The Resolute

Chapter 5

Author's Note – If you haven't been offended by this story yet, chances are this one won't send you over the edge.

I couldn't help myself, I reached towards him and touched his check. This sent him into a bad frenzy as he screamed at me through the gag and tried desperately to free himself. His fingers gripped the arms of the chair and I could see blood dripping down from underneath his hands.

If I'd had any doubt what was wrong with him it was gone now. This wasn't a normal reaction. Just to check, I hooked one finger under his gag and pulled down; the only thing this revealed was the hungry moaning of the damned. As I replaced his gag, Sora attempted to bite me but I was expecting this.

What I wasn't expecting was the strange keening noise coming from my throat or the tears that burned my eyes. I stumbled backwards to escape the pool of blood surrounding Sora and judging by the stains on his shirt it looked like he'd been vomiting blood up before the gag was instituted. How long had he been like this, tied up and gagged in this dirty basement? What was happening?

I wasn't sure how long I'd been down in this basement—probably less than two minutes—but I didn't want to risk Selphie or Squall finding me down here.

Yet I couldn't leave until I knew what they were doing down here. Spotting a table behind Sora, I quickly walked over and began riffling through papers—most of them were read-outs from high-tech instruments that I couldn't even begin to understand. Five pages had huge graphs on them with crazy spikes that made no sense—something about absorbance percentage. I ignored these and picked up another page that had words written on them that I could understand. Erythrocytes, lymphocytes, neutrophils—these were cells in blood, something I remember from AP Biology last year. Taking my cell phone out, I quickly snapped a picture and then readjusted the papers, making it look like I'd never been there.

Then I saw another laptop humming away in the corner—this one was sleek and modern with an external hard drive attached. Maybe if I was lucky, I'd be able to find something on here. When I touched the trackpad, the machine hummed in response and the screen lit up like the sun. Cringing, I squinted my eyes at the screen trying to read as my eyes teared from the sudden light. There was a document saved to the desktop that I selected to open—not sure where to start.

Somehow luck was on my side and I opened up what looked like Squall's notes on Sora's transformation. I could feel bile rising in my throat as I quickly read through a list of the symptoms that had overcome Sora earlier tonight.

7:00 PM – injected, normal function and performance, normal cognitive results

7:30 PM – increased temperature and sweating

7:45 PM – Stomach pains and hunger

9:00 PM – Pupils dilated and breathing increased, elevated blood pressure

9:10 PM – Subject secured with usual restraints, still scoring well in cognitive tests

9:30 PM – Delirium sets in, cognition significantly decreased, vomiting starts

9:37 PM – Loss of speech

9:44 PM – Loss of upper brain function, vomiting stops

10:44 PM – No change, subject chewing on lips

11:44 PM – No change

12:44 AM – No Change

1:44 AM – Heart beat slowing down

2:44 AM – Heart beat returning to normal, lower blood pressure

I glanced at the clock and swallowed and curse, it was 3:37 AM and Squall was probably going to be in here any minute to check up on Sora again. Quickly, I closed the document and put the computer to sleep. Sora was still watching me with vacant eyes; his moaning muffled by the gag on his mouth. I snuck past him and opened the door that led to the outside. Once out, I rearranged the lock so that it could still secure the door before I headed back towards the dumpster. I flicked my flashlight on and off twice to let Kairi and Axel know that I was out and then I pulled myself up onto the dumpster with a quiet grunt.

Above me I could see Axel dangling his hand down for me to grasp. Grateful, I took it and he gave me the moment to easily pull myself up. Up there, surrounded by my friends, I was suddenly aware of how cold I was in the hot night. My shirt clung to my skin thanks to the cold sweat that was giving me cause to shiver. Kairi started talking to me but I couldn't hear her over the roaring in my ears until Axel started shaking my shoulder.

"Yo! Riku! Tell us what you saw dude." Axel said.

That snapped me out of my daze and I stared at the two, trying to convince my mouth to move even though my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth. "I—I—Sora..." I said and I staggered over to the doorway and used the wall to prop myself up.

"What about Sora?" Kairi asked, her big eyes frightened.

"He's down there and he's... he's... a fucking zombie, Kai. The son of a bitch injected his own brother and turned him into one of those things." I clutched at my head wanting to pull my hair out just to make sure this was all real.

"What?" Kairi said, faintly as she slid down the wall next to me. "Are you sure?"

I nodded my head and she started crying, softly at first and then big heaving sobs. Axel sat down opposite us, knees jammed up under his chin.

"He had notes and everything on it—like he'd been planning on this." I continued. "There was a pool of blood surrounding him..."

"We have to leave," Axel said, clutching both mine and Kairi's arms so hard that it hurt. Kairi whimpered and Axel loosened his grip a bit but he didn't stop talking. "We have to go now—Christ, if he'd turn his own brother, he'd turn us in a fucking heart beat! I can't believe he didn't try to turn us quicker! Never did like scientists..."

Axel kept going on but I tuned him out as a roaring tide rose inside my head, blocking all sound. The feral look in Sora's eye was the only thing running through my mind. Never had someone I'd known look so feral. I swallowed hard and lurched to my feet, dragging Kairi up with me.

"No! We can't leave we'd have no where to go!" Kairi wailed. "We were so set on getting here.. it was supposed to be safe... and now..." I grabbed Kairi to me and crushed her in a hug as she started sobbing into my shirt.

She was right, I'd promised them that we'd be safe here and now we were going to be used as a science experiment. It was enough to make me sick. We sat up there together till the sun rose planning and talking about days gone by. Simpler days. Days I longed for.

We took turns on watch but I barely grabbed more than a few minutes of sleep. As the sun rose up, I gently shifted out from under Kairi and went inside. I left Axel smoking cigarette after cigarette and flicking the ashes over the side of the roof. I just couldn't sit there anymore and do nothing. Instead, I moved quietly around trying to gather up some of our things without waking up Selphie. She snored lightly on the couch and didn't stir even when I dropped a gun magazine.

I stared at my tired face in the bathroom mirror and wondered when the grey bags had permanently made a home under my eyes. My hair hung limp against one side of my head where I'd been slipping on it and rustled it back into shape with my fingers. Yet I still wasn't used to the figure I saw in the mirror—when had I aged? When had these worry lines appeared between my eyebrows? I shook my head to clear my mind of these self-depreciating thoughts when I caught sight of the ugly red puckering near my hairline from the cut I'd gotten.

That sent another chill down my back and I instinctively clenched my stomach against the rising feeling of horror. I wanted Kairi and Axel to go back out there into a fucking war zone where the things hunting us were proving smarter than I had ever thought. Zombies weren't supposed to be intelligent. They couldn't set traps or use weapons. But they were.

Nothing was familiar, nothing made sense. Brothers were supposed to love one another—not use one another as part of a twisted science experiment. The room spun around me and I leaned by greasy forehead against the mirror. A deep shuddering breath and I was squaring my shoulders, readying myself to go back out and face my friends. I had to be tough. I had to be a man when I really just wanted to run.

I swung the bathroom door open and on the other side was Squall leaning back against the wall. He made a big show of looking at his watch.

"A little early to be up, don't you think?" He stared at me over his black rimmed glasses. "Where are you going?" He asked, inclining his head to indicate the bag I had started packing.

I looked at him, my expression guarded. "We think that we may have overstayed our welcome a little. Don't want to wear out your hospitality." I looped my thumbs into my pants and gave Squall my best squinty-eyed stare. So maybe I've seen too many Dirty Harry movies but who is tougher than Clint Eastwood?

Sadly, Squall didn't seem too scared of my act. "You've only been here a few days and you more than paid us back by saving Sora's life." Squall crossed his arms over his chest and stared down the bridge of his nose at me. "Kind of strange that you're packing up this early in the morning, what were you trying to skip out of town or something? You a wanted man, Riku?" He asked with a laugh.

He was joking with me. Joking.

After what he'd done, it was all I could do not to put my fist through his perfect teeth. "No, just think that maybe I should find my parents. I'm sure they're looking for me." I tried to walk past Squall but he grabbed my biceps in a vice-like grip. For a second, I was over come with the horrific thought that a zombie had latched its teeth into my flesh.

I stiffened and looked over my shoulder; when I attempted to pull my arm away he gripped tighter. I could probably pull away from him but at the moment my heart was beating loud enough to make its presence known to everyone within a mile radius.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice that the chain was cut?" He said, his voice deathly quiet.

"Did you think that I wouldn't notice how fucking suspicious this all is?" I leaned towards him and we were so close that I could feel his breath moving my hair.

Axel and Kairi chose this moment to join us and I could see Selphie stirring on the couch, awakened by all the people moving around. Axel saw Squall's grip on my arm and his hand gravitated to his waistband where there was a bulge that looked suspiciously like a guy. Kairi noticed us and her eyes widened a fraction. She clutched Axel's shirt for support before letting go and standing slightly behind him.

Squall leaned back away from me and dropped my arm before he leaned back wearily against the wall. "It wasn't what you thought."

"Bullshit!" I yelled and slammed my fist into the fall behind me, causing Kairi to jump. "You injected him with it you sick fuck! You killed him!"

"Killed who?"

I was so startled to hear that voice again that I couldn't stop myself from jerking around and my mouth from falling open. Standing there, looking just a little haggard was Sora. Quickly, my eyes scanned his and I searched for some sign that I wasn't just hallucinating.

"I told you it wasn't what it seemed." Squall said softly as he went over to stand by his brother.

"What the fuck is happening?" Axel breathed, never once did he or Kairi doubt my story, even now when Sora was here to refute it.

"I wasn't exactly truthful with you when I told you about my first zombie kill. Turns out, I wasn't as lucky as I said. Customer was in the middle of talking to me as I examined his Mustang's undercarriage, ended up turning and went for me. Gave me a really nasty bite on the calf, just missed an artery, and I should have been done for. But two hours later Squall found me passed out in a pool of vomit—for some reason I didn't turn. I'm immune or something. Go figure." Sora rubbed the back of his head and gave us all a sheepish grin.

"How?" Kairi peeped out.

Squall shrugged his shoulder. "That's what I've been trying to find out."

"So you just injected him without knowing if he would be alright the next time?" I asked, incredulously.

"See, that was the plan at first but Squall wasn't buying it. So I went behind his back and did it anyway. Chained myself up in the basement and told Selphie to not go in there no matter what she heard. Squall found me later and decided that he might as well make sure that I went about it the right way if I was going to be injecting myself." Sora replied.

"He didn't want to do it! Honestly!" Selphie broke in as she ran over to her brothers, burying her face in Squall's shirt as she started crying noisily. "They argued over it for so long..."

Sora at least had the ability to look ashamed when he made his little sister cry. "Squall had hit a wall with his research—he couldn't help anymore and we both knew he had the best lead sitting right next to him day after day."

"A-are you all immune?" Axel asked, looking visibly shaken. He looked like he'd seen a ghost and he hadn't even seen Sora when he was in the basement. I could only imagine what I looked like.

"You mean me and Selphie?" Squall shook his head. "For a while it looked like it when I ran blood tests but after a while our blood succumbed to the virus as well."

"Virus..." Kairi breathed.

"That's right. They don't appear to be any different from normal viruses but these do something I've never seen before. When the come in contact with our red blood cells—cells that normally carry oxygen—they latch onto the cells and change the cell's shape. These cells can no longer bind oxygen—only carbon dioxide and at the same time, these viruses invade every cell in the body and convert them to carbon dioxide dependencies. That's why there's a lag time between infection and the turning. The virus multiplies like crazy but it can take anywhere from a few minutes to hours before there are enough of them to take over a person—it depends upon their health. I saw a man almost bleed out completely before he was bitten and he turned thirty seconds after he was bitten—he was that close to death."

"If you know so much about it, why keep injecting Sora?" I asked.

"I'm testing the cure on him—or what I'm thinking maybe the cure. I'm still so far away from defeating this virus and immunizing people but somethings work better than others." Squall shot a sideways glance and his brother and his normally calm and collected features faded into a loving look. "What Sora has is an amazing gift to help people—he could be the only one in the world who is naturally immune."

"But why? Why is he immune?"

"That, Kairi, is the million dollar question." Sora butted in.

"And you can't test on animals?" She asked. That was Kairi, eventually she gets her shit together when she's done having a breakdown. I can't believe she hasn't permanently broken—soon I'm afraid neither Axel or me can put her back together.

"The virus doesn't recognize their red blood cells. You see every species and individual for that matter, has a unique marker in their body. All human red blood cells have a large part of this marker in common and the virus recognizes this marker. I would have tried it on primates but the virus ignores them as well. Sora is literally the only choice." Squall answered, leaning heavily against the wall. It struck me that he looked just as weary as me—if not more. I didn't have the life of the entire world resting on my shoulders; I just had the fate of my small group of friends weighing on me.

"But man, he's your brother! What if the next time you inject him, his body can't fight back? What if this shit mutates like all viruses do? What then? Are you going to risk losing him?" Axel retorted. He had pink splotches on his cheeks and Kairi tried to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder but he just shook it off.

"Dammit! Don't you think I know that? That this isn't something we've discussed over and over again?" Squall shot back, just as aggrevated.

"We argue about it every damn day." Sora replied, looking from his brother to Axel. "But arguing isn't going to bring back the dead or really get rid of the dead. We have to make the heavy decisions now, guys. Hell, we could all die in the next twenty-four hours. We all know that we're living on the goddamned-edge of a knife."

"It's just—he's… he's your brother man." Axel trailed off, no longer looking anyone in the eye.

"I know."

There was a pregnant silence. We all knew how morally wrong the experiment was but none of us could argue that it wasn't a necessary evil. The thought of Sora turning into a zombie each night made me sick to my stomach. "God, I risked my damn life for you back at the hospital. If that thing had bitten me, I'd be gone." I'd been so worried that he'd been bitten and it didn't even fucking matter. Our biggest fear when it came to zombies was turning into one and some how, Sora was safe from that horror.

"I know—I figured it'd be safe if I went further in. I…I figured that if things got hairy, that you would just leave…" Sora trailed off.

"Yeah but you didn't fucking count on inviting goddamn Superman to your house did you?" Axel asked, furious when he realized what Sora was saying. "Believe it or not, we're actually good people." He snarled.

Sora opened his mouth to reply but Kairi whispered something before he could speak.

"What was that?" I asked her, my brow furrowed.

"Do you hear that?" Her voice was a hushed whisper and she was gripping Axel's arm so tightly that I was afraid he might lose the limb.

"Hear what?" Squall asked.

It was the silent Selphie who replied, "Bells. I heard bells."

Sora spun on his heel and ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Squall was down right behind him but it took me and Axel a second to realize what the bells meant. The bells were a part of the defese system that Sora had set up. Tinkling bells meant someone or something was inside and had tripped the bells he had set up.

Axel pounded down the steps behind me, cursing under his breath and pulling Kairi along behind him. He pulled a hand gun from the small of his back and Kairi was desperately clutching a knife in her other hand.

I was weaponless so I spun back around and pushed passed them to get to where I'd left my own hand gun. My gun was where I'd left it and I picked up my sword too. It would be of no use to me in such close quarters but it had saved my ass too many times for me to just leave it behind. There was also the fact that it leant a reassuring weight to my side as I pushed it into its accustomed place.

I followed the shouts downstairs and towards the front of the building. There was a high inhuman scream as Kairi slammed her knife into a zombie that was reaching for her. Axel jumped back to her and used the butt of his hand gun to send the zombie crashing backwards. Kairi saw me coming and yell, "Don't shoot, the sound will carry!" I didn't question her statement so I pulled out my sword, not unsurprised that once again, it would come in handy. Kairi leaned forward and shoved her knife up to the hilt into the zombie's head and its teeth finally stopped gnashing.

I went past them, continuing into the garage. Another muffled yell lead me to Sora who was busy fighting off three zombies at once. He had his large wrench in one hand and a wickedly sharp knife in the other. A blow from the wrench sent one zombie stumbling into another and the knife dispatched the one while I dispatched the other with my sword. I had to yank the sword free since it had gotten caught in one of the zombie's vertebrae when I had attempted to behead it.

Sora nodded at me and motioned me to follow him deeper. I grunted an affirmative and allowed him to lead us deeper into the darkness. A shuffled footstep clued me in that there was another zombie coming up behind us and I swung my sword around in a blind 180, hoping to catch him. My sword connected with solid flesh and the zombie was armless; Sora moved in and rammed his knife right between the zombie's eyes. It fell like dead weight to the floor.

"How the fuck did they get in?!" Sora screamed at Squall who was beating a zombie's head in.

"Help Selphie!" Was Squall's only reply. I swung around until I saw Selphie cornered by two zombies. She had already dispatched a third but her tiny knife looked insignificant compared to the two zombies in front of her.

Sora ran forward and slammed his wrench into one of the zombie's gnashing teeth, Selphie took that time to jump up and sink her knife into the zombie's forehead. She hung there for a few seconds until the weight of her body dragged the knife back out. The zombie crashed forward into her but it had stopped moving. Axel then came up next to Sora and slammed his knife into the neck of the zombie with enough force to almost behead it.

Kairi and I pulled the zombie off of Kairi with only a little difficulty—it had been a large overweight man when it was alive—and Squall kept moving forward once he saw his sister was alright. Sora ran to join him and the four of us were left behind to clean up. Selphie suggested that we burn the bodies and none of us could think of a better way to dispose the bodies.

Leaving the zombies outside would attract scavengers and the rot would become overpowering. Plus, they might somehow attract other zombies. Actually, now that I think about it, zombies tended to ignore other zombies. They never attacked one another but they certainly attacked Sora. So I guess zombies didn't view Sora as one of them which was a relief.

We managed to drag the zombies to the back door but none of us wanted to go out when there could possibly be more out there. Selphie decided that we should all play it safe and she went to look at the security cameras. After five minutes she came back and said that the coast was clear. Selphie held the door open as the three of us dragged bodies out.

We piled them together like firewood.

"Anything here look really strange to you?" Axel asked. He crossed his arms in front of him and stood five feet away from the pile of bodies, just staring.

"Huh?" I replied, there didn't seem to be anything out of place about these zombies—I mean hell—they were zombies—what could be weirder than that? Using my foot, I rolled one's face over so that it was looking at me. It was a heavy woman with jowels that made her look like a bull dog. There was a wound on her head other than the one that Selphie had made. I looked over at another zombie but still noticed nothing strange.

Kairi was crouched on the other side of the pile and she was rubbing her hands on her shorts, as if trying to get something disgusting off of them. She looked vaguely nauseated and confused as her brows crinkled together. Selphie was standing a little bit away from us—she wanted to keep an eye out since her brothers weren't back.

"You mean other than the fact that these zombies managed to get in past all the precautions? I'd like to know how they managed to get so far past the security." I replied, cleaning some black blood off my sword with one of the zombie's shirts.

"It's lucky we installed those bells," Sora said as he and Squall came up behind us. "Let's drag these further away from the building and we'll burn them."

"Please just someone fucking look at them and tell me I'm wrong." Axel moaned as he grabbed his head between his hands.

"What is he talking about?" Squall asked me. I had no idea but Kairi replied.

"Just look at them." She said.

"What about them?" Sora ground out getting annoyed.

"They're fresh." Squall replied, looking them over.

"They're not just fresh," Kairi said softly and it dawned on me what she meant. I quickly moved to another of the zombies and flipped him over, another head wound—and not a wound inflicted by one of us. This zombie has its throat slashed by my sword, there was no reason for it to have a head wound.

Seeing what I was doing, Squall examined another and then another before he stood up with a curse. "They were made."

Sora had a confused look on his face, "What do you mean, made?"

"Made," I breathed looking at the series of shallow head wounds that went with bruises on the wrists. These zombies were made.

"Someone made them zombies on purpose." Axel said, slowly clapping. "It took you all long enough. Now, is it a little more obvious how they got in?"

Sora answered, not quite sure of himself, "Someone let them in?"

"But who would do that?" Selphie asked.

"Ding Ding Ding! Finally, you're asking the right questions. Who let them in and why?" Axel kicked a rock and it went pinging off the side of the building, a sound that echoed in our shocked silence.

"What the fuck?" Sora whispered. My sentiments exactly.

"Why? They probably want what we have here—safety, food, shelter." Kairi said with a shrug, she was sitting back on her heels with her arms wrapped around her legs. The knife was hanging limply in her hand like an afterthought.

Selphie moved closer to Squall and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shirt. That seemed to get him moving and he started to dish out instructions. "Sora, go reset the bells—bring Kairi with you. Riku, burn the bodies; Axel and Selphie—I want you on the roof keeping watch. I'm going to review the security cameras—maybe we caught them on tape." He detached himself from his sister and strode back into the garage without a glance back to even see if we were doing what he said.

We all looked around at each other but I couldn't think of anything to say. Sora handed me a pack of matches before he and Kairi disappeared around the front of the building. Axel put a reassuring hand on Selphie's shoulder before they left to go on the roof.

Then I was alone with just the pile of bodies. I remembered what Sora said about dragging them further away and I started to drag the heaviest body further away from the building. After five minutes, I managed to drag the body to the asphalt of the parking lot. I was covered in sweat and the sun seemed to be baking me. A dry wind came through that offered no relief from the heat. I tugged my shirt off, over my head and put in down on a half-dead bush.

Another five minutes and I dragged the heavy female zombie over. I'd never burned anything before other than a few matches but I had a pretty decent idea of how to make a campfire and I didn't think this would be much different. I grabbed a few branches from the bush to use as kindling and stripped off the green leaves. Then, the branches were added to my small pile of zombies.

Slowly, I dragged the remaining bodies over to the asphalt. Finally, all that was left was to start a fire. I tried to use one of the branches to get a flame started but it was still too green to catch right away. Apparently being half-dead wasn't dead enough for a fire to catch. Realizing that I was never going to get anything done this way, I headed back into the garage to look for some thing to use to help me get this fire going.

I was rummaging through a collection of jugs when Sora found me. "Looking for something?" He asked.

I jumped up immediately and swung around, not realizing someone had been so close behind me. "Oh uh…yeah, I was looking for gasoline or something to help me with …the…fire…" I trailed off stupidly, suddenly very self-conscious of the fact that I was shirtless. Sweat froze my body in the air conditioning.

"Oh, well these are all empty jugs. Gasoline isn't something we have too much of but we have a ton of motor oil—we had just gotten a large supply delivered before everything went to shit. That will go up in flash so keep clear when you first light it. Sora strode across the gym and starting tearing open some boxes. He tossed me two bottles of motor oil so suddenly that I didn't catch either one.

He laughed as I scrambled to pick them up. "And here I was thinking you were perfect at everything." I mock glared at him over my shoulder before going back outside to finish what I'd started. From on top of the roof Axel waved at me and I nodded back. I could just see the top of Selphie's head; she was facing the opposite direction.

My pile of bodies was right where I'd left them and as I dumped the bottle of motor oil out, I got the strangest feeling that someone was watching me. I turned around to look back at the roof but both Axel and Selphie were looking off in the opposite direction. A shivered started between my shoulder blades and ran its course down my spine. I grit my teeth and tried to go back to what I was doing while trying to peer around me.

I wasn't alone down here and I didn't want my watcher to know that I knew otherwise. I'd thought the place was pretty deserted out here but it really wasn't. There was a small tax place across the street and a real estate agent situated right next to it. Further down the street was a storage facility. There were places for people to hide all over. With a frown I struck the match and tossed it into the pile. The bodies went up like a funeral pyre.

For a second, I forgot that someone was watching me and I just started into the heat. It smelled almost like barbeque and I watched, horrified and entranced as the flesh crackled, fat dripped, and flames danced in front of me.

It was easy to forget for a while that those weren't bodies in there—that I was standing in front of a campfire, getting ready to roast marshmallows. I fed the fire a few more branches before I stepped back and let the blaze run its course.

I watched until the blaze died down to smoldering ash before I went inside.

The smell of tomato sauce and garlic greeted me indoors and I followed it to the source. Kairi and Sora were setting dinner on the table as I walked in and they both greeted me. Kairi smacked Axel's hand as he tried to reach in the bowl early.

"We were just about to come find you," Axel said to me as he nursed his left hand. I nodded and sat down next to him. "Bro, you smell like a goddamn campfire."

"Most morbid campfire I've ever seen." I replied before I guzzled half a water bottle that Sora had put before me.

"Oh good, you're all here." Squall said as he came in, a pair of glasses perched perilously on his nose and a stack of papers shoved under one arm.

Sora rolled his eyes, "Of course we're all here; it's dinner time."

Squall pointedly chose to ignore this bit of sarcasm and launched into a speech. "I'm glad you're all here—we need to discuss increasing our security. Sora has hopefully done as I've asked and restrung the bells, and while he was doing that, I set some extra trip wire that's attached to a car alarm mechanism. If it's tripped the noise will be awful so let's not sleep through that shall we? We're going to have two people on watch at all times—three hour shifts if you will—and both will be posted on opposite sides of the roof. I want rifles on you at all times if you're on watch and at least a knife with you the rest of the time."

"Did you see anything on the security cameras?" Sora asked hopefully.

"No, they managed to avoid the cameras for the most part and when they were in view their face was obscured. I couldn't even tell the gender or race." Squall said after a mouthful of spaghetti.

I twirled my fork around uselessly as I took in all the information. Squall seeing a hooded figure was the proverbial nail in the coffin. Someone was trying to kill us whether to get our supplies or not.

"How would they even know we were in here and in stable condition?" I asked.

Squall shrugged a shoulder, "We haven't exactly made it a secret that we're here and if they saw your trip, they might assume you came back with all kinds of supplies. Hell, they could've been watching us for much longer than that for all we know."

"This doesn't have anything to do with your research, does it?" Selphie asked cautiously.

"I don't know how it could—no one really knows about what I'm doing. The people who do are either here or locked up in some lab in New York. I think this is just a case of someone wanting what we have." Squall said.

"Oh come on man! These fuckers knew about your security measures. It's time to admit that. They've clearly been watching this place for a while—hell I'd even say before we arrived because they seemed to have this whole, "invade" the place down pretty damn well. We got lucky. That's all. We got lucky that they didn't realize that we'd even booby-trapped the inside of this place. Hell, they might have assumed we were all dead until you guys ran out the front door. We're damn lucky they attacked us while we were awake. Who knows whether or not people stationed on the roof would have realized what was happening before it was too late."

"Don't you think I know this?" Squall asked sharply.

"Well then why aren't you addressing the real issue?" Axel replied just as angry.

"And what issue is that?" Sora cut in.

"How do we stop them once they get in? Because it's not a matter of if they get in at this point—it's when. They've gotten in once and they'll do it again. We need to be ready for them or we'll be sitting ducks."

There was silence after Axel's announcement and I could see right awau that he was right. They were going to get in again—we couldn't tighten our security up enough to keep them away unless we redid the entire system and we just didn't have the time for that.

"I say we have to come up with something big by the time it gets dark or we'll be royally screwed." Axel replied.

"But what more can be done?" Kairi asked, terrified.

"We've found out that they can get up to the front door undetected so we might as well attempt to increase security outside but what we need to do is multiply it inside. We board up every window and door for starters." I said, helping myself to another plateful of spaghetti. Everyone else had stopped eating to discuss our options.

"We have some crates that we can break up and use as boards. We don't have an axe so we'll have to take them apart by hand. We do have hammers and nails." Sora said.

"Don't forget the basement." Selphie chimed in.

"Then as soon as we're done here, we'll begin." Squall declared.

I caught Axel and Kairi giving each other uneasy looks and I couldn't help but to agree. Somehow we'd gotten ourselves involved in something that could be more dangerous than zombies—jealous humans.

Humans could think their way past our defenses—hell, when these defenses had been laid down they were done so in the thought that the enemy would be a mindless eating machine, not an intelligent and thinking entity. This was something I was totally unprepared to face. Sure I'd played a few video games against other human players but still—they were confined to what the creators of the games said was possible. This—this was a fucking free for all.

We were fighting an invisible enemy of unknown number who clearly knew more about us then we did of him. Of all the times for me to not have my dad. That gave me an idea and I excused myself from the conversation to call my dad.

On the third ring my mother answered and said a choppy hello. "Oh Riku, how are you? Are you alright?" I reassured her that I was fine and that I was in a safe place before she finally put my dad on the line.

"Dad, this isn't something Mom should hear but I'm in deep shit over here." I said quickly after he greeted me with a husky growl.

"Figured at much, could tell just from the way your mother was talking to you. What's wrong?" That was my dad, to the point and down to business.

"There is someone trying to break into our base." Time to start talking in military jargon. "I need to know what to do. They got zombies in past our security without any of us noticing."

"What kind of security do you have?" My father cut in. I rattled off the changes that Squall and Sora had made to the place in a precise fashion.

My father made a humming noise when I was done and thought for a few seconds before he started giving me instructions. "Barricades and blockades—that's the key. Prevent them from getting in through the door and prevent them from getting to the door. Stay away from windows—block them as well—they may have a sniper. Make sure you're prepared to be settled down for a while; they may try to smoke you out. You know this stuff—I've told you about it over and over again."

"Yessir," I replied because I did remember all the stories he had told about digging ditches and filling them with spikes and mortar. We were in a fucking war against zombies and humans. This wasn't a fucking game anymore.

"Now—the connections breaking up or I'd tell you more. Call if you need us and think like a marine boy." He clicked off the phone after that.

When I entered back into the conversation, everyone was arguing back and forth over what they should be expected.

"Are you guys serious; why haven't you start blockading any of the doors?" I asked. They all looked up at me shocked that I'd yelled at them. I guess they hadn't realized how much time they were wasting but this was going to be the difference between life and death for us. "We need to get going. Sora and Axel—start chopping those crates up. Kairi and Selphie—nail the boards against every door and window. Squall—I need to know how much we have in terms of supplies." Everyone hesitated before I yelled again, then they got moving.

Squall led me to the back of the building where there was a garage door with a padlock and heavy chain. After producing a key from his pocket, Squall unlocked the door and heaved it up with a grunt. It had probably been a car dock before for some of the more valuables cars their shop had seen but now it was filled to the brim with cans and boxes of food. One entire wall was covered with bottles of water and there was a small stockpile of pharmaceuticals. I stared dumbfounded at the shear size of their catch. They must have spent days gathering it.

"Well it seems like we'll be fine in the event of a siege." I replied sarcastically, he just raised an eyebrow at me. "I need to get the rest of our stuff from the truck before it becomes almost impossible to get out."

"Ladder." He said.

"What?"

"Hmm? Oh, I just said we could use a ladder to get out from now on. If we barricade even the garage doors down." Squall looked completely unconcerned with the whole thing. I assumed it just wasn't in his nature to worry about such worldly things—he was too busy trying to figure out his brother's immunity to care for much else.

Squall and I were two very different people in that regard. His work was his passion and my passion was keeping people alive. Over the short time I'd been here, I'd come to realize that the one really calling the shots was Sora; he was the one in charge of their day-to-day activities and he took care of Selphie. Hell, Squall might not even it if Sora didn't make him anything.

I guess Sora and I have that in common; we're both in charge of other people. We never asked for this position of leadership, it just fell to us. This would probably be when my dad would start talking about rising to the occasion and thinking like a marine.

Well Dad, I'm thinking like a marine now.

I quickly walked over to the far part of the garage and lifted the four garage doors. There were a few rusty fenders tucked against one of the doors and I kicked them aside with barely a thought. Selphie poked her head back in to look at me, wondering what I was doing but I waved her off and she disappeared back into the depths of the garage. I fished the keys to the truck out of my front pocket and unlocked the driver's door. We had left some things in the truck when we'd first got here and while they weren't that useful, I knew that the truck itself was priceless—especially with what I intended it for. I drove the truck through the door on the far left and parked it up against the wall with the engine still running.

Then, I grabbed the keys to a minivan off of a metal hook. They had all the keys hanging on a board that was screwed into the wall. The minivan I knew was still out in front of the building along with an old Chevy pick-up and a Dodge Durango. I grabbed the other two keys and hoped there was still a breath of gas in the tank.

I was in luck and all three tanks had sufficient gas for me to maneuver them in front of the garage doors. It took a far amount of cursing but I managed to line the four vehicles up in front of the garage doors, creating a block incase the doors were compromised. From the outside of the building I closed and locked all the garage doors and pushed some empty oil drums in front for extra protection. As I was doing this, Sora came around the side of the building unrolling a large spool of twine that he kept wrapping around stakes he was driving into the ground. On close inspection, those stakes were various-sized screwdrivers.

"What are you doing?" I asked, curious.

"I could ask you the same." He replied without looking up. "I'm laying trip wire and attaching some bells to the end. We'll here if they trip it but they won't. I'm guessing you're locking the garage doors?"

"At this point I think they're our biggest and most obvious weak point." I replied as I moved the last oil drum into position.

"Fuck," He replied and kicked at a rock lying in his way. "I'm going to finish this up and then we're going to fortify the crap outta this place."

I grunted and watched him disappear around the other side of the building, still working at his spool. I stepped back from the doors so that I could get a view of what our enemies would see.

Enemies.

We had enemies. And our enemies weren't just zombies. None of it sat right in my stomach; I didn't want to even belief that there was someone trying to get us. It was hard enough trying to deal with the fact that zombies were trying to motherfucking eat us. And now I have to fight other humans? I threw my hands up in disgust and that's when our solution dawned on me.

There were boxes full of motor oil. Godamned crates of the stuff just lying in there. I rushed back inside, climbing around Kairi's wood pile as she attempted to board up a window. I think she tried to get my attention but since she was currently holding five nails in her mouth all that came out was a muffled sound. There was no time to stop—it was going to be dark out and then we'd be at the mercy of who ever was out there watching us.

I didn't know for sure if they'd decide to attack tonight, all I know is that we'd better be fucking ready if they decide to.

Sora was inside the garage sorting through a bunch of small boxes, looking for God-knows-what. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him over to the stack of boxes containing the motor oil.

"This. This is what we're going to protect ourselves with. There's a ton of it and we're not doing anything with it."

"I'm not following you." Sora said, staring at me like I had suggested dancing naked under the moonlight.

"It's flammable. Highly flammable, useless to us, and there's a ton of it. So we fill up a few drums with the stuff and if we need to, we dump the barrels and light the shit on fire. Boom! They go right up in flames." I knew there was a feverish look in my eye right now because I could see it mirrored in his own.

"Boom." Sora replied; a vicious grin plastered to his face. "I'll help you bring out the boxes and then I'll set up a mechanism for knocking the drums over. They might get suspicious if the place was doused with oil so we'll have to hide it till the last minute. Hell we could boil the shit like they used to do in castles and dump it off the roof."

I laughed at that, "Let's not get too medieval now."

We took a few more minutes to laugh and then we started to execute our plan. I was finished with my part sooner than Sora was so I went to help the girls hammer down boards. By the time I got there, they were done with the first floor and had moved onto the top floor. Squall and Axel were securing the basement.

Nailing boards down was completely mindless work and I was able to hammer down ten boards without a thought running through my head. I just listened into Kairi and Selphie's mindless chatter. Selphie was asking Kairi about some boy she had one dated even though the red-head was turning a brighter color than her hair.

I laughed at the two of them and then Axel came storming upstairs. He flopped down next to me and started hammering as well but he was using about twice as much force as he should have.

"What bit your ass?" I asked in between the clang of hammering.

"Squall. He's holed in in the basement with his damn research and it doesn't look like he'll be coming out anytime soon. Really starting to piss me off with all this research crap. I swear he plans to spend the rest of the damn night pouring over nucleic acids or some shit. We need him up here helping us." Axel finished with a yelp as his hammer missed its target and hit his thumb. I winced in sympathy but the blow must not have been that bad since he went right back to hammering.

I understood completely what Axel meant. I'd noticed it myself earlier—Squall wasn't exactly all there.

"And that's another thing—his fucking doing this research on Sora. That's so beyond fucked up. It's his own brother!" Axel muttered to me so that Selphie wouldn't over hear us.

"Well Sora just injected himself when Squall refused to go along with it so I don't know how much of a choice Squall has."

"It's time for Squall to step up! He's at least five years older than us. Why are we the ones in charge?" Axel ground out.

"Some people aren't meant to be leaders." I supplied.

"Between you, me, and the wall, I'd pick you as our leader any day. Hey, I saw you talking on the phone earlier. Was that your dad?"

"Yeah, I was asking him what else we could do."

"Shit man, what I wouldn't give for your dad to be here."

"You and me both. He wasn't even able to tell me what to do. The connection was so choppy; I could barely hear every other word he said."

"God only knows how much longer the cellphones will even work."

"This is all so messed up," I replied.

Three hours later is was dark out and I was on watch duty with Selphie. I didn't exactly trust her on watch with anyone else—she was so young and she looked just about ready to drop. The poor girl was exhausted and it looked like fear had been the thing keeping her up late at night. She was positioned on the opposite side of the roof and was leaning against her gun, which was probably a very bad idea.

Sora came up and brought two cups of coffee with him. There was no milk to go with the coffee but there was cream and sugar, the latter of which was a main component in my cup. Silently, Sora handed the two of us our cups and Selphie quietly asked him if he could take her spot while she went to the bathroom. He agreed and he settled down in her recently vacated seat.

"How's it going downstairs," I asked, desperate to relieve the silence that had been laying over me like a blanket for the last thirty minutes.

"Kairi and Axel decided to get some sleep before there shift and I was about to call it a night when I figured you guys would probably like something warm."

He was right, with the sun's departure, the temperature had steadily dropped until my fingers started the get cold and I'd needed to grab a sweatshirt. The coffee was a welcome addition.

I was about to thank him for it to when the lights on the entire block went out.

End Part 5

Author's Note: As always, you know how you get more chapters—by harassing me within an inch of my life. Trust me, it works. I also feel it's only safe to tell you that I literally right this story by the seat of my pants. I have no idea where it is going when I start a chapter; I just let the story flow. That said, I had no idea when or how this story will end so ideas and suggestions are very much welcome.