And thusly, we move along in this twisted tale!

DISCLAIMER: See other chapters... If you dare!

DEDICATION: To Caris. What would we do without your twisted pairing ideas?

WARNING: AWW, I love this chapter. The beginning of it's kind of dark (Nala enjoys killing people, so...) but it's basically our little group of survivors kind of bonding. And I do love cute bonding. :) And I have no idea what color hair Lana has.

Chapter Twelve: Save Me, San Fransisco

"I've been high, I've been low,

I've been yes, and I've been oh, hell no!"

-Train, "Save Me, San Fransisco"

Day twenty-four.

Howard was taken today. He kicked and screamed the entire way, begging Orc to come and save him. But Orc couldn't do anything, none of us could do anything.

Orc stomped over to their corner and, without a word, sat heavily next to Astrid. She patted his rock arm. "Welcome to our alliance, Orc." He sighed, the gravel covering him moving wetly.

"Call me Charles."

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.

Day forty-nine.

We're all beginning to get extremely restless. Caine just sits against the wall, his eyes dark and dead. I hadn't realized he loved Diana that much. And we're all beginning to...

"...stink," Lana said angrily. "The soap in the bathroom ran out two days ago, and it was a challenge to wash my hair in the sink, anyway. But if I'm going to die, I want to at least smell decent!"

With so many people dying every day, and my own death on the way as well, it's a petty thing to complain about. But I agree with her. The boys, however, couldn't care less, and it smells like a toxic waste plant in here.

"I found these in some drawer," Orc said, tossing something in the air. Drake, with his quick reflexes, snapped out his whip, coiling it around the mystery object, then he hissed in pain and swore loudly. Astrid covered Little Pete's ears.

"You don't throw scissors, dude," he admonished Orc through clenched teeth, yanking the rusty pair of blades from the tough skin of his whip-arm and wiping the blood on his shirt. "And why would we want these, anyway?" Orc shrugged and collapsed back to the ground.

"The girls don't wanna deal with their hair 'nymore," he grunted. Astrid grabbed the scissors and smiled widely.

"Who wants to go first?" she said in the best creepy voice she could manage, snapping the scissors open and shut menacingly. Lana actually laughed; it sounded like a welcome release of tension.

"What are you, the demon barber of Perdido Beach?" she joked, positioning herself in front of Astrid. "Hack it all off. I don't need it, anyway." Astrid snipped and cut, until all of Lana's reddish-blond hair was on the church floor.

"I feel hot," Lana said. "It's the new style: no wash and go." Astrid chuckled and quickly cut off all of Petey's blond hair, until all he had was a little bit of fuzz.

"Who's next?" Edilio raised his hand, and black locks were soon added to the ever-growing pile of hair. Astrid cleaned the stray hairs from the scissors with her shirt. "Caine, it's your turn." He turned away.

"No way in hell."

"We are in hell." Astrid grabbed a chunk of his dark hair and forcibly hacked it off. He grunted and relaxed so she could finish the job. "Drake, get over here." He hesitated.

"Only if you promise not to scissors-murder me in cold blood."

"Oh, it wouldn't be in cold blood," she muttered, cleaning the scissors of Caine's hair, "but don't worry. I haven't forgiven you, but I'm not a murderer." His grey eyes darkened, but his strands of dark blond hair joined the pile like all the rest. He motioned for the scissors, and Astrid reluctantly handed them over.

"It's your turn, brain girl."

"Not you. Give them to Lana." He exhaled loudly, but gave the scissors to the Healer anyway. Astrid's long, light blond hair was thrown onto the pile.

Sam loved my hair.

"Now," Lana said, a tinge of what could have been happiness in her voice, "who wants to give Patrick a haircut?" The golden retriever looked up and whimpered. Lana snapped the scissors menacingly, but her eyes were smiling.

It was a fiasco, yet kind of hilarious. Edilio practically belly-flopped on Patrick, and Lana wielded the scissors. Orc tried to help by keeping Patrick down, but he's so big that I think it did more harm then good. Caine and Drake were watching disdainfully from the sidelines, but I saw them exchange a look and then plunge into the fray.

All of the remaining kids were giving us odd looks, like how on earth could we be having something like fun at a time like this? But I think our little group needed it; it might be the only thing keeping us alive. And we are a group. Even more then that, maybe. A family of sorts, bonded by trauma.

I think that today we've all realized fully that our death is immanent, so we're just going to live while we can? Ugh, I, Astrid Ellison, at a loss for words. It's pathetic, and a first.

Lana rushed in, cups of ice-cold water in her fists, and with a scream, she dumped them all over the mass of bodies writhing on the floor with one near-bald dog. "Ha, gotcha!"

Lana's an optimist. And believe me, we need what that balances out.

"D'you think that this counts as animal cruelty?" Edilio asked, snipping off another piece of golden fur from the squirming Patrick. "...nah."

Edilio's like a soldier. He's tough and strong on the outside, but on the inside he has the sweetest heart I think I've ever seen.

"C'mere, ya stupid mutt..." Orc tried to get a firm hold of the dog, but even Patrick could squirm through his fumbling grip. "Aw, crap."

Orc, I kind of feel bad for. Nala destroyed the only human part of him that was left, and I think that she might be sorry for that in the end. He's practically indestructible.

"I have dog hair in places dog hair has no right to be," Caine grumbled as Lana snuck behind him and poured another freezing cup of water over his newly shorn head. He yelled out in surprise. "Lana!"

She laughed loudly. "Trust no one, Soren." He scowled.

Caine's a strange one to read. But all the same, I think he's going through the same thing I think I'm going through. He just lost Diana, and I lost Sam. But I think that we've both moved on as much as we could; we're going to die soon, too.

Patrick shook, as only dogs can, spraying dog hair all over the closest person, Drake. He shook his own head, spitting hair out of his mouth. "Disgusting! C'mere, dog, you'll pay for that." He wrapped his whip-arm around Patrick's torso, hefting the squirming animal into the air. Lana gasped in horror.

"Put him down, now," she demanded. The mood in their corner immediately turned tense. Drake smirked.

"What, and leave all that hair on his stomach?" Caine barked out a surprised laugh, and Lana laughed as well, effectively dissolving the hostile tint in the air as she moved under Patrick and began snipping away.

Drake's even harder to read then Caine. He's completely evil, I know that, he killed Sam, for heaven's sake. But I keep having to remind myself of that fact...

And then you have myself, the kind-of motherly figure in our group, I guess. and Petey, the whole reason we're in this mess, in a roundabout way. I hate having us die because of him, but Drake was right. If we give him up to Nala, our deaths are just going to come even faster.

When a Nala came into the church to bring the night's food ration to the two hundred and fifty-five kids still alive, she beheld five soaking-wet teenagers, a four-year-old covered in dog hair, and a gravel-monster laying on the carpet with a soggy dog on top of him, all having spontaneous spurts of laughter.

She frowned, and reported back to her mistress.

So there you have it. The group of awesomeness, Pete, Astrid, Lana, Edilio, Patrick, Orc, Caine, and Drake. And you know what YOU have to do...

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