Im back, thanks for everyone who liked or commented. ill try to keep up better. again no beta and I only read through it once.

Gary was starting to annoy me. He wouldn't tell me where we were going and he kept twitching. Muttering things under his breath. I was able to ignore most of his oddness by watching movies and texting, but it was getting to the point that others on the bus were starting to look at us. I was tempted to get up and move to a different row, but the way he was gripping his arm rest warned me that he'd most likely be grabbing me if I tried to leave. When we reached some random bus stop he stepped off and I was forced to follow. He ran to an old phone booth, and desperately dialed. He spoke in a hushed voice, banging on the panels every now and then.

I stood off again, and started to fidget with my phone. It occurred to me then that it had been a while since I looked in on Maya. With my old communicator I could see her and not have to talk to her, but now… I regretted letting that go, but it was part of being robin. And I couldn't be him anymore.

Flicking the on the phone I bit the bullet and dialed one of her numbers, but as expected she didn't answer. Flicking the phone off I saw Gary slam the phone down. Violently shaking the booth. He walked back over me in a huff. I guess whoever he called didn't work out either.

We had camped out in a small town in Washington and I was now exhausted and ready to just call it a quits for the day. Gary had me traveling by bus with him all the way north. The whole time we did travel he mumbled to himself about darkness eating people. After the first hour of listening to him ramble and having everyone on the bus looking at us I chose to move. I managed to watch the rest of star wars and Mia recommended I move on to star track. It was better than nothing, and nothing was better than sitting next to Gary at this point.

"Sigh" I rolled my eyes and looked over to the side. Gary was about to go into one of his moods. He sat down next to me and put his head between his knees. Mumbling again.

"We are fucked. This town is fucked. I can't do this." a mantra I had become acquainted with already. I rolled my eyes again and glanced away from him. The town was small, like the others he forced me to go with him to, but there seemed to be nothing wrong with it. Only a few people were outside, but it was cold. No one wanted to be out in this cold. I grabbed the edges of my hoodie closer to me. Trying to break the chill creeping on me. How Gary did it, I'll never know. He was constantly ill dressed for the weather. And we kept heading north for some reason.

"We need to leave. We can't be here. It's all going to shit here."

"What are you even saying? Really you had said that about every town so far and they are all the same." My patience was beyond brittle at this point with Gary. I was tired of only leering these chants and I was tired of it just being Gary.

"You can't see them?"

"What?" Gary groaned again at me.

"The suits, Damian. The suits." his voice hushed. He leaned over me and for a moment I jerked back, but then it hit me. The only people out beside us were people in suits. I had mistaken them for locals before, but why would all the locals be wearing suits?

Gary covered my reaction well enough, but it took me a second to cool my face back into a look of border.

"Suits Damian, when they are around something bad is going to happen."

"What do you mean?" Gary had stood up and started to walk into the town.

"They are like angels of death. Or grim repears. When one of them shows its bad news for maybe a one or two people, but when a whole gaggle of them show up, well that means a slaughter."

"A GAGGLE of them?" I asked incuriously. What a way to make them sound less threatening.

"Yes a gaggle of them. When they are around, something bad is bound to happen."

"And this town is infested with them?"

"Yes. so we need to leave." I extended the sentence.

"But why? Shouldn't we like, you know, try to stop it. I mean that is your job." I pointed out.

"No, my job is to contact people who can solve the problem and if not, warn others to get the hell away from the coming slaughter."

"But never two to stop it?"

"Very rarely will me. I just fuck it all up, so better let someone else do it."

"Great, and when the other person will be coming then." Gary seemed to flinch at this. "There won't be, will there?"

"No, he's currently unviable... To me."

"Like he won't do it because you called or he just won't do it?"

"More like he won't do it faster because I called, but if he makes it up here he will do it."

"Well...that is a horrible system."

"Yeah, not the greatest, but it's the work we do."

"So, we handle it ourselves?" I offered again.

"Wait?! What Damian? What did I just say? I would just fuck it up!"

"If everyone is going to die in this town, you can't fuck it up any more than that? Can you?"

"You don't know my track record Damian. It's best if we just go." Gary was getting jittery again, but not from his lack of fix. No, he wanted to leave to avoid a confrontation.

"I think we should stay and see if we can save even one person? If we can do that, it won't be a waste!" I argued back. Gary hesitated for a moment and I took this chance I ran ahead of him.

"Damian, stop!" Gary hushed yelled behind me. The town was indeed dead. No people and no sign of any life, minus the apparent dead people around us. None of them seemed to pay me much attention as I went by them. Why was Gary so worried about them?

Recon. I had to do recon. I was falling easily back into old habits or research and gathering Intel. The suits paid no attention to me and when Gary finally managed to huff his way up to me, I was pressed against the brink wall of an old grocery shop. Peaking past it to see down Main Street. At the corner I saw an old police station that looked like it was boarded up to hell.

"Damian, we really should not be this deep in. we need to head back. We can't be here." I ignored Gary's pleas to turn around. This was a case that needed attention to. Why was every building normal, but that one?

"Tersely, Damian, I get it, but we need to head back. It's too dangerous here, and there is nothing we can do."

"I think there's people in that building." I remarked. Ignoring Gary's frustration and fear of the situation. Taking a quick look down the streets to see they were clear, I huffed my back pack up my shoulders and bolted down the road. Gary cursed behind me and followed. Running down the street I noticed the suits were standing on the roof tops. Staring straight at me as I ran past them. Finally noticing us.

Ignoring them I rounded the bend and saw that the front doors were completely blackout. The outside was boarded up and the glass behind it was cracked and smeared with blood. Odd furniture was stacked against the door from the inside. Looking for a side door I walked past a chain linked fence. The building's brick wall had scratches and dents in it. Like something was clawing on it constantly. Gary was lingering behind me now. Watching as I went deeper behind the building. The windows on the side were also cracked, but it looked like a fist went through some of them.

"Damian, we need to go. It's not safe here."

"I think this would be the safest place in this town by the looks of it." I continued to inspect the wall of scratches when I heard the crunch of gravel. My head peaked up and I saw a girl with long brown hair, holding a basket with food in it, staring at me with abject horror. I raised a hand to her, but that just made her take a step back. Her eyes widened when she saw what I can only assume was the skeletal frame of Gary behind me. Of course seeing Gary in the shadows would scare anyone.

"Wait! WE Don't-!" "DADDY!" the girl interrupted me. She was breathing heavily, Gary was now breathing heavily, and I was stuck in the middle. All of the sudden I heard the side door open and a large man stepped out with a baseball bat and took a look at Gary and then me. He swung and Gary went down. I could only flap my arms in frustration with Gary.

"Wait, wait, wait, and wait. We aren't going to hurt-" the end of my sentence ended in a grow. The girl had chucked a can of corn at my head as I was distracted by her "Daddy". I fell to a knee and grasped the side of my head where she managed to hit me.

"Fucking shit. That hurt! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" I grouched. The girl was fast approaching. Probably clutching another can of corn for all I fucking knew.

"Wait darling, I think these might be people."

"No fucking shit!"

"Hey we didn't mean to hurt you, just wasn't sure you were people."

"That's a load of bull, he just got spiked to the next town and I got hit with a can of corn."

"Cream corn." the girl corrected me. She finally lowered her weapon of choice, cream corn, and handed me a dirty towel she had in her basket. Apparently I was bleeding from my temple now and a dirty ass rag was going the best to stop the bleeding. I gave her a dirty look before grabbing the rag and pressing it to my skull.

"Can someone make sure he's still breathing?" I gestured to Gary. Who was still knocked out? The big guy poked him with his bat.

"You sure he wasn't one of them? Sure looks the part." I rolled my eyes, there were so many questions, but first, I had to deal with Gary.

"Yeah whatever it is you guys are afraid of, he isn't it. Just looks disturbing." the girl giggled behind me and he dad glanced up, he shot a disapproving look at her and she used up. He shook his head and stepped over Gary's body.

"Grace, take him inside and have him looked at to be sure he isn't one of them, I'll drag this one in and secure the doors."

"Yes Daddy." she answered and looked down at me to motion to follow. I stood up and watched as the man grabbed Gary's legs and started to drag him, literally, towards the door he came from. The girl, Grace, and I went through the back of the police station.

"Where are you from?"

"OH not here."

"That I can tell I mean how far did you come from? Is this like this everywhere?"

"Uhhh no, not sure what is going on here actually. Place was a ghost town when we got here."

"Really? Like there's still the world? And everything?" Grace was closing the door now and handed me the basket. I took it and watched as she moved the heavy lock back into place.

"Yeah, there is."

"Even frozen yogurt? With all the toppings?" she joked. She turned back to me and that when I noticed she had warm brown eyes that twinkled when she squinted her eyes in the dark.

"Yeah, with all the toppings."

"Good, that makes living through this hell worth it. How did you end up here anyway? No one comes here."

"I was following my friend back there. He was-" "Friend? That's weird. Shouldn't he be like your dad or something? Like why are you with him?"

"Well he's-" "it's just strange, like you guys don't look alike and he looks like Ronald. Ronald was this guy my dad said like to inhale the fumes from spray cans and stuff. He turned into one of those things, but he's still the same. Your friend looks like him, so why are you with him and not your dad?"

"Well, I have to be with him, he's- ""is your dad dead? Like if he is, I'm very sorry I brought it up, but my dad said that kids my age going missing all the time and your friend looks weird, like those guys you see in those school videos about strangers. Did you follow him? Or did he take you? Or did-?"

"My dad is dead, and he's the only family I have." I cut her off. His stream of words and accusations were becoming too close to the truth and to be honest it was becoming a bit upsetting to keep thinking about it.

Thinking about Father or Dick was hard enough and having to admit already once that Gary was my best option and only option at this point was just depressing.

"Oh...I'm sorry." Grace said quietly. She had paused in her walking.

"It's okay, I'm okay with it."

"No, I can't imagine what I'd do without my dad. When mom died he was all I had and I can't imagine how it felt." aaaaaand great. She was crying. Girl went from chugging cream corn at my head to crying about me.

"Please stop crying. I'm not good with crying." that just made it worse. Her hand went to her mouth to muffle the sobs and fat tears streamed down her face.

"*sob* *sob* oh god please let there be people around.

"Help, anybody! I don't know how to get her stop." and she continued to cry. Great. Could I leave her? No, I couldn't do that. So I did the only thing I could. "Help! We need help here!" and just like that my plea was answered. A door was opened and there stood a man still dressed in a police uniform. A wide brimmed hat and a colt on his hip. He stared me down.

It was after a sniffle and a sudden feeling of a warm drip from my temple did my situation finally fully dawn on me. I was fucked.