Author's Note: Chapter five, people. Welcome to chapter five. Now that everyone's pretty much dead in my story, the good stuff shall begin... hehe. And this chapter will be long, so enjoy.

Many thank you's to my reviewers. You're all invited to my house for a cookout! Lol.

And sorry to MorbidMan. Slow updates are annoying, I know.

Chapter 5: June 27, 29, 30- She Was On Her Own

Josephine didn't understand. She didn't know why she wasn't dead, or at least sick. She didn't even have the sniffles or a cold. She was feeling perfectly fine, in fact, better than ever. She always hated being sick or getting a cold, but now she wished she was dead. She was completely, totally, and utterly alone. And that was far more horrible than getting Captain Trips.

Her entire family was dead by mid-day of the 27th, so she spent the rest of that day burying her family in the backyard.

She grabbed three white sheets from the closet near her parents bedroom and wrapped her parents and sister in them. Not a tear fell. Perhaps that was because she was too busy trying to stop herself from getting sick. The stench was not at all pleasant.

She then dug three large holes in the center of her backyard and placed a body of one of her family members in each one. It was a difficult task, but by 9:00 that night the bodies were completely buried.

Josephine placed a picture of her and Kimmy on Kimmy's grave. The picture had been taken several months earlier, in April. In the picture, the sun was shining and Josephine could be seen in the backyard with Kimmy, pushing her on a swing. Both girls were smiling at the camera.

Josephine stared at the picture on the mound and went back inside. She cried herself to sleep that night, although sleep hadn't really been a friend of hers lately.

And now that it was the 29th, there was almost nothing left of the world Josephine knew 2 weeks earlier. Everything that she had taken for granted her whole life was gone and now she had to fend for herself. She was on her own. It was difficult, but over time she learned to appreciate her endless freedom.

It was about 5:00 a.m. on the 29th and Josephine was sitting huddled on the couch. The room was completely dark. The curtains and windows were opened and a light summer breeze drifted into the living room and swept over everything, includng Josephine. A chill crept down her back and she looked warily around the room, as if she was expecting something to jump out of hiding. She grabbed the flashlight and the bat that sat on either side of her.

She was very hungry, but she didn't want to get up. For several days all she was eating were things that didn't need to be cooked or refridgerated, like cereal and bread. She was terrified to see what kind of new organism was lurking behind the refridgerator door. The power had been off for days so everything in the fridge was probably very... nasty. She had also been drinking bottled water, which her parents always had an incurable habit for buying, and she was rationing it quite well.

She hadn't gotten very much sleep the past few days either. The dreams of the old woman and the dark man had haunted her to the point where she would rather stay up for days on end than spend one hour asleep. Mother Abigail continued to tell her to come and visit, but Josephine never replied in her most recent dreams. Then there would be the dark man, who would chase her and scare her to the point of tears. He would call to her, though, and tell her to help him and he would do great things for her. She would be in his 'council'.

Josephine truly believed she was losing her mind. If the world wasn't so dead right now, she would have herself committed.

Every once in a while she would hear a gun shot. It would usually be from out in the distance, towards the city. But she knew, by the distant thud of a gun going off, that she wasn't the only one left. That there were more people out there. And perhaps, they were just as healthy as she was. And so she never left her house, except when she would go into her backyard for a moment of silence in front of her family's, or more precisely her sister's, grave.

The hours went by and soon it was 9:00 a.m. Josephine got off of the couch and into the kitchen on her search for food. As the morning sunlight hit her face, one could see how ragged it looked. It was deathly pale and her lips were chapped. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun and her eyes looked dazed. She was wearing the same clothes she had been for the past three days.

She grabbed a bottle of water that she had been working on for about a day and a box of cereal from the pantry and sat back down on the couch. She could hear the birds singing and as she looked outside the living room window, she could tell the sun was shining and there was barely a cloud in the sky.

It was an average day except for the fact that nearly everyone in Cleveland was dead.

Josephine went to turn on the TV, but then remembered there was no electricity let alone any TV shows, considering the fact that all the TV stars were probably rotting away in their Beverly Hills homes. Josephine frowned. This no-electricity thing was really beginning to irk her.

So she sat there, on her couch with a bat on one side and a flashlight on the other, alone, quiet, and annoyed.

The rest of the day she was out of her mind with boredom. As the evening wore on, she lit a few candles and ate her dinner, which consisted of a slice or two of bread and some of that oh so tasty bottled water.

But she couldn't stay up for much longer, so she trudged up to her room (with her trusty bat and flashlight, of course) and as she got to the door, she looked at the bed with fear, like it was going to jump up and take a bite out of her. She didn't want to sleep, but she had to. She couldn't keep what precious little sanity she had left without her sleep.

So she sat on the bed, and after a minute of staring off into space, she plopped over and immediately feel asleep.

But that night she had a dream. And in that dream she made a very important decision.

Once more she found herself in the cornfield, but this time everything seemed much more real. The sky was dark, not in an evil way, it was just night. There were numerous stars in the velvety black sky and Josephine smiled at how beautiful it looked. A cool night breeze swept over the corn stalks and she could hear them rustle as she walked through them. So far, this was a pleasant experience for Josephine.

At first, she didn't think it was there. At firs she thought the singing and the sound of the guitar was just her imagination playing off of all the other experiences she had in the cornfield. But then she realized that it was Mother Abigail, and Josephine then began to walk towards the soothing music, like she had all the other times before.

"Josephine."

Josephine stopped in her tracks and looked around. It was that soft masculine whisper again. The wind picked up and seemed to linger around her, but she could still hear Mother Abigail out there somewhere.

Josephine finally worked up enough courage to answer this disembodied voice, but she had her suspicions of who it belonged to. "What do you want?!" Josephine yelled to the wind.

"Don't go to her, Josephine. She offers you nothing. I can give you everything."

Suddenly Josephine became angry. "Don't even try that with me, buddy!" she yelled, as if repremanding a kindergardener. "Neither of you offer me anything I'm interested! I don't want anything to do with Mother Abigail's 'journey', and I sure as hell don't want any part of your 'council'! So now leave me alone!!"

The wind suddenly died down and as she made her way towards Mother Abigail's singing, she heard the voice's last words, "You know where I'll be, Josephine..."

"Yeah, whatever." she mumbled as she made her way out of the corn and into the backyard of Mother Abigail.

And there, once again, was Mother Abigail, sitting in her rocker strumming her guitar and singing about God.

Josephine walked up to her front porch, where the old woman was sitting, and she just listened to the old woman until she was done.

Mother Abigail looked down at Josephine and smiled a warm, welcoming smile. "Now how you doin', child?"

Josephine just stared at her. "Did you know I had to bury my entire family, Mother Abigail?" There was an eerie pause. "Did you know I had to bury my nine year-old sister and my mom and dad? Did you know that all I've been living off of lately is bottled water and bread and cereal?"

Mother Abigail's smile slowly faded. It was replaced with a more sorrowful, melancholy expression. "Aw, baby, it's OK, it'll get better for ya soon. I promise."

"I don't see how it could get any better, Mother."

"It seems horr'ble now, I know, but soon the bad times will pass and life'll get better."

Josephine just looked to the ground and slowly shook her head. "But things are going to get much worse first. I know they are." Then she looked up at Mother Abigail with such a hard look that the old woman could have sworn it suddenly got colder. "And I know something is going to happen, something big, between you and that man in the corn." Josephine began as she pointed behind her into the field of corn. "And I want no part of it. If you two, or the people you two gather, are going to duke it out, then do so without me."

Mother Abigail looked at her and sighed a little, as if the teenager didn't quite understand the extent of things, which, in fact, she didn't.

Josephine continued. "So I'm going to go now. And I'm going to pay my final respects to my family." She knew what she was going to do.

Mother Abigail continued to look at her, not with hatred or anger, but with sympathy, saddness, and regret.

Josephine looked at Mother Abigail awkwardly and nodded her head, it was her goodbye. She then turned around and walked back into the corn.

And with that, she woke up. It was 8:00 a.m. on the 30th of June.

Josephine never heard Mother Abigail calling out to her that morning and she felt a sense of loss over it. But she didn't believe in God, so why should she care?

Josephine now knew what she had, or at least wanted, to do. She would pay her last respects to her family and then she would leave. She couldn't stay cooped up in the old house forever.

All that morning, until about 10:00 a.m., she was getting ready to leave.

First she got changed. She got into a pair of jeans and the top she bought from the store only days earlier. She put her hair in that infamous ponytail. And just with that, she suddenly looked a little less dead. She then grabbed an old bookbag of hers and filled it with clothes. Shorts, T- shirts, pants, undergarments. It was as if she was getting ready for one big slumber party. She then grabbed one more bag that once held her gym clothes when she was in school. Not to mention she grabbed a sleeping bag, which was connected to the top of her bookbag.

She then went into the kitchen. She took the second bag and filled it with food and water. She grabbed cereal, bread, cans of other foods, and of course, her bottled water. Her old gym bag was completely filled, almost to the point where she couldn't carry it.

She then went on the hunt for other little odds and ends that she would need, like matches (and a lighter). Then, of course, she grabbed her flashlight and A LOT of extra batteries. She never went for the baseball bat, though. Instead she went into her basement and grabbed the gun her father had hidden under the steps. She wanted to smack herself for not thinking to use it earlier.

Josephine knew it was there because about a year earlier Kimmy had been exploring in the basment when she accidently came across the gun. Josephine was babysitting her at the time and Kimmy ran upstairs to her with then gun to show it to her. Josephine never knew her parents had then gun and then she made Kimmy put it back right where she had found it and made her promise she wouldn't tell her parents about it.

So now Josephine had the gun and all the extra bullets.

Josephine was ready. As she stepped out the back door, she looked at her watch. It was 10:00 a.m. She went to her family's graves and stood over them for a minute.

"Well, mom and dad," she said as she looked disdainfully at her parents graves. "you never really did a good job of taking care of me and now that I've learned how to do it myself, it's come in handy."

She then moved to her sister's grave and she wiped a tear off of her cheek. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you Kimmy." Josephine put her head down for a moment. "It was my fault. I am so sorry. ...But now I have to go. Where to, I'm not so sure." Josephine was silent for a moment before she swipped the picture off of Kimmy's grave. She quickly put it in her pocket. She needed to have SOME kind of memory of her sister, and if that was going to be just a simple picture, then so be it.

"I'm sorry, Kimmy." she mumbled as she picked up her bags and walked down the driveway and into the real, and dead, world.

It was a place she hadn't seen in days, a place that was now filled with the dead. And she was venturing, willingly, into it, ignoring the agenda of Mother Abigail and the dark man.

And she was completely alone, completely on her own.

Author's Note: Please review.