Chapter 13 Cliques

A/N : Thank you for all the reviews and support you guys have given the story. Welcome new readers! This chapter was getting wayyyyy long so I had to cut it down, seriously. Remember, when you guys read play it your head like movie, it's all fun. This chapter comes with a warning for language, gore, and a little death. You've been warned. Same disclaimers apply, already posted in the first chapter. Enjoy and review!

BPOV

When I was in elementary school, I loved to learn, and getting an A for a job well done was pretty amazing too. I loved earning praise from the teachers, specially when they were classified as hard-to-please. And I loved that Alice was with me since the beginning, always together – wether we were in trouble or not – we were always together.

In middle school things changed. Being smart wasn't cool anymore, having a boyfriend was. Other things that changed, were friendships. Alice and I always hanged out with a group of four other girls. Gabrielle was the shy girl who always hanged out with boys, a tomboy she would call herself, a flirt the girls would call her. JoAnn had crushes on any guy that any of us girls confessed to like, and somehow, we were always at fault for not telling her sooner, before she liked him. Sherilynn was the spoiled brat with divorced parents who fought for her affection through Hello Kitty. Diane was our Switzerland, always listening to us bicker and never taking sides, but she wasn't afraid to tell you if you were wrong either. We stuck together, all through middle school, fights, reconciliations, and even more fights; but always together. We weren't the cool kids or even the nerds. We were always in between, able to hang out with either clique and still be us.

High school changed all that. Sherilynn moved to our rival school on the other end of the main street that divided districts. We saw her during the football games, but that was the end of that friendship. JoAnn ended up going to that school too; that friendship ended when she started dating a boy from our school. His girlfriend at our school made everyone's life hell, including us for being JoAnn's friend to begin with. After that fiasco, things changed even more. Diane and Gabrielle became almost as close as Alice and I, only difference was that they could turn on each other just as fiercely. Those friendships ended when they had Alice and I choose between them two; apparently Gabrielle had been too flirty with Diane's boyfriend, but according to Gabrielle she was just being friendly.

College brought in more friends, but even more issues that deal with more adult stuff. Needless to say, nothing much had changed, besides the fact Alice and I were sticking together like glue. Friends changed with cliques and many of those friendships never survived after college. Alice was my soul sister, sister from another mister; Alice has always been there, would always be there.

Apparently zombies changed that.

The house had become divided, just like in high school. No... scratch that. The house had turned into a fucking episode of The Real World. Jacob and Leah were not talking to each other anymore, the reason for that being, Michael. Somehow along the way, Michael had squirmed his way inside Jacob's little heart and Leah wasn't too happy about that friendship. Michael found in Jacob someone who could understand him, to a certain extent, and they became inseparable.

Emmett had become distant from Rosalie because she wouldn't let go the fact that he just wanted friendship. Leah and Rosalie formed their own little clique of revengeful- unwanted princesses. They bitched and moaned all day long and it was seriously causing migraines among everyone. My dad and Sue were keeping themselves locked inside their room, claiming that they were too old to be taking sides on anything.

Alice had scared Jasper so bad that first day that he was avoiding her, even worst than Emmett was avoiding Rosalie. When I asked him to give her a chance, he claimed that she looked too much like a little girl on speed to be taken serious. He said he wanted a women who could get down and dirty with the best of them, and Alice didn't 'meet those heights'. Asshole, charming asshole. Emmett and Jasper bonded through their girl troubles. With Emmett having military experience and Jasper having experience dealing with zombies first hand, they became our leaders.

Edward and Alice were becoming close, too close for my liking. Besides, he didn't approach me anymore. What bothered me the most was that when Jasper flirted with me, Edward turned a blind eye to it, or more exactly acted like if he didn't give a shit. It pissed me off that he could just disregard everything he had done to me, that he could disregard me like that, without caring. What Edward didn't see was that Jasper only did it to piss him off, because even though Jasper didn't want anything with Alice, it still didn't stop him from looking her way.

Jasper's attention towards me pissed of Alice greatly, to the point that our once strong bond wasn't strong anymore. It was very sad to see that our friendship was fractured. I tried to talk to her but she wouldn't hear any of it. How could one man change years of trust and love? I felt like I didn't have any anymore, not with my shadow gone.

Carlisle became a very good friend to me, to the point that I was really starting to see him as a father figure. Carlisle was still young at the ripe age of 27, and he was very handsome with his blond hair and perfect posture. He became my confidante in everything; he became my new Alice. He even tried to talk some sense into her but in true Alice form, she disregarded his advice. Alice relied in proof not talk, and right now proof showed that I had Jasper's interest.

Besides having all the little cliques at home, things outside became even more tense. People started showing up. Not inside our home, but in our town. These people were not the type you wanted to find either. They were cruel, with no sight of humanity left in them. From what we were able to observe, they had a truck with them that was full with girls that varied all ages. The girls looked haggard, tired, as if they had been through he'll and back.

We weren't sure what to make of the arrivals, but one thing was clear: we were not going to make ourselves known unless it was necessary. Jasper wanted to leave and find his family immediately, but with the bonds formed with the household, cliques and all, he wanted to take us. We on the other hand, wanted to stay where we were, until it was necessary to leave. In the meantime, we made up a team to follow the group and see how they acted when they thought no one was around. We formed a surveillance group.

We all dressed in black and made the decision to travel in the night, the group would be too aware of us during the day. We were very afraid because the zombies could see and kill us before we would even notice they were there. According to Jasper who once worked with them, in order to understand their vision we would have to use night-vision goggles; they had perfect vision at night, but once the light emerged, everything went white to them, a bright light that blinded them. When Jacob still didn't understand, Jasper turned off all the lights and waited until Jacob's eyes adjusted to the dark. He then told him to pretend that it was daylight, and then without warning and much to our fucking amusement, he turned on the side lamp and almost shoved it in front of his face. Jacob staggered back like a moron and fell on his back as his arms flailed around him. It was an obvious choice for him to stay back.

The group that was sent out to investigate consisted of Jasper, Emmett, Alice, Charlie and me. We were the best with weapons and we each had a special ability; besides having weapons and special abilities, we also had melee weapons. Jasper was the brains and the one in command, being able to think fast was his strong point; he carried an axe. Emmett was able to handle the big weapons and carry the heavy sledge hammer. Alice was special with the taser gun, and had the ability to fit in small spaces; she carried a shovel to make up for her height. Charlie was good at shooting his guns, and for once in his life, he was happy to not be the one responsible of a group; he carried a crowbar. And finally there was me. I'm good at climbing and being still for a long time; my weapon was a machete I found in our neighbor's shed. If there was one thing I learned from watching zombie movies, it was that melee weapons were better than guns, the best being a machete.

Walking in the dark had to be the scariest thing I had ever done in my life. There was growling everywhere and no matter how close we stayed with your backs to a flat surface, you always felt that they were going to attack you from behind. We maintained a straight line with our weapons always at the ready. No one had their guns ready; we were keeping those safe for later. We were each equipped with silent weapons.

We ran into a few zombies along the way, but we quickly disposed of them before they could attract a horde. It was amazing the amount of zombies that were not present. I was afraid to know what had actually happened to all the residents of Forks. Did they escape while I hid in my basement? Were they rescued? Or, were they blown away by some of the bombs? I tried really hard no to think about them much, I had more than enough people to worry about at home.

After we had jogged for about twenty minutes and ten houses later, we ran in to our first obstacle. There were about eight or nine zombies huddled around a group of people inside a minivan. They were surrounding it, shaking it from side to side, reminding me of some riot footage I saw when some team won the championship. There was screaming coming from inside the van, but what worried and disgusted me the most, was the fact that I was worried that if the person inside didn't shut up soon, they would attract a bigger horde and we would get caught. I was worried about my team and not some stranger.

I can't function with this fear, shit... think... think...oh!... 1...2...3...4...5...I sighed.

I let the feelings of disgust and fear run deep, consume me for five whole seconds before letting them wash out of my system. Pure relief and then calm remained. "Fuck, this does work," I muttered to myself, amazed that it had actually worked.

"What worked?" asked Jasper.

The zombies were so loud in the snarls and focused on their meal that they didn't even notice us yet. The wind was blowing our way, which was good or else they would have smelled us already.

Alice giggled quietly before she whispered to Jasper the reason for my comment, something which she had continually tried before and succeeded. "Have you ever seen the show Lost, Jasper?" When he shook his head no she continued. "The main character Jack once told the a girl he liked named Kate, that when he gets scared or panics during a surgery, he closes his eyes and counts to five and lets whatever emotion he's feeling to run freely in his system. After he counts to five, he let's go of all feelings and he's able to focus and work on finishing the surgery. I didn't believe it would work but I tried it once during a hard time at work and I have never looked back," she confirmed with a nod of her head.

He cocked his head to the side as he silently questioned me if she was serious. All I could do was nod yes because it really fucking worked. Thank you Lost, no... thank you Jack Shepard!

"Sshhhhhhhhhhhh," hissed Emmett, who was currently in the lead followed by Charlie, me, Alice and then Jasper taking the back. "We have to help those people inside the van. We're not cold-blooded, we help."

Was I the only one who didn't want to help? It seemed like it, but shit... who was I turning into? This wasn't me, this uncaring person. On one side the angel was chastising me for my reluctance to help those people who were obviously about to be murdered. On the other side was the devil, who wasn't paying much attention to me, instead she was rushing me to keep going and not look back. I ignored the devil and agreed with everyone instead, causing the devil to kick my shoulder.

"Heres what we're gonna do," whispered Jasper. "Emmett, you got the sledgehammer so you're gonna go around to the other side and hit as many of those fuckers on the head and fast, just swing it man. Charlie, the crow bar is not gonna help much so you're gonna double check that ones the we hit are really dead. Meanwhile, the rest of us will take the ones left on our side. Try to surround them as much as possible. Hit 'em and move to the next one. Got it?"

I didn't really get it, but I nodded anyways, the odds weren't really on our side and the zombies relied on their brute strength. We walked along the side of the house we were hiding by and waited for Emmett to go around the house so that we could attack from the other side before the wind blew his scent to the horde. Just as a gust of wind blew his way and their heads snapped up towards Emmett's direction, the rest of us charged silently and banged our melee weapons against as many heads as fast as possible.

The crunching sounds the machete made against the head of a young girl zombie were disgusting, reminding me of the sounds two walnuts made when crushed together, only more squishy and wet. The smell coming off the wounds was similar to the smells coming off the huge dumpsters inside the city's alleys. The machete got stuck inside the head of an old man I struck on the back. When I tried to dislodge it, it wouldn't budge. I tried to put force behind my movements but nothing happened until Emmett struck his sledgehammer on top of his head, bringing me down with the zombie. Once I got up, I placed my foot on the back and was finally able to pull it out. There was no blood anywhere, instead there was a thick grey-gooey substance replacing it.

"Don't touch the grey stuff," whispered-yelled Jasper. "It turns you into them if it gets inside your blood stream."

We all stepped back away from it immediately, except for Charlie who continued to struck the zombies to make sure that they stayed down. Alice kept watch around us to make sure that we had not attracted any more of them. Once we pulled the zombies away from the minivan and to the side of the street, we were able to focus on helping the people inside the van.

I wished we had never helped them.

There were three bodies inside the van: one alive, one undead, and one dead. The front seat was occupied by a crying mom who was blubbering for us to save her babies. Her clothes were ripped in several places, with scratches that rang along her neck and face. There was growling coming from the back seat that immediately put us in alarm. The back seat had two car seats that were both occupied. I held back a sob as I realized that one of them had a dead infant no more than a year old. The baby was missing a huge piece of meat from his left chubby leg. His body was really pale with several veins that were visible in several colors. It was apparent that the baby had been bitten but had not survived the change.

Next to the baby's car seat was a toddler's seat with a young little girl, no more than four years old, who was chewing on a severed arm. It wasn't hard to guess that the mom had somehow gotten body parts and was feeding her zombie daughter to keep her nourished. Her eyes were so red and they almost seemed like they glowed. There was flesh underneath her fingernails, along with several bites on her arms. Either she was bitten several times by zombies and it caused her change, or she has been biting herself with food runs short.

No one said anything as the girl threw away the arm she had been chewing on the floor – mostly bone with a few pieces of tendons and muscle attached – and tried in vain to get out of her restrains. The mom immediately went to the back of the van where she had more body parts and grabbed another arm to replace the one she had thrown. The little girl immediately latched her mouth on the skin and began chewing it. The body must not have been that old because there was still blood dripping from the open wounds.

"We have to kill her," I heard myself say.

"Ah... um...yeah, okay," Alice said as tears streamed down her face.

"I'll do it." We all turned to see my dad who was readying his gun with a silencer. When the hell did he get a silencer?

"No, no, no! She's my baby and she just needs to eat... she's just a little girl. Look, look..." the mother gestures towards the seat belts, "... she can't get away so she won't be any trouble, I swear!" she cried. Her movements were frantic, and if we were honest with ourselves, she was past the point of being neurotic.

There was a glint coming from her left hand every time the light from the lamp post would catch it, her wedding band. In a very fucking disturbing and bile churning coincidence, it matched the wedding band on the hand that the little girl was munching on. Oh My God! She's fucking eating her dad! No, no way, there is no way the lady could have killed her husband just to feed her demon child.

"Uh, ma'am?" I waited until I had her attention, and everyone else. "Wh... who exactly does that arm belong to?"

The arm in question became the focus of everyone as they were all able to make the same connection I had. I heard as Emmett cursed and Jasper guided Alice to the side as she continued to vomit.

"Oh, oh. My husband, but he was already dead. We were following a lot of cars and when we stopped at Port Angeles for camp they noticed that my little Evelyn was sick and they tried to take her away from me and then they... they..." she stopped, her cries making her choke a bit, "... he tried to stop them and they shot him. They left us there... all alone. I chopped him up with a kitchen knife I had in my bags. Evelyn was getting restless with hunger. I know my David would have wanted it that way."

We continued to stand there and stare as the mom leaned down and kissed the head of the baby boy, as she caressed his cheek so lovingly that it broke my heart just to think of what this woman was going through at the moment. It's one thing to know that you're babies are dead, and to know where they are buried; but to have to drive around with them because our world is over run by fucking demons and bad people... there were no words. She leaned over his body, entered the minivan and closed the door. She sat in between the two car seats and snatched the arm away from the girl only to remove her husband's wedding band and place it on her thumb. The demon kid growled and snatched the arm back, but instead of continuing to eat, she threw it on the floor and grabbed her mom's arm and bit her forearm instead. I expected the mom to scream bloody murder, but she just continued to sob and hug the girl's head to her chest.

She's giving up...

I couldn't' take it any more. I threw up all over myself. Emmett walked over to me and took me inside the nearest house where Jasper followed soon with a crying Alice. Oh my god, she kept chanting over and over again. My throat was too closed up to even contemplate speaking again. I fought the nausea before it could completely take over and just leaned my forehead against the cool glass window. My eyes were closed and even though the night was still very cool and cold, there was sweat on my forehead.

Pum... Pum...silence...

Charlie walked inside the house and unloaded his backpack on a sofa. "I, uh... took care of it, I mean them," he muttered.

"What do we do now?" I asked, still keeping my eyes closed. "I mean, do we continue and go find out more about these people, do we make camp here and wait until tomorrow night, or do we just go home and try another day?"

"Do we even want to know who those people are?" questioned Alice. "They left those people without help."

"Of course they did," answered Emmett. "They had a fucking zomkid."

"So you're saying that you would just left them there, without protection? They were just kids..."

"No, Alice. The kid was fucking zombie, get that through your head... a zombie, not a kid. You let that thing loose and it wouldn't think twice to bite your arm like it did to it's own mom."

"I agree," Jasper said. "I would have done the same thing. Only, I would have killed the mom too."

Alice gasped, appalled that her Jasper could kill innocents.

"So, ah... what do we do?" I asked again before we got in to an argument.

"I say we continue since most of us agree that we would have done the same thing regarding the family. Let's just go see these people and go back to the shelter and get it over with."

Alice reluctantly agreed to go with us but only because she didn't want to go back home alone. We were all antsy to be out in the open with big targets on our bodies. And then a thought occurred to me. The girl had been eating the flesh, but Jasper had mentioned that they only sucked out the blood. When I asked him about it, the only thing he could think of was that they were maybe evolving; evolving or that maybe because the girl was little her, body required more than just blood.

"Zombies are fucking zombies, end of questions," muttered and angry Emmett. "Why keep talking about them fuckers, let's go already."

And that was the end of all discussions for the rest of the trip. The trip wasn't a total loss in the long run because the house we were hiding in belonged to none other than Garrett Sims, and he was known for his extreme sports hobby. We ransacked his house for food, clothing, water and most importantly, silent transportation. We didn't exactly find the bicycles we were hoping for, instead we found something else...

"What the fuck are those?" asked Jasper.

"Ahhhh... where is the rest of it?" I asked, because really... where was the rest of it?

Alice chuckled form behind us only to laugh a full belly laugh later. "Oh, my goodness..." she gasped, holding on to her stomach. "Three grown men standing here completely clueless and yet the little girl knows more. How fucking ironic, isn't it, Jasper?"

He ignored her comment as he continued to walk around the room, checking out the transportation... if you could call them that.

"These my friends, are the motorcycles of the future," she proclaimed with a shit-eating grin.

"Yeah, okay... but where is the rest of it?" asked Charlie.

"These are it, dad. These are strong enough to hold even Emmett's weight. They're pretty silent because the motor is not that big, only problem with them is that it's battery operated and it only lasts about 1 ½ hours before you have to charge it again. They're called Ryno and they cost approx..."

"Where the hell did you learn all that?" asked a wide-eyed Jasper, as he ran his hand over the smooth curves of the golden bike.

"Youtube," she answered.

"Jesus, didn't you work, Alice?"

"Yes, Bella, I did. But when you know enough about fashion it doesn't take a genius to edit the work. Piece of cake."

Fuck, I wish I had that much time to surf the internet, well... not that it matters now, I angrily thought.

We didn't take those, even though there were six of them. We didn't know how much battery life they had left so the risk was greater. In the end we ended up using the scooters that were hanged on a wall away from all the expensive bikes. They were not electrical or motorized, which was good because we would have to rely on ourselves and nothing more.

It was so hilarious to watch us all pedal down the street on our scooters. Alice looked even more like a little girl – only missing her pigtails – me, looking like a skater boy, all flat chested. Emmett looked like an over grown gorilla in a small cycle; there was Jasper, the army brat with an angry scowl on his face as he pedaled faster to get it over with. And finally my dad, an old man on a child's toy. Yup, we were the group to look out for, all fierce and loaded with guns and melee weapons cruising down the street on scooters.

We arrived in no time at all with our new transportation. It actually cut our time by half. Even though the town was small, everything was far away from each other on foot. We were able to locate the newcomers parked by the school. It seemed as if they were using the high school gymnasium for their new home.

Alice and I were sent in as scouts because we were the smallest and most agile to climb on a tree that was close enough to the windows to grant us a view of the inside. The men climbed the tree to its lowest branch; they were secure from being watched by any guards or any wandering zombies. Alice and I climbed to a very high branch leaving us to at least fifteen feet from the floor.

We were carrying our phones because even though they didn't have service, the cameras still worked and they had zoom action available. It was very hard to see at first, our eyes had to get used to the lights coming from inside. The gym was the size of a normal high school gym and these people were occupying every space available. They had more people than we had thought possible thinking twenty at the most, but there must have been at least fifty people in there. There were blankets in random sections of the floor and clear areas that were obviously for kitchen and bathroom use. People were walking aimlessly around, mostly the women as the men kept seated on some of the sleeping bags.

Nothing seemed out of place, except for a few of the girls who looked nervous or about to be sick. But then, without warning it happened...

I held on to the branch as Alice kept recording with her small camera phone, unable to unglue her eyes from the window. The noises from inside the gym were disgusting, worst than the noises from the van incident.

"What's going on?" whispered-yelled Jasper without looking at us. His eyes were focused on the floor behind us.

Without talking to the guys, we put our phones away and climbed down as fast as we could. We didn't answer the guys, only ran to the scooters and pedaled home as fast as possible. It was obvious that boys were itching for answers, specially since we were going really fast and ignoring the horde of zombies that were following us.

The only thought that kept going through my head, and nothing else was... We are not like them. We are not like them at all.