"We need to stop somewhere," I say, barely keeping my eyes open despite Viola's crying. "We've been in this river for hours, and all of us could use some rest."

"Let's see if we can get just a little bit further," Finn says, looking like he is about to pass out himself, but still managing to keep rowing. "I want to get us as far away from the monsters as possible."

"Finn, I swear to god, we have to stop," I say, voice coming out harsher than I was intending. "We can't continue to run if we drown in this river from sleep deprivation. Besides, it is better if we rest. We can run away faster and even defend ourselves better if we aren't dead on our feet."

"Alden..."

"Finn!" I exclaim, turning around so that I can see him, a hard glare on my face. "I am not fucking around anymore. Paddle the goddamn boat to shore."

He looks like he is about to argue, but when I just raise a brow at him, he lets out a long sigh, turning the boat slowly and letting us float over to the bank.

The brothers follow behind us, landing their own kayaks next to ours. Jacob stumbles as he stands too quickly from the boat, and Danny catches him with an ease that speaks of familiarity.

By the time that I manage to push myself out of the kayak, Viola is screaming even louder than before. Her little arms and legs are flailing around in her distress. Finn unclips the baby bag from the kayak, handing it over to me, and I take it without a word, too irritated with him to say anything.

"Viola, it's alright," I say, voice soft. She doesn't seem to believe me, though, and just continues to cry. Harry trudges after me, stumbling on his feet.

At least the ground is dry, and there hasn't been a cloud in sight all day. But, knowing our luck, we will more than likely experience some showers during the night.

Opening the baby bag, I pull out the slippery changing pad, laying it on the ground before setting Viola on top. As quickly as one can with a squalling infant, I change her diaper and get her bundled in her pajamas before swaddling her the best I can with a blanket. She quiets down a little bit but not too much. Pulling out a bottle, I pour some water into it from my own water bottle. It is warmer than usual, seeing as I had it sitting between my thighs while in the kayak.

Once everything is all mixed together, I pull Viola close to me, calming her down a little bit before giving her the bottle. From experience, I have learned to not try and get her to eat while in the midst of crying. It just makes her more agitated and less likely to eat. It takes a couple of minutes, but her cries finally calm, more like sniffles instead of close to tears. She easily takes the bottle, eating greedily.

Guilt floods through me when I try to think of the last time she ate. Sometime before she went to bed, about a half a day ago. She must have been starving. I should have made us stop sooner, not being able to juggle her in the kayak. It was too much of a risk to really do anything other than hold her close.

But at least we will be able to rest here for a little while. My eyes are starting to feel gritty, and I am barely keeping myself upright at this point.

Someone walks up behind me, resting their hand on my shoulder and making my eyes snap back open. Looking up, I see that Finn is looking at me with a worried expression.

"Come on, Alden, time for you to get some rest." He helps me to stand up since I can't use my own hands that are preoccupied with Viola.

My brows scrunch in confusion once I turn around because an entire camp has been set up during the time that I had been taking care of Viola. Exhaustion must be getting the better of me because I had apparently lost track of time and had not even heard the others.

A fire is lit, a circle of rocks around it to keep it from spreading, and a tent is set up a few feet away. Danny is laying down the sleeping bags in the tent, while Jacob is out by the river, seeming to be fiddling with something. It is impossible for me to tell what, though.

"Go ahead and rest for a while, we'll take turns being on watch." He leans down to give me a chaste kiss before stepping away, walking back over to the fire and putting some more wood on it.

My feet seem to move on their own, walking over to the tent that Danny is just now exiting. He gives me a smile when he sees me, holding open the flap so that I can step inside once I take off my shoes.

"Three people at a time can fit in here, and seeing as how someone is always going to have to be on watch, there is plenty of room." He points over to the right of the tent, and my eyes follow his finger. "Your sleeping bag is over there. I connected it with Finn's that way you could have a little extra room with the baby and the dog."

"Thanks," I murmur, grabbing my pack from outside before sitting down.

"No problem," he says, stepping out of the tent. "Someone will wake you if anything happens." With that, he zips up the tent, leaving just Viola, Harry, and me.

Opening my pack, I pull out a relatively clean t-shirt. Viola stirs slightly when I put her down but just stares up at me from where she is still drinking her bottle. Wearing clean clothing causes me to relax even more, and I barely have enough energy to crawl into my sleeping bag. Harry stumbles over to me, whining until I lift the sleeping bag enough so that he can crawl inside and all the way down to the bottom before laying down.

Viola spits out the nipple once the bottle is empty, making disgruntled sounds. Picking her up, I lay her across my chest, patting her back until she lets out an impressive burp.

"You always amaze me with your burps," I whisper, wiping off her spit up before placing her pacifier in her mouth. "You sound like a drunk frat boy."

Viola just blinks up at me, sucking contentedly on her pacifier. Not able to stay awake any longer, I lay back in the sleeping bag, rolling up my sweatshirt to use as a pillow. Even with Viola and Harry in the sleeping bag with me, there is still plenty of room. Enough that Finn could easily fit inside if he happens to go to sleep while I am in here.

Outside is pretty much quiet, the only sounds coming from the crackling of the fire and the night animals in the forest behind us. It is because of this that I can easily hear the conversation taking place outside the tent.

"Did you get a look at any of the creatures?" Finn questions, his voice soft.

"Sort of," a voice that takes me a second to recognize as Danny says. "It was dark, so it made it a little difficult to see."

"Be happy that you didn't see them during the day," Finn says, his voice taking on a deeper tone. "It will leave you with nightmares."

"I believe it," Jacob says. "From what I saw, they looked otherworldly."

"It's hard to believe they were human, once," Finn responds.

"You think those creatures were human once?" Danny asks, his voice taking on an incredulous tone. "They didn't look human at all."

I have to agree with him on that one. Those creatures don't look like humans at all. The only semblance of a human they have is their body shape, but everything else is different. They are a sickly green color, and completely hairless, almost looking shiny. Or maybe gooey is a better term for the look of their skin. And the way they move is utterly unhuman. They seem to jerk with every step they take, almost as if something is holding them back and it takes them a great deal of effort to move. Despite this, though, they are frighteningly fast.

And noisy. Thank god they are noisy, or else we wouldn't stand a chance against them. They are too fast for us to get away without some sort of heads up.

"They had to be human at one point, seeing as they have the bodies of humans," Finn says. "No idea how they became what they are, though, or how the sickness is passed."

"Ah, I think I have a theory on that," Danny says. "The two people who had broken into the house last night, one of them was injured. It looked like a scratch of some sort, maybe a claw mark from one of the creatures. The area around it didn't look too good, though, it was all black, and it seemed to be leaking."

"Black?" Finn questions, curiosity in his voice.

"Yeah, does that mean something?" Jacob asks.

"Most likely the skin was dead or dying," Finn answers. "And if it was 'leaking' as you said, then that was most likely pus, meaning the wound was infected." He stops for a beat. "What does that have to do with the creatures, though?"

"He turned into one of those creatures, or was in the process of changing."

"Yeah, he was the one who was in the house, attacking first the girl, and then it attempted to come after us," Jacob says, finishing what his brother was trying to say.

"So, if we get scratched we turn into one of those things?" Danny asks, more than likely looking at Finn for an answer.

Finn doesn't say anything for a while, probably trying to process all the information. "It probably has to do with an exchange of fluids."

"What?" Jacob answers, sounding utterly confused.

Finn clears his throat. "A part of the creature, some sort of their bodily fluids, got into the guy's bloodstream. Once it reached the bloodstream, it is easy enough for it to reach the brain, especially if it was able to slip past the blood-brain barrier. It is either small enough or similar enough to our own cells that the body didn't recognize it as a pathogen."

"I'm sorry, you lost me after bodily fluids," Jacob says.

"What he means, dumbass, is that the disease was able to get into his body, more specifically the brain, before his immune system had a chance to react," Danny says.

"Exactly," Finn says.

"So how long does it take the immune system to react?" Jacob questions. "Was it only a matter of hours before he changed into one of those things?"

Finn lets out an unsure sound. "It's hard to know. Every disease and the body's reaction to the disease is different. He could have had the scratch for days, or if the disease acted fast, just a few hours."

"There is no way to know?" Danny asks.

"No, not without watching someone become infected and measuring how long it takes them to turn."

"So what are we going to do about it?" Jacob says.

"Not much we can do, especially without access to a lab or any type of medicine." Finn's voice takes on a more serious tone. "All there is left to do is survive."

This surviving shit is harder than I thought it would be, especially with all the running we have been doing. But I am not about to give up. My arm tightens around Viola, pulling her close to me as I think of the dangers outside this tent. There are too many things to fight for, and I have never been one to give in.