The shadows being cast from the setting sun are becoming longer. Luckily, Finn's car is in the parking lot in front of us. If we had to use mine, we would have had to run four blocks behind us.

Finn looks back over at me from where he was staring in the direction of the screeches. "We're just going to have to run. Those things are too close for comfort."

"Ah, Jesus. I am not meant for all this exercise." Finn doesn't even bother to answer me this time. Instead, he grabs my arm and pulls me into a steady jog. Together we run around the cars parked haphazardly around the parking lot. A lot of them are crashed together, while some are flipped on their backs and sides. A car to the far right of the parking lot is even on fire, the flames contrasting with the encroaching darkness.

The screeches from before are becoming louder, making it seem like those things are closing in on us. Finn pulls on my hand harder, trying to get me to run faster. All this causes, though, is for me to trip over my own two feet and land hard on the ground.

Finn bends down, placing his arm around my waist to help me stand up. My knee feels funny, like someone stabbed me, but I don't have time to dwell on that before Finn is moving us back in the direction of his car. With every step I take, my knee gives off a painful twinge, causing me to wince every time my foot makes contact with the ground.

"We're almost there," Finn mumbles to me. He looks over his shoulder as we are crossing the street to the parking lot where his car is at. When he looks forward again, his face is paler than before and his brown eyes are wide. He speeds up our step, causing the pain in my knee to flare up so bad that I cry out.

Finn pulls his key fob for his car out of his pocket, pointing it in front of us. The taillights of a Honda Accord flash about ten feet in front of us.

"Thank god," I say, forcing myself to limp a little faster.

Finn goes to help me get into the passenger side, but I push him away. "We don't have time for that. I can get in on my own." He shrugs his shoulders, but they remain tense as he runs to the driver's side door.

By the time that I get my door open, he has the engine running. Gritting my teeth together, I force myself to bend down, despite the pain in my knee, and clamber into the seat. Finn reaches over me to close the door before putting the same hand behind my seat and twisting his body around so that he can see what he is doing as he backs out of the parking space.

Looking in the side mirror, I can see that the shadows behind us are becoming larger. The same type of creatures that we had seen in the building seem to be moving with the shadows, never stepping out of the darkness.

It makes it difficult to see them, only that they have the same body shape as humans, the rest is hard to make out in the darkness.

Finn shifts the car into drive once he is completely out of the parking space. He returns both of his hands to the wheel before steering the vehicle through the haphazard parking lot. We have to go slower than either of us would like, due to the many cars stopped in the middle of the road way. Finn also dodges the fallen bodies on the ground, making sure not to run over the people who had once been our classmates and teachers.

He looks over at me quickly before returning his eyes back to the road. "It feels wrong to run them over."

I nod my head, trying to tell him silently that I understand his actions. He seems to comprehend my nod because his body relaxes back into his seat. A couple minutes later, we are pulling out onto the street. Cars and people are everywhere, making it difficult to navigate around them.

Looking out the passenger side window, I watch as we pass the large buildings of the city. Every once in a while, I can see a person or a group of people huddled together in the alleyways. It hurts to know that we can't afford to stop and help them. The sun is almost completely set, making it dangerous to be outside right now.

Finn flips on the headlights, making me turn away from the window and look at him instead. "You should turn those off."

His gaze flicks between me and the road, his brows scrunched together in confusion. "It's getting hard to see without them. Why would I turn them off?"

"We don't know how those things hunt. Maybe they will see the light and follow us. We shouldn't risk it."

Finn shakes his head before turning it on the lowest setting, but not off completely. "We'll crash if I turn them off completely. Is this better?" He asks the last question with heavy sarcasm.

My eyes narrow on him. His jaw is tight and his fingers are tense where they are curled around the steering wheel. Not bothering to answer him, I return my gaze back to the window.

Neither of us talks for a solid chunk of time, and I can't take the silence anymore. Turning around, I reach for the volume and the tuning knob on the radio. As the volume becomes louder, all that is audible is static. Something is being said, but it is impossible to make it out through the static. My ears are focused entirely on what is being said on the radio as I turn the tuning knob.

"Attention, this is an emergency. This is not a drill." The mechanical voice comes through clear as day when I reach a random station I have never heard of before. Finn and I exchange wide-eyed looks at what the machine voice says next. "The United States government has issued a state of emergency. All persons are to stay inside until help is sent. Make sure to have enough water and food to last up to two weeks and do not leave your home. Keep all windows and doors shut. Do not engage with the uncontrolled subjects unless absolutely necessary."

After that, the message starts over again, the mechanical voice never wavering in the slightest.

"That's it?" Finn says, eyes hard as he glares at the radio, but I can see the fear shining in them just as strong. "No telling us what these things are? Or how to kill them."

"Maybe they don't know?" I ask, even though we both know that probably isn't true.

Finn reaches over to turn the radio off after the message repeats itself for the third time. "It's getting really crowded out here with cars, and I don't think we will be able to make it much further." He turns the car onto a side road, barely missing a standstill car's front bumper.

"Where are we going anyways?" I ask, looking at the somewhat unfamiliar surroundings. My apartment is in the opposite direction, in the main part of downtown. Looking around, though, I see that we are driving in the direction of The Hills, a neighborhood placed on top of a hill that overlooks the downtown.

"My house."

"You have a house?" I'm surprised. I could barely afford my duplex that I share with two other people. How the hell is he able to afford a house?

"It's more like my parent's house, but they live out of the country." Finn's face falls a little bit and he tries to cover it up, but I can see through the poorly portrayed mask. "They allow me to stay there since rent is so high."

"Where are they living?" My curiosity is getting the best of me, and I can't help the questions bubbling up inside of me.

"They are stationed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia."

"Stationed?"

"Yeah. They were among the first wave of doctors sent out to figure out what this whole disease thing is that the government thought they had contained." Finn's lips are pressed tightly together. It is easy to see that he is upset by the subject. Whether he is upset with his parents or the government, though, I can't distinguish.

"They didn't come back before The U.S closed the borders?"

Most of the American expatriates came back when the United States announced they would be closing their borders to everyone, including American citizens. People only had two weeks to get back, so some of them didn't make it. This was only a month ago. The disease spread a lot faster than anyone thought it would, and it seemed to get into the United States, despite our nation closing its borders and placing huge amounts of people in quarantine.

"They decided not to come back." Finn's eyes don't stray away from the winding incline in front of us. "Told me that their work was too important over there to come back to a country refusing to accept what was going to eventually happen to them."

I try to think of something to say to that, but words escape me. To know you won't ever see your parents again has to be hard. Just the thought of me not seeing my own family again, who only live one state over, makes my heart clench.

Finn doesn't say anything else, so we end up sitting in silence as we drive the rest of the way to his house. I must have dozed off, because I am jolted awake when Finn stops the car, turning the key so that the engine will turn off.

Rubbing my eyes, I take in the house we are parked in front of. It looks like an average two story house, with lots of windows on both floors and a dark blue painted front door.

Finn opens his door, stepping out of the car and making his way over to me. I try to protest when he opens my door and starts unbuckling me, but I give up once I realize he is ignoring me. His arm wraps around my waist tightly, taking most of my weight when lifting me up onto my non-injured leg.

Together, we hobble over to the door, the threat of the darkness creeping in around us pushing us to move faster. Finn pulls out a key from his front pocket, quickly fitting it into the door. There is just enough light in the house for us to see where we are going, the sun setting over the valley.

Finn closes the door once he steps through after me, locking it behind him. He helps me over to the living room and onto a dark red plush couch. A sigh of relief slips from between my lips once the pressure is off of my aching knee.

Finn moves away from me and into the kitchen behind me. I can hear him open something, but I am too tired to turn around and see what he is doing.

"Here," he says, coming around the couch so that he is standing in front of me. In his outstretched hand is a bag of frozen peas with a towel wrapped around them.

"Thanks," I mumble taking the frozen vegetables from him. Finn nods his head before turning to walk out of the living room and off to another part of the house. The sound of a dog barking makes its way to my ears. That must be what Finn went to investigate.

It's not until I go to place the bag of frozen peas on my knee that I realize there is something embedded in my skin.

"Shit." I place the bag onto the couch, bending down to get a better look at my knee. Through the dwindling light, I am barely able to see the three shards of glass sticking out of my skin.

I unwrap the towel from around my makeshift ice pack, knowing I will need it in order to pull the glass from my knee. I don't need any more injuries than I already have, and gripping onto shards of glass with bare hands will only leave me with more scratches. Gritting my teeth, I grab onto the biggest shard of glass, trying to will my hand from shaking.

"Hey, what are you- whoa!" Finn manages to walk into the room just as I am pulling the first shard of glass from my leg with a grunt. I don't look up at him until the other two pieces are laying next to the first one on the couch.

"Shit, are you okay?" he asks, walking over to me. Finally, I look up to see that he is holding a small puppy in his arms.

The breath I had been holding blows out from my lungs, and I give him a shaky nod. "Looks like it."

He scrutinizes me for a few seconds before finally nodding his head. He sets the puppy on the floor, letting it sniff around. "Good, because things are not looking too good outside."