The group was stood by a stone bench, hidden by the shade of the roof. Chad was sitting motionless on the bench, leaning his back against one of the stone legs that was holding up the triangular roof. He looked like he was not only frustrated, but also in deep thought. Erin and Ben were standing behind him, leaning their elbows on the back of the seat, while Tom and his family were sitting on the bench. Both Tom and Mari were checking if their girls were fine.

"Alright, I've got an idea," Chad finally said, looking up. "How about we move from house to house? And when I say house to house, I don't mean on the streets, I mean climbing over the fences to enter that house, making our way to the others, and climbing through the back. My girlfriend's house is no more than a street down, and their backyard is connected to another backyard just behind them. We could make it." He jumped off the seat. "Or some of us...Never mind," he whispered sadly.

"This girl must mean a lot to you," Mari said, already knowing the answer. All eyes flew to her as she spoke up.

"Yes," Chad answered. "She does."

Mari smiled slightly. "Of course."

"I'm sorry, how do you know that?" Erin asked.

"No man would ever risk their lives trying to get past those monsters for someone who doesn't mean a lot to them," Mari explained as everyone kept their gaze on her. "We could create a distraction."

"Mari," Tom said.

"We split into two groups. One gets their attention while another makes their way to the house."

"No, Mari, no." Tom shook his head at his wife. "You are not going in there, and you are not going to be bait for those things."

"She doesn't have to," Chad said. "That's a great plan. Although, we don't necessarily have to split up. I mean, you four could be safe and go and hide somewhere, while I could make the distraction."

"Chad, she's not worth it. She's just some girl who isn't worth risking your life for," Ben reasoned. "She's probably not even alive."

"Don't tell me who's worth my life, you man whore!" Chad said angrily, letting his emotions get the best of him. "I'm going to get her whether you like it or not. Either help me or sit back and let me do it."

Everyone stood quietly when he finished, their eyes wide and their eyebrows raised in disbelief.

"I want to help," Mari said again determined to help, smiling. "You obviously really care about her to go after her without backing down, so I'll help."

"No, Mari," Tom told her. "You are not going. The girls need you."

"He needs help getting someone he cares for, and I am going to help him," Mari argued back. "I've never met anyone that's this young and is willing to risk his life for someone else."

"The girls need you and I said no."

"What if that was me, huh?" Mari lifted her eyebrows. "What if we were apart, and this happened to us?"

"I would go after you," Tom admitted. "I would do whatever it takes."

"He's only doing what you would do," Mari said. "The least we could do is help."

"Come on, I know a great place we could use for safety." Chad hopped down and walked the opposite way.

Half an hour later, the group walked up to an office on the opposite side of the houses. They looked up at the white and brown one story floor. The main walls of the house was white while the roofs, window frame and door frame all were brown. The group walked up to the heavy brown door with a number lock on it.They slowly walked in with their weapons in hand, ready for use.

When they got in, they searched every room that was in the building. They looked around the main room and saw red couch with flower prints on it, a coffee table in front of that couch and a loveseat that sat at the end of the coffee table. Two large flower pots stood at the corner of the room beside the loveseat.

They checked the main office that was on the right through a grey double door. That room had double desks both with papers and office utensils on it. There was a little section that was in the shape of a small rectangle where all the filing cabinets stood tall side by side. The room looked as if the managers barely left the place.

The next room was a gym with exercising machines in it double of each different item. It wasn't a big gym or anything but it was enough to give each machine a little room around them. The walls were plain white with motivation posters scattered on it.

"What is this place?" Erin asked.

"It was the management office," Chad answered.

"There's a pool in the backyard," Ben told them.

"Yup, and a gym past these doors, too," Chad informed them.

"So, what, it was three places at once?" Braden asked.

Chad nodded his head before he walked outside to the back. Erin looked at Chad, only to see him getting tackled to the floor by an Infected.

"Chad!" Erin yelled as she ran to help.

Everyone followed in pursuit. Erin grabbed hold of the Infected's shoulders and tried to pull the infected off of her brother but it didn't do any good. Soon Ben joined in and started pushing it back while Erin pulled it back. With both their strengths they finally got the infected off of Chad and pushed it to the floor causing the dead to roll on the ground. Braden took that chance to go around Erin and smash his head in with his foot as much as possible. Everyone was behind Chad staring down at the unidentified infected that was just laying there without any movements. Braden walked forward and helped Chad up.

"Are you okay?" Braden asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks," Chad replied looking around for any more infected before continuing. "Okay, back to that plan." Chad let out a big breath before walking towards a few bushes on the other side of the poo. He wanted to find his girlfriend and get out of there with all of them out alive. "Okay, there's a ditch that leads to the street right next to the bench we were just sitting on." Chad walked back, pointing at it. "You guys could hide in there and get their attention. Give it a few minutes or so, then run. Make your way back to that road, and we could meet up at the gas station we passed on our way here."

"What are we going to use to get their attention?" Diana asked.

"We have these." Vanessa held up a whistle that was wrapped around her neck.

Soon Tom, Mari and M.J all pulled out a whistle that looked just like Vanessa's.

"Thanks." Chad smiled as he took it and put it around his neck. "Okay, if and when you hear this whistle, use yours. Make sure you do it a few times just to make sure they hear."

"Okay," Tom said. "Hey, kid, be careful."

Chad nodded. "If I'm not back by sunset, you go without me. Got it?"

Everyone except Ben nodded. "Or we could just go now," Ben spoke up. "We could forget this stupid plan and just go somewhere else."

"No, I'm going and that's final." Chad gritted his teeth. "Like I said, you don't have to be here if you don't want to. You could leave, but I'm not going without knowing if she's alive or not."

With that, Chad turned away and walked off. Erin called out a 'good luck' before he disappeared behind the buildings. Everyone walked past the bushes and jumped into the ditch, waiting for Chad to blow his whistle.

Meanwhile, Chad took his place in the bushes, breathing heavily. He got ready to blow his whistle, but decided to control his breathing before doing so, just in case it was easily heard. When his breathing was back to normal, he blew the whistle and quickly went into a hole under the bushes as a caution. Once settled, he looked up to see the Infected stumbling and crawling out from the street to Chad's girlfriends house. When they all had their back to him, he quietly got out and made a dash to the house, not looking back to see if any of them saw him.

He finally got to the house and ran up to the door, only to find that it wouldn't open. He punched the door and cursed under his breath before running to the back. He tried every window, but they wouldn't slide open. He took a step back and looked around, seeing the crack of the sliding door and pushing it open. When he walked inside, there was nothing but dead people on the floor, surrounded by blood stains. Chad covered his nose and mouth with his shirt as he caught the scent of decomposing bodies.

"Is there anyone alive in here?" Chad called out. "Baby vampire, are you in here?" Calling her by the nickname he used when he first met her.

Chad walked into a room to see the window broken into and more blood stains on the floor. The blood immediately brought Chad to tears at the thought of his girlfriend and her family in a panic, screaming for help as they tried fighting off those things as they could. He looked into the closet on both sides, and then again on both beds, but he found nothing. He rapidly spun around the room until he remembered a secret hiding place she used to hide in half the time when she wanted to be alone. He looked between the bed and the closet to see a big hole on the side of the bed.

He looked inside to find no one in there. The only thing that he found was cookies and soda. He dropped his head and let out a sigh before getting back up and looking around the room once again. He looked behind the door to find a bag his girlfriend used for just for everyday things with monsters, which was the design it came with, and drawings that Chad and her drew whenever they would get bored. He ran his hand down it before taking it down from the door and putting as many sodas he could into it before grabbing a pack of cookies. He put the bag down and went upstairs to make sure that no one was in the house before he left.

He walked back down, picked up the bag, and on his way out of the window, he looked down at the staircase leading up to the second bedroom. A picture of a brunette with light brown eyes was sitting next to Chad, and a little girl with shoulder length hair. They were smiling, but only he was looking at the camera, while the little girl was looking at the older girl's necklace, and the older girl was smiling at him. Chad smiled at the sight and took it off the wall before glancing the desk. On the wall right next to the desk was a silver necklace with a silver turtle and a golden baby turtle on top of it. He grabbed it and put it around his own neck, holding it in his hand for a moment before taking a deep breath and leaving the house. Once he turned to walk away, he was knocked over, letting a gasp escape his lips. He was suddenly trapped by the Infected, and all that Chad could do was keep the first one from getting to him.

He started to breathe rapidly. He tried his best to push them off, but with all of the Infected surrounding him, it put a lot of weight on his arms. The second Infected opened its mouth wide and tried making its way to Chad's neck. His knees were propped up on two of the infected chest while one arm was pushed against another's chest. One went to his knees and began to make his way to Chad's abdomen. Chad took his crowbar and continuously puncturing its head causing a huge hole at the top of its head. The infected fell into Chad causing him to slightly gasped and breathed out a shaky breath as his kept forgetting to breath.

He repeated his action with two other infected that were going for his abdomen and chest area killing them almost instantly. He put his foot on one of the infected chest and pushed as hard as he possibly can. It didn't matter how far the infected went as long as it was away from him. Chad repeated the action but he pushed only gently making the infected look like it jumped backwards before going falling down again and Chad swung his hardest making a bone crushing sound that made him shiver.

The completely dead infected was turned to the side before it fell on its side never getting back up. Chad wasted no time quickly gathering his stuff and running across the street where there was a trail there. It was blocked with two large long black fence that ran along the trail. He threw his backpack over then his weapon before pushing himself up and over the fence. The infected was already up and by the time Chad got over, it was already at the fence trying to grab any part of Chad that it could possibly get. Chad landed on his heels and unable to keep his balance, he fell backwards landing straight on his butt with his palms flat on the cement.

He mumbled a bunch of curse words to himself as he got back up, got his stuff and walked off after giving the infected a weird disgusted look. He walked a few yards down until he was under a freeway just to carefully pushed his backpack through an open bars some kids used to hang out in what once was a full river but was now empty and was nothing but rocks, dirt and a few dry bushes everywhere. Chad was just a mile away from the gas station and he could see it clearly along with the McDonald's giant yellow M.

Once he placed his backpack carefully and gently on the curb of rocks, he pushed himself through being as careful as he could not to fall over the curb. With all that done, he puts his bag over his shoulders and began to climb down the rocks until he was safely at the bottom. Once at the bottom, he makes his way across the waterless river, which made the dry dirt crack a bit. 

*Edited