Danny sat in between Nick and Ellis in the small cab of the large truck. He felt somewhat crushed between the two larger men, considering that everyone considered him to be small. He felt as though he'd gotten bigger since the apocalypse started. He did notice that recently if Sam hugged him, her arms didn't go as far around him as they used to. He watched cars and trees fly past them, thinking about how life used to be.

"You alright, kid?" Nick asked.

Danny nodded, "Yeah." He nodded, "Miss my old life."

"Don't we all." Ellis agreed.

"But if I get depressed again now, then Vincent's lesson would've been pointless." Danny said. "I'm just thankful to still be alive. And still have my sister and friends."

"That's always good."Nick nodded. "Didn't have much of a family before this, and even when this started… but Ellis, Coach, and Rochelle all became my family." He said.

"And after meeting Tacome and Vincent," Ellis continued, "We got more family."

"Haven't you guys tried getting out of here?" Danny asked.

"Yeah." Nick nodded, "We tried the evacuation center in Mesa. Tacome even told me that the place was trashed, though." Nick said, "But I didn't listen. We almost died getting out of there."

"If it weren't for Tacome and Vincent, we'd be dead." Ellis finished.

Danny nodded.

Nick watched Ellis pull up to a street corner and parked the truck. "Armed and ready, kid? Vincent and Tacome haven't cleared this area out completely yet. And they're leaving it to us."

Danny nodded and held up his rifle, "Ready." He said.

"And you have your pistol, right?" Ellis smiled and out of the truck, "You should save your sniper ammo for something important."

"Like Smokers?" Danny suggested.

Yep." Nick nodded and double checked the condition of the SMG he carried.

"Or Tanks or Witches." Ellis said, "Let's check this house here." He started and kicked down the door to a house. He fired three times into the house with his handgun before waiting a moment.

"All clear?" Nick asked.

Ellis was silent for a while, then there was another gunshot. He finally popped his head back out the door. "Is now." He said with a grin.

Nick sighed, "Don't scare me like that." He said.

Danny just stepped inside while Nick and Ellis argued behind him. He took three steps into the kitchen and froze in place, his body tensing up immediately. A blue mist escaped his mouth as he exhaled. He gripped his rifle tighter as he took another step. He came into view of a window where he was able to see a tree with apples growing on it.

"Danny!" Ellis called and jumped into the kitchen.

Danny jolted and jumped about two and a half feet in the air as a cat would. Ellis then began laughing, "Dude! You should've seen the look on your face!"

Nick walked in and slapped the back of Ellis' head.

"It's like you saw a ghost!" Ellis cackled.

Danny tensed and looked around the kitchen, having a feeling something bad was about to happen. Nick saw the serious expression on his face and tapped Ellis' shoulder, "Is something here?" he asked.

Ellis took a deep breath and calmed down after seeing Danny's expression.

"There is." Danny nodded, seeing his breath as clear as day.

"Why are we seeing your breath?" Ellis asked, "It's the middle of July, it's hot as hell out here."

Nick slapped him, "Shut it!" he snapped.

Danny looked around and listened carefully, he was barely able to hear crackling, as though something was on fire, and it sounded like it was right beside him. He stared at the cabinets that were a deep, dark color. Almost black, they seemed. He straightened up, "I don't like this place." He shivered and shook out his right arm.

"Yeah…" Nick slowly agreed, "Let's find what we can and get out of here."

"I'm gonna grab some of these apples." Danny said, "I'm sure they'd do us some good."

"Go ahead." Nick nodded, "We'll check the bedrooms for some first aid." He said and pulled Ellis along, who was speechless and looked around the kitchen with wonder.

"There're ghosts here?" Ellis asked.

"There are." Nick nodded, "At least that's what the kid says."

"I believe him." Ellis said.

"What?" Nick asked.

"Kid with the ghost powers?" Ellis asked, "You saw him with your own eyes, it's possible." He shoved open a dresser with a sliding door toward the bottom, which was actually used for linens. "If he says there's a ghost here, I believe him."

Nick stepped out of the closet. "I understand that." He said sharply, "I meant 'what' because I couldn't hear you."

Ellis rolled his eyes and grabbed a plastic first-aid kit that laid in front of the folded pile of sheets. "Ow! Mother f-" he flinched and threw the first aid across the room, "What the hell?"

"What's wrong? Was it sharp?" Nick asked and went to pick it up.

"No, it's hot." Ellis waved his hand.

"Hot?" Nick pulled his hand away, almost thinking the action was a prank, but then he saw Ellis' expression, he took his word for it. "How?"

"Like it was made of metal or something." Ellis explained.

They both jolted upon hearing a woman scream, then hearing Danny's scream immediately after. They jumped out of the room and straight into the kitchen, seeing a woman standing against the wall, clothes burned and skin charred, and Danny on the floor staring terrified at her. The woman looked up at Nick and Ellis and vanished, her voice echoing, "May you all burn like the rest of them!" where she stood was now lit up with flames, quickly engulfing the house. A part of the ceiling fell between them before any of them could move.

"Guys! Just get out of here!" Danny waved them off.

"What about you?" Nick asked.

"What about me? I can fly, you guys can't, just go!" he snapped, "Go get help!"

Nick and Ellis both ran out the front door, both feeling irresponsible for having left a teenager inside a burning building. They looked around, seeing several zombies surrounding the area, however, they completely ignored Nick and Ellis and stared at the blazing house. They heard popping and crashing inside and turned around to see the house.

"I don't see him…" Ellis said in concern.

"Maybe…" Nick started and stopped himself. "He's trapped." He said.

"The front door's blocked…" Ellis looked at Nick.

"You stay here-" Nick grabbed a pipe bomb from his belt and threw it as far over as he could, "Find some way to help Danny." He said.

"What're you gonna do?"

"I'm going to go get Tacome and Vince to see if they can figure out how to put his place out. If we leave this fire going, it'll burn down the rest of this area. It'll burn down the rest of Chandler." He started for the truck, "Just try and get Danny out of there!" he drove off quickly.

Ellis watched him leave, then jumped after hearing the pipe bomb explode and send the small horde of infected into the air in several pieces. With a quick whoosh, the house only remained in smoke. The flames were now nonexistent. "What the-?" he muttered, "D-Danny?" he called, carefully approaching the house. "Kid? Say something?" he called, terrified as to what had happened and to how quickly it happened. "Danny!" he shouted.

There was a slight groan and some of the rubble shuffled.

Ellis jumped over a charred coffee table and a couch now nothing but ash and picked up the rubble that had moved, "Dude! You said you can fly."

Danny stood up shakily, sore all over from the fire. "I tried." He said. "That fell on me before I had the chance…" he looked up at Ellis.

Ellis gasped, "What happened to your face?" he asked.

"What?" Danny asked and felt both sides of his face, shouting in pain after feeling that the right side of his face stung. He looked back down at his hand and found a streak of blood. "What the…?" he looked down and noticed his rifle was destroyed. Considering it was fully loaded, he could only assume that all the rounds were destroyed or set off by themselves. One of them apparently barely skimmed him and just cut his cheek. He considered himself lucky at the moment.

"What was that all about?" Ellis asked, looking at the spot where the woman was standing, the source of the fire.

"Pissed off ghost." Danny said. "That would explain the crackling I heard." He said and looked up at the tree that he was initially trying to pick apples from, "I get it now…"

"What?" Ellis asked.

"Anything claimed by the fire would burn to touch." Danny said and started walking out of the house.

"Do you know why she was so pissed off?" Ellis asked.

"Nope." Danny said. "All she said was all you and Nick heard." He looked around, "Where is Nick?"

"He drove home to get help from Tacome and Vincent." Ellis said. He looked back down at Danny who had just sat down on the curb, "You alright, man?" he asked and sat by him.

"I'm sore." He said, "I'm probably covered in burns right now. I almost lost my face or even my head to my own rifle when the bullets got too hot... I'm tired, sick, worried..."

Ellis pat his shoulder, "You're alright, kid. I promise." Ellis said, "Next time we go into a house and you sense a ghost, we're high-tailing it out of there."

Danny nodded.

"What do you mean that house caught fire? It was burned down before the apocalypse happened." Tacome asked, Vincent was in the passenger seat beside her and Nick was in the back seat.

"It just caught fire." Nick said, "The crazy bitch was staring Danny down and she burnt the fucking place down."

"How? What did she do?" Vincent asked.

"She just disappeared and said that we'll 'burn like the rest of them', whatever the fuck that means." Nick crossed his arms.

"Burn like the rest of them?" Tacome muttered and thought for a while. "Oh…. That girl…" she groaned and pulled over in front of the house where Ellis and Danny sat.

"What?" Vincent looked at her. He was never even aware that a house had caught fire in that area.

"Bullshit!" Nick barked, seeing that the house was no longer in flames.

Danny and Ellis let themselves into the back seat of the car, Ellis being careful with Danny. Danny quickly fell asleep after sitting down.

"Tacome, Love, what happened? Is the place haunted or something?" Vincent asked.

"Apparently." Tacome said. "Everyone just stay away from this house." She said as she drove away and toward home.

"What did you mean about 'girl' anyway?" Nick asked.

"This place was set on fire on accident by a woman with a lot of anger at the time." Tacome said. "There was this woman who was married to a guy who… I guess drank too much and always had his drinking buddies over. Well, one night, there was an accident. One of them found the husbands guns and… accidentally shot their kid." She said.

"Whoa…" Ellis gasped. Nick and Vincent sat in silence.

"After their kid was cremated, of course the woman was furious. So she took all of the bottles of alcohol and shattered them, spilling everything inside, vodka, whiskey, wine, you name it, he was a collector-slash-alcoholic. He comes into the kitchen and screams at her, just- absolutely pissed that she'd done this and goes back out into the living room with his drinking buddies."

"He has the nerve to invite them back over after they shot his kid?" Nick asked in shock.

"Supposedly." Tacome said. "Anyways, so she takes a lighter, initially to light a candle, and- because she was covered in alcohol, she-"

"Accidentally burned herself alive." Vincent finished.

"And since she was burning, the floor- also covered in liquor- caught fire too. And before they knew it, the house was down and the four of the people inside were killed."

"How do you know all of this?" Ellis asked.

"It was on the news." Tacome said. "The guy had four drinking buddies. One was arrested for killing the kid, two of them died as well as the wife and husband, and the one guy who survived told them everything. He was actually the one person who wasn't drinking that night besides the wife."

"My god…" Vincent said in shock.

"That explains why she's so pissed." Ellis said. "Her ghost."

"I guess so." Tacome nodded. "If I remember correctly, she said that she didn't want another firearm in that house ever again."

"Which probably triggered everything." Nick said, "All three of us have guns."

Tacome checked her rear-view mirror to check on her passengers, "What happened to Danny? Was he caught inside?"

"He's all burnt up, yeah." Ellis nodded.

Tacome nodded. "We have bandages." She said, "We just resorted to cutting up a sheet."

"Desperate measures?" Nick asked.

"Sam was starting to look sick." Vincent said. "We had to do something."

Ellis grew quiet and looked over at Danny, knowing that there was thing going between the two teenagers. "So… we'd be able to patch up Danny too, right?"

"Yeah. Though… I don't know if we have any burn cream left." Tacome said.

"We have those Aloe Vera plants on the corner of the street." Nick commented.

Tacome shuddered, "I hate that stuff…"

"Why? It works." Vincent said.

"It's cold, it's sticky, it's smelly, I just don't like it." She complained.

"Maybe the Aloe Vera doesn't like you." Ellis said.

"Then we are hereby rivals." Tacome settled. She pulled up in front of the house and parked the car. "Someone carry Danny inside." She said. "And try not to wake him up."

Nick stepped out of the car and let Ellis out through the passenger side, then went to the driver's side and carefully pulled out Danny and carried him inside. When he stepped inside, Coach and Rochelle stood in the kitchen preparing some dinner, Tucker was reading, and Jayden was sitting down watching a movie.

"My god, is he okay?" Coach gasped.

"There was a fire." Nick said and laid Danny on the couch.

Upon hearing 'fire', Tucker put his book down, "What- Danny? What happened?"

"He's okay. Just a little burned up, that's all." Tacome said.

"Danny?" Jayden asked, having hopped down from the couch and made his way to Danny's side.

"Danny is sleepy, Jayden, go sit down and watch your movie." Vincent said, adding a commanding tone toward the end of his statement.

"Help-oo?" he asked.

"Yes- we're helping him, but you need to go sit down." Tacome said, retrieving some bandages that they'd torn up before.

"Jayden, come here and get some food!" Rochelle called, summoning the child to her side.

"Thank you, Rochelle." Vincent said.

"Nah, but really. Dinner's ready." Coach said. "I'll make up a couple of plates for the girls and set them aside. All of y'all come get some when you're ready."

**I'm running short on ideas everyone. Review anything if you got any ideas. I am planning on ending this soon, just- maybe one more chapter. Thanks so much for those who've followed this story! 3 **