A/N: More chapters, as of writing, I am virtually finished, only a small stretch to the goal. Also, if anyone couldn't tell before, I'm English or British (or whatever you folks in the states call us) so that is why I write colour as such and why in the first chapter I wrote 10/4/16 as meaning the 8th day of April. Just in case anyone was wondering.

Chapter 32

It was at ten at night when we left the apartment building, under the cover of a black sky we made our way down back alleys and empty streets once more. Although now I felt less of a sprinting man then a scampering rodent, hunted by cats twice my size. In fact, less cats, more tigers, armed with better wits and sharper claws.

Kenneth was at the front, leading us with Karen's hand in one of his, and the handgun in the other.

"Ya know," Kenneth said, "I've always heard stories about places where some bad shit would happen and everyone would up and leave, I never expected it to happen here though."

"No one did," I said, keeping an eye behind me, to make sure Damien didn't get out of my sight.

"Where are we actually going?" Damien asked, speeding up so that he was just behind me, since we talked he had been calm and collected, no longer a shadow of his former self.

"Kyle's place, if we're in luck they'd have left their car, if not, we're back at stage one," he replied, stopping when we reached the end of the street, looked both ways, and turned right. We followed shortly after.

Kyle's parents had taken both cars, and if Kenneth did not know where they hid their spare key then we would have been stuck in town with three psychopaths and been in the cold. What a setback, frostbite and bullets.

The house was in disarray, to say the least, the shelves had been scooped swiftly of items, anything that was not collected in the first sweep had been left on the ground. The glass of a snow globe here, an antique clock there, toppled chairs and dirty footprints around showing how much of a hurry everyone was in. They had left quickly, but obviously not effectively.

The same was for almost every room in the house, it took about ten minutes to explore and scrounge everywhere, most of the larger stuff - computers, TV's and the likes - had been left to rot.

"For a Jew, he left some valuable shit," Kenny joked, turning on Kyle's PC, the blue LED's lit up for a second and the fans span and hummed in life, ready to cool the CPU as a servant would a master. Then Kenneth turned it off and the lights fell black and the servants stopped their worship. He flipped Kyle's mattress up so he could see clearly under the bed.

"What... are you doing?" I questioned, perplexed, before looking down myself, all I could see was some boxes and a lot of clear space.

"I'm trying to find what weird shit Kyle keeps, so I can piss him off when this is all done."

"Are you serious?"

He fell to the floor and pulled out one of the boxes, "Of course I am, why not use this to our advantage, we've still got to some shit when we're out of this, may as well find some fun blackmail. Look at the other boxes, will you?"

Instead, I left him to his searching and tried to find Karen, she was alone, and that wasn't good in a situation like this. She was in the parents room, asleep on the bed, she had been going through more than just a tough night, so I left her be.

It was eleven fifty five by the time we organised ourselves with food, we were ready to plan. If that was anything to care about.

"Anyone know how to hotwire a car?" was Kenneth's first question, the answer was a resounding no. "Well, fuck, Stan's family only has one and the Fatass's... shit, oh shit." He fell into a panicked continuation of that word, he was looking straight at me with utter guilt, as if I was shooting him the most hurt expression.

"What!" Damien practically yelled in worry.

"Liane... uh, Cartman's mom, she's... I think she's still here."

A silence became present, and I felt Kenneth's guilt, she was probably terrified for her son, probably got in contact with the police... or Mark in this case.

"She's probably dead," I grimly said.

"Wait, why?" Damien whispered, now mindful of Karen.

"She probably gave Mark her address, when she eventually called the cops I mean, and they probably got to her... I'm guessing."

"Let's not hope that," was Damien's reply, but I think we all believed my words.

After a long, thought filled pause, Kenneth spoke again, "dad's van could work, if they haven't left, we can go to my place and try to make them give us a ride."

"Better plan then nothing," Damien added, just as the smell of burning hit our nostrils, the smell made my nose feel like acid and some primal fear struck me to my feet.

The time had just passed twelve o clock, it was the time of the hunt, or the chase or whatever Lucas and his followers were to call it, and they started with fire.

Kyle's house had wooden foundations, a fact that terrified everyone in the room, that, and the smell was stronger, and smoke slowly wafted from downstairs as if forced by some waving, invisible hand.

Then Karen screamed and Kenneth sprinted up the stairs, screaming "I'm coming!" back.

It wasn't hard to figure that Lucas was trying to smoke us out, and it almost worked as I was ready to bolt for the door, but Karen's screaming convinced me otherwise. Instead of braving the smoky upstairs though, I felt as if I was stuck to the ground and I couldn't help but remember my nightmare of Damien in the plane of fire.

Our roles had reversed again, it seemed, as he gripped onto the sleeve of my shirt and brought me up the stairs to find the wandering smoke covering the ceiling like a spectral plaster and the faintest licks of orange glowing from under the door of the parent's bedroom. Kenneth was franticly banging on the door, tears in his eyes as he tried to barge the door open, the handle was red with heat and would be more than painful to open with bare hands.

Karen wailed louder and Damien joined Kenneth in trying to get the door down. Once they bashed their shoulders into the door to no avail, a second time and the door bent inwards slightly but nothing else, at the third the glow of flames from below were much brighter and the sounds of crying and pure crackling fire overpowered their heavy sieges against the door.

I was going to recommend shooting the lock off, but the guns were downstairs where we had piled them. I couldn't voice this though because Kenneth acted madly when the smoke lowed to his eyes and Karen screamed in pain.

He gripped the handle, hissing in pain as the red hot metal seared his palm, but in one fluid motion he twisted the know and swung the door inwards, bringing forth a billowing cloud of smoke, as black as an abyss and as hot as Africa.

Kenneth rushed in then leaving us in silence. He shouted and waved off the smoke, the inside of the room was hell, burning and falling, the wardrobe had already collapsed in on itself, the carpet was almost entirely aflame, as was the bed. It quickly rushed to the doorframe, and was spreading around the house fast. Almost in an intriguing spectacle did it spread and begin consuming the house. We had to leave fast.

Karen only came out, red eyed and sobbing, I only noticed her when she clutched onto my shirt. Kenneth was still in the room, I hardly made out his sloughed through the fire and smoke that still flew out like rampant spirits. He was staring out of the window, was what I could tell.

It only took his one cry of "Get the fuck out of here!" to send me and Damien going, he scooped up Karen and ran out, me trailing behind only to see her thrashing and cries for his brother, then the smash of a window and shouts from outside.

We were outside in seconds, sticky with sweat and with smoke stained eyes, but that didn't stop us from running down the street towards Kenneth's house, and it didn't stop the echoing sound of the gunshot. It reverberated down the street and gave one clear message: chances were, Kenneth had met his maker.

We ran away, like the cowards we were.