The next morning, Vlad double checked the supplies, letting the kids sleep a bit longer. Dani was the first one up.

"Dad, do you want me to wake the others?" She asked, floating next to the oldest halfa.

"No, they need as much sleep as they can get. Since you're up already, can you help me for a bit? I want to do one more sweep of the mansion, see if there's anything I missed."

"Of course! Where do you want me to look?"

Vlad smiled at his daughter. "Check the kitchen for canned foods and a can opener if possible, then anything that can be used as weapons. When you're done, if the others are still asleep, you can check the rooms for anything Daniel may have missed."

Dani nodded and flew through the wall. Vlad let his smile fall. He floated over to Danny and placed a paper on his chest.

Vlad made his way to his ruined lab. The room was demolished. He frowned at the mangled remains of the zombie under a large chunk of wall.

He turned away from the body and walked over to the computer wall, or what was left of it. Every screen was either crushed or shattered, the keyboard was gone, along with half the control panel.

Then Vlad looked where he feared the worst, the fridge containing the blood samples. He sighed in relief to find it still closed. Worst case scenario, the samples spilled inside and mixed together, possibly able to spread to Vlad if he came into contact with it.

Vlad formed a bubble around the fridge out of pink ectoplasm and lifted it off the floor. He glared at it in concentration. The bubble filled with red flames, swallowing the fridge.

He was so focused that he didn't notice Danny land in the room next to him. "What are you doing?"

The bubble flickered when Vlad jumped. He quickly focused back on the bubble and his ecto-fire. "Daniel, please don't do that."

"Why are you burning the samples? Aren't you using those to develop a cure?" Danny floated closer to the bubble and watched the metal of the fridge melt away.

"I was, but the samples were contaminated. The fridge was thrown in the blast and everything inside mixed together. Either the samples are all zombie, or your blood purified it all. Either way the samples are no longer helpful."

Danny floated back over to Vlad. "But why burn them?"

"If your blood did mutate, we don't want it to spread. Imagine zombies with halfa blood. We don't need this plague to get any more difficult than it already is." The ecto-fire broke through the fridge and the halfas listened to the hissing and sizzling of the blood samples.

When the fridge was nothing more than a puddle of molten metal, the halfas flew back to the training room.

Valerie and Jazz were awake, dividing up whatever food Dani managed to find. Vlad glanced at the pile in front of Jazz. "I see you managed to find a can opener." He said with a smile at Dani.

"Most of the drawers were still whole, it was in the one by the pantry." She returned his smile.

"So, how are we dividing these up?" Danny asked as he sat next to Jazz.

Jazz explained who got what food, Danny nodded along. "And I get the can opener because I'm the only one without a ghost powered person to share the bag with if we get split up." She finished.

Vlad had been looking through the food while Jazz spoke. "This looks to be as prepared as we are going to get. I say we head out now, before it gets too late in the day."

Everyone looked at each other, their expressions turned serious. Their silent exchange lasted only a moment before they turned and nodded at Vlad.

Vlad, Jazz, and Valerie all picked up their duffel bags. Dani picked up Valerie and Danny picked up Jazz and they all flew out of the last completely safe place they would see for who knows how long.

DPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDP

I'm sorry about the lack of updates. I plan on working on this, but we all know how plans can be lost. Life's a little chaotic right now, so updates may not be regular (I'll try to stay away from the year long gaps from now on). Chapters after this one should be longer again, I don't like going under a thousand words a chapter.