I won't be able to post a chapter every Saturday (obviously :p) but I will post a new chapter when I can. This story seems to be getting darker and darker in my head, but I'll try to keep it from depressing anyone who reads it because it's really just supposed to be a story about the friggin' apocalypse that is as accurate as possible (but I don't think that's going as well as I'd hoped). But anyways, here's chapter five.

The rest of our daylight hours were spent moving some of mine and Nate's things into the Yates' house. Given the reasons why I moved, there was no reason to be ashamed for having moved into an empty house all by myself with nothing but a few things in a backpack. Maybe, putting it that way, there was the possibility that someone might not understand, but still, I didn't have to go back to my old apartment to save face. Nate insisted that I be accompanied, probably because I'd already told him about what happened, so everyone followed me there. My legs were shaking as I got out of the car. I didn't want anyone to see me like that, or to come inside, or, for some odd reason, to even know whom I had lost.

I just didn't want the attention. I had become extremely self-conscious and defensive in less than an hour. I was thinking about what had to be done while Nate packed his stuff up into his truck, some of which were his clothes, guns and cleaning supplies, books, contributions to the food supply, and some keep-sakes. In my mind, Garland's body was just like the ones in the traffic jam now and I just dreaded coming back and seeing her.

The car door slammed behind me but barely even registered in my mind. I didn't even process it and thus forgot it as I jogged away. Did I shut the door? I glanced nervously behind me, then shook it off, thoughts racing. The magnitude of what I was doing was pressing down on me like a wrecking ball. Nate was getting out of his truck, rifle ready. Second floor, four doors down on the right.

I opened the door and the weather stripping hissed briefly. It fell silent though as a little bit of death drifted by. It crawled out the door to meet me like a sadistic ghost. But I reminded myself that Garland was not sadistic. Maybe the thing that took over her body was, but not Garland.

Nate's shoes smacked the concrete stairs as I ducked inside. The memories were overwhelming but I had already quietly resolved to soldier through and had thrown myself deep inside before I could make any conscious decisions. Our bedroom was right there. The stench was awful.

"René?" Nate asked from behind me. The concern in his voice nearly broke me right there. "You weren't living here when you found me, right?"

I shook my head and started for the doorknob. Seconds later I was out of the hallway and into the living room, finding personal things, but now I didn't want them because I just didn't think that it was worth coming here for them. Light began to refract off of the tears in my eyes, making my vision light and hazy.

"Do you really need anything from in there?" Nate asked.

Before he even finished his sentence I was shaking my head vigorously while making a show of being busy folding a quilt. I wanted to add, "No, I'm fine," but my throat had already constricted too tightly to speak.

Emotional displays had always been infuriatingly frustrating to me. It didn't help at all that my throat was painfully tight or that my eyes were drowning, and I had no control over it what-so-ever. I probably hated emotional displays because of the things that had caused them too, without even realizing.

I heard him walk quietly -respectfully- down the hall to the bathroom where he began taking things that I would need. Later he came back and listed the things that came in twos and asked which ones were mine. Again, the consideration he had for me was heart-breaking.

"I'll get it." I managed to say. The whole time he was in there I was steeling myself against the awful effects of my emotional roller coaster. It took no time at all to get the things Nate and I had gathered into my car. He didn't say much about it and the two of us somehow managed to look normal enough to not call any attention to ourselves. I was glad that Nate was the only one who came inside.

"That's it?" Trevor asked, leaning out of his car window.

I walked to the driver's side of my car and called back "yeah", while silently adding "that's all I can take". I was glad that it was over. That was the last time I went to my apartment, for sure, and hopefully the last time that wound would be opened. In the back of my car I had the quilt, some items from the bathroom, a half-full bucket of clay and carving utensils, a sketchbook, coffee, little cups of creamer, coffee mugs, and a few other things, all in a box. None of it was Garland's.

We drove up to the Yates' house again at five thirty or five forty-five, something like that. Daylight was fading, but the weather was no indicator of the season, as usual. It was just another mild Texas December. We hurriedly brought our things into the house. There were two bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs, so only one person would get their own room. I couldn't decide for myself who had the most right to it, so I left that decision to the others. Before I left everyone standing half in the kitchen and half in the living room I pitched out "I don't care who I stay with".

As the last bit of sunlight faded, the shutters and blinds were closed and the curtains were drawn shut, leaving us in the dim glow of a few candles. Each person carried a candle to his or her room and then put it out. I laid on a pallet of blankets beside Samantha's bed, staring up at the black ceiling. The yells of infected survivors sounded more like roars. They sounded inhuman, but still recognizable, and that's what made them so terrifying.

Outside, they roved the suburban development in packs. They fought amongst themselves and searched the neighbor's house. Sam and I were on the second floor in the room with a window right beside the other house. We heard glass and wood breaking as they searched for food. Suddenly, a window broke on the adjacent wall of the neighbor's house and I heard a heavy thud and scratching. There was a commotion in the other house.

Sam sat bolt upright and turned to me in the darkness. "René?" She whispered. I barely heard her. "Is it on our house?"

I heard another thud and knew that it had fallen off and hit the ground two stories below. I felt a little bit of relief before another one jumped from the other house and smashed through the window on our's. Apparently, the other one had pried the shutters open. Sam got out of bed and ran on cat-like feet across the room and out the door. I was quick to follow. The room they were in was just an office, so they wouldn't stay there long.

Sam rushed into Nate and Kyle's room to wake them up but Nate was already loading his rifle. He pushed past us while hissing, "Get downstairs and wake up Trevor."

Sam and I groped our way down the stairs and barged into his room. "Trevor!" Sam cried. She didn't care for stealth anymore. The infected survivors were screaming in pain over gunshots now. Trevor's head appeared from under his blanket with a look of alarm.

"Get your gun! They got inside!" Sam said.

He didn't hesitate as he leapt out of bed and snatched his Glock 19 off of his nightstand. "How many?" He asked.

Sam and I shared a look. "I don't know." I said. "They were going through the neighbor's house and jumped across from the second story window."

"We can use that like a funnel, keep them at bay. Stay here." He ran past us and bolted up the stairs.

Sam whimpered and made a sound that was like a suppressed sob. I then decided that we should stay busy to keep our heads.

"Let's just start packing." I said. "We might not be able to keep the house, but we can keep what we'll need if we start now."

Her head bobbed in the darkness and we left. Sam went back to get Trevor's duffel bag while I ran upstairs to get Nate's and Kyle's, directly against Trevor's order. Running past the office, I saw the Infected leaping two at a time through the opposite window, clambering over each other. They were desperate to get to us. On the way back downstairs Sam ran past me to get ours. We loaded the bags with essentials and then I took Kyle's SIG, that was kept in the living room, with me to put them in the cars. Outside, the world was still as it listened to the fight.

"Sam!" Trevor yelled downstairs, when I got back inside. "Get ready to leave! I'll tell you when."

"We're already packing." She called back, brushing off the implication that we would leave with or without them.

With the necessary items packed, Sam and I started ferrying out creature comforts, but then a huge shadow sprung over my car and tackled me to the ground. Sam screamed. I punched it in the face to keep it from biting into my cheek and Sam kicked it right in the temple, toppling it over and stunning it. We helped each other to the house, falling inside only a few paces ahead of it.

Nate, Kyle and Trevor were running down the stairs, grabbing ammunition and keys on the way when we turned around.

"Get in the truck!" Nate barked.

"They're at the front door!" I protested. The loud crack of a bullet being chambered told me he was ready.

We charged out the door. Nate and the guys were apparently in no mood for this. All three were blasting out gunfire at the opposition in a storm. Nate pulled me toward his truck, while Trevor took Sam to his car and Kyle started mine.

For a while, they chased us down the road, some climbing onto our vehicles, but we shook them off and drove toward the outskirts of the city. The Dallas/Fort Worth area is roughly eighty miles across. You can drive for eighty miles down the length of it and only see buildings and pavement. I couldn't see much of it, because the streetlights were out, but I felt the void left by six million people and the presence of those... things. In every shadow I saw them, even if there wasn't really anything there. We drove on and on through the darkness, far past the city limits. We drove for hours until we passed through a small town and down a road that wound through Texas brush country. I still couldn't see much of it, but we came to a thin stretched neighborhood on miles and miles of land that just felt safe, so we parked outside of a house there and went inside.

I retrieved some candles and a lighter from my duffel bag to assess the damage. I wasn't expecting anyone to be in the house because there was no car outside when we arrived. By candlelight we checked each other for injuries. At first we all just seemed badly shaken, but then Nate called our attention to Kyle's left wrist. Kyle had been alone in my car until now, and quiet. The light of several tea candles illuminated a wide gash in his wrist. He stared down at the blood, still dripping, and didn't say a word.

"You'll be okay." Trevor said. "We're all immune to it. You won't get infected now."