I actually forgot that I didn't post this chapter, although I was done with it. I really like the story so far, but it's of corse up to you to decide. Tell me whatcha think, ok?

Chapter 5

Corpse

We found a place a couple of streets from the McDonald's. It looked like a abandoned office-bulding, probably a good place for homeless people. And runaway-teenagers. Like us. The place had a pretty good shelter from the wind, but it was deffenetly freezing in the winter. All in all, was it good enough...exept for one thing.

As I entered the building, I felt a shiver down my spine. My sences became tence and I could feel cold sweat running down my back. The hairs on my arms rose and my heart began to beat faster. "Something is wrong," I maneged to get out. The others looked weird at me. "What is it?" Simon asked and layed a hand on my shoulder. "I don't know...I just got this weird feeling like...my sences are all tence and..." I got cut off by Derek. "There is a body here, if that's it," he said.

I looked at him with wide eyes. "Wh-what?" Simon gave him a glare. "Why didn't you tell us?" He grunted. "I just found out. The scent..." he looked quickly at me. "I can smell it. It's in one of the other rooms." Tori shot him a glare. "Well thanks for sharing." I looked confuced at him. "What are you, some kind of a blood-hound?" I asked, half joking, trying to lighten up the mood. He looked annoyed at me. "Something like that," he mumbled under his breath.

"Is it a problem?" Tori asked. I could hear she was a bit nervous, allthough her snarky face was a good cover. I looked at them. They looked tried and exausted. We have been a lot through this evening and if we spent more energy on finding another place, we'd maybe don't have enough to escape if something were to happen. I myself was pretty dead-tired, too. No pun intended. Ha ha.

I just wanted to sleep. My eyes hurt and I just wanted to rest.. "No. It's fine. I can handle it," I said. Simon looked concerned at me, but shrug and looked at Derek. "Looks like we're good," he said. Derek looked at me. He can tell I am lying. He shook his head and kept walking. We followed him.

He found a room without windows. The three of them found some blakets from their bags and a flashlight. "You guys sure are prepared," I said. Simon gave me a smirk and I could feel the butterflies again. "Well, we have been on the run for almost a week now, so we are kind of prepared for the setuations," he said and opened the bag wider so I could se the inside. Some clothes, a bottle of water, müsli-bars and a scetch-block was stuffed inside.

"You draw?" I asked and pointed on the bag. He wigled his eyebrows. "Wouldn't you like to know." I giggled. Derek cut in. "Here," he grunted and handled me a blanket. "Thanks," I said. Awkward pause. "So...should we hit the hay?" I looked at the gang. Tori was already on the floor, lying on a blanket with two other on top. "Waaay ahead of you," she said from underneath. I couldn't hold back a giggle.

I looked up at Liz. She had followed us into the building and was now watching over us. "I take the first shift," she said and winked at me. "You don't sleep?" I asked. Simon looked confuced at me. I nodded at Liz. "What for? I'm already dead," she said. I gave her a sad smile. "Yeah, okay," I said and nodded.

We got under our blankets and Derek turned off the light. I tired to fall asleep, but my sences were still tance because off the body in the other room. Not only that, my aunts voice was playing in my head over and over again. ...you seem to be evolving to fast, the opposite of what we wanted...I thought it was a rat...it was all bony and rotten. I picked it up and it was...dead-alive.

I turned in my sleep several times, imagened how I accedently pulled the spirit of the body back in it's rotten corpse... Suddenly I felt a heavy weight on my feet. Like a cold, bony hand grabbed my bare ankel...I shut my eyes open and lifted my head too see right into emty eyeholes of a skull. "AAAAHHH!" I screamed and tried to crawl away from the corpse.

Derek's voice from the dark: "What the hell is going...Waaaah!" He exclaimed as he turned on a fashlight and lighted in my dirrection. I raised a hand for my eyes to hide them from the light. But it wasnt me that made him scream. It was the corpse, slowly crawling in my direction. It was almost a sceleton, allthough some pieces of rotten, grey meat was still attached on it's bones. From the looks of the dirty clothes it could have been a man, a possible homeless, seaking shelter here sometime last winter, but dying in the cold.

Dereks and my scream had woken up the rest of the gang. As soon as Tori saw the corpse she screamed even louder than me. I was still in complete shock, my eyes staring at the thing, dragging itself towards me, as I tried to get away from it. "What are you doing?" Derek snapped at me. He was obviously scarred, if not more than me, but his irretaded tone was not to be mistaken. I shot him a glare. "I don't know, okay? I never...I don't know what to do..." I sobbed out the last sentence.

My heart was racing and I was really close to pee myself as the body crawled closer. It had chased me in a cornor and was now a couple of feet away. "Send that thing back where it came from, for gods sake!" Tori sobbed. I looked at her in the shadows from the flaslight that Derek was holding. She was sitting on the floor with her arms around herself and Simon was sitting beside her with horror paited on his face, not even able to comment on this whole event.

"I...I don't know how!" I said with a shaking voice. "What did you do to get it here in the first place," Derek asked with a more calm tone. I looked at him. His silluette was more hidden, since he was the one holding the light, allthough his eyes were still visible, shining in the dark, like a cats.

"I...I imagened I dragged it back in it's body. But I don't know how...I have no idea how I..." Derek grunted in frustration. "Some one must have heard us. They are coming towards the building. Simon, pack our stuff and get Tori out. I take care of this," he said. Take care of this? How in the world could he take care of "this"?

Simon snapped out of his trance, grabbed our stuff and stuffed in his bag. He grabbed Tori's hand and dragged her out. Derek turned off his flashlight and came over to me. The corpse was now a few inches away and I could feel it's bony hand over my ankel. "Look, you have to calm down," he said. "Calm down? I am completely calm, you are the one freaking out," I said sarcasticly, but my voice was shaking. The thing grabbed my ankel and I yelped.

Derek took his hand over my mouth and I heard voiced from the room next to us. "I heard someone scream in here..." Derek lowered his head to mine and whispered. "Just try, okay?" He took his hand away. "I don't know how..." I whispered. Our eyes met and I could see that he was just as terrified as I was.

"Just try, Chloe. We can't leave him here." He was right. If the people who came for the scream found the corpse, they would call the police. And if the people who were after us heard about it, they'd know where we were. I had no choice. I had to try.

I closed my eyes and pictured a cage. In the cage was a bird. I opened the cage and the bird flew away. I focused on the corpses energy, trying to free the spirit inside it. I focused so hard I began to sweat. In the end, the grib on my ankel was loosened. "Did it work?" I asked, with my eyes still closed. "Yeah, I think so," Derek said above me. I opened my eyes. He was sitting next to me, our arms toutching. We looked at eatchother. His face was expressionless, but his eyes were glowing even more than before.

A flashlight from one of the other rooms shined on the wall outside of ours. "Come on, let's get out of here," he said and got up.

We sneaked out of the other entrance, the one which Simon snuck out of, and out of the buildings backentrance. As soon as we were outside I saw Liz run towards me. "What happened? I heard a scream and..." I cut her off. "I'll explain later. You weren't the only one to hear us. We have to get out of here. Did you see where Simon and Tori went..." Liz opened her mouth to say something, but Derek answered my question beforehand.

"They went this way. Come on." He grabbed my hand and dragged me along. I tried to match up his speed, but it didn't really matter since he dragged me like a dog in a lash. We turned the cornor into an alley to catch our breath. Or, I catched mine, he didn't even gasp. "I...next time..." I gasped the breath in, "next time...warn me...before you..." gasp, "drag me along like that..." He looked down at me.

Oh yeah, forgot to metion, Derek was a foot taller than me, so yeah, down. "Sorry...I didn't think..." I shook my head with a hand on my chest, breathing heavly. "Don't sweat it. We escaped, right? Just warn me next time..." I was slowly returning to my normal breath. I looked up at him. His eyes were glowing in the dark, as always. "So how did you..." I got cut off by Simon, who came out of the dark from behind a container.

"There you were. I was worried that..." His eyes flicked at my hand. Or, our hands. Realising we were still holding hands I quckly slipped Dereks and fel my cheeks turn red. I hope he doesn't think that anything happened. It didn't. Nothing happened. Yes, right. Nothing. Nothing at all.

"So..." Simon continued. "We found this place. There is a grate and a good cover." His gaze met mine. "Don't worry, no dead people here. I checked." He winked at me. I returned it with a shy smile. Me and Derek walked after him towards the containers. Behind the one one the left I saw Tori, sitting on a cardboard on the grate. She looked at me. "What happened back there? Why did you do that?" The worst part? She didn't sound snarky or irretaded. She sounded scared. Terrified. I bit my lip. God, this was embarresing. Like, beyond the normal. But then again, we weren't normal. I wasn't normal.

"I...I..." I couldn't get the words out. The adrenalin from the run was leaving my body, replasing it with the shock and horror from before. I saw the skulls empty eyeholes for me. The smell of death that came from it. I was almost about to throw up, but I stopped myself at the thought. You'd have to answer them eventually. The longer you wait, the more awkward it gets...

"I...I put the spirit back in the body." I said. Yeah, no shit. "But why?" Tori began to sound like her snarky-self. I shot her a glare. "I didn't do it on purpose, okay? It just happened." She snorted sarcasticly. "Something like that doesn't just happen. You did it and you know it." She looked accusing at me. "I can't control it! Just like you can't control you're sorcery, or whatever it is. They manipulated our DNA, remember?" I ws getting really angry now. Didn't she see it? The conection between us, the whole Davidoff-Liam-thing?

"No, they manipulated your DNA. That doesn't mean they did it to all of us..." She sounded angry, but underneath there was also some unsureness. She knew I was right. "You don't believe that yourself," I said. Harsh, Chloe. "Davidoff is after all of us. I know my DNA is been manipulated. My aunt talked about you as subjects. Don't you see it?" She got on her feet. "You made a ZOMBIE! You're the freak! Don't you dare put me in the same box!" Outch. "I am also the one who can see your dead friend, if you have seem to forgot..."

"How can we know you're telling the truth? How can we know you're not just some spy, trying to get us to Davidoff, or whoever it is. Or even worse, kill us." Simon stepped in. "Whoa Tori, that was over the line. Chloe is not a spy..." I cut him off. "No, she's right. You don't know. The thing with Liam could have been a set up to win you're trust. The whole story with my aunt could also be a lie. Heck, I probably did that trick with the corpse just for kicks," I said sarcasticly.

They looked at me. Tori with suspiosness, Simon with confucion and Derek...as always, expressionless. Liz looked worried from beside Tori. "Liz is here. Why don't you ask me something? See if I lie about me seeing her. Because that could've also been a set up, right?" Tori looked angry at me. "It's not funny. She was my best friend. If this is some kind of sick joke to you..." I threw my arms up. "Of course this is all a joke to me!

You are making a scene out of this setuation, eventhough it's me who should do that. How do you think it feels, huh? Being able to drag someones soul into their corpse again? Being able to raise the dead? To talk to them? Do you think it's fun? Do you think it's easy?

Now get this, my aunt, the person who have taken care of me the past three years, since my dad have been abcent and my mom died when I was 7, have lied to me this whole time and then told me that not only was I able of all these things, there was also something wrong with my genes, something she and other people had done wrong, which made me do these things without I realised it and then she wanted to take to a lab..."

"Oh, poor you! You aren't the only one with problems, you know? My own mother shut me out, made me think there was something wrong with me and that it was my fault that I didn't get better. I was hospitalized for three months and she only visited me when she had a meeting. My best friend disappered and then I found out I could zap people? And now she's apperently dead, killed by the people who are after us..."

"So we are in the same boat. Why are you acusing me for being a spy then?" I asked. She looked surprised at me. "I...I..." I had calmed down now. Her story was really bad, almost as tragic as mine, if not more. Her own mom... That must really suck. Mommy issues are the worst, I should know.

"Let's just drop it there, okay?" We all looked at Derek. He was looking annoyed at us. "We are all tired and freaked out, this discussion is leading nowhere, so let's just drop it. Chloe is not a spy, Tori had a rough couple of months, fine, great. You can continue comparing tragic life stories later. Right now, can we just sleep?" Ah yes, typical Derek. Always setting the foot down. "Fine," I said.

We packed out the blankets once again and layed on the carboards and tried to fall asleep again. Suprisingly it wasn't even that late, only about 9 pm. It all just seem so..unreal. I guess I still had to get used to the fact that I could do the things I could do, and that there were others like me. And that there were people after us, chasing us, trying to catch us...and then...what? Kill us? Probebly.

And all though that statement scared me a lot, in some way I could also understand it. We were failed experiments. We were dangerous...Expecially me. I could wake up the dead, for Christs sake! No wonder the wanted me dead...