"Kay, I spy with my little eye, something... Umm... Ah, fuck it...", Chad finished his sentence with an irritable mutter.

He had tried, unsuccessfully, the whole time, nearly five minutes, since Nick, Mike and Ashley had gone into the house, to make conversation with the three remaining girls, none of whom seemed overly keen to break the fridged silence and pass the time with good old talking. It just plain wasn't working.

Molly was obviously too worried about Mike, Tracy was probably too worried about Ashley, and Chad didn't even know who Ali would be worried about, but none-the-less of them would open up. All three girls just stared blankly. Molly and Tracy at the house, which three of their friends had disappeared into not six minutes before, and Ali, who sat on the other side of the bus, staring into the street, looking over the silent and unmoving surroundings.

There wasn't anything at all in sight, human, or otherwise.

The girls silence was obviously understandable, but it still pissed Chad off.

"C'mon y'all, it's like a fuckin' morgue in here. They'll be fine, you guys need to freakin take a deep breath, and chill the hell out.", Chad said, keeping his voice from showing too much agitation. He didn't want to freak any of them out any more then they already were.

Anyway, it certainly got there attention. Well, Molly's and Tracy's anyway.

Maybe it was just the surprise of hearing such a profane complaint for conversation, or maybe it was just the way Chad had said it, which was pretty funny. Either way, both girls began to laugh, and Chad silently praised himself for being fucking brilliant.

"Well that's motherfuckin' better.", Chad said, flashing a bright smile, as he adjusted himself in the bus' driver's seat to face the girls better. "Y'all doin' okay?", he asked, smile fading slightly.

Molly was first to reply, "Yeah, Im alright.", she said nodding, "Well, under the circumstances anyway."

Chad matched her nods with several of his own, "You feeling any better?", he asked, knowing she was sick, and probably was till not feeling very well. This whole situation probably wasn't helping much, either.

Molly shrugged, indifferent, "A bit."

"Sweet. Tracy, how 'bout you?"

Tracy gave a nervous grin, "Yeah... Just a little worried, is all..."

"Don't blame ya.", Chad said turning to Ali.

Molly and Tracy sat next to each other in the front passenger seat of the bus. Both of them had their respective handguns holstered and out of the way, and Chad noted with a certain satisfaction that the pair had turned to face him, rather then continuing staring blankly out the window.

He had his audience, now he only needed to hold it.

Chad would calm these girls down if it was the last thing he did.

"Ali, you alright?"

The tiny girl slowly turned to face him. She sat right behind him in the first seat behind the driver's, and she had her MP5 held loosely in her lap.

"Im alright.", she said, shortly and simply.

"Um, okay dokey.", Chad replied, deterred. There was no getting through to this chick. She was just frozen, and seemingly determined to say the least amount of words as physically possible.

Chad decided to lay off this this one. She was just in shock, and quite frankly, he didn't blame her. She just needed some time for the situation to sink in, then hopefully she'd be alright.

Hopefully.

"Cool.", Chad started, tilting his head back to Molly and Tracy, who's full attention was on him.

Ali turned back to face the world outside.

Chad didn't really care to do the same. The world was fucked, and he didn't really want to look at it right now.

"So, what are we gonna do now?", Tracy asked. She had held off on that question for a bit, but she was getting slightly curious.

"Well, I'd say that once Nick and the others clear this motherfucker, we'll move in for a bit, and get out barrings straight. Figure out what the fuck to do next.", Chad said, "I think it's a fuckin' good plan."

"So, is Nick like, in charge?", Molly asked, reflecting on the way Nick had been giving orders.

"Oh yeah, you weren't there.", Chad replied, "He said we needed one, and in turn got stuck with the job. We had a vote and everything. It was freakin' gay, but that's what he wanted. It was unanimous, and I think it's the best fuckin' thing we've gotten today.", Chad said honestly. He had already stated it, but there was literally no one on this planet that he would rather take orders from.

"Well, Im definitely cool with that.", Molly said, "He seems to know what he's doing."

"Yeah, I've been preachin' that all day. If he's in charge, we've got nothin' to worry about.", Chad said nearly laughing.

A muffled boom coming from the house, silenced everyone in the bus. Another boom quickly followed, so fast after the firs it sounded almost like a continuation of the first boom. The twin booms were followed mere moments later by another, final boom. It was an unspoken fact, of what just happened.

Gunfire. Coming from the house.

Then silence. No more shots, no screams, nothing.

"Oh, goddammit!", Chad hissed, not hesitating as he exploded from the driver's seat, grabbing his M1 which was leaning against him as he went.

"You guys stay here!", He snapped, as he scaled the seat almost smacking into Tracy as he went, and he shot through the bus' tiny hatch, and for the first time, he stood on the bus roof.

Chad didn't take any time to take in the impressive view, but had a mission, and was set to accomplish it. He would find out what the fuck was going on in there.

Chad glanced around and immediately found the window, and jumped the gap between bus and house and sailed through the window. Thoughts of his friends dead, rattling around in his mind, hurried him.

He needed to know if they were okay.

Chad landed hard, five feet below the window, on a brown carpeted staircase.

He bolted up, and luckily didn't have time to raise to M1, because he nearly ran right into a very surprised-looking Mike.

"Oh, fuck!", Mike nearly shouted, as Chad quickly dismissed Mike as a possible hostile target, and quickly glanced around trying to find a real hostile one.

"You scared the fuck outta me, man!", Mike exclaimed.

It was also very lucky that Mike hadn't had his shotgun raised at Chad's time of entry, because if either one of them had raised weapons, someone was liable to get shot.

Chad looked around quickly, trying to find a target.

"What the fuck's going on?!", he said, a little more forcefully then he usually would have liked.

"Dude, could you speak up? I fired this fucker in a small room. I can't really hear shit right now.", Mike said simply.

"That sucks, dude.", Chad said a little to quietly.

"Huh?", Mike responded.

"Oh,", Chad raised his voice slightly, "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, man.", Mike obviously heard Chad this time, "We found a couple of those fucks in the kitchen, and we wasted 'em. House is clear.", Mike reported. Chad noted that he was speaking kind of loud as well.

"You sure?", Chad questioned, keeping his voice relatively high, and looking around quickly once again.

"Yeah, man. Positive. I was coming up here to tell y'all that everything's cool.", Mike said giving a small grin, "It's all good, man. Chill."

Chad breathed a deep breath of pure relief, and cracked a huge smile, "Shit, son. I thought y'all were dead, man. Fuck...", he paused, "Where's the others?"

Mike nodded his head in the direction behind him, down the flight of stairs, and into another room where Chad couldn't quite see, "They're in there. The two things I shot back there were Ashley's aunt and uncle, apparently. We didn't let Ashley see them, but it looks like she's already got that figured. Nick's tryin' to calm her down."

"Oh, fuck me...", Chad trailed off.

"Is everything okay?", a new voice came from behind Mike.

Mike turned and Chad cocked his head slightly to welcome Nick into the room.

Nick repeated his question, "Is everything okay?", he didn't sound forceful or urgent, but Chad could tell he really wanted to get a status update.

"Yeah, I heard your guy's shots. Had to know what the fuck was goin' on.", Chad said, "You okay, man?"

Nick nodded once, "Yeah, Im alright. But I don't think Ashley is.", he took a breath, "We're gonna stay here for at least the night. Figure this shit out, and give everyone time to rest and calm down."

"Sounds good to me, man.", Chad said.

Nick nodded once, again. "Right, Chad, next time, wait.", Nick took another breath, and waited for his sentence to sink in before continuing, "Don't rush into a situation like that, ever again. If you had waited just a moment longer, Mike would've been able to tell you everything's cool. You rush into stuff like this, you could yourself, and others killed."

Chad looked up, Nick wasn't yelling at him, but he was certainly grilling him.

"Kay, Im sorry, man...", Chad said quietly.

Nick then totally broke the mood by smiling broadly, "It's cool, man. Everyone fucks up, and I hope when I do, you'll be right there to tell me how fucking stupid my mistake is."

Chad gave a small laugh, as did Mike, who had strained to listen, but had maneged to hear the entire conversation.

"Cool." Nick said, "We're gonna get the others out of the bus and in here. Chad, were there any of them out there last time you checked?"

"No. Nothin'", Chad confirmed, knowing his best friend was speaking of the creatures.

Chad did, however, prefer his nickname for them.

"Kay, then we move.", Nick said, mounting the stairs.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chad barreled through the bus' top hatch and was lost to sight, his last words of "You guys stay here!", still reverberated in the heads of the three girls who were the last people aboard the bus.

He was in the house moments later, and completely lost from view.

Silence took over, as no one really knew what to say.

But for a certain girl, silence had been present for basically the entire day.

It didn't take long for Ali to turn from the open bus hatch, where Chad had traveled through moments earlier, and stare back outside towards the road, keeping a vigilant watch for anymore of those things.

"You think everything's okay?", Tracy asked Molly, fear quite evident in her voice.

"Yeah, I do.", Molly said reassuringly, though she wasn't all that sure at all.

But if anyone could survive, Molly knew it would be Mike and Nick, and Ashley would be okay based solely of the fact that she was with them.

But Molly still worried, and as anyone would do, she assumed the worst.

Silence took over again, as Tracy and Molly turned back to the house.

Ali just stared in the other direction. If no one else would keep a look out, she most certainly would.

It had been a bad day, Ali reflected to herself. She was just going to go to a soccer game, and somehow couldn't find her friends this morning, so she got on the bus first. She was the only one her, when Nick led himself and the four others on board.

Then the driver was killed, and the group had set on on this bizarre little trip through hell.

It had been a very bad day.

Ali then wondered what would have happened if she had found her friends, she would have been with them when all of this went down. She'd probably be dead.

She thought of this gun she now held in her hands. The fact that she was the only girl that had previously fired a weapon, had landed her with the submachinegun instead of a handgun. The weapon was, of course, very small, but then again so was she, so it worked out pretty well.

She thought about how she had used this weapon, and had killed one of these things. Was she a murderer? Were these things completely gone? Did they have all of their humanity stripped away?

She just didn't know, and not knowing was maybe even better then knowing. It at least left room to hope.

Then Ali thought about Nick, who she had seen many times, always smiling and laughing, but now seemingly a stone cold killer. In fact, everyone here had changed immensely. They had to to keep on living.

It's amazing what happens to people under certain circumstances. It's amazing what people are capable of.

Ali just kept thinking, of course keeping the thoughts to herself, as silence still hovered like a think fog over the bus, and the three people who occupied it. She thought of her hair, once long, but now cropped short, much like the other three girls's were. She had liked her hair immensely, and didn't like the thought of giving it up, but she knew that Nick was right. It would help keep her alive.

But... Alive for what? What could possibly be left in this world that was worth fighting to stay alive for? Her friends her dead. Her family was dead, and yet she lived.

Why? Why would she have gotten so lucky when everyone else died?

Why her? Why anyone here?

Molly and Tracy still waited silently for someone to pop out of that window and say everything was alright.

Ali had no idea how long they would possibly wait before giving up hope entirely, and then having to figure out what they could possibly do next. Without the leadership of the guys, Ali knew full well, that they didn't have a single chance.

She would never know how long they would have waited, as movement out of the corner of her eye cought her attention and suddenly halted this interesting but depressing mind walk.

One of those things, those creatures, was shambling along the road, maybe four hundred feet away, and it wasn't alone.

One by one, the things traveled together, not seeming to know where they were going, but making good time in getting there. Ali knew instantly what she saw, the way they moved, and the amount of blood they were covered in gave them away for what they were: Monsters. Complete and utter monsters. There were at least a dozen of them, and they shambled together like a pack of death. And they coming this way.

The would walk right by the house and the bus in just a couple of minutes.

Ali took a quick breath. It didn"t take all that much air to fill her tiny lungs. Time to spill the bad news, and report the terror that she was staring at.

Chad words echoed in her mind, "I spy with my little eye..."

"Hey,", she said, turning to Molly and Tracy, who nearly jumped at her sudden words.

"They're here."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well damn, it's been forever.

I apologize for not being more vigilant in my writing, I will try to be more productive in the future.

A big shout out to sanchez C.'s story, Exiles: The beginning.

Though I will admit, I wasn't quite clever enough to figure out how to mention in somehow in this chapter. Ill figure out that one at some point.

Thanks again all for reading, and supporting this story as much as you all have!

Til next time.