only working firearm. "Now it's protected. No way this gun's getting wet now. As long as it's pointing up- What?" As the group had continued to stare at her, the transfer student began to feel flustered, only increasing when she saw the stupid brown-haired boy adjusting his pants.

It was at that moment that Hitomi called out in a harsh whisper. "I see some them, on the street. They're coming!"

Homura slung the newly-waterproofed rifle over a shoulder, hefting the bag over the other. She patted her pockets, triple-checking for her medicine, and readied herself.

Sayaka watched over the empty street from the doorway, the turmoil in her mind reduced to a faint undercurrent as survival instincts had kicked in. A shuffling mass of a dozen figures had walked down the middle of the road, spread out but following the same route. Some nerve-wracking minutes of silence had seen them continue on their way, leaving the students aching with tension but otherwise unmolested.

Physically, at least. But mentally... the appearance of the creatures had broken the spell. They had not escaped from them yet.

A light drizzle began to fall, the clouds overhead darkening the sky until it looked more like dusk than noon. Sayaka glanced back inside. Madoka stood with her hands clutching her stomach, looking faintly green. I warned her about drinking all that tea. Their hastily eaten lunch had given them all a much-needed boost of caffeine and sugar, along with a bountiful haul of calories. What they couldn't carry with them, they'd carry inside of them.

Hitomi stared ahead, not meeting Sayaka's eyes, looking determined with her bag clutched under an arm, metal bat held somewhat awkwardly in another. Nakazawa leaned against the door, crowbar in hand, awaiting her signal.

The blunette gave a nod. Without a word, Nakazawa opened the door, holding it while Sayaka and Hitomi stepped out into the light rain. Crouch-walking to the intersection, the swordswoman glanced around in every direction as she executed a slow spin. Nothing immediately popped out, and she examined the area more carefully, ignoring the soreness in her knees.

Ahead of them lay a part of MItakihara was predominantly commercially zoned. Sayaka didn't know that, instead thinking of this area as a kind of office park wasteland. The neat, modern structures displayed an almost obnoxious amount of glass.

"Check that out," Nakazawa whispered, causing her heart to briefly stop. Flashing him a warning glare, Sayaka followed the boy's pointing finger. Off in the direction they were heading, at the limit of her vision in the increasing darkness, something was flashing.

"Police!" Sayaka whispered, excited. "That's a police car! Maybe…"

Glancing around, the blunette spotted Hitomi standing twenty meters down the road, watching the alley that ran behind the string of offices adjacent to the gas station. She waved the girl over, turned, and waved the same to Madoka and Homura.

Eyes darting around, the group coalesced at the curb, hunched down and huddled together. "Looks clear ahead," Sayaka confirmed, "and there seems to be a police vehicle up there. Since we're already heading in that direction, we're going to check it out." The blunette smiled as Homura's open mouth snapped shut; even if there turned out to be no helpful adult protector of the citizenry on hand, the police were one of the few people that would be armed.

Minutes ticked by as they cautiously approached, and slowly the scene before the group resolved itself. There were several cars ahead of them, some smashed into each other. Six or seven vehicles, involved in some kind of accident. The black and white police cruiser stood apart from the wreckage, lights flashing through the light drizzle that fell from the increasingly ominous clouds overhead.

Sayaka winced at the clatter her friends made as they walked down the street, keeping to the sidewalk out of habit. The clack of Hitomi's shoes, Nakazawa stomping across the pavement under the burden of his bulging backpack, bottles and cans clinking around… even Homura's stride carried a tell-tale rattle of pills being shaken in their bottles. A wan Madoka walked at her side, her light step all but completely silent. The blunette held up a hand halfway down the block, turning around. "Stop," she whispered.

"What is it?" Hitomi asked, giving the nearby building a cursory glance before dismissing it, eyes roving about for signs of danger.

"Shh! We've got to keep it down," Sayaka explained as the group huddled together. Buildings two and four stories tall ran along this stretch of road, dull names proclaiming uninteresting businesses.

As Sayaka gave a brief lecture on the nature of stealth and the importance of silence, Homura peered down the blunette's whispering faded into the background as the transfer student stared, unblinking, waiting-

There.

Movement.

Blinking furiously, she squinted, a hand raising to adjust her glasses before noticing mid-gesture. With a frustrated sound, she turned the motion into an emphatic point. "Something's over there," she whispered to the group, and all was silent as the quintet glanced down the road, each trying to make out what she was referring to.

Just as Homura thought she saw the figure nearly a hundred meters away, movement out of the corner of her eye made her stomach drop sickeningly. Too late, she turned, seeing the blood-encrusted face contorted in furious hunger, the blood red eyes emerging from deeper within the building to their left. She felt as if time slowed down, her head turning and the monster rushing forward and everyone else staring, blissfully ignorant of the encroaching menace. She contemplated fate, the random chance that had made Hitomi step forward while Madoka lingered behind, closest to the building. Even with everything else that had gone wrong, Homura knew she'd never recover from seeing the girl's throat ripped out-

Her mouth opened, far too late. The warning that was even now beginning to morph into a scream hadn't yet been voiced before the thing hurtled towards the group, towards Madoka, and abruptly slammed into an invisible wall of force.

Everyone jumped, spinning towards the sound of something slamming into a thick pane of glass. Homura gave a strange cry, part fright and part astonishment, and the group backed away, eyes darting every which way, taking in any sign of danger.

The creature slammed into the glass again, its jaw slack but eyes blazing with red fury. With a nervous laugh, Sayaka waved the group on. The noise died on her lips as another zombie, a dead woman missing half her hair, rammed into the long glass window, the open wound of her belly spilling out a hideous mass of ropy, grey-black tendrils. The group retreated as several more pairs of blood-darkened eyes appeared within the building, and the hammering of the creatures gave urgency to the group's flight.

Sayaka glanced around, assessing options. She didn't want to go back the way they'd came, but there were more of the things ahead of them that Homura had pointed out, and she had no idea if what was essentially a glass wall could hold the zombies inside. Mid-block, there wasn't many options: the doors had all been locked, and the buildings were pressed close together. Maybe the alley over there…

"Not the alley," Homura whispered fiercely, annoying and slightly scaring the blunette. "We should keep going."

"But you saw-"

"It was just one. We can't go back, and we are not going into that uncomfortably tight, impossible-to-escape-from alleyway."

"If we backtrack, we could try to get around-"

"Remember what was following us as we left the school. There's no telling how far those things have gotten. Or how fast they can move." She nodded at the zombie who'd given her such a scare. "That one was quick."

Sayaka frowned, remembering the lurching speed of a group back at the school. Much faster than most of the zombies she'd encountered. Suddenly, she became all too aware of the other three's increasingly desperate glances. "Yes, Akemi-san's right. The police car. Let's hustle." She nodded as Homura stepped forward, pulling the borrowed bokken that stood half-submerged inside her backpack. With a glance from the blunette, Nakazawa joined her, Hitomi and Madoka trailing behind leaving Sayaka to watch their rear.

Her pulse quickened as she heard something underneath the thumping, undead fists. Straining, cracking glass? Nerves jangling with electric fear, she listened desperately for the now-familiar crystalline shattering, the tinkling of fragments hitting the ground.

Half a block later, she took a breath, the anticipation grating on her-

"Psst!"

Sayaka jumped, spinning around. Homura tried not to wince, watching the blunette's wooden sword hang poised for a moment before motioning in the direction the others were staring. Recovering quickly, Sayaka gave one last glance behind them before investigating what lay ahead.

Twenty meters ahead, tinted windows reflected the oppressive layer of clouds that filled the sky. The lights atop the vehicle flashed, every so often picking out one of the steady drips that fell from the grey darkness looming overhead. Each droplet caught in the silent flashes of illumination sparkled, a glittering shower of ruby and sapphire all but unnoticed by the five survivors.

The wreckage of the pileup was gruesome. Even in the gathering gloom, Madoka could make out the darkened pool on the pavement, the smearing marks of bodies dragged, torn from the twisted vehicles. Looking around in horror, she saw the nearest car's window smashed, it's front bumper crumpled against the truck ahead. Streaks of blood ran from the window's edge, slowly disappearing under the rain's assault.

"Oh my god," Hitomi whispered. She stared at the wet stain, trying not to focus on what may have once been an ear, and a finger, and… other things, lying pale against the cement. It was clear where bodies had been dragged from, perhaps to be feasted upon by a mob of those monsters. She shuddered, remembering scenes of the things wrestling and dragging victims both alive and dead. Fighting over the bodies with such force she'd seen people ripped apart.

Nakazawa glanced around, trying to see what everyone else was staring at. "Looks clear to me," he muttered hopefully, eyeing the girls sidelong.

"There," Homura pointed. Movement revealed something across the street. Behind a glass front of a small diner, a figure shuffled back and forth. light blue collared shirt covered with a dark vest were unmistakably the uniform of a prefectural policeman. The others looked up and followed her gaze.

"Wish we had some binoculars or something." Sayaka whispered idly, staring into the gloomy interior of the building but unable to make out any other threats.

"Well, we don't," Hitomi said flatly. "Besides, it's not that far away. I just see the one."

"But what got him?" Sayaka mused, not quite to herself. Everyone was dividing their time between staring at the zombie across the street, the pileup of cars, and the blocks of small office buildings left in their wake. Frantically scanning for moment, unblinking, the feeling of having just missed catching a hint of movement lending an almost uncontrollable urgency to their situational awareness.

Seeing everyone's panicky looks, and feeling herself literally dripping with fear, Sayaka brought a forearm across her brow and turned to the others. "Okay, time to keep moving. Better safe than-"

"Wait," started Homura. "A member of the prefectural police or security forces should be armed. In all likelihood, he'll have equipment we can use. Not just weapons," she added hastily, seeing the restive look in the other students' eyes as the looked at the diner. "Radios. Maybe keys to that car," she finished, nodding at the police cruiser.

Madoka gave a firm nod. She'd wanted to proceed directly to her home, now that they were a mere three blocks away. But if it mattered so much to Homura, she'd support her. A feeling of time running out, the world speeding up and somehow passing her by, gave the pinkette a need to get things moving.

She walked over to the car, noting with uncertainty how low the rear tire looked. She glanced over at the others, who hadn't yet noticed her departure. Well, maybe the keys were inside the-

A ragged, claw-like hand darted out from underneath the vehicle.

Sayaka had a moment to reflect with amazement on the lightning speed of Homura's reaction, the girl's hair fanning out behind her as she turned and sped in the direction of the sound even as the blunette was noticing Madoka's absence and registering her voice, screaming.

By the time she'd caught up, she couldn't figure out why Homura had stopped, why she was staring and not helping, until she felt her eyes widening at the sight of the crouching pinkette, slamming the butt of her rifle repeatedly, the half-man horror that lay at her feet twitching as blow after blow smashed the head to pulp.

Sayaka turned away, feeling nauseous. Not so much at the gore, but the look in her friend's eyes. A wild sort of glee, electric and terrifying.

"I wasn't screaming," Madoka was complaining, wiping away the smear of matter that clung to the bottom of the rifle with a look of disgust. "It must have crawled underneath." She glanced meaningfully at Sayaka. "We should start checking below them."

"Good thinking, Madoka-chan. And we should also let each other know when we're about to wander off," she added, the playfulness in her voice unable to fully mask the concern she felt as her heart slowly returned to normal.

The pinkette had the grace to look embarrassed. "It was just a few feet. I just wanted to see…" carefully checking inside for any danger, she gave up trying to see through the tinted glass and tried the door. She turned around, feeling a flash of annoyance at Sayaka's amused grin. "It was worth a shot."

Sayaka heaved a sigh. "I suppose we'll have to go see if he has the key," she said, masking a strange, exhilarating feeling with a veneer of resignation. I want to kill it. The blunette shook her head, gripping her bokken tightly to alleviate the sudden, violent desire.

"Well?" Nakazawa asked, keeping his eyes scanning the wrecked vehicles around them.

"Let's think of a plan-"

"No time for that," hissed Homura, "Look!"

A block behind them, figures shambled in the almost twilit darkness, difficult to make out and terrifying in their obscurity. A dozen, at least. As more came round the corner, the group halted, milling around before once again beginning their shuffling journey down the road, turning and coming directly towards them.

"Shit," Sayaka whispered, panic sending her heart fluttering. Madoka's eyes were wide, Hitomi's terrified and demanding, and Nakazawa simply looked disgusted.

"Run or hide?" Homura asked, once again at the blunette's side.

Presented with options, the blunette weighted her choices. Sayaka glanced back at the undead officer in the building across the street. It worked before, in the gas station. "We going in. Slowly, it's dark. Hopefully they won't notice us." Swallowing, she crouched down, motioning for the others. The backpack cutting into her shoulders became even more cumbersome as she frog-walked behind the police car.

The group scuffled across the street, trying to keep out of sight of the approaching pack of undead, dozens of figures now visible against the bleak darkness that seemed to have swallowed the earth. Suddenly, the vehicles were illuminated in a flash of light, and the sky was rent by a terrific boom of thunder. Fat drops of rain began falling, a few brief seconds of individual wet spattering before the entire world seemed to be filled with streaming precipitation.

"Let's go!" Sayaka called, getting up and heading straight for the diner's entrance. Soaked to the bone, the blunette hoped the rain would hide them from the oncoming monsters. Why had they turned? Were they following them? Somehow tracking them down like a wolf after it's prey?

The door was mercifully open, and she held it for the others to enter out of habit before slipping inside, gripping the hilt of her weapon tightly, thankful of the tape she'd added last night.

If it had gotten dark outside, the gloom was even more oppressive within the enclosed entryway. Nervously, she shuffled forward, keeping on the balls of her feet as she'd been taught, ready to move in any direction at any moment. The rain beat against the rooftop, pattered incessantly against the windows, the sound startling loud in the darkened building.

The others began filing in, and at Madoka's safe arrival Sayaka nodded, motioning her intentions to the others. The pinkette gave her a pained smile, gripping the rifle like a bat with her padded athletic gloves. I doubt she could shoot with those on, Sayaka mused, stepping up to the partition that blocked the rest of the small restaurant from the entry. Not that it mattered now. The last thing they needed was to draw the attention of those monsters outside.

Of the monsters inside, Sayaka noted only the one. The creature stood with its back to her, seeming to gaze out the window of the shadowy room. Did it see the rain? Was it drawn to the lighting? Had it noticed the large group of its fellow undead heading down the road?

The former officer turned, alerted somehow just as she swung her wooden sword. The bokken bounced harmlessly off its shoulder, the unyielding impact nearly jarring the weapon out of the blunette's hands. The thing turned, a face stained with the dark crimson-brown of its latest blood-feast, fingers reaching out with startling quickness, latching onto her arm. She jerked back, stumbling.

Lighting lit up the sky again, and Sayaka's blood froze as she saw the mass of dark shapes approaching the building, a split second of shambling horror before the darkness once again swallowed up the terrible vision. Backing away, she blinked spots from her eyes. So many! It was like the entire school had followed them… but that was impossible. Wasn't it?

Mind reeling, Sayaka felt the ground come out from under her feet. Slamming into the ground, she felt something else grabbing at her leg, clutching even as the undead policeman approached, a horrible gurgling sound heard above the rain thrumming against the window.

Nakazawa cursed, seeing things going bad from the doorway and pushing past the others, fumbling with the crowbar tucked into his backpack. Madoka followed suit, rushing forward with arms drawn back, while Homura pulled out her pistol as Hitomi watched helplessly. "Hitomi, light!"

The pinkette slammed into the upright zombie, pushing the uniformed monster back toward the window. Sayaka kicked out desperately, scrambling away from the thing that had been underfoot, feeling its clutching weight dragged behind her.

"Oh fuck!" Nakazawa uttered, eyes narrowed grimly even before the light appeared behind him, the dark ruby gaze of two more undead glinting as they shuffled into the room.

"Madoka!" Homura warned, and the pinkette turned to see the approaching undead.

Split second decisions can be difficult, but only well after they've been made. Madoka couldn't say exactly why she rushed at the new threats rather than helping Sayaka with her own battle, other than it seemed right at the time. She charged into one just as Nakazawa hit the other in the face with his metal bar, the room lurching with motion as suddenly Hitomi was next to her swinging a bat with one hand and holding on to her phone in the other.

On the floor, Sayaka struggled to free herself from the grip of the zombie at her feet, not able to spare even a second to glance around at the policeman. She knew the others were gone, she was alone, something had gone wrong… twisting, breaths coming in rasping gasps, she found herself wrestling with the arms of the undead officer as it descended upon her, and with another flicker of lightning she saw its terrible face inches from her own as bloodstained lips parted. Gasping and kicking at the other thing still holding her leg, she inhaled a burst of putrid, rotting-meat breath. The smell of death. Outside, thunder crashed, the windows seeming to shake.

Homura watched, shaken by the scene that had been revealed by the flash of lightning. Through the front window, the nightmarish image of dozens of creatures, the nearest with eyes lit by unholy fire for a second before swallowed in the rain once more. The others were waging their own battle; only she saw Miki-san's predicament.

Sayaka choked, desperately pushing away at the former officer's throat, twisting to kick at the crawler with her free leg. She connected, but the impact shifted her, and she felt the inexorable strength of the monster on top of her pressing down, its horrible maw descending toward her throat. Another fork of lightning outside lit up the side of the creature's face, snarling with inhuman hunger. Her arms gave way, and the thing bent close-

A flash and simultaneous blast of thunder wracked the room, the echoing rumble outside oddly muted in her ringing ears. Blinking madly, Sayaka pushed at the limp weight of the creature on top of her, having the presence of mind to scuttle back, avoiding the clutching hands of the zombie that crawled forward.

Nakazawa had dispatched his target, hanging back from the wild swings of Hitomi and Madoka as the two had battered the other into submission. The whole thing was over in seconds, it had seemed, but when he'd finally turned back Sayaka had been underneath the zombie cop and even as he moved it was clear he was too far from her. And then Homura had-

"Y-you stupid fool!" Hitomi cried out hoarsely. "You've killed us all!"

Glancing outside with a strange mixture of certainty and trepidation, Homura shrugged and then frowned, picking up the brass casing from the floor. It had been a desperate shot, truth be told. She'd backed up into the entryway, lining up the creature even as it was about to bite the blunette. Luckily, she'd timed almost perfectly when to take the shot, and the thunder had apparently masked the sound. Hopefully.

"I think we're okay," Madoka began, just as the first shape loomed out of the darkness, resolving as it pressed up into the diner's window. It appeared to stare at them for a long moment before turning away, shuffling along until it disappeared from sight.

Shakily, Sayaka got to her feet, eyeing the lone remaining monster crawling across the floor. Something was wrong with its legs; the creature dragged itself forward. Seeing the awful wounds disabling it, she felt sick with revulsion. "Almost got me, you bastard." She frowned. "Not this time." Not bothering to pick up her dropped weapon, she raised her foot and brought it down, hard.

"Whoa," Nakazawa whispered, disgusted by the sight of the cracked-open skull.

"Shh," pleaded Madoka, breathing fast and glancing around, worried about more threats both outside and in. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Homura walked over to the uniformed body. Smiling, she began unfastening various clips and buttons. Carefully, she withdrew a small, modest looking revolver from its holster.

"Hey, cool! That's a NANBU m60." A staple of many web crime dramas, the gun was likely the only firearm anyone would ever see on the island. Homura made a noncommittal noise as she found the release pin, looking inside the chamber wheel.

"Not very impressive," Homura stated, eyeing the .38 caliber bullet with distaste. She'd been hoping more for some 9mms to reload her depleted magazine. Only nine left now. Wish I'd brought another couple clips. Her home, such as it was, lay in the opposite direction. "Thirty-eight caliber is notoriously weak."

"B-but," Nakazawa sputtered. "It's bigger than yours, shouldn't it be more powerful?"

"How is it bigger?" Homura inquired, staring at the boy.

"Well, 38 is like four times more than 9, and… what?" Pulling the brown hair out of his eyes, he waited for the transfer student to explain her scoffing expletive.

"Different units of measure. Thirty eight hundredths of an inch, versus nine millimeters. They're both about the same size. See?" She held up her casing.

"Which one's better?"

"What do you think?" Homura replied, patting her gun affectionately.

"Yours?"

Smiling, the raven-haired girl turned back to look the corpse. Digging around, she uncovered a short metal rod that made her grin. "Madoka-chan," she beckoned, and the pinkette approached, taking the offering with a trace of confusion. "Flick it out." A few tries later, "Harder. Like- there you go."

Madoka grinned, the black metal baton extended to its full length of around sixty centimeters. A small round ball of steel topped the end. She gave it an experimental swing. "Thanks, Homura-chan."

"Handcuffs, pepper spray… some keys here," she stated, holding up a set of small keys, "but I think they're just to the cuffs."

Another two minutes yielded nothing, except a spike in pulse rates when a small pack of monsters had approached the window, peering in through the rain. The lightning had ceased, and visibility was poor beyond a few meters.

"It's like a typhoon out there," Nakazawa commented at one point.

"D-don't even joke," warned Hitomi through chattering teeth, continuing to stare out the windows at the weather with a look of profound worry. "There was n-nothing like th-this in the f-f-forec-cast."

"Hitomi-chan, are you alright?" Madoka approached her green-haired friend as the others began to quietly ransack the small restaurant. Her pink gaze took in the tall honor-student, latching on to small details. The rent in the sleeve of her uniform, the wet, bedraggled hair, her limbs and shoulders shaking. "You were amazing, the way you fought that monster with me." She patted the girl's shoulder delicately. "Thank you."

"M-my phone's dead," HItomi responded conversationally, hugging herself to stem the shivers that coursed through her body. "Cold," she whispered, feeling too tired to complain further. Frowning, Madoka quietly retreated.

A minute later, still staring out the window, Hitomi felt a heavy weight descend over her. Not in a metaphorical sense, like how she'd felt staring at the unceasing downpour and thinking about Kyousuke and her parents and everything else. Her whole life. Her sense of doom was dispelled by a jolt of fear at the unnoticed touch, but even as she turned she knew what Madoka had done. There was a time when Shizuki Hitomi would have sneered at the thought of being draped in the filthy tablecloth of some wretched diner that people had eaten on. But even through her damp clothes the sensation was immediate, a feeling of warmth and of being held.

"You're going to make it, Hitomi-chan. I know it. Together, we'll get through this." Tucking the last of the half-dozen tablecloths she'd acquired from nearby tables, Madoka stepped back to admire her work. Hitomi was still shivering, but some of her color had returned. She led the girl over to a booth in the corner, sitting her down. "Rest here for a bit. I'm going to go talk to the others. We'll figure out what to do." Shapes continued to loom in the darkness of the intense rain, shuffling forward into the window.

Madoka approached Sayaka and Nakazawa, who were holding a whispered conversation near a door she assumed led to the kitchen. She glanced back, and as fortune would have it Homura had been looking in her direction already, so she beckoned the girl with a tilt of her head.

"What's up, Madoka-chan?" Sayaka asked, eyeing the lump of cloth sitting in the corner. "How's Hitomi?"

The pinkette glanced around, noting the various looks of determination and focus. "I think… She says she's cold," she began. She didn't want to make the girl sound weak, or worse yet a liability.

"It's fucking freezing in here," Nakazawa agreed, blowing on his hands theatrically.

"It's the rain, being all wet." Sayaka looked a little blue around the lips herself.

"No power, no heat. It's a good thing this happened now, instead of before winter," Homura mused. "Although summer brings its own... unpleasantness."

Madoka frowned. "What do you-"

"The smell," explained Sayaka, confident in her guess.

"That," Homura nodded graciously, a gesture that rubbed the blunette the wrong way, "and the rotting and disease and animals." She watched Nakazawa's face twist in disgust and grinned inwardly. "Imagine all the maggots and flies that will-"

"That's enough!" cried Sayaka, trying to keep her tone light. "We have to focus on the now, first. Get out of here."

"My house…" Madoka's voice faded, suddenly uncertain.

Sayaka grinned. "That's where we're headed, Madoka-chan. We're only six blocks away, and it's all houses from here on. No more of these creepy office buildings."

"Homes will have stuff." Nakazawa contributed. Blue and pink eyes stared until he began to blush.

"He's right," interjected the black-haired girl, pulling at a braid thoughtfully. "We'll find things we can use. Food, first aid stuff, backpacks, tools, maybe even some-"

"Guns?!" Nakazawa inquired, his voice loud with excitement. The others winced, and he was overcome with chagrin.

"I doubt it. If I was back overseas… that would be almost a sure bet. What we need is some other weapons, something that will help keep us safe when we fight those things. Baseball bats and kitchen knives aren't going to cut it. We could find just about anything, especially since that's the rich part of town."

"Upper middle class," Madoka corrected, as always feeling distinctly uneasy when others began referring to her as 'rich'. "My house probably has some stuff we can use. My parents will know what to do… my dad's pretty handy, I bet he's got some barricades up already." Her eyes gleamed even in the dim light of the unpowered building.

"I hope so," Nakazawa said optimistically. Trapped in a mansion with four hot chicks and Madoka's mom sounded way better than slogging through the rain, fleeing for their lives. A small part of him sighed, as if to say if only it were that easy. "We should get going once the coast is clear, this place is a bust. Unprepared food, some cutlery... "

Madoka lowered her voice, glancing back at Hitomi's huddled, cloth-heaped form. "Hitomi-chan… I think maybe she's in shock or something." The others digested this, glancing between one another. "Pale, shaking, weak… you should have seen her, staring out the window." She sighed. "We have to let her rest. Just a little while," she quickly finished, seeing the look of protest beginning to build.

Sayaka nodded. "If we wait, there's a better chance those things will be gone when we leave. Maybe we can even get into the police car."

"No keys," Homura grunted, sounding a bit sour. "The rain could be just the camouflage we need. They won't see us-"

"We won't see them until it's too late," Sayaka countered. She shook her head, shoulder-length blue hair still dripping from the soaking it had endured minutes ago. "Let's wait it out. Maybe we can find a way up to the roof, try to scope out the next couple blocks…"

Smiling, Madoka left them to it, heading back to Hitomi. The girl looked more comfortable, the shivering stopped. It was funny, but the pinkette hadn't noticed the cold at all. She felt comfortably… numb. Even her hand had stopped aching.

Hitomi's phone lay on the table, for the time being a useless hunk of plastic. Carefully, Madoka pulled out her own, briefly powering it up as she approached the bundled girl. She stopped, heart hammering.

9 missed calls. 1 new message.

Staring at the single bar that demonstrated the tenuousness of her connection, Madoka walked toward the window in the hope that glass was more conducive to data transfer than brick. A dainty thumb tapped open her voicemail.

"Madoka, it's me. Sweetheart, I need you to listen very carefully…"

Far, far too long between updates. Who do I think I am, George R.R. Martin? Thanks for your patience, and especially your comments.

Special thanks to ch3n for reminding me to get back to work. PMs can be compelling. Extra long might not equate to extra good, but there you have it.

Hope it's relatively enjoyable thus far; if you have any ideas or hopes for what you want to see let me know.