This just might be my most crack-tastic chapter yet, just please bear with me…

Click. "Don't move," a voice threatened.

Through fits of blinking due to the amount of dust in the air, Kid began to make out the three figures in front of him; two boys, no older than 17, holding a small pistol to an unimpressed and confused looking Maka. The two standing were obviously identical twin brothers; their sandy brown hair and bright blue eyes were almost indistinguishable from another. Their only differences were their appearance in fashion, while one sported a dingy white and grey striped shirt, the other, holding the gun, wore a baggy straight black hoodie and dark, stone washed jeans. Kid and Soul froze, strategically planning their next move.

"All we want is our friend back." Kid stated, grabbing the attention of the twins. The boy in the lighter shirt seemed unfazed, rolling his eyes at the boy with the gun.

"Just let her go." He chuckled through a British accent, almost as if it were a game.

"We can't do that, Staz!" The black hooded male growled, lowering his gun in favor of arguing with his brother. "Times are different now. Women will soon become a delicacy and-"

"A delicacy?" The lighter one, Staz laughed. "Riz, you've never even talked to a girl, much less dated one." He continued, snickering. Soul and Kid watched in amusment, knowing the biggest danger here was to choke to death from the dust. "Plus, what would you do once she was with us? Huh? Have her wash your undies and cook your breakfast? I can see it now! 'Oh, hello hun, what's for breakfast?' 'looks like we'll have to do with toast and jam," Staz hitched his voice up an octave, "it seems a bloody rotter ate the chicken!"

"You better shut up, Staz..." Riz retorted, his gangster composure completely shot by the deep blush on his face and the accent he let slip into his tone.

"Lets face it, brother. The only woman you'll ever appeal to is mom!"

"Oh yeah? Well mom liked me better!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

It all seemed to happen in a single movement, without warning, Maka coiled her small fingers around the barrel of the forgotten pistol, yanked it from the blushing boy's grip and brought it up to his face, smacking him on the bridge of his nose and knocking him unconscious. Staz was quiet for a moment before rolling into a new fit of laughter, tears of mirth running down his face. Maka rounded on him, face still angry before he held up his hands, all humor lost from his face.

"H-Hey now, he was the one holding that thing to your head, not me."

"So… They don't sense through hearing?" Kid confirmed, looking at Staz.

"Not primarily, no." Staz said, poking at the fire they had made in the metal fire pit. Briefly after Maka knocked out Riz, Staz had began to share the information he had discovered about the monsters, or 'rotters', as he called them. Soul and Kid called up the rest of the team after Staz had insured the security of the abandoned apartment. "They really rely on their smell, which is why this place is perfect. Dust seems to keep them at bay. Say one of them did wander up here, the moment the dust enters their nose they become calm again… Anyhow! Enough doom and gloom, who's hungry?!" The overly happy brunette chirped, wandering off towards a dark corner. "We've got enough chips to last us the year." Sure enough, the tall lanky boy returned, bear hugging several bags of chips, and placed them on the floor. Blackstar immediately dove to the pile, retrieving and opening three packages in a single movement. Kid nodded in thanks and took a bag for himself. Though he wasn't all that hungry, he knew he needed something for strength. Kid looked around at the rest of his comrades, each face different from the last. Blackstar was downing his second bag of chips, Tsubaki wore her kind and thankful smile, Maka seemed indifferent but still unwilling to give Kid the time of day, Patti was comforting a petrified looking Liz, but it was Soul, who sat next to him, that was really worrying him. Every since they had come in contact with the twins, Soul had a permanent looking hate filled gaze towards the two brothers, he hadn't even bothered to pick up a bag of chips.

"You ok?" Kid pried, not knowing what anger could lead the white haired boy into doing.

"I don't trust them." He growled. "They held a gun to Maka's face." He hissed louder, earning everyone's attention.

"Hold on there,"Staz said, holding his hands up in a submissive position. "I didn't do anything. It was my idiot brother over there that had the gun on your girl." Staz nodded his head over to his still unconscious brother who now had his hands and ankles. "The guy just goes batty sometimes. I even feel more comfortable and find him more appealing with those restraints." Kid understood exactly where Soul was coming from; he didn't trust the twin brothers one bit, but for the time being they had no choice other than to bear with them. This was their only shelter after all and Soul seemed to realize that as he let his hostility down when Maka came over to sit by him.

"I appreciate the concern, Soul." Kid over heard her conversation with her trusted weapon. The reaper may have been mad at her at the moment, but he had to hand it to her, she did have a calming aura surrounding her. She could sooth over almost any situation, and for that he was appreciative; they didn't need the added stress. She had even coaxed a bag of chips in the hungry boy's dirty hands.

"So… Staz?" Liz asked, her voice frightened and squeaky.

"Yes ma'am?" Staz answered with a smirk, looking slightly too comfortable around the young blonde; though she didn't even seem to notice his flirtations.

"Do you know how all this started? Or when?" She continued, her face blank and staring into the fire.

Staz's smirk was gone in an instant and his face draining of color. He looked out one of the broken through windows, the sides of his face highlighted by the setting sun's rays. He took in a deep breath before finally speaking. "Yeah, it was yesterday afternoon actually, at the Death City Festival-"

"Death City Festival? What's that?" Blackstar interrupted.

"You've never heard of it?" Maka asked, giving Blackstar a curious look. "It's only one of the biggest parties in Death City! Papa, used to take me to it every year. Soul and I couldn't go this year because we were studying for exams…" Maka trialed off, finding it funny how little exams really mean to her anymore

"Well, yeah." Staz nodded to Maka, "It was huge, it felt like everyone in Death City was there. Riz and I were just about to win the pie eating contest when Tommy comes running through a crowd, screaming his head off and holding his arm. I just thought he had fallen and gotten a scrape on his arm… He always overreacted to everything… But then he started twitching and fell to the ground; It looked like he was having a seizure, his eyes were rolled to the back of his head, his body twitched and bent in ways that didn't seem humanly possible." He shuddered, remembering the horrific scene. "But of course there were so many people packed in the place, only those in a near vicinity noticed something was up; but even then it was too late… I felt like I was in some sort of zombie movie. Before Tommy even stood back up, he had already bitten chunks out of at least three people's ankles, and they turned almost instantly. Like I said, it felt like all of Death City was there. Riz and I ducked under the Pie eating booth and just laid there, the rotters seemed to enjoy catching their food… The sick bastards… After about 15 minutes, the screams were gone and we could only here the constant shuffling of their feet. Luckily, once they ran out of prey, their instincts seemed to tell them to leave the town, and that's how we got out." Staz sighed. "They were gone for awhile too, that is until we heard gun fire this morning; that seemed to draw them back here."

"Fifteen minutes… That's too quick…" Soul muttered, astounded.

"Why weren't you there, Kid? I'd think you of all people would have been there if it's related to Lord Death." Blackstar stated.

"I had better things to do; plus I needed to get the yellow crayon stains off my shoes… But that's not the point. Staz, I thought you said earlier they weren't drawn to noise. Why did they come back when the heard gun fire?"

"I said they weren't primarily drawn to sound, but they still come to it sometimes. They're all different. More than likely, one of them heard the noise and turned around, which cause a domino effect." Staz informed the group.

"How do you know so much about these things?" Maka asked, a hint of suspicion in her voice. "It's barely been a day and you seem like an expert."

Staz looked down and shuffled his feet uneasily. "Well, as the rotters walked towards the edge of town we noticed Tommy still poking around at the mess, as if he were looking for more victims. Riz and I pulled a burlap sac over his head and brought him here so we could study him… We know that's what he would have wanted…" Staz's eyes began to water slightly. "He would've wanted to help." He sniffed.

"You brought one of those things back?" Blackstar asked, looking around as if it were about to jump from the shadows and attack him from behind.

"Yeah… We eventually had to k-kill him though…" Staz broke his sentence and wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist. "Once he heard the others outside, he began to get rowdy and snap more often… Enough was enough…We had to do it… We couldn't keep out 5 year old brother chained up like that..."

So, I've kinda felt horrible for not giving you guys any feedback to your reviews, so… I'm going to start doing that now. I would reply to ALL the reviews I've gotten so far, but a lot of you guys have reviewed more than once and… yeah, It'll probably get confusing, so I'm just going to do the last 2 chapters ^^

From Chapter 4-

Art n' Music: That it is, my friend. That it is. Strangely enough I was listening to a song by Creature Feature called 'Aim for the Head'…. It just needed to be repeated.

Checkered Brooke: Absolutely, they can both just be to damn stubborn sometimes; but those are always the best kind of people to be around in the zombie apocalypse. Better to have them willing to fight than too scared.

Mikaela: Yes… I almost always end with a cliff hanger… Please don't hurt me….

Wordfiend: Yes, my thought process exactly… I never understood it, in the 2nd episode (his debut episode) he was always giving himself away by being loud… But through the rest of the series his only real problem was being too egotistic… These are the things that haunt my thoughts…

Courage-Earthworm'8: Oh yes, and Maka power there will be!

From Chapter 5-

Checkered Brook: Thank you for the reassurance. I assure you with the OCs, beautiful things will happen; things that make you weep tear of joy, things that make you question existence… No not really, but I got some pretty good shiz planned *insert devious grin here*

Shell-kun: You didn't particularly review these 2 chapters but your other reviews stood out to me so you gets a response too, like it or not :D Whoo hoo! I get the aprooval! But I must ask, does it come with cake?

Thanks to all you awesome people! I hope to hear more from you guys, it just boosts my faith level in this story way up. I appreciate all comments, review, suggestion and if you just wanna say something for the hell of it, go for it!