Ash Chapman climbed the front porch stairs of his house with a heavy frown on his face. It was obvious he wasn’t the happiest person right now. His father had forgotten to pick him up from basketball practice. A sport he hadn’t even wanted to do; at his father’s request, he had, but unhappily. He knew his father just wanted him to make more friends, besides the couple ones he had that he didn’t talk to much even then, and he appreciated the fact his father cared. But Ash had always been more of a soccer person. Even baseball. But his father was a huge fan of basketball and it did get his dad off his back. 

Practices were typically on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Always, his father would pick him up at the right time, in his sleek black car that showed he worked in a successful business in downtown Dallas, as someone with good pay. He didn’t ask about his father’s work and he didn’t offer to share. Ash just knew there was a lot of paper work and late night calls, interrupting their take-out dinners or watching some basketball game that Ash kept forgetting the teams’ names of.

Tonight, though, on a Tuesday night, his father wasn’t parked outside. At first, he thought he was running late. Sometimes his dad would be at the office late so he wouldn’t be surprised if he was just getting off work. Though, as five minutes turned into ten and then twenty, he realized his father wasn’t coming. He tried to phone him but there was no answer. It actually went straight to his voice mail. He remembered his dad mentioning not feeling well yesterday but both of them had brushed it off as a cold. Even with the news reports of that disease going around. They were more of the types to deal with something when it happened.

Ash hadn’t been too worried but as he began the walk home, which would take a good hour at least and he wasn’t willing to ask one of his team mates for a ride, he wondered if something was wrong. His father had been moving pretty slow this morning, not in his usual rushed, somehow organized way that Ash had grown use too in the mornings. His father had told it was nothing, he just needed more than one cup of coffee, and Ash had dumbly believed him. He had went to school, even with the risk of some disease, and forgot completely about it.
Until now. Now he was unlocking the front door and entering the house, looking around. His father’s car was in the driveway so he had to be home. “Dad?” he called out, dropping his backpack by the door and moving into the kitchen. He didn’t hear a reply, the house was deathly quiet, and he felt something like worry lodge itself in his throat. He walked around the kitchen’s island in the middle of the room and froze. There was a puddle of blood in front of the sink, shiny and fresh. A trail led away from the puddle, slicking across the floor and disappearing into the doorway that led to the dining room. 

Ash stared at the blood in shock, his heart hammering. Had someone broken in and attacked his father? Mind racing, he snatched a knife from the knife block and held it in shaky fingers. He swallowed hard and began to slowly move forward, carefully stepping over the puddle and moving forward. He tried to not step in the blood with his sneakers. “Dad?” he called out again, voice quieter as he peeked into the dining room. 

Nothing was out of place, besides the blood trail, going around the table and disappearing into the sitting room. There was more blood, too, smeared onto the wall and some on the table. He adjusted his grip on the knife, breathing uneven, as he moved forward. “Dad?” he whispered fiercely. His father might piss him off but he loved the man. He was concerned about him. He pressed himself against the wall opposite of the one with blood, moving along it as he tried to calm his racing heart.

He had to make sure his father was okay before he jumped to conclusions. Maybe someone didn’t break in… though, he couldn’t explain the blood smears then. The puddle in the kitchen. His eyebrows furrowed when he peered into the sitting room. There was more blood but it almost looked like something had exploded; there were splatters on the wall, the couch and TV. The coffee table was knocked over but none of that mattered when he saw the hunched form of his father in the corner.

“Dad!” he yelled, wondering why the man hadn’t been answering him. He began to rush into the room and then stopped; the blood trail was leading to his father. He was almost afraid as his father slowly rose to his feet and turned to him. The blood was from him; some of his suit was ruined, his suit jacket gone. His button-up was partly ripped open, showing his chest, rose-shaped scars on them. A few were bleeding. He had blood smeared around his mouth and that’s what scared Ash the most. What had he done?

His father let out a strange growl-click sound and began to move towards him. Ash backed away, eyes widening and breathing coming out faster. Panic swarmed through his mind and his lower back slammed into a dining room chair, tipping it over. His father’s eyes were bloodshot, lips pulling back in snarl. “Da-Dad?” Ash stuttered out and his father jumped at him. Ash let out a fearful yell, jumping to the side and falling to the floor. The knife slid across the wood, stopping when it hit the wall.

Ash heard his father hit the table, the clatter of the vase with flowers tipping over, another chair falling and nearly whacking him in the head. He reached for the knife, hands shaking as he breathed heavily. He felt a weight atop his back just as his fingers closed around the handle of the knife. He felt fingers digging into his back and used all of his strength to knock his father off, flip them off and scramble away the best he could from the grip. His shirt ripped and because of that, he managed to turn around only for his father to grab the arm without the knife and try to bite.

His father’s teeth tried to close around his forearm and Ash panicked, reacting in fear and the instinct to survive, and the knife was buried into his father’s temple before any other thought entered his head. His father went limp, bloodshot eyes wide opened as he fell back and laid there. Ash stared in shock, breaths coming out shakily. He just killed his father. He just killed his father because he tried biting him. Eating him. He noticed the scars on his chest, how they looked. No…

What if Ash had it now? He moved away from the body, tears flooding his eyes. He couldn’t believe this. He just killed his dad. He pushed himself into the corner, pulling his knees to his chest and staring at his father’s still body. The knife stuck out of his head, some of the blade visible. The little bit of sunlight streaming through the window in the room gleamed off of the silver, as if taunting him. He buried his face in his knees so he wouldn’t have to see it any longer and cried.

[center]-
Joanna’s continued.[/center]

Joanna closed the door to the bathroom, locking it securely, as if that would make her forget what was outside of it. Her dead fiancé. Covered in rose-shaped scars and blood and disgusting pus-like stuff. She noticed it was on her and shuddered, the reason she had came in here. She turned on the shower, not caring about the temperature, and stepped in to it, clothes and all. She shivered at how cold it was, hugging herself and silently crying as she got soaked. She couldn’t get ahold of 911. She tried so many times but she always got the busy tone. She didn’t know what was happening out there but it was scary. If 911 was busy…

She quickly washed off her arms, hands, and face, before she began to peel the ruined clothes off her body. She left them at the bottom of the tub and quickly washed herself, feeling filthy from what she had been through. She pushed her soaked hair behind her shoulders and turned off the shower. She was shivering harshly from the cold of the water, her hair dripping water about her shoulders. She grabbed a towel off the rack, not really paying attention as she dried her body before attempting her hair. She felt like she was in automatic, doing something that should be normal.

But every time she looked in the tub, saw the bloodied clothes and remembered how rusty-colored the water had become… she gritted her teeth as her vision blurred. She hated crying. It was a weakness. She sucked in a sharp breath before opening the door that led to their bedroom. Some of the gunk had managed to even reach into the bedroom, splatter across the floor and partly onto the bed and wall. She tried to ignore it as she quickly pulled on clothes, not paying attention to what she grabbed.

She was pulling on the dark blue button up when she heard it. She froze, listening for the odd sound again. It was almost like a clicking. She heard a bang in the kitchen and jumped, heart lodging itself into her throat. She pulled on her boots quickly, making sure to stay out of the doorway. She feared whatever had gotten inside. She was ready to run. She pulled her hair into a messy bun before plastering herself against the wall, beginning to move along it. She hadn’t heard the door open or be kicked open. Maybe it happened while she was in the shower but it had been silent when she was getting dressed.

She took a deep breath, trying to get her emotions under control. What else could go wrong? She already lost the most important person in her life and couldn’t even get ahold of 911. She was going to try again but now those noises were distracting her. She slowly peered around the corner and gaped at the sight she saw. Dalton was alive. He was alive! He was getting up, slipping a bit in the mess his body had made-

Wait. How was he alive? He hadn’t been breathing. He had lost so much blood… how was he getting up right now? Joanna sucked in a sharp breath and his head snapped up, locking on her partly-hidden face. His eyes were red, bloodshot, she could tell that from here, and he let out a strange clicking sound as his head twitched. He couldn’t be alive. There was no way… she saw the rose-shaped scars littering his body and felt panic squeeze her chest. He tried to run at her but slipped in his own blood and the pus, beginning to crawl towards the doorway.

It gave her the chance she needed to slam and lock the door while crying out in panic. What was going on?! He was dead! She was sure of it! He hadn’t been breathing. His chest hadn’t been rising and falling. His heart wasn’t beating. That wasn’t Dalton. Those eyes were dead, lifeless. She jerked back when she heard a bang on the door and fresh tears tracked down her face. He was trying to break down the door to get to her. But that wasn’t him… it wasn’t. Dalton was dead. She didn’t know what was out there.

Quickly, she went into action. She ran to the closet and got a backpack stuffed in the back out. She threw a few clothes in it, the banging getting harder and louder. She bit her shaky bottom lip, wiping her face angrily. She had to suck it up and get out of here. She zipped up the backpack in a hurry. She knew where she was going without even thinking about it. Her father’s cabin. It had everything she would possibly need. Including weapons and her beloved crossbow.

She slipped the backpack on and rushed to the window. Dalton would have the keys to his truck and the keys to her car were by the front door. She shoved the window upwards as she heard the wood splinter on the door. She glanced back to see Dalton or whatever that thing was forcing his way through the door, tearing into the wood and creating a hole. She cursed silently as she slipped out of the window, onto the slight ledge outside. They lived on the second story of the apartment building and, with a quick breath, she turned her body and grabbed onto the pane of the window. She let her feet slip off of the ledge as the wood gave away more, the strange sounds the thing was making becoming louder. She reached one hand down and got a good grip on the ledge before letting go of the window, her other hand grabbing the ledge quickly. She closed her eyes briefly before letting go. It wasn’t a long drop, considering it was only the second story, but it still jolted her when she landed on her feet, made her gasp as she fell on her right ankle wrong.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she cursed, kneeling down to rub at her ankle through her boot. She heard a crash above her and looked up. She gasped when she saw Dalton hanging out the window, snarling at her. She couldn’t stick around here. She had dropped herself into an alleyway and, ignoring the throb in her right ankle, she rushed to the back of it and began to go behind buildings, to try and avoid the streets. It scared her that it was quiet; from the glimpses she caught of the streets, she could see wrecked cars, even a couple bodies. It was frightening and unnerving. She needed to concentrate on getting to her dad’s pride and joy. There, she’d be better off. For a while, at least. Even though she didn’t know what exactly was going on, she knew she’d feel safest there. So, with a heavy heart and hurt ankle, she set off to her dad’s hunting cabin.