Chapter 19

"What do you mean Chiharu's gone?" Haruhi was staring daggers at Nanako "you guys stayed here to look after her and somehow she's gone? How does that even happen?!"

"I can explain…" Nanako started

"Oh I'm sure you can explain! I thought something was up when you and Kasanoda and Kyoya offered to stay! But I felt a little at ease when dad said he was staying too!" Haruhi looked pissed "you couldn't just accept she was a little girl in need and you threw her out didn't you?"

"That's not it at all!" Nanako sounded exasperated "if you let me explain, you'll know what happened!"

"Explain what? The only thing you need to explain is how you managed to throw her out without dad noticing!" Haruhi wasn't about to let Nanako try and explain anything.

"Look… just come with me and look at this" Nanako turned and headed to the camera room.

Haruhi sat in silence as Ritsu played the footage back for the others like he'd done for Nanako, Kyoya and Ranka. Once the footage finished, the room was eerily quiet.

"I… I don't know what to say" Haruhi finally spoke up

"You could start with saying sorry" Ritsu muttered as his eyes moved back to the screens.

"Nanako… I…" she stopped and looked down at her hands "that was definitely Genji Kobayashi…"

The others nodded, murmurs of agreement rose between them.

"I'm sorry Nanako" Haruhi looked up into Nanako's eyes "I just… she was only a child… I didn't think a child would be capable of that…"

"I was torn about it too when the doubts first came up" Nanako reached and touched Haruhi's arm "but then things just kept falling into place… and then nothing… it all seemed good and normal and now this"

"So what do we do now?" Hikaru asked

"We need to establish a night watch" Kyoya spoke up "Chiharu has been with us for a couple of days now, she'll know our routine and how all of us have been sleeping at night"

"If this is part of some plan to take the house out from under us, she'll tell them about small details like that" Ritsu nodded "that's one of the first things she'll pass along… about how we don't have anyone up at night. That will be a green flag for them to think we are unprepared"

"Exactly what Kasanoda said" Kyoya looked round at the group "we need to adjust our routine enough so we can see what's coming before it's on our doorstep"

"I'll take first night watch" Nanako volunteered

"Me too" Ritsu nodded

"Okay, sounds good… we can rotate night watch between you two and Honey-senpai and Mori-senpai" Kyoya seemed happy enough with the idea, as did the others.

"If necessary, we can always have staggered sleep times too" Nanako suggested "Have some people stay up late and have others get up really early, make it seem like the house is always active"

"That isn't a bad idea at all" Kyoya smiled just slightly "it should help put anyone off the idea of trying to break in"

Nanako's POV

Ah first night watch. It wasn't so bad really. I sat with Ritsu in the camera room, watching over the multiple cameras dotted around this place. I could hear the twins laughing about something in the living room and Kyoya telling them to pipe down. They were the late sleepers on our staggered sleep schedule. Tamaki, Haruhi and Ranka were our early risers and Honey and Mori were the mid sleepers since they'd be alternating the night watch with us.

It was a little surprising… here I was thinking that zombies would be our biggest problem… but it turned out other people were becoming our biggest problem.

Haruhi, Tamaki and Ranka had gone up to bed at 10, which wasn't all that long ago. The late sleepers would be heading to bed sometime between 3 and 5am and the early risers would be up around 5, only leaving me and Ritsu alone for maybe a few minutes at most.

"I'm bored" Ritsu groaned a little, leaning back in his seat

"Me too but have to keep our eyes peeled" I nodded firmly "god knows I am not giving anyone a reason to be mad at us for slacking off"

"I suppose…" he shrugged a little and stretched with a grunt "ugh… I can't believe that whole thing flew under our radar like that…"

"Me either but it is what it is" I chewed my lip in thought and then "Ritsu… I want to ask you something"

"What's that?" he asked, eyes fixed on the cameras

"Well… you know… when we kissed and we confessed our feelings… does that make us… you know, more than friends?" probably not the best time to be asking him that but it had been bugging me for a couple days now… and if something big was about to go down I wanted to know before it was too late to ask.

"Uh… well… I…" Ritsu's immediate reaction was to grab a tissue from the box on the desk and thrust it to his nose as a tiny trickle of blood started "I mean… did you want to be more than that?"

He was definitely emotionally constipated and I nodded.

"Very much so" I felt my face heat up which made him go bright red

"O-oh well… Yeah whatever… that works" he grunted and went back to looking at the monitors.

Yep that was as close as I was going to get to an answer from him. He reached out a hand though and put it on top of mine, face all red, eyes still on the monitors. It was kind of sweet really.

The first night watch went well. Nothing weird happened, we didn't have any unwanted guests and so when Haruhi, Tamaki and Ranka got up, Ritsu and I slunk off to our rooms for some well deserved sleep.

The next couple of days were pretty much the same. Nothing weird happened, no unwanted guests but I had a feeling this was far from over and so when the topic of conversation turned to our routine over afternoon coffee, I was more than happy to voice my concerns.

"We were probably over reacting" Tamaki shrugged "nothing odd has happened so maybe we can just go back to our old routine"

"No" I shook my head "look… I understand your thought process, if nothing has happened it wouldn't hurt to go back to how we used to do it but I still feel really weird about it all"

"They could be lulling us into a false sense of security" oh thank god Kyoya was on my side! "Letting us think that Chiharu ran away so we'll go back to the way things were just for them to pounce"

The afternoon rolled into evening and tonight it was mine and Ritsu's turn to sit up all night and watch the cameras again.

"Maybe Tamaki's right" Ritsu yawned "maybe we over thought things, nothing is going on"

I stared at Ritsu for a long moment

"Are you fucking high?" I asked in disbelief

"No… just messing with you" he chuckled

"… Screw you" I laughed softly after a few moments, running a hand through my hair "I see we have visitors"

I pointed to the front gate camera where a small crowd of zombies were gathered, raking their rotting hands down the gate.

"Yea… they'll get bored and leave eventually" he shrugged "I'll be back, gotta use the bathroom"

"Mhm… okay" I nodded and settled back in my seat.

I watched the cameras lazily for a few minutes until I saw something come flying over the wall.

"Ritsu!" I called, trying not to panic as I tried to figure out what was laying on the lawn.

"What?!" he came skidding back into the room mid zip of the fly.

"Someone just threw something over the wall…" I bought up another window on the monitor and played it back.

"Huh… looks like a package of some kind…" Ritsu squinted at the screen "it's not doing anything… we should leave it until daylight…"

"Yeah… good idea…"

When morning rolled around, instead of heading straight to bed, Ritsu and I waited for the sun to start rising before heading outside, Haruhi and Ranka following us with confused expressions.

"I swear to god Haruhi, someone threw something over the wall last night… I can even show you the camera footage" I grumbled as we stumbled across the lawn in search of the offending object.

"Well I don't see anything…" Haruhi bumped into Ranka with a squeak.

"Is that what you're looking for?" Ranka asked, pointing to something sitting in the grass.

Nestled among the blades of grass was what looked like a brick with paper wrapped around it tied with… an elastic band?

"Possibly" Ritsu approached it and nudged it with his foot as if it was going to explode or something.

"Oh come on… it's not going to eat you" I reached and picked it up, sliding the elastic band off and unwrapping the paper from around it. "Let's see what it says…"

Dear Teenagers (and guardian)

Thank you for the hospitality you showed our Chiharu. By the time you receive this note, you will be aware of the ruse we pulled. I was not infected but merely pretended to be to see if we could trust you. Now that we see that we can… we would like to ask for your help. We are in need of somewhere safe to stay and your property with its 10 foot walls is perfect. One of our number will be along at noon for your answer.

Many thanks
Genji Kobayashi.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me" I snorted and handed the letter to Ritsu who rolled his eyes.

"Let me see?" Ranka took the note and the look on his face was a picture! He was pissed beyond belief that someone would use a child like that.

"I still don't trust it" I shook my head "If they are willing to use a child to see if people are trustworthy, they are also capable of other deplorable things"

"I say we take it to a vote" Haruhi nodded "we'll wake the others at around 11 and take a vote"

"Great, time for a nap" I shook my head and wandered back up to the house.

"Same here" Ritsu yawned, following behind me.

Once I got settled in bed, all I could think about was what that letter said… and somehow I knew we couldn't trust them… not one bit.