Jerking awake, I look around the room, trying to find what had woken me up. It is still dark in the room, meaning that it has to be sometime in the middle of the night. The arm around my waist tightens when I try to move out of the bed, and turning, I see that Finn has me pulled as close to him as possible without squishing Viola.

A sound comes from downstairs, and I realize that the source of that sound must have been what woke me up in the first place. It sounds like footsteps, but those of a drunk person, since they seem to be stumbling a lot and knocking into things.

"Finn," I whisper, reaching a hand over to shake his shoulder. He doesn't stir at all, though, and I know he must be exhausted. I try again, shaking his shoulder a little bit harder, but he still doesn't move.

With a hard sigh, I slip out from under his arm, managing to get away before he pulls me back against him. Everyone on the bed is still fast asleep, not seeming disturbed in the least by the sounds downstairs or from the movement of me getting up.

As quietly as I can, I slip into my jeans, not wanting to be wandering around in just my underwear.

This isn't a cheap horror movie.

The soft carpet muffles my footsteps making it possible for me to make it to the top of the stairs without making a sound. Peeking over the edge of the stairs, I notice a shadow in the downstairs, before two figures make themselves visible in the open room that makes up the first floor. One of them is whispering to the other, while the second one is clutching at their shoulder, a low moan coming out of their mouth. The uninjured one seems to be trying to press a cloth- most likely a dish towel- against the injury, which causes the guy to let out an even louder moan.

"Mason, you have to be quiet," the uninjured figure whispers, and from the voice, I can tell that they are female.

"Why the fuck do I have to be quiet?" the guy says, his voice coming out rough. "We're in the middle of nowhere."

The girl scoots closer to the guy, ducking down to look at his arm. "We don't know who else may be in the house, and I don't really feel like being chased out of here right now. Not with the creatures wandering around outside."

My heart begins to pound at an alarming rate at her words. There are creatures outside? We have been here for almost two weeks and haven't seen anything that even remotely resembled a monster, human or infected.

So the mere idea of those creatures that we have been trying to escape since this whole outbreak started being outside makes fear start to course through me.

Quickly, I walk over to the closest window, the one that sits right outside the bedroom door and looks over the street. Sure enough, there are a few of the beasts wandering around, chattering their teeth and making quiet clicking sounds. They look like they are searching for something but can't seem to find it. The way they jerk around speaks of their agitation, but who knows, maybe they just have trouble controlling their limbs.

The house sits behind some trees but not enough to hide it completely from view. I just hope that they are not smart enough to know what a house it or the fact that there may be people hiding inside of it.

"Shit," I whisper, watching the beasts start walking down the road again. They are slowly getting closer to the house, and I have no idea what the hell we can do to defend ourselves.

The people downstairs continue to whisper to one another, but I ignore them, choosing instead to go back to my bedroom and force Finn to wake up.

When I close the bedroom door behind me and turn around, I see that everyone is still asleep, but Viola has migrated to Finn's chest. She is slightly bigger now, looking more like a human and less like an alien, but she still looks so tiny when held against Finn.

They have to be safe, I tell myself, we are going to make it out of here alive. We have been here for two weeks undisturbed. We should have known that the creatures would eventually make their way out here.

"Finn," I whisper once I reach the edge of the bed. When he doesn't stir, I shake his shoulder, trying to force him to wake up. "Finn, wake the hell up."

Viola begins to stir against him, and I quickly snatch her up, popping the pacifier that had been sitting on the nightstand into her mouth to silence her cries. We can't risk either the people downstairs or the creatures outside hearing her.

Irritated that Finn is still sleeping, I pull back my arm before delivering a hard punch to his shoulder. Finally, he jerks up at that, looking flustered for a few seconds before his eyes finally land on me.

"What the hell, Alden?" he says, rubbing his arm. "Why the hell are you punching me in the middle of the night?"

"Because you wouldn't wake up, you asshole!" I whisper, standing up from the bed and pulling the covers away from a still drowsy Finn. "You need to get up right now. There are people downstairs and there are creatures outside. We have to find a way out of here."

Finn looks at me with a blank stare for all of three seconds before jumping into action. He slides out of the bed, pulling on his own pants and shirt in haste before opening up the nightstand drawer and pulling out his gun.

"Why didn't you wake me sooner?" he says, brows scrunched together.

"On no," I whisper, patting Viola's back to try and get her to fall asleep again. "Don't you dare get all hot and broody on me. I tried to wake you up a million times, but apparently, you can sleep through the damn apocalypse."

Finn blinks at me a few times, but when I raise my eyebrow at him, daring for his snarky response, he just shakes his head. He walks over to the window, pulling back a portion of the curtain so that he can peek outside.

"Shit," he whispers, letting the curtain fall back into place while running a hand through his bed-tousled hair. "Three of those creatures are out there. They probably followed the people downstairs here."

"What are we supposed to do?" I say, worry creeping into my tone. "We don't have a car to drive away in."

Finn starts pacing the room, his arms crossed and his brows scrunched as he tries to think of the solution to our predicament.

After about a full minute, he stops in place, looking over at me. "There is a trail behind the house. The one that leads down to the creek. The old owners have a storage shack down there. Maybe they have a quad or dirt bike of some sort."

"Down by the creek?" I ask a bit incredulously. "Why would they keep a dirt bike or quad down by the creek?"

Finn lets out a loud sigh before walking over to gather up our stuff. "Who the hell knows, but that is a risk we are going to have to take, seeing as we are basically stranded here."

"Alright," I whisper, because he is right. We have no way of making a quick getaway, so we are just going to have to take our chances.

"You take Viola," he says, helping me to get the baby carrier situated before sliding her into place.

I grab my jacket from off of the dresser, pulling it on and zipping it up over Viola. She should stay pretty warm, but I grab one of the hats we had found in one of the downstairs closets and slip it onto her head. It's pretty big, seeing as it is meant for a five-year-old, not a baby, but I roll it up so that it doesn't cover her face.

"Okay," Finn says once he has all of our stuff gathered, "let's get out of here."

"What about Danny and Jacob?" I ask, watching as he slides open the window. Luckily, it faces the backyard, meaning we don't have to run the risk of those creatures seeing us.

A noise comes from downstairs, and soon enough it is easy to hear the sounds of people arguing. But it is soon overtaken by the sound of clicking and screeching. Someone lets out a loud scream and the sounds of a fight make their way up here.

"They can take care of themselves," Finn says, sticking his head out the window, before maneuvering his entire body outside.

"We can't just leave them, Finn," I say, watching as he easily starts to climb down the house, using the side panels of the house as hand holds.

"We can't risk going down there, Alden, not when one of the creatures seems to have made its way inside. Soon enough the others will follow."

"But-"

"Alden," Finn snaps. "We can't rescue everybody."

Gritting my teeth, I am so tempted to just flip him off, but I know he is right.

God, I fucking hate it when someone else is right.

The scream from down below becomes louder before choking off. The creature screeches, and it sounds like someone is wrestling with the creature. A door from down below slams, and I hope that whoever opened it managed to get away from the creature.

Taking a deep breath, I scoop Harry up, dropping him outside the window and watching as Finn catches him with ease. Once I know that we have everything, I force myself to climb out the window, not looking down while I descend the side of the house.

Finn is just helping me down when two people come sprinting from the side of the house.

Finn pushes me behind him while pulling out his gun, pointing it at the newcomers.

"Whoa whoa," a familiar voice says, "don't shoot."

Peeking over Finn's shoulder, I see that the two sprinters were Danny and Jacob. Finn seems to realize who they are only about a second after I do, and lowers his gun.

The brothers walk closer to us, their own packs thrown over their shoulders. The screeches from the creatures sound up again, and none of us hesitate to start running down the dirt path.

"You were leaving without us?" Jacob pants, only a step behind me. "That's just rude."

"You were leaving without us, too," Finn says back to him, not even sounding winded. "So it looks like we were all just trying to get out of there alive."

"Well-"

"Less talking, more running," Danny says, slapping his brother's shoulder when Jacob tries to argue.

Grunting my approval because I am not talented enough to speak and exercise at the same time, I pick up my speed, trying my best not to trip over Harry as he runs in between me and Finn.

It takes us about five minutes of running to reach the creek, and immediately, Finn heads to the shack, easily kicking open the locked door.

"Damn, that's hot," I whisper, and Jacob lets out an agreeing sound while his brother just rolls his eyes.

Finn comes out a minute later, holding a kayak.

"What, no quad?" I ask, moving to help him, but Finn just shakes his head, easily carrying it to the water.

"Nope, but they have three kayaks in there, so we aren't completely fucked," he says, setting the kayak down and quickly attaching our stuff with the bungee cords placed on either ends of the kayak.

The brothers immediately run over to get their own kayaks, while Finn holds ours still so that I can climb in. Luckily, this is a two-person kayak, and Finn quickly joins me, grabbing Harry and allowing the dog to sit by his feet inside the kayak. The screeching of the creatures is getting louder, and Finn pushes us away from the bank. We are just starting down the stream when the creatures come into view.

My heart starts to pound again, but the creatures halt at the edge of the water, not even attempting to chase after us. My brows scrunch in confusion, watching as the creatures pace the edge of the water but never step a foot inside the stream.

"Let's get out of here," Finn says, and I just nod my head turning my head away from the creatures as we paddle away from one problem and most likely into another one.